Centre clears petroleum engineering institute at Rae Bareli

The institute, where the basic courses would commence from 2008-09 academic session, has been named after former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi.

Government on Thursday approved setting up a Rs 285-crore Central institute for offering academic courses in petroleum technology and engineering at Rae Bareli, the Lok Sabha constituency of Congress President and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

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The institute, where the basic courses would commence from 2008-09 academic session, has been named after former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi.

"The Union Cabinet gave its approval for setting up of Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology at Jias, Rae Bareli district, Uttar Pradesh," Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

The institute would be established by an act of Parliament for which a bill would come up in the Monsoon session.

Dasmunsi said the institute would receive a budgetary support of Rs 285 crore during the 11th Five Year Plan.

The institute was originally proposed to be set up by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd, but the state-run firm in its report in 2005 to the then Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar found the project economically unviable.

The Rae Bareli constituency has mostly been represented in Parliament by the Nehru-Gandhi family.