Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday inaugurated the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences’ (KISS) residential school in the tribal-dominated Kalahandi district.

The sprawling eco-friendly and Wi-Fi green campus has come up at Badli under Bhawanipatna block of Kalahandi district.

Inaugurating the free residential school, chief minister Naveen Patnaik said, “I am very happy to have inaugurated the KISS campus in Kalahandi district. I thank KIIT and KISS founder Achyuta Samanta. Kalahandi has transformed into a new education hub.”

KISS has been opening schools across the state to provide quality education to poor and underprivileged children. The KISS pass-out students are also getting success in different fields, the chief minister mentioned.

“The contribution of KISS will help the state government in giving quality education to all children of the state,” Naveen said. Earlier on Monday, the chief minister had inaugurated the KISS residential school in Balasore.

Kalahandi’s BJP MP Basanta Kumar Panda said Samanta had been giving his best for the development of tribals through education.

Rajya Sabha member Sujit Kumar said students, who would pass out from KISS-Kalahandi, would bring laurels to the district as well as the state.

In his welcome address, Achyuta Samanta said: “KIIT has built the KISS-Kalahandi campus. It has entailed an investment of Rs 50 crore for land and infrastructural development in 1, 20, 000sq ft built-up area, apart from setting up of mechanised kitchen, a 25-bed hospital, furniture and fixture and other facilities on the 10-acre land.

“The KISS-Kalahandi is a fully free residential school like KISS-Bhubaneswar. In the first phase, the school will have the strength of 1,200 students from Standard 1 to Standard 12 and provide quality education to poor and underprivileged tribal children of Kalahandi district.”

Samanta also declared that on behalf of KIMS (Kalinga Institute of Medical Science), a 200-bed hospital would be opened in Kalahandi.