Following is from http://www.pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=68579.
The Vice President of India Shri M. Hamid Ansari has said that higher education cannot improve in India unless State Universities, which are the backbone and represent the bulk of enrollment, are able to obtain greater funds, create new infrastructure and enrich their existing academic programmes. Delivering foundation day lecture at University of Calcutta today Shri Ansari said, anecdotal evidence suggests that the budget of one Central University is almost the same or more than the budget of all State Universities in some States. Just like the Central Government has assumed the responsibility for elementary education through Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, it should also vastly enhance its support to State Universities as a shared national enterprise, the Vice President observed.
Shri Ansari said, “Our Gross Enrollment Ratio in higher education is half of the world’s average, two-third’s that of developing countries and around a fifth that of developed countries. Even though we have been able to achieve an economic growth rate of 9 per cent of GDP despite low enrollment in higher education, it would not be possible for us to sustain such economic growth, maintain our competitiveness and enhance our productivity without at least doubling our higher education enrollment. Unless we can increase access and educational outcomes at secondary and tertiary levels, our demographic dividend might turn into a demographic liability.”
Following is the full text of Vice President’s lecture delivered on the occasion:
“ This is a rare privilege. I do feel flattered to be invited to deliver the Foundation Day Lecture of a great and famous seat of learning, India’s oldest modern university, more so because of an ancient association of a few youthful years with this city. I also subscribe fully to what the Urdu poet Ghalib said about Kolkata which he visited around the year1830:
Kalkatte ka jo zikr kiya tu ne hum nasheen
Ek teer mere sine main maara ki hai hai
Ah me, my friend! The mention of Calcutta’s name
Has loosed off a shaft that pierces to my very soul
Voltaire was perhaps unduly cynical when he describes history as “nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.” This is certainly not true of the history of this great city which is, in a sense, also the history of modern India.
Most of us associate the year 1857 with the First War of Independence, with the heroic deeds of many, as also with the eventual failure of the effort to overthrow the foreign yoke and seek freedom from bondage. Few today would associate 1857 with another event of seminal significance. It was on January 24, 1857 that the Calcutta University Act was enacted. It was the culmination of a process initiated by Lord William Bentinck and energised by his successor Lord Auckland. The conceptual input and framework had come earlier from Sir Charles Wood. Its purpose, and ambit, was unambiguously linked to a colonial purpose, namely “to confine higher education to persons possessing leisure and natural influence” over the minds of their countrymen and who, by attaining a higher standard of modern education “would eventually produce a much greater and more beneficial change in the ideas and feelings of the community.”
The expectations from this endeavour were anticipated to be modest. The first Vice Chancellor, Sir James William Colvile, was candid about results. “We must recollect,” he said in the first Convocation Address, “that we are not merely planting an exotic (tree), we are planting a tree of slow growth.” His successor went against the tide of opinion in the British Indian establishment in the aftermath of 1857 and said three years later: “Educate your people from Cape Camorin to the Himalayas and a second mutiny of 1857 will be impossible.”
These worthy gentlemen evidently could not discern the thirst for new knowledge among segments of the public, nor could they anticipate the use that would eventually be made of it. The alumnae of this institution played a great role in the freedom struggle as also in the furtherance of knowledge in all fields. The record does speak for itself.
The proclaimed and principal purpose of the university was, and is, ‘Advancement of Learning’. There was an element of idealism about it. In a celebrated work published in November 1858, Cardinal John Henry Newman spelt out the idea of a university in terms worthy of reiteration:
“ A university is a place of concourse, wither students come from every quarter for every kind of knowledge…It is a place where inquiry is pushed forward, and discoveries verified and perfected, and rashness rendered innocuous, and error exposed, by the collusion of mind with mind, and knowledge with knowledge…It is a place which wins the admiration of the young by its celebrity, kindles the affections of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets the fidelity of the old by its associations. It is a seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a minister of the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation.”
