Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) will set up a free residential educational institution near the state capital for poor and tribal children.

According to Achyuta Samanta, the founder of both Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) and KISS, the hub will start functioning from the 2020 academic session.

“It will be a KG to PG institution,” Samanta said here on Saturday, adding that the proposed institute will be expanded as students get promoted from one class to another.

He added a college and a university would be built later so that students, who take admission in kindergarten classes, could complete their post-graduation from the same institution.

“Initially, we plan to enrol around 2,000 children and then begin expanding as students get promoted to higher classes,” he added.

Samanta, who had placed the proposal during his meeting with chief minister Raghubar Das in August 2015, said the state government had agreed to provide land to set up the institution.

“I understand the state government has agreed to give us a suitable piece of land for the purpose and will formally allot it soon,” he said. He added that once land was allotted, construction would start so that classes could start from the 2020 academic session.

Samanta, who got the 2014 Gusi Peace Prize, has always led from the front in arranging prestigious events on the main campus of KISS in Bhubaneswar.

The prize awarded by the Gusi Peace Prize Foundation based in Manila recognises individuals and organisations who have contributed to global peace and progress through a wide variety of fields.

“We, in association with the World Academy of Arts and Culture (WACC), will host the 39th World Congress of Poets on our campus in Bhubaneswar in October,” he said.

Around 5,000 poets from 75 countries, including 1,000 from India, are likely to attend the meet that WACC has been holding for nearly the past four decades for spreading international brotherhood and peace through art and culture. The meet was held twice in the country in 1986 and 2007.

“You may be aware that we also won the bid for hosting the 19th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences on our campus in 2023,” Samanta said, adding the event would be held in association with Utkal University and Sambalpur University. The meet is likely to be attended by around 10,000 delegates from 150 countries, he said.