Odisha’s KISS becomes India’s first varsity for tribals

Bhubaneswar: On the auspicious occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) has been granted the university status by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. With this, it has become the first tribal university in India and in the entire world. Though Indira Gandhi National Tribal University has been established before, it enrolls students of all categories. On the other hand, KISS University is exclusively for tribal students.

KISS has been declared a Deemed University under De-Novo category. The University will introduce seven new innovative departments in the first phase to provide impetus to research on tribal studies and help KISS achieve a place of prominence in the tribal education and research in world. Deemed University status has been granted with this hope. As before, students of KISS University will get residential education absolutely free of cost.

Expressing his satisfaction, Dr. Achyuta Samanta, Founder, KISS University said, this became possible due to the blessings of Almighty and good wishes of people of Odisha. He expressed gratitude to the people of Odisha. Dr. Samanta, on behalf of KISS, expressed his heartfelt gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Expressing his gratitude to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Samanta said that without his blessings and good wishes, KISS could not have scaled such height.

He has expressed his personal gratitude to Union Minister of Human Resource Development, Prakash Javadekar, who made history by approving to grant Deemed to be University status to KISS. He has thanked the officials of the Ministry of HRD and the University Grants Commission for their approval. He thanked two Union Ministers from Odisha, Jual Oram, Minister of Tribal Affairs and Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Petroleum for their help and good wishes. Dr. Samanta also expressed his thanks to local, national and international media for their support.