Over the past century and a half, the ideal has retained its relevance. What has changed in response to the evolving external environment is the content, some of the methodology, and some of the end product. These were propelled by the enormity of change – political, economic, technological and cultural. A historian of our times noted at the turn of the century that “we are entering a fearful time, a time that will call on all our resources, moral as well as intellectual and material.” In this endeavour, the intellectual inputs from seats of learning and research would impact decisively on the moral and material resources needed to respond to the emerging challenges.
The need to revisit the framework for higher education in the country has been felt in recent years. This was summed up in the 2008 Report of the National Knowledge Commission:
“The emerging knowledge society and associated opportunities present a set of new imperatives and new challenges for our economy, polity and society. If we fail to capitalize on the opportunities now, our demographic dividend could well become a liability. The widening disparities in our country will translate into social unrest, if urgent steps are not taken to build an inclusive society. And our growth rate, which is faltering now, will stagnate soon, if a sustainable development paradigm is not created. “
A look at the ground reality is relevant to this discourse. Today we have 504 Universities, with varying statutory bases and mandates. Of these, 40 are Central Universities, 243 are State Universities, 130 are Deemed Universities, five institutions established under State legislation, 53 are State private Universities, and 33 are Institutions of National Importance established by Central legislation. We have a total teaching faculty of around 6 lakhs in higher education.
The structure and quality of these institutions, and their output, was the subject of critical scrutiny in the Yashpal Committee Report of 2009, tasked to suggest measures for the renovation and rejuvenation of higher education. One of its observations is telling:
“Over the years we have followed policies of fragmenting our educational enterprises into cubicles. We have overlooked that new knowledge and new insights have often originated at the boundaries of disciplines. We have tended to imprison disciplinary studies in opaque walls. This has restricted flights of imagination and limited our creativity. This character of our education has restrained and restricted our young right from the school age and continues that way into college and university stages. Most instrumentalities of our education harm the potential of human mind for constructing and creating new knowledge. We have emphasized delivery of information and rewarded capability of storing information. This does not help in creating a knowledge society. This is particularly vile at the university level because one of the requirements of a good university should be to engage in knowledge creation – not just for the learner but also for society as a whole.”
The Report goes on to say that our universities remain one of the most under-managed and badly governed organisations in society, with constricted autonomy, internal subversion within academia and multiple and opaque regulatory systems. Furthermore, university education is no longer viewed as a good in itself but as the stepping stone to a higher economic and social orbit.
The Report dwells on the increasing demand for expansion of private college and university level institutions necessitating an understanding of its implications in terms of the system’s enrolment capacity, programme focus, regional balance, ownership pattern, modes of delivery, degree of regulation, quality and credibility as well as social concerns of inclusiveness. It points out that State universities and affiliated colleges represent the bulk of enrolment in higher education and remain the most neglected in terms of resources and governmental attention.
Targeted government interventions to enhance access to elementary education through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan have been successful in quantitative terms, even though problems remain with regard to content, quality and outcomes. You are also aware that one of the focal themes of the Eleventh Five Year Plan is the expansion and enhancement of access to higher education.
Our Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education is half of the world’s average, two-third’s that of developing countries and around a fifth that of developed countries. Even though we have been able to achieve an economic growth rate of 9 per cent of GDP despite low enrolment in higher education, it would not be possible for us to sustain such economic growth, maintain our competitiveness and enhance our productivity without at least doubling our higher education enrolment. Unless we can increase access and educational outcomes at secondary and tertiary levels, our demographic dividend might turn into a demographic liability.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, gross enrolment in higher education is not directly linked to economic growth and prosperity or to elementary school enrolment. Thus, for example, some of the economically and educationally backward states with respect to literacy rate and school enrolment, such as Orissa, Assam, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh have higher enrolments in higher education as compared to relatively better off states such as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. It would seem that enrolment is a function of a variety of social, cultural, institutional and economic processes and is significantly affected by the availability of educational infrastructure and facilities.
