The Centre is set to approve a proposal soon to start 14 world-class central universities across the country, … , in an ambitious bid to catch up with the West’s higher education standards.
The proposal for the universities, enunciated in the Eleventh Five Year Plan, will be placed before the cabinet on Thursday and is expected to be cleared soon, top government officials said.
Cabinet recognition is required to formally begin work on the proposal.
The universities will, like other central universities, be funded by New Delhi, but will have the additional mandate of competing in standards with globally renowned varsities like Harvard, Oxford or Cambridge, sources said.
“We expect the cabinet to clear the proposal soon, ideally in one sitting itself. We do not anticipate any opposition,” a senior official at the human resource development ministry said.
Pune, Calcutta, Coimbatore, Mysore, Visakhapatnam, Gandhinagar, Jaipur, Patna, Bhopal, Kochi, Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati and Greater Noida have been selected as places where the universities will come up.
“Each of the state governments concerned have identified 700 acres of land. But they cannot begin land acquisition till the cabinet clears the plan,” a source said.
The HRD ministry expects each university to cost over Rs 720 crore, putting the total price tag for the venture at a minimum of Rs 10,080 crore.
Once the cabinet clears the proposal, the HRD ministry plans to hurry through the construction of infrastructure in a bid to try and start academic sessions for “most” of the institutes by 2009, sources said.
“We have been given a clear political indication to get things ready for the launch of the universities by the next academic session,” a source said.
Each campus will have four schools — of engineering, medicine, humanities and sciences — sources said.
Each of the four schools will be built along the lines of India’s best institutions in their field. Unlike existing central varsities, the new centres will focus more on cutting-edge research across streams than on teaching, sources said.
IIT Bhubaneswar will be mentored by IIT Kharagpur for three years. Initial information suggests that the first year of classes will be held in IIT Kharagpur and the students will stay with the IIT Kharagpur students in one of the hostels. Most likely they will stay in the MMM Hall.
The most important of these culture and traditions is the equal relationship between students at IIT Kharagpur. There every student is equal and no student fears another student. There are no big bosses or connected students in the campus who are feared by other students. Juniors call seniors by the same name that others call them; with no addition of a "bhaiyya" or "Sir." There are no physical fights in the campus. There are rivalries though; often centered around sports and cultural competitions; but NO physical fights.
This is in contrast to most other college campuses in India where students defer to their seniors and there are some students in campus to whom every body is afraid of. Thus it is great that the first batch of IIT Bhubaneswar students will spend a year in IIT Kharagpur and bring back with them the fear-free non-violent culture of the IIT Kharagpur campus.
With Professor Damodar Acharya at the helm of IIT Kharagpur, the mentoring of IIT Bhubaneswar is in good hands. Prior to being the director of IIT Kharagpur, Professor Acharya was the AICTE Chairman in Delhi and prior to that the vice-Chancellor of Biju Patnaik University of Technology, then operating from Bhubaneswar. Thus one can infer that he is well known and well connected in both Bhubaneswar and Delhi circles and this is a big advantage. For example, his suggestion that the Orissa government allocate more than the 500 acres, which the central government required, was received warmly and the Orissa government is indeed looking for a land of at least 1000 acres for IIT Bhubaneswar. So far, none of the other new IITs are thinking along those lines. Having extra land is very important as it will allow further growth of the IITs, which are being built for decades if not centuries to come. Decades later, IIT Bhubaneswar will have Prof. Acharya to thank for this foresight.
IIT Kharagpur, only 321 kms and 4.5-5hrs away from Bhubaneswar, and with 30+ trains, has many other ties with Bhubaneswar and Orissa. It has an extension center in Bhubaneswar from where it offers a PG Diploma in Information Technology and a 1.5-year part-time Diploma in intellectual property law. IIT Kharagpur professors have signed an MOU to develop a perspective plan of the Bhubaneswar metroplex and are involved in many other projects in Orissa. More than 50 faculty at IIT Kharagpur, including the Director and at least two Deans, are natives of Orissa. Thus faculty and leadership of IIT Kharagpur are familiar with Bhubaneswar and Orissa and their aspirations and are in a good position to mentor IIT Bhubaneswar. (There are many Orissa origin faculty at the various IITs and IISc who may also help IIT Bhubaneswar.)
