Union HRD minister Smriti Irani will lay the foundation stone for IIT, IISER and IIIT at Pangur village in Yerpedu mandal of Chittoor district on Saturday in the presence of chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu, state HRD minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao told newsmen here Friday.

Chandrababu Naidu allotted `250 crore from the funds granted by the Centre to the state for this purpose. On the occasion, debates would be organised among students to bring their aspirations to his knowledge, he said.

He stressed on the need to provide infrastructure at all the educational institutions through corporate social responsibility funds, apart from the funds released by the Centre. “We want to realise the CM’s vision to turn Tirupati as an educational hub. As part of it, all lapses in the industry would be weeded out, strict AICTE norms would be implemented and performance-based incentive system would be introduced to keep a check on teachers. All the new recruits to teacher posts would be made to take oath before joining,” he explained.

Collector Siddharth Jain thanked the landowners, who facilitated in pooling lands for setting up the premier institutes, and welcomed those who are willing to give away their land for such projects. “We need around 100 acres extra land for building IIT other institutes against the existing 500 acres. Land owners with constructive mindset would be encouraged and compensated for giving away land, for around `70 crore has already been allocated,” he said.

Forest minister Bojjala Gopalakrishna Reddy, higher education commissioner Udayalakshmi and Tirupati MLA Suguna were present.