Rahul Gandhi listens to his supporters in Amethi. (File picture)

Lucknow, Jan. 3: A discovery park, with centres for research in oncology, e-entrepreneurship, robotics and nano-technology among others, is coming up in Amethi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Rahul Gandhi.

Modelled on the Discovery Park at Purdue University in Indiana — one of the best in the US — it will be set up by the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad (IIIT-A).

IIIT-A director M.D. Tiwari said: “We have identified the land in Amethi where the park will come up. The objective would be the same as that of the US park. It would, of course, cater to research needs but addressing the challenges of community development would be another goal.”

Purdue’s pioneering project had aimed to create “a combinational power which is greater than any individual strength, and to serve as a catalyst for drawing faculty, staff, and students to reach into other disciplines and projects in order to take Purdue to the cutting edge of academic work”.

The Purdue park has 10 centres, including advanced manufacturing, entrepreneurship, environment and oncological sciences, and has done a lot of work on cancer.

The Amethi park will also have a health care centre and an amusement park that will educate visitors in science through entertainment, Tiwari said. An Indo-Swiss centre for micro-electronics, an Indo-US centre for language technology and an Indo-Danish centre for wireless sensors and senses are planned.

The multiple centres will work together to break new ground in research and convey the fruits of the research through allied institutions to micro-level beneficiaries. For instance, night blindness is a problem that affects a large number of people in Amethi, Rahul had pointed out. The park will try to address this problem.

Talks have been on with a team from Purdue, including Pankaj Sharma, the assistant director of the original Discovery Park.

The last meeting was in December when representatives of the ministries of science and technology, rural development, information technology and IIIT-A met the US experts in New Delhi, sources said. Y.P. Kumar, who is in charge of technology affairs at the Indian consulate in the US, was also present.

“During the New Delhi meeting, deliberations were held on the entire plan of the park,” Tiwari said.

An IIIT-A campus is being built in Amethi — it was flagged off in Rahul’s presence in 2005, when he announced that he wanted to showcase the constituency as a centre of inter-disciplinary studies for rural growth — and the park will come up next to it. Construction is to begin in February and is likely to be complete in a couple of years.

While IIIT-A will be the host, Purdue professors will collaborate with it and existing research institutions in the country will be invited to open centres in the park. The total cost is estimated at Rs 400 crore, which has been sanctioned by the Union science and technology ministry.