Looking forward to the future IIT Bhubaneswar’s progress will be partly shaped by its competition and collaboration with three other marquee universities and institutions that are being established in the Bhubaneswar area.
NISER is a DAE (Department of Atomic Energy) funded institute that is admitting its second batch of students this year in 2008. The Prime Minister Dr. Mammohan Singh, while announcing the setting up of NISER said: "NISER will be at par with the IISER being established in other places but will operate under the umbrella of DAE. … When completed, I am confident that the National Institute of Science Education and Research will become a Mecca for science just as TIFR and IISc are today." Incidentally, NISER has a higher initial budget of 823.19 crores than the 500 crore budget of each of the IISERs, the 760 crore budget of each of the new IITs and the 720 crore budget of each of the WCCUs. With interdisciplinary research becoming key to solve complex grand challenges, like IISc, NISER will soon branch out to interdisciplinary centers and technological departments. With IITs also having scientific disciplines and interdisciplinary centers, down the road, IIT Bhubaneswar and NISER Bhubaneswar are expected to collaborate and compete with each other. This will drive both to excellence.
As of now Bhubaneswar is the only metropolitan area of the country which will have a science institute (NISER), an IIT and a WCCU. The metro areas that will have two of them are: Kolkata (an IISER and a WCCU), Pune (an IISER and a WCCU), Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar (an IIT and a WCCU), Chandigarh (an IISER and an IIT), Delhi-NOIDA (an IIT and a WCCU), Patna (an IIT and a WCCU), Guwahati (an IIT and a WCCU) and Bhopal (an IISER and a WCCU). Along with some of these metro areas Bhubaneswar will also have an AIIMS (like institute) with a budget of 332 crores as well as a IIIT.
The above is a projection to the future. But the ground reality is that it will take time for a new IIT in Bhubaneswar to catch up with the existing IITs in many respects. The existing IITs not only have an existing infrastructure and history, but also an alumni base that contributes to their growth and development. Same with respect to NISER and the well established IISc Bangalore. However, Bhubaneswar has one more trump card: the Vedanta University, that is coming up in Puri, about 40 kms and less than an hour from the outer edges of Bhubaneswar.
Vedanta University is a brainchild of industrialist Anil Agarwal, who has pledged a $1 Billion (i.e., Rs. 4,000 crores) towards it and envisions a budget of $3 Billion (i.e., Rs 12,000 crores) in making that university. The budget of this university is illuminating in its scale in that just the pledged 4,000 crores is close to the sum of the budget of two new IITs (760*2 = 1520 crores), a new IISER (500 crores), two new WCCUs (720*2=1440 crores), a new AIIMS (332 crores), and a new IIM (210.25 crores). However, the aim of the Vedanta University is to be like Stanford University and have a similar impact. In 2007, Stanford had an operating expense of $2.9 billion, an operating revenue of $3.2 billion, endowment of $17.2 billion and total asset of $29.3 billion. Hence, the 4,000 crores pledge by Anil Agarwal is only the cost of the initial phases of the Vedanta University and despite the cost differential between the US and India, to be comparable with Stanford, Vedanta University needs the 12,000 crores and perhaps more. However, the Anil Agarwal foundation has the foresight to acquire 6000+ acres of land (comparable to Stanford University’s 8180 acres) and build a city of 500,000 around the University with research parks similar to Stanford Research Park. The real estate holdings of the planned city will be able to provide Vedanta University with a sizeable endowment to realistically aim to become the Stanford of India. In the following interview of Anil Agarwal by a New York area PBS station, one can hear from the horse’s mouth about his vision for Vedanta University (starting at 3:20).
There is a high possibility that Vedanta University will not only play a significant role in Bhubaneswar and Orissa, but in all of India. Its private financing, sound financial model, lofty goals and an unprecedented donation of $1 billion, makes it likely to actually be able to hire top professors and nobel laureates, have graduate programs that rank high at the international level and produce graduates that will populate the premiere institutions and universities of India. This is relevant to the development of IIT Bhubaneswar in particular and all the IITs in general because there is a severe shortage of good academics to fill all the available positions in the IITs (and the WCCUs). In this the proximity of IIT Bhubaneswar to Vedanta University would put it at an advantage as many graduates of the later may prefer to remain in the area and maintain collaboration with their mentors and many may join IIT Bhubaneswar just to be close to Vedanta University.