In addition to expansion, the other two central themes of the Eleventh Plan are inclusion and excellence. This is recognition of the fact that expansion does not necessarily ensure automatic access to the marginalised sections of the society and that quantitative expansion without maintaining quality would defeat the basic objective.
There are five questions pertaining to higher education that need to be addressed urgently:
First, we must ponder whether the existing means of instituting new universities is desirable and sustainable. Currently, Universities can be established only through Central or State legislation or through recognition as Deemed Universities on a selective basis. Legislation has been accorded to many private Universities by some State Governments, and both Central and State governments have accorded statutory status to some institutions.
Second, higher education cannot improve in India unless state universities, which are the backbone and represent the bulk of enrolment, are able to obtain greater funds, create new infrastructure and enrich their existing academic programmes. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the budget of one central university is almost the same or more than the budget of all state universities in some states. Just like the central government has assumed the responsibility for elementary education through Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, it should also vastly enhance its support to state universities as a shared national enterprise. The Midterm Appraisal of the Eleventh Five Year Plan takes note of this option and has observed:
“Many state universities including the old and reputed universities of Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Pune are starved of funds and this allocation could be used for improving the conditions of the existing State universities and colleges which faces severe paucity of resources to help them retain their excellence and competitive edge….. The Central funding of State institutions should be linked to the reforms and a MOU signed between MHRD, UGC, States, universities and institutions for implementation of time-bound reforms and outcomes.”
Third, a significant focus of reform should be the college system, numbering around 26000 colleges, where most of the enrolment in higher education occurs. Sadly, under graduate education does not get the attention it deserves in universities amidst paucity of funds for qualitative development and quantitative expansion of colleges. The government is planning to establish colleges in 374 educationally backward districts in the country, representing over 60 per cent of all districts, with shared funding between the state and central governments.
Fourth, we need to liberate education from the strict and fragmented disciplinary confines of our formal higher education structures. This has become a significant impediment in the creation of new knowledge, especially in view of our stated objective of creating a knowledge society. We need to remind ourselves that the Indian Nobel Prize winners in the early part of the last century were a part of our higher education set-up. We had then allowed free interplay between science and engineering, languages and the humanities, performing and fine arts. It was at the fringes of such inter-disciplinary interaction that new knowledge was produced and existing knowledge flourished. I am aware of academic administrators who bemoan that those pursuing Mathematics could not simultaneously study Sanskrit grammar in India despite sound academic and research logic of doing so, due to systemic rigidities of our university system.
Fifth, higher education in our country must be an arena of choice, not of elimination. Increasingly, one notices that entrance and admission criteria and procedures are designed to screen out and eliminate, due to the adverse ratio of demand and availability, especially in disciplines with job potential or where the college or university reputation is likely to be a determining factor in employment. We must create avenues for skills training and vocational education so that entering universities does not become a default choice for the sake of employment, particularly for those who might not have interest in the subject or desire for higher education.
Allow me to conclude, ladies and gentlemen, by pointing out that the entire gamut of issues dealing with the rejuvenation and restructuring of higher education in India is in the public domain for an open policy debate. In the near future, we would witness civil society, policy community, academia, the government and the legislatures debating issues ranging from regulatory and governance structures, academic and administrative reforms, capacity building and teacher training, and entry of individual and institutional foreign education providers. This is a positive development and must be pursued to its logical conclusion.
It is my hope that this distinguished audience, and students, would be part of the ongoing debates on higher education. Each of you is an important stakeholder in the process and must contribute to it, not only as members of the academic community, but more importantly as citizens of this Republic. It is only with active engagement that we can hope to mould higher education as an instrumentality to achieve the Constitutional vision propounded by our founding fathers.”
This is an important speech. It gives some hints regarding what may happen in the 12th plan. It looks like there may be a significant central funding component for state universities.
December 21st, 2010
Following is from the PIB release http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=66496.
The Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Shri Kapil Sibal had an interaction with the Directors of the eight new IITs here today. The meeting was taken to discuss issues specific to new IITs, especially with regard to the constraints they are facing in infrastructure and faculty development. All the IITs made separate presentations, consequent to which discussions were held and the following decisions were taken.
A number of IITs are facing problems of clearances with Central/State Government Departments for acquisition of the land allotted to them. In this regard, the Minister has asked for a meeting to be taken next month with the concerned State Government officials, Central Government officials and IIT Directors to facilitate the process of land acquisition.
The issue of providing salary that will attract good faculty was discussed at length. In this regard it was decided with the Minister’s approval that topping up of government approved salary can be done by the IITs from their own funds.
At present, in the IITs, the HAG scale(Rs.67,000-Rs.79,000) is applicable for 40% of the Professors in position. The new IITs expressed that they have been unable to implement this grade since it has been possible for them to recruit few faculty so far. The Minister stated, here, that the ministry would seek approval from the Finance Ministry/Cabinet to provide for a new proviso for the new IITs to be able to implement this salary grade.
The new IITs felt that that a revision in fund allocation would be required in view of the escalation of construction costs. The minister directed the officials to examine the matter and come up with a proposal in this regard.
Following is an excerpt from a report in zee news.
All the new eight Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) established over the last three years have been asked to have their campuses ready by 2014 even as the government was mulling increasing the funds allocated for the purpose.
… IIT Patna and IIT Bhubaneswar, though, received special mention for making a good headway in infrastructure related development, they said.
Sibal also said his Ministry would move a Cabinet note on the issue of enhanced allocation of funds for campus development after the directors drew attention to cost escalation over the years.
Following is an excerpt from a report in Hindustan Times.
The human resource development ministry is planning special incentives to lure faculty from the older Indian Institutes of Technology to take up teaching posts at the country’s new breed of IITs struggling to attract teachers.
… Under the proposal for giving incentives to teachers — which the HRD ministry is currently discussing with the finance ministry — teachers at older IITs will be required to spend a ten-year tenure at one of the new-born IITs.
I don’t trust the above Hindustan Times report. I think the writer might have misunderstood something.
October 22nd, 2010
Following is from http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=66338.
A meeting was held today under the Chairmanship of Human Resources Minister, Shri Kapil Sibal with the Chairpersons and Directors of IIMS on the future vision of the IIMs and the necessary steps to be taken to achieve them. Shri Sibal informed the members that in the last one and half year a number of steps have been taken by the Ministry to provide autonomy to the IIMs. Some of these include full powers to the Boards of IIMs to create posts within the approved norms, freedom to open centres in India and abroad, amend Rules of the IIM within the framework of Memorandum of Association and Rules, power to acquire and dispose property not fully or partially funded by the Ministry of HRD, powers to approve their own Budget, and also to manage the funds generated by the IIMs on their own. However, he said that autonomy should go hand in hand with accountability; in that the faculty, the director and the Board should take steps to prepare annual action plans and key performance indicators at each level and be fully accountable and transparent.
The meeting considered the reports of Committees constituted in the last meeting in Bangalore on certain key issues. Discussions were held on the report of the Committee constituted to recommend a new Governance Structure for IIMs (chaired by Shri R.C. Bhargav, Chairman BOG- IIM, Ranchi). It was decided that the number of Board Members of IIMs would be reduced to 14. It also discussed the composition and selection of the Boards of governors with adequate membership to the Society of the IIM, the government, the faculty and the alumni. It was also decided that the IIM societies should have long term members who take continuous interest in the running of the IIMs. It was also decided, in principle, that Directors of IIMs will now be appointed through a process wherein the Board of Governors of the IIMs suggests three names to the Government from which the Government chooses one.
On the second report of the Committee on Faculty and Research at the IIMs, chaired by Shri Ajit Balakrishnan, Chairman, IIM, Calcutta. It was decided that the IIMs can top up the salaries of their Directors also in addition to the Faculty from the funds generated by them on their own. It was also decided that the Faculty members would give individual work plans at the start of the year. The recommendations of the Committee regarding use of technology in IIMs were accepted and the Minister directed that old and new IIMs sit together to streamline the use of technology for class scheduling, attendance, mark compilation etc.
