Following is an excerpt from a report in tathya.in.
Debi Prasad Mishra, Minister Higher Education introduced the Centurion University of Technology and Management Orissa Bill-2010 here on 31 July in the Assembly.
According to the Bill, the university will have its campus at Paralakhemundi, which has sixty acres of land and at least 10,000 square meters will be available in the form of buildings and ancillary infrastructure.
The university shall be unitary, self-financed and it is established to provide advanced knowledge in branches of Engineering & Technology, Medical Science & Genetics, Humanities & Social Science, Management, Law, Vocational Education & Training, Tribal and Development Studies.
… The Governor of Odisha will be the Visitor of the university and will preside over the convocation of the varsity.
The Visitor will have sweeping powers and can call for any papers or information relating to the affairs of the university.
The Chairman of the Trust will be the President of the varsity, where as the university will have Vice Chancellor, Pro-Vice Chancellor and other regular functionaries.
The Bill will be taken up for discussion in the House next week, said sources.
July 31st, 2010
It seems like Vedanta University is seriously considering to move to a location in the Southern states. (For those who may not know much about Vedanta University; it is a university proposed by London based industrialist Anil Agarwal who has pledged $1 Billion = 5000 crores of his own money towards this university which will have an overall budget of 15,000 crores. Note that the budgte of a new IIT is about 800 crores, a new AIIMS is about 850 crores, a new IIM is 215 cores, a new IISER is 500 crores. So just the 5000 crore is greater than having 2 IITs, 2 AIIMS, 2 IIMs and 2 IISERs. See http://vedanta.edu.in/ for more details.)
Following are some excerpts from recent news items:
(i)
http://www.businessworld.in/bw/2010_07_24_The_Learning_Curve.html
“Agarwal’s other project in Orissa — Vedanta University — seems to be going nowhere. It appears it would take years before the first brick is laid on his most ambitious, and grandest, education project…. Agarwal, founder of London-based Vedanta Group, turned heads in 2006 when he said he would set up an 8,000-acre, $3-billion university under the aegis of Vedanta Foundation (which later changed its name to Anil Agarwal Foundation or AAF) in the state’s coastal town of Puri. He also offered $1 billion from his personal funds. Agarwal’s holding in his companies is worth more than $10 billion (as on 31 March 2010). …
Two states have extended an invitation; a decision is likely to be taken on a new site in two months,” says Ajit Kumar Samal, in-charge of the university project. He, however, refuses to divulge more details. Experts say the alternatives to Orissa could be Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, which have good educational infrastructure.
(ii) http://sify.com/finance/vedanta-may-shift-varsity-to-southern-states-news-default-kgobu9ifgjb.html
The Anil Agarwal Foundation’s plan to set up a Rs 15,000- crore varsity in Puri (Orissa), called Vedanta University, has come a cropper. The management is now in talks with two southern states for alternative land to set up the varsity.
Although there has been opposition from inside Orissa mainly because some people are against Vedanta due to its Kalahandi operations and partly because some people are against the huge land requirement for this university, the last straw seems to be the action taken by the Minister of Environment in Delhi Mr. Jairam Ramesh. His action stopped the construction that was about to happen. See http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/env-crz-vedanta.pdf.
After granting conditional clearance, it has now put on hold the clearance. Following is an excerpt from a report in Hindustan Times:
While the environment aspects of a mine is understandable, using environment as an issue to stop a university looks somewhat fishy. Especially, consider the following:
(i) The same Jairam Ramesh and his ministry has this week granted environmental permission to construct the Polavurum dam in Andhra Pradesh against the objections of the Orissa and Chhatisgrah government. See http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Environment-ministry-clears-Andhra-project/articleshow/6233874.cms .
Even Times of India is surprised with this. It wrote: "Oddly, while the ministry had set up separate committees to investigate the settlement of rights under the Forest Rights Act in other high profile cases such as Vedanta and Posco which propose to displace far lesser people, in the Polavaram case the ministry has decided to accept the state government’s compliance report on face value. The mega-project is expected to submerge 276 villages displacing upwards of two lakh people by some estimates. "
(ii) In the past IIT Madras was built on the land of Guindy National Park. Following is from IIT Madras’s web page at http://www.iitm.ac.in/biodiversity
The IIT Madras Campus was carved out of a natural forest that formed part of the Guindy National Park.
