In a memorandum to Minister Prakash Javadekar, he said Kozhikode was a major education hub with institutions such as IIM-K and NIT-C, several government and private engineering and medical colleges. “However, there is no national level educational and research institution in social or natural sciences,” he said.

He said sufficient land was available with the State government to set up the institution of national importance in Kozhikode.

The city was also well connected by air, rail and road.

The proposal was made in view of the Centre seriously considering the School of Planning and Architecture Bill, 2014, for setting up new SPAs in different States including Kerala.

The establishment of the SPA was essential on account of the share of the urban population jumping from 25.9 per cent in 2001 to 47.7 per cent in 2011. In recent years, Kerala has also been experiencing migration from other States and most of them are deployed in the urban labour markets.

“Kerala is one of the States which had pioneered a State Urban Policy in 2002. The local level planning and governance in the State is institutionalised through six municipal corporations, 86 municipalities and 941 village panchayats apart from 14 district panchayats and 152 block panchayats.”

“However, urban planners in the State are largely restricted to the Department of Town and Country Planning, municipal corporations and development authorities and a few externally funded programmes such as the Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project. In order to achieve these targets, the State required the SPA to train urban planners and equip elected representatives and administrators with new knowledge and skills,” Mr. Raghavan said.