Vice president Hamid Ansari will dedicate the K.R. Narayanan National Institute of Visual Science and Arts on January 11, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said.
Briefing the media on Sunday on the institute campus, now nearing completion, Mr. Chandy said the 10.6 acre campus already has 1.75 lakh sq.ft. built up area and another 75,000 sq.ft. would come up soon. In addition, a 20,000 sq.ft. shooting floor was nearing completion, he said. ‘‘Once completed, this will be an all-inclusive residential campus,’’ he said.
On account of the delay incurred by the original contractors, the work on the buildings, designed by architect G. Shanker, was handed over to the Habitat Technology Group which had completed the work on record time at a cost of Rs.1,200 per sq.ft., Mr. Chandy said. Institute director G. Rajasekharan said the institution would have state-of-the-art facilities. A sound mixing studio; a shooting floor, one of the largest in South India; and a 500-seat theatre would soon come up. The institute now registered as an autonomous institute under the Higher Education Department would strive to become a deemed university in future, he said.
At present, the certificates for the three-year diploma course were issued by the State government, he said.
The institute offers diploma programmes in direction and script writing; editing; cinematography; audiography; animation and visual effects; and acting. Already two batches of students have joined for the programmes. Each batch consists of 60 students of 10 students in each of the programmes. Nearly, 85 per cent are from Kerala and seven of them are women students, he said. Admission is based on a multi-level examination process at the national level, he said.
The foundation stone for the institute was laid in 2005 by the then Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi. There was a lull on the works till 2011, but it gathered momentum after the institute was registered as an autonomous society in 2013.