(iii) IIT Bombay is in close proximity to the Sanjay Gandhi national park
Jairam Ramesh’s bias against Orissa was earlier evident when in 2007 when he questioned how an IIT would benefit Orissa. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/286 .
I worry that Mr. Ramesh may be scheming to take the 15,000 crore Vedanta University to the south. He is originally from Karantak and is currently a Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh. Regardless, losing this would be a great loss for Orissa.
I know oppositions in Orissa have raised many questions about Vedanta University. I have tried to answer their criticisms and questions. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1696
My basic point is that this university with a budget of 15,000 crores out of which 5,000 crore is personal money pledged by Anil Agarwal (who has a net worth of several billion pounds, thus making this believable) can completely change the situation of Orissa and make the Bhubaneswar-Puri area a viable competitor to Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad in terms of being a knowledge hub. This is a once in a century type of opportunity and letting it go would be foolish for generations to come.
Sorry for being so long, but this is a complex issue and I had to explain the background. We need to do something about this so that Vedanta University is established in Orissa, if not Puri, somewhere else in Orissa is fine too. If we let it go to some other state generations of Oriyas will repent for having lost this opportunity.
What can we do?
To start with please consider sending a version of the following letter (make changes to your liking).
To: pmosb@pmo.nic.in, kapil@kapilsibal.com, kapilsibal@hotmail.com, sam.pitroda@c-sam.com, s.pitroda@nic.in, jairam@sansad.nic.in, jairam@jairam-ramesh.com, secy.dhe@nic.in , skumar-mail@nic.in
Cc: cmo@ori.nic.in, bmahtab@sansad.nic.in, jayarampangi@gmail.com, pyarimohan@yahoo.co.uk, office.bjpanda@gmail.com, k.mangala@sansad.nic.in, mohan.jena@sansad.nic.in, rb.pradhan@sansad.nic.in, sushila.tiriya@sansad.nic.in, pyarimohanap@sansad.nic.in
Bcc: ajit.samal@vedanta.co.in, brajakmishra@gmail.com, Itishree.Devi@vedanta.co.in, cv.krishnan@vedanta.edu.in
SUBJECT: Please stop putting hurdles on the Vedanta University project and facilitate its establishment
Dear Esteemed Prime Minister Dr. Singh:
I am very concerned that various bureaucratic hurdles have been put by your environment ministry on the Vedanta University Project (in Puri, Odisha), which is the only current initiative that has a decent chance of becoming the first (and perhaps the only for several decades) world class university of India.
I have no association with Vedanta University except that I would like India and Odisha to have world class universities and I see the best hope of that happening soon through the establishment of Vedanta University. I am making this clarification of not having any association with Vedanta University because in India many people are afraid of speaking out in favor of industrial houses lest they be branded as being bought out by these houses.
The annual expenditure of typical state university [1] in the USA is 1.785 Billion USD, which comes to 8211 crores of INR at One USD=46 INR rate. Even taking the purchasing power index according to which 1 USD has the purchasing power of Rs 17, 1.785 Billion USD comes to about 3000 crores of INR using the purchasing power parity (PPP) numbers. Among other universities, Harvard with 20,000 students has an expenditure of 3.756 Billion USD [2] which comes to 6385 crores INR using PPP. Stanford’s budget for 18,500 students is 3.65 Billion USD [3]. In comparison, the 2010-11 budget for IISc Bangalore is 221 Crores INR and the total budget for the seven older IITs is 1600 crores.
The only Indian institution that ranks very high (at number 15) in global rankings [4] is the Indian School of Business at Hyderabad. According to a Times of India report [5]: "Indian School of Business (ISB) pays over Rs 20 lakh to its Assistant Professors (APs). Against this, an IIM-Ahmedabad AP gets only Rs 5.5 lakh as starting pay annually."
Based on the above two numbers one can guess estimate that a university in India aspiring to be world class would need to have an annual budget of 1000-1500 crores INR. I am not sure what budget estimates have been made for the innovation universities. The closest number that I came across was the estimate (in 2008) of 720 crores [6] over a nine year period.
