The land use plan of Vedanta University – Why 6000 acres?
August 13th, 2009
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.
Entry Filed under: Bhubaneswar-Cuttack-Puri- Khurda area (1),Land Acquisition and Land Use (Why so much land?),Pictures, master plan layouts, Videos,Vedanta University, Puri
9 Writeup
1. R.K. Ghosh | August 13th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Indeed I have seen a University in South Korea which is owned by Samsung and the promoters also are owners of the town around the university, though a small one. But the point is that the commerce part is very transparent in Samsung city. Vedanta’s plan should be transparent likewise. I, of course, have no information to say that Vedant’s plan is not transparent. One needs to educate those who oppose, and are stake-holders in the project area. The displaced persons could become an active participants as well as contributors to overall development instead of being forced to move away from the area. An inclusive growth is important. I agree the plans, if actually realizable, will contribute to overall growth of Orissa. Yet, one must understand that no one specially private sector is out there for philanthropic reasons So, the commercial aspects should be weighed against the developments carefully to see the balance does not get tilted too much in favor of promoters. Ground realities in private education sectors have to seen to be believed. Nexus between politicians and business men are too obvious. But there is no doubt that we need quality education and more of it to compete with developed world.
Quite clearly development versus no development have become potentially explosive for political mileages. These days we don’t see sparrows, I was told that these unfortunate creatures are affected by GSM signals. On the other hand, mobiles are so much convenient and have increased productivity of ordinary man. Which one is good. I have no ready answer.
2. Chitta Baral | August 13th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
As far as I understand, the university is not going to be owned by Vedanta Aluminum or Anil Agarwal. Like Stanford or Harvard, it will have its own board etc. This is part of the Vedanta University act. There will be of course representation from Anil Agarwal foundation and in the initial years they will have big say. But that is to be expected.
3. pabitra kumar barad | August 14th, 2009 at 11:36 am
I am totally agree on your point Mr. baral.This university will not be an ordinary university.so land should not be aconstraint.See the case of BHU .YOU can imagine how a worldclass universitycan grow and how urbanisation takes place.I also appeal to the vedanta bistapan virodhi mancha think deeply before act.If you will create a sringur like situationthen your next generation wll not forgive you.some nasty politicin are provoking you.Do not go by their word.they have created unnecessary disorder for their political gain they have never in theirmind for the growth and development of orissa.they are lacking vision.
4. R.K. Ghosh | August 14th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Unfortunately, Mr. PK Barad did not seem to understand the crux of my comments about Vedant project. It appears that he thinks I am against Vedant. That is not true at all. I am educating myself and perhaps other readers of the website to some extent. Land, air, water, minerals, etc., are natural resources. They can not be replaced through any man made technique. Their usage should be pragmatic. Emotions, personal interests, and regionalism sometime blur the vision and are exploited by some opportunistic politicians for their short term goals. I won’t say all politicians are nasty. Orissa CM is a politician too. But his contribution to education sector in the state has been great. Opposition is also healthy. It helps one to stay in course. As Mark Twain said “If you always agree with majority then it is time for a change”.
BTW, I won’t say BHU was ever a world class university. So, I won’t compare BHU experience with Vedant considering its well publicized plans to emulate Stanford or Harvard.
No matter how well you plan a town it can not survive unless there is plan for inclusive growth. Bombay can never become Sanghai, neither Delhi would ever compete with Washington. So, one needs to appreciate that the planners of Vedant should spend more time on drawing boards and be prepared to tackle every exigency that arise while implementation is on.
I must thank Chitta who provided some interesting inputs on Vedant, and it helped me a lot to understand and appreciate this project much better.
5. Devaki Nandan Tripathy | August 14th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
The question is why 6000 acres?
Did some wikipedia search and found out the below info.
Campus size of :
MIT – 168 acres
Caltech – 124 acres
Harvard – 380 acres.
and also remember that population density of US is far below India where land has both economic and emotional value.
6. Umesh | August 15th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Vedanta’s plan for 6000 acres is illustrated in the the article above please do go through that.
Talking about Caltech – It is a small school of the size of 2100 students. Vedanta will have 100,000 students. Also, the name Caltech suggests that it is a school/University associated only with technology. The scope is very different here. The bottomline is that it is only a research university.
Take Harvard – It is a top-ranked university which happens to be the oldest in USA. They are targetting expansion from a fair amount of time.
MIT – As the name suggests is again a technological university.
The bottomline is that, every university , plans massive expansion from it’s beginning. The newly created universities in USA have always gone for massive land banks.
Stanford has 8180 acres. Michigan has 22,000 acres. Pennstate university has 5500 acres.
The quality of an university is determined by it’s ability to fund programs. Perhaps, this land requirement will be used for those purposes.
Today IIM Ahmedababd is out of land to fund expansion. Hence, they are setting up a new centre in Hyderabad.
What needs to be understood is that, other states are waiting with open hands for this university.
7. Sanjib Karmee | August 18th, 2009 at 12:49 am
A serious thinking is needed among the people of Orissa regarding Vedanta Uni. I do not know why people are always comparing the proposed Uni. With MIT, Caltech or Stanford. Who knows, this University will be much better than these Universities. We are always reluctant to experiment with new things.
I understand that land, air, water, minerals, etc are very valuable and we should use judiciously. However, I do not thing Vedanta will utilize the acquired land for other purpose. Now all eyes are on Vedanta and it is under twenty four seven media scanner. Do you guys still thing it will do all these nonsense. If it still does, then what are we here for?
Please… we should not make the mistake. If it goes to other state, it will be Shame on all of us.
8. Biswajit Mishra | August 19th, 2009 at 7:41 am
I fully agree with Sanjeeb. Why should we at al draw a comparison with MIT or CALTECH? Why can’t we ourself think big and experiment? I must say that the Vedanta concept is a life time opportunity for Orissa. We must all try to think positive. Otherwise, as I mentioned in a previous post, Mr. Modi is too smart to grab it and take it away to Gujrat. Then we all crib like many people in Singur!
9. Biswajit Mishra | August 19th, 2009 at 7:44 am
I fully agree with Sanjib. Why should we at al draw a comparison with MIT or CALTECH? Why can’t we ourself think big and experiment? I must say that the Vedanta concept is a life time opportunity for Orissa. We must all try to think positive. Otherwise, as I mentioned in a previous post, Mr. Modi is too smart to grab it and take it away to Gujrat. Then we all crib like many people in Singur!