Often people question about why Vedanta University needs 6000 acres. I have given my perspective on this in details in the page https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1696 . The short answer is:
- 6000 acres is not just for the university. It includes several townships.
- The townships are crucial to make Vedanta University competitive with world class universities, some of which have budgets of $3 billion per year.
- The township plan is not something hidden, but clearly mentioned in Vedanta University web pages at http://vedanta.edu.in/ .
In my previous article I made some guess regarding the area of the university. The following page from a draft of the Vedanta University masterplan gives the accurate numbers. If one looks at just university, the land use is actually very good. It uses 780+240 acres for a university planned for 100,000 students.
The developed area in the above plan is only 4300 acres. The following two pages from the 250+ page master plan draft emphasize that the remaining area of about 2000 acres is for greenery.
August 13th, 2009
Following is an excerpt from a report in DeshGujarat.
India’s largest university proposed by Vedanta Resources founder Anil Agarwal is coming up in Orissa, but it was originally planned for Gujarat.
… When asked about his plans to enter Gujarat, if any, Agarwal said, “Gujarat is the most developed. Its amazing how business going on here. While everybody is talking about business in energy, we thought of setting up old time Vaghas based power plant. But I haven’t figured it out. I wanted to set up a university here but then we went to Puri(Orissa). But I will be looking forward for something to start in Gujarat, that’s sure. We have something in silvassa but not in Gujarat.”
This sounds to me like a veiled warning from Mr. Agarwal to people of Orissa. I think he is preparing the ground to move to Gujarat if things get tough in Orissa. If that happens, that would be the missed opportunity of the millenium for Orissa. By saying it was planned for Orissa, he will have a ready made excuse to move to Gujarat.
On another front, Vedanta University received clearance from the environment ministry. Following is an excerpt from a PTI report on this.
A committee of the Environment Ministry has given the green signal to the Vedanta Group to set up its university in over 6,000 acres of land on the Puri-Konark Marine Drive in Orissa, notwithstanding protests from locals and activists.
August 13th, 2009