Hon’ble Chief Minister of Odisha Shri Naveen Patnaik inaugurated the Adani-KISS Tribal Residential School at Bankishole, Baripada, Mayurbhanj, Odisha on 8th January, 2020. On this occasion, Shri Gautam Adani, Chairman, Adani Group; Shri Sudam Marandi, Minister, Revenue and Disaster Management, Govt. of Odisha; Shri Bishweswar Tudu, Member of Parliament (LS), Mayurbhanja; Smt. Sarojini Hembram, Member of Parliament (RS); Shri Prakash Soren, MLA, Baripada; Dr. Priti Adani, Chairperson, Adani Foundation; Sh. Karan Adani, Chief Executive Officer & Director, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. and Dr. Achyuta Samanta, Founder, KISS and KIIT were present.
Addressing the gathering, Dr. Priti Adani said, Education is the most powerful tool for social transformation. Adani Foundation is happy to strengthen the education scenario in the far off tribal areas of Odisha in association with the prestigious Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS).
In his welcome address, Dr. Achyuta Samanta said 28 years back KISS took initiatives to include tribal community in the main stream of the society through education, which has been proved successfully today. Now KISS is the largest tribal institution and the first Tribal University in the world. More than thirty thousand students are currently pursuing their education from KG to PG, while twenty thousand students completed their education successfully and placed in different sectors. Ten thousand more students are pursuing their education in ten branches across ten tribal dominated districts of Odisha in current academic session. It is not important for KISS that, 60 thousand students are getting education; it is more important that, it has created awareness among more than 60 lakh tribal students of Odisha and other states of India, he added.
Dr. Samanta said, many tribal organizations and intellectuals requested me many a time to open a branch in Mayurbhanj district for under privileged and poor tribal children. Today their requests have been fulfilled. The poor tribal students of Mayurbhanj district will get quality education in Adani-KISS residential School. In the first phase fifteen hundred students of Mayurbhanj district will be enrolled from standard I to XII. The pass out students of standard XII from Adani-KISS can pursue their higher education in KISS Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Also it has been decided by KISS, that only the candidates of Mayurbhanj will get employment in Adani-KISS. Adani-KISS is fully equipped with all modern facilities. Adani-KISS is established on 50 Acres of land with complete financial support of Adani Foundation, Dr. Samanta said.
On this occasion, a 50 bedded hospital in Adani-KISS campus was inaugurated by Dr. Priti G Adani. The hospital will serve the students, staff of Adani-KISS as well as the common people of Mayurbhanj district. The 24 x 7 hour hospital is managed by the Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), Bhubaneswar, Odisha. As many as 20 thousand people from across Mayurbhanj district were present in the programme.