The Vedanta University as planned has an overall budget of 15,000 crores with 5,000 crores being pledged from personal funds of the Anil Agarwal foundation. So the scale is way beyond what is mentioned with respect to the other institutions and universities in India.
As per [6,7,8,9] the budget towards making a new IIT is 760 crores, a new IIM is 210 crores, a central university is 300 crores, a central university with a medical school is 720 crores, an IISER is 500 crores and an AIIMS is 850 crores. These all add up to 3340 crores which is much less than the 5000 crores Mr. Anil Agarwal has pledged to contribute personally (through the Anil Agarwal foundation) towards Vedanta University. In addition the 15,000 crore overall budget and the plan for Vedanta University [10] which includes a township of 500,0000 and research institutes and centers a la Stanford Research Institute suggest a way to get enough income to match the annual expenses needed to operate a truly world class university. Thus when Vedanta University website talks about being world class [10], the numbers seem to add up.
I am not sure if the proposed innovation universities will be able to pay about 4 times the salary that is paid to faculty at IIMs and IITs. That is what ISB Hyderabad, the only globally top ranked institute is paying. That is what Vedanta University with its planned budget could possibly pay.
Under the above circumstances, Vedanta University seems to me as having the best chance to be India’s first comprehensive world class university.
While the honorable HRD Minister has been visiting around the world to get help in establishing innovation universities, does it make sense to create unreasonable hurdles (as the environment ministry seems to be doing) to the only one foundation that seems to have a real plan [10] and that has pledged money to back up that plan to create a truly world class university.
India’s laws and its constitution are sacrosanct. But as everyone knows one can use laws to create hurdles and one can also facilitate the establishment of one of a kind potentially real world class university while making sure that those laws are in compliance. It is my sincere opinion that the environment ministry is creating hurdles instead of just making sure that the laws are followed. Also, it is unfortunate that the HRD ministry has not taken notice of Vedanta
University and has not facilitated the creation of this potentially world class university. Please note that, as per [11] "the IIT Madras Campus was carved out of a natural forest that formed part of the Guindy National Park."
In any western country a foundation with a $1 Billion donation towards a new university would have been given red carpet treatment. In India, the HRD ministry does not even notice it and the Environment ministry is bordering on harassing the project. No wonder we do not have any world class university yet.
I know that there are various people and organizations that are opposed to the Vedanta University. Many of them because they have issues with the Vedanta company. Also, most of them do not have a grasp of what a world-class university is, and some with political objectives have even floated malicious rumors. Many of those objections have been addressed in great length at https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1696.
I sincerely request that you urgently have a meeting with the HRD ministry, the environment ministry and the government of Orissa and facilitate the establishment of Vedanta University with full compliance of the laws of the land. In addition, please help Vedanta University to immediately start graduate programs in 2-3 areas of need while the various issues are expediently sorted out with your help.
Finally, Vedanta University was in the process of constructing the buildings for a top-notch medical school which would have been part of it. The environment ministry has stopped that. How much sense does it make to stop construction of a medical school in a state (Orissa) that lacks adequate medical facilities and that is at the bottom of many health parameters?
Please allow the medical school construction to resume at the earliest as by stopping the construction of a medical school, your environment ministry is playing with lives.
[1] http://budget.asu.edu/all-funds-budget-0
[2] http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/Provost_-_Harvard_Fact_Book_2009-10_FINAL.pdf
[3] http://www.stanford.edu/dept/businessaffairs/cgi-bin/downloadpdf_v3.php?file=BudBk_2010-11_sec1.pdf
[4] http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/indian-school-of-business
[5] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/city/ahmedabad/IIM-A-dons-want-Harvard-like-status/articleshow/4974404.cms
[6] http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=37684
[7] http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=12975
[8] http://www.financialexpress.com/news/aiims-to-start-functioning-in-jodhpur-in-23-yrs-azad/517370/
[9] http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=29814
[10] http://vedanta.edu.in/
[11] http://www.iitm.ac.in/biodiversity
sincerely
July 31st, 2010