Why Is IGIT Sarang Being Neglected Despite Being a Premier Government Engineering College?
IGIT Sarang, situated in the Talcher–Angul industrial belt, is one of Odisha’s premier government engineering colleges. Yet despite its importance, students here continue to face serious issues that rarely receive attention.
The college is surrounded by heavy industries, so students deal with both extreme heat and air pollution throughout the year. Heat is not just a summer problem here — students face sleeplessness, exhaustion, fatigue, irritation, dehydration, headaches, and discomfort throughout most of the year due to hot weather conditions and poor cooling infrastructure. During peak summers, the situation becomes even worse, sometimes leading to hospitalization due to heat-related illnesses.
During winters, pollution becomes another major issue — dust allergies, coughing, sneezing, and breathing discomfort are common because of the surrounding industrial environment.
And the biggest issue of all: infrastructure development remains painfully slow.
The student intake of the college has increased significantly over the years, but hostel capacity has not grown proportionately. As a result, a large number of students are forced to stay in unregulated private hostels outside campus. Many students walk long distances daily in extreme heat just to attend classes. This weakens student involvement in campus activities because many remain disconnected from campus life itself.
Girls’ hostels are severely overcrowded, with upto 6 students packed into tiny rooms despite the extreme weather conditions. Even with urgent demand, hostel construction is still not being fast-tracked.
The campus also lacks proper heat-management infrastructure:
* No shaded pedestrian walkways across campus
* Very limited cooling infrastructure
* Lack of ACs in classrooms
* Lack of desert coolers or proper ventilation in hostels
* Very few shaded open spaces where students can sit and relax
The campus urgently needs increased green cover for both heat reduction and air quality improvement. In this climate, shaded spaces, trees, and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure are not luxuries — they are necessities.
Basic student needs are neglected too. When mess facilities close during vacations or low occupancy periods, students staying back — those living outside campus — are left struggling to manage food on their own. There are barely enough shops inside campus for day-to-day necessities, forcing students to walk outside even for essentials.
Electricity is another major issue. Students frequently face low-voltage problems and power cuts, even during hot weather conditions. Poor electricity infrastructure directly affects sleep, productivity, studies, health, and the ability to use even basic cooling appliances properly.
Internet connectivity inside the campus is another serious issue. Students often face extremely slow and unstable internet speeds within the college and hostel areas, while nearby areas outside campus sometimes have significantly better connectivity. In many cases, speeds drop so low that even basic downloads, coding resources, software packages, or lecture videos struggle to load properly.
Meanwhile, top institutes like Indian Institute of Technology Bombay are already experimenting with advanced next-generation wireless technologies and high-speed digital infrastructure. Students there work with world-class internet ecosystems, while here even stable connectivity for academics becomes a challenge.
In an engineering college where students increasingly depend on online learning, coding platforms, cloud tools, research materials, video lectures, open-source repositories, and placement preparation resources, poor internet infrastructure becomes a direct academic disadvantage. Reliable high-speed internet is no longer a luxury — it is a basic educational necessity.
For a technical institute, there is also a serious lack of proper makerspaces and innovation infrastructure. Students often do not have access to equipment, tools, sensors, components, and practical development facilities required to build projects and experiment. We constantly hear discussions about startups and innovation, but how are students supposed to create anything meaningful without actual support systems?
There is also an urgent need for a strong Career Development Centre (CDC) within the college. Since IGIT is situated in a rural region with limited access to external coaching and opportunities, the college itself must become the center for skill development and career preparation.
Students need long-term, industry-oriented training programs in:
* Software development
* Coding and DSA
* Robotics
* AI/ML
* Embedded systems
* Core engineering tools
* Communication and interview preparation
Short-term workshops and surface-level courses are not enough. Students need deep practical exposure where they actually build, operate, and solve real problems over months, not just attend a few sessions for certificates.
The CDC should also help students prepare for competitive exams like GATE, UPSC, PSU recruitment, CAT, and other national-level opportunities because students in institutions situated in rural areas often lack access to quality coaching ecosystems available in metro cities.
Most importantly, such training programs should not simply be allotted to the lowest bidder. They should be handled by institutions and mentors with proven placement records and real industry outcomes. When students of similar caliber in private colleges in Bangalore, Hyderabad, and other major cities crack high-paying jobs, why should students here remain limited to packages as low as ₹1–3 LPA?
The difference is often not talent — it is exposure, awareness, guidance, practical training, and opportunity.
What hurts more is seeing institutes like VSSUT Burla and OUTR Bhubaneswar continue receiving attention and development while IGIT Sarang remains overlooked. Sambalpur receives focus because it is seen as representing western Odisha, making its development politically significant. Bhubaneswar naturally receives priority as the capital city. But IGIT, despite being located in one of Odisha’s most important industrial regions, continues to remain neglected.
Students here are not asking for luxury. They are asking for livable conditions, proper hostels, reliable electricity, faster infrastructure development, cooling infrastructure, green spaces, practical skill development, and an environment where students can genuinely study, innovate, compete, and grow.