NIRJULI, 31 Aug: The Regional Coordinating Institute (RCI) of the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) at the North Eastern Regional Institute of Science & Technology (NERIST) here organised an online orientation workshop on Saturday to align higher education institutions with community-driven rural development under the UBA’s national framework, led by IIT Delhi’s National Coordinating Institute (NCI).
The workshop brought together academic leaders, experts, and participating institutions to enhance the delivery of field-linked projects across adopted village clusters in the Northeast.
Addressing the participants, RCI NERIST regional coordinator Prof Thaneswer Patel provided an overview of the programme, setting the context for collaborative action and institutional capacity building.
IIT Delhi NCI project director Prof PK Singh, and NERIST Director Prof Narendranath S highlighted the UBA’s mission to translate ‘lab-to-land’ knowledge into measurable local impact in partnership with grassroots governance systems, the NERIST informed in a release.
The technical programme featured expert lectures covering sustainable technologies, rural systems, and community-centered interventions by speakers such as IIT Guwahati Prof Sougata Karmakar, Dr Achyuth Sarkar from NIT Arunachal Pradesh, Dr NRNV Gowripathi Rao from Rajiv Gandhi University, Dr Rajendra Machavaram from IIT Kharagpur, Prof Ashish Pandey from IIT Roorkee, and Hema Patel from Raigarh, Chhattisgarh. The sessions focused on “designing context-responsive solutions and strengthening implementation pathways for education, health, water, agriculture, livelihoods, and local governance in adopted clusters,” the release said.
The workshop reiterated RCI NERIST’s role in mentoring and mobilizing participating institutions across the region, fostering partnerships and outcome-oriented projects aligned with UBA 2.0 priorities, it said.
