NIDians Find 6 Places For Design School - Mizoram Included

Mizoram is Best in India For Designs

Ahmedabad, Mar 29 : If given the opportunity and support to set up design schools on the lines of the National Institute of Design (NID) across the country, students of NID would choose Chandigarh, Surat, Puducherry, Bhopal, Jamshedpur and Mizoram as the right places.

In a programme called Design Concepts and Concerns (DCC), which is a part of the one-year foundation course for the undergraduate students of NID, the students were assigned projects to stimulate their vision of various design schools contextually suitable for different parts of the country.

Six teams were assigned six different zones in the country including the east, west, north, south, central and the northeast zones. Using their understanding and talent of design thinking taught in the DCC course, the teams were required to conceptualize the details of the design institutes in their assigned zones, including the location, structure, curriculum, functioning, objectives and other details of each institute.

Explaining how they decided on their location, a student who is a part of the team handling the northeast zone, Ritwick Nandi said: "We made great efforts to understand, research and analyze the backgrounds while choosing the location. We considered the pros and cons of various places in the seven states of the north-east, including factors like safety and security, vibrancy in craft and culture, literacy and openness of the local people, connectivity, climate and so on.

We found Mizoram as the best place as it has the second highest literacy rate in the country, it has been getting a 'peace bonus' from the central government for being the safest and the most peaceful state for the past 10 years, it has an airport, is strategically located with an upcoming trade route to south-east Asia, a liberal society and low cost of living."

It should be noted that the government had shown interest in Jorhat in Assam for setting up a design institute like NID in the northeast. A student of the team said, "Jorhat does not have a pleasant climate like Mizoram.

As students from across the country and abroad are expected to study and reside in the institute, safety and security are of prime concern and Mizoram is thus a comparatively better place."