On the recommendations of the Committee on Fund Raising by IIMs (chaired by Shri Hari S. Bhatia, Chairman of IIM, Raipur), it was decided that the IIMs have a development office especially for the purpose, each IIM have a fund raising policy and thereafter to have road shows. A two-day workshop will be conducted on the subject of collecting endowments for institutes.
MV/GK
The Odisha government should pursue with IIM Calcutta for a branch in Odisha.
October 13th, 2010
Following are excerpts from a report in roanoke.com.
Virginia Tech officials touted the university’s offerings Monday to a delegation from India — the leader of which could help the university open a new campus in the world’s second-most populous country.
With support from Indian company MARG Ltd., Tech has been working for about four years on a plan to build a university near India’s fifth-most-populous city, Chennai.
If approved, the campus would sit on about 30 acres in the state of Tamil Nadu, where a 70,000-square-foot facility would be built and would offer master’s and doctorate programs for about 300 students in engineering and science.
All academic and research functions would be overseen by Tech. Tuition and fees, admissions criteria and degree requirements would be the same in India as in the United States.
"It would be a Virginia Tech degree," Provost Mark McNamee told the delegation.
…In 1999, Tech began offering a master’s degree in information technology in conjunction with the S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research in Mumbai. The university has since established other projects and ties in India. Officials estimate about 500 Tech alumni live in the country’s southern region.
But the plan for an Indian campus is subject to passage of the foreign universities bill winding its way through the Indian Parliament. Some in India worry that allowing foreign universities in the country will increase tuition and decrease quality in the already struggling higher education sector.
Under current law, foreign universities may offer degree programs only in partnership with existing Indian institutions.
The new bill has been championed by India’s Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, who visited Tech on Monday with about a dozen other dignitaries. They were scheduled to meet with Tech President Charles Steger later in the day.
… Estimates for the total cost of the project do not yet exist, he said. But officials expect a capital outlay of $5 million will be required.
The India campus would help Tech compete for more sponsored research contracts, as well as give the university a presence in an economy supported by 1.2 billion people. Only China, with its population of 1.3 billion, is larger.
For India, the bill could help stem the tide of students streaming to American, European and Australian universities. In 2007, a government commission in India urged that the country increase its number of universities from 350 to 1,500 by 2015. Investment by foreign universities is one way to achieve that growth.
… Under the pending bill, Tech could not send revenue from India back to the United States. Likewise, Tech may use none of its state funding to establish the Indian campus, De Datta said.
Sibal has visited other American universities interested in building campuses in India, including Boston University, Georgetown University, Harvard and Yale.
According to De Datta, the Indian Parliament is expected to vote on the foreign universities bill within the next six months.
Following is an excerpt from a report in Times of India.
Virginia Tech has found an Indian partner for these three centres — Centre for Critical, Technical and Advanced Science, Virginia Bio Informatics Centre and Virginia Transport and Technical Institute — that are likely to be operational within a year.
… Virginia Tech has also signed a memorandum of understanding with MARG Swarnabhoomi group. The institution will be called Virginia Tech MARG Swarnabhoomi, India, and it will be the varsity’s first campus outside the US.
Following is an excerpt from a report in sify.com.
US-based Duke University – ranked 14th in the QS World University Rankings – is planning to set up a campus in India. However, the university management is yet to decide on the location. According to sources, it is looking for around 25 acres to set up its campus either in Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh or Pune.
"We will start with a business school in the campus that will offer a diploma programme. This is a part of our plans of having a globally dispersed campus. We are looking at China and India and the campus in China is already underway," said Jaivir Singh, advisor to the dean of the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
The expansion is part of the varsity’s plans of setting up its global campuses in Dubai, Russia, China and India.
Duke university is one of the first international institutes to announce its plans of establishing its India campus after the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) gave its approval to allow foreign universities to setup their campuses in India in March.
