India Has Only Two of These. Bihar Is Getting the Third.

Two. That's how many National Institutes of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM) India has today.

The first was set up in May 2012 at Kundli, Haryana. The second campus runs at Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.² The third is planned for Bihar.

100 acres, free of cost

The Bihar government has given in-principle approval to transfer 100 acres of land in Hajipur, Vaishali district, free of cost to the Central Government for the new campus.^{2, 3}

This week, the plan came up again. On 9 October 2026, Union Minister Chirag Paswan said at NIFTEM Kundli's seventh convocation that a third NIFTEM will be set up in Bihar.¹

What a NIFTEM campus produces

Kundli's numbers show what a campus like this can do:

• 764 students received degrees at its 2024 convocation: 408 B.Tech, 233 M.Tech, 84 MBA and 39 PhD.⁴
• Placement rates that year were 86% for B.Tech, 80% for M.Tech and 96% for MBA graduates.⁴
• The institute reported 10 patents and more than 300 research publications.⁴

Why it matters for Bihar

The Hajipur campus is expected to create opportunities in food processing, entrepreneurship, research and skill development for young people in Bihar. It is also meant to help farmers through value addition, modern processing technology and better market access, and to strengthen the state's agro-based industries.²

Put simply, it is meant to turn more of what Bihar grows into businesses built in Bihar.

The fine print

The land approval is in-principle. The campus is approved, not built. We haven't found a confirmed construction timeline or project cost, so we aren't quoting one. We'll update this post when official numbers are published.

More episodes: Numbers That Surprised Me

Previously: EP01, Bihar's Makhana Story · EP02, Mokama's new Ganga rail bridge.