Thus, with competition from, collaboration with, and synergies associated with NISER, WCCU and Vedanta University, IIT Bhubaneswar has a chance to excel and become one of the top IITs in the country. And if (a big if, but not impossible) all these institutes achieve their stated goals, then the Bhubaneswar-Puri area will have equivalents of a Stanford (Vedanta University), MIT (IIT Bhubaneswar), Berkeley (WCCU Bhubaneswar) and CalTech (NISER Bhubaneswar).
Update June 11, 2009:Tathya.in reports that the Education Minister Debi Mishra mentioned this in the OLA. Following is an excerpt.
The Orissa Government has identified a patch of 700 acre plus land at Talabasta in Banki Sub-division of Cuttack district for the proposed World Class University.
Debi Prasad Mishra, Minister Higher Education has revealed in the Orissa House on 11 June here.
Replaying to a question Mr.Mishra said that the State Government has informed the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in this regard.
The land is free from litigations and it was also near to the Capital.
The River Mahanadi at the backdrop, makes the place a picturesque one, said he.
“We have asked MHRD to send their site selection team to finalize the site”, said Mr.Mishra.
So Orissa could get 18 colleges (in 18 districts) and 11 polytechnics. Each of these colleges would be supported by GOI by upto Rs. 2.5 Crore or one-third cost with the balance being met by the State Government or Private participation.
The Human Resource Development Ministry has asked the State Government to identify land for the proposed Indian Institute of Technology and the Central University (CU) announced by the Centre.
In a communique to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, the Ministry has requested for 700 acres of land free of cost near the Capital for setting up Central University. …
The contour and the shape of the institutions, however, will be defined shortly. The new IT IIT and the CU will be set up during the 11th Plan period.
PRESS NOTE – STATES IDENTIFIED FOR LOCATING NEW CENTRAL INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE 11TH FIVE YEAR PLAN
11:55 IST
The 11th Five Year Plan, endorsed by the National Development Council in December, 2007, envisages, inter-alia, establishment of the following new higher education institutions in the Central sector:
ATechnical Education Institutions
·8 Indian Institutes of Technology
·7 Indian Institutes of Management
BCentral Universities
·14Universities aiming at world class standards
·16Universities in States which do not have a CentralUniversity at present
2.Out of the above new institutions, location decisions had already been taken in the case of 4 IITs and one IIM. Hon’ble Prime Minister has since approved the proposals made by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, for the location of the remaining institutions as per the details given below.
Location of new IITs/ IIMs.
3.Location of 4 IITs(in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh),and one IIM (at Shillong) have already been announced. The Central Government has now decided to locate the remaining 4 IITs and 6 IIMs in the following States :-
IIMs -Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh (Raipur), Uttarakhand and Haryana In addition, it is also proposed to convert the Institute of Technology of the BanarasHinduUniversityinto an IIT.Admission to this Institute is already based on theIIT – Joint Entrance Examination.
Location of 14 World Class Universities
4.As regards 14 Central Universities aiming atworld class standards, it has been considered necessary that these are located in or near selected large cities which would automatically have the kind of connectivity and infrastructurewhich such universities would need.Accordingly, it has been decidedto locate one such University in each of the 14 States/Regionas shownin theenclosed List, and to request concerned State Governments to identify adequate land in or near theselectedcities.
Location of 16 Central Universities in Uncovered States
5.16 States which do not have aCentral University at present, and which will get oneCentral University eachin the11th Plan areBihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Goa.Of these, in three States, existing State Universities will be taken over by the Central Government and converted into Central Universities. Thesethree Universities areDr. Hari Singh Gaur University, Sagar (in Madhya Pradesh), GuruGhasidasUniversity, Bilaspur (in Chhattisgarh), and GoaUniversity.
6.Establishment of IITs, IIMs and CentralUniversities in the above States is subject to State Governments offering adequateland at suitable locations, free of cost, for the purpose.Each of the concerned State Government is being requested to offer land accordingly.Actual establishment of these institutions would however depend, among other things, on how quickly the concerned State Governments respondby allotting adequate land at suitable locations.
State-wise List of Cities Identified for locating 14 Central Universities during theXIth Planwhich would aim to achieveworld classstandards