However, the Foreign Education Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill, 2010 is still pending in Parliament. The bill, which was to be taken up during the monsoon session of Parliament, would now be taken up during the winter session.
According to the bill, any foreign varsity entering India will have to create a $12-million corpus fund and profits will not be allowed to be expatriated to shareholders. The universities would also have to reinvest 75 per cent of profit in the school or university and the rest would become a part of the corpus fund.
Foreign universities, however, will have the right to form their own fee structure and admission rules.
Duke University said investment will not be an issue as it already satisfies the criteria set by the proposed bill.
In fact, Duke university is also looking at setting up a campus in South Africa and South America by the end of this calendar year. Like Yale, Brown and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), it is also in talks with the MHRD on partnering the upcoming 14 innovation universities. Yale and Brown, however, are not looking at setting up an India campus.
"We would like to partner the innovation universities in the space of information technology, science and the qualitative side of engineering that will make the youth employable. However, our immediate plans are to consolidate all our programmes in the country under one roof," Singh added.
September 27th, 2010
Update: From a report in Business Standard.
“The private sector says the proposed legislation is not open enough and we want all the ideas and solutions from entrepreneurs. With this legislation, there will be only 14 nationally-funded innovation universities, but the statute will allow for any number of private institutions,” added Sibal.
The highlighted part clarifies how the universities are going to be funded. The draft bill mentioned that some innovation universities will be made by the government and some by private parties. It appeared that it talked about the announced 14 universities. That would have been unfair to the locations whose innovation universities were to be funded privately . The above makes things clear. However it is still unclear what benefit would a private party get by making an innovation university and thus being obligated to follow the statute of the innovation universities. Will the status or label of "innovation university" help them in some way. Otherwise they can become a state university with a tailor made statute.
Update: Some excerpts from a report in Times of India.
… The nature of administrative structure, too, figured prominently in the discussion. For instance, it was felt that there is no need to have both academic board and board of governors.
"Delayering of administrative structure was suggested," a source said.
… Since Innovative Universities will be set up around a theme, it was felt that they should be multi-disciplinary in nature. It was suggested that while theme could be a good idea for the university to start with, gradually it can develop a multi-disciplinary approach.
… According to the minister, themes for Innovation Universities will be decided not by the government but by the institutions themselves.
The government will set up 14 fully-funded Innovation Universities in Greater Noida, Amritsar, Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Mysore, Gandhinagar, Jaipur, Kolkata, Bhopal and Kochi.
But the number of universities to be set up by private sector has not yet been decided.
(The reporter only listed 11 out of the 14 locations. The three that were missed are: Guwahati, Patna and Pune.)
Following is an excerpt from a report in ibnlive.com.
… "We will redraft the proposed legislation. The legislation does not spell out the outcomes. The legislation must set up objective and have criteria for outcome," HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said today. … Talking to reporters after holding deliberation with different stakeholders, industry body and academicians, Sibal said there was a broad consensus that the legislation should be taken forward. "However, there was also emphasis on the need to make the existing institutions attain world class standards in teaching, research and innovation". He said necessary changes to be made in the Universities for Innovation Bill is to ensure that initiatives and energy of the promoters are not stifled in an excessive regulatory mechanism. Sources said some promoters had certain objections to the appointment of vice chancellors to such universities through the collegium process. Sibal also said relaxation of the regulation mechanism was also felt as some had objections to the 20 per cent cap on appointment of graduating students with excellent academic record as assistant professors. The legislation allows appointment by invitation of any graduating students with high academic distinction as assistant professors in such university provided the total number of post filled by such policy does not exceed 20 per cent of the total sanctioned posts of assistant professors. The Bill is expected to be tabled in the Winter session of Parliament this year. With uniqueness being the hallmark of such centres, Sibal said the universities could be theme-based. "These institutes should identify areas having a direct bearing on community and environment while research and innovation could revolve around them," he said. …
August 29th, 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
