Among the many presentations made for Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he visited the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, in February 2015, the most interesting was an overview of the facility at Challakere, which has long been seen as the “Science City” that will rival Bengaluru as a science, technology and defence hub.
Except, the buzz among insiders, who concur with the top-secret “Nuclear City” label given by Foreign Policy, is that Challakere is more than that and it’s being set up with one aim only to provide India an extra stockpile of enriched uranium fuel that could be used in new hydrogen bombs.
Mr Modi reportedly heard of how dilapidated buildings of an abandoned sheep farm were renovated to house the Talent Development Centre (TDC) by IISc to train science teachers at all levels, and to accommodate them during a ten-day residential training session. He instantly sanctioned a couple of crores of rupees and backed the conversion of TDC into the first centre of excellence in science and mathematics under Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya Mission on Teachers and Teaching, of the ministry of human resource development. With the help of the MHRD, IISc will construct a new lecture hall, and has already built two check-dams in order to recharge groundwater in the barren campus which would, in due course, receive water from the Vani Vilas dam built by the late Bharat Ratna Sir M. Visvesvaraya more than a century ago.
The veil of secrecy over the facility being built by Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), however, has stopped even scientists of IISc, who drive to Challakere every month to train teachers or keep an eye on new labs under construction, from gaining access to the atomic research facilities, atomic power station or one that will house nuclear centrifuges under construction at Dodda Ullavarthi, a village near Challakere. “We have seen houses being built for BARC engineers and scientists, but they are a couple of kilometres away from their facility. They do not let us cross the barrier to look at these buildings, though they are still under construction,” rued one of them. Sources close to the BARC project said it would take a couple of years for commissioning of either the atomic power plant or the centrifuges, countering the report in Foreign Policy magazine that the facility would be ready by 2017.
The same goes for the modern test facility being built by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for its Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAV) project and other advanced programmes in aerospace and missile technology.
A couple of hangars are almost ready, as also the runway, which has been designed to cater to fighter jets or large transport aircraft.
Among those likely to be inaugurated in 2016 is the climate research centre of IISc, and funded by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), says H.S. Jagadeesh, special officer, TDC, Kudapura.
“The research centre should be ready in six months. Construction of the new skill development centre will commence in January, and could take about two-and-half years for completion. Work on some buildings supported by the ministry of IT & BT of the state government will also commence in 2016,” he said.
The Army, too, would commence work on its commando training centre, on a couple of hundred acres allotted as part of this 9,000 acre campus. With many key facilities coming up at Challakere, the government will ensure foolproof protection by armed commandos, said sources in the ministry of defence.
