… the government has decided to allow private funding in setting up some of the proposed 14 national universities, which would be of world class standards.
During his interaction with British Trade and Investment Minister Mervyn Davies, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal today said the government was in favour of setting up some of the 14 universities in Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) mode.
As per the government’s plan these universities would be "global centres of innovation". The HRD Ministry has already prepared a concept note on institutions proposed to be set up in the 11th Plan.
"Sibal told Davies that the government would seek PPP model for creation of some of these institutions. A few other may be set up under complete government funding," a ministry official said.
The duration of the 11th plan is from 2007-2012. We are now in 2009 and very soon 2012 will be looming. My guess is that the planning commission may already be in its preparatory stage to start planning for 2012. Considering that one of the big focus of this government is to increase the GER (gross enrollment ratio) in higher education from 12.4% to 30% by 2020, the 12th plan will also pay significant attention to higher education. The national knowlede commission has also recommended that India have up to 50 national universities and 1500 universities. With that in mind, following is part of something that I wrote to Prof. Yash Pal (and copied to to Sam Pitroda) in June as a response to Prof. Yash Pal’s draft. (Prof Yash Pal replied back saying: "I thank you for your excellent and concerned suggestions. I have shared them with some of my colleagues. I am sure they would be taken up by some of them. Our report will be submitted in a week. Then will start another phase. Many of these will keep reverberating. Thank you again.")
ii) Regional Universities with 50-50 split between state and the center:
The Central government now has central universities and is proposing 14 national universities. In these universities the students are and will be from across the country and the universities will be funded 100% by the central government, except land being given by the state.
As you have noted some of the centrally managed universities and institutes (IITs, etc.) have a good structure and are doing the best.
As a way to transfer this first-hand to the states I propose the establishment of “Regional Universities” which are funded 50-50 by the state and the center and the students are 50-50 between the state and the rest of the country. This will be similar to the structure of the erstwhile “Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs)”, which have now been transformed to NITs. The original RECs were funded 50-50 by the state and center and had 50-50 students from the state and the rest of the country. The NITs are funded 100% by the center.
Eventually the regional universities may be funded 100% by the center. This idea has many benefits:
(a)The direct collaboration between a state and the center helps in the transfer of know-how of how to develop and manage a good university.
(b)It costs less for the center to create another 30-40 good universities, as the cost is shared 50-50.
(c) It helps develop additional knowledge centers in the states. (Most RECs were established in second rung cities in their respective states. REC/NIT in Orissa is in Rourkela, in Tamil Nadu it is in Trichy, in Maharashtra it is in Nagpur, in Karnataka it is in Surathkal, in West Bengal it is in Durgapur, etc.)
I think this is something feasible and should be pushed with the planning commission. Even with the new central universities and national universities many states have large metropolitan areas that did not get one and are in need of a good (at least partially) centrally funded institution and university. That gap can be filled with the above proposed regional universities. In Orissa possible location of such a regional university could be Rourkela or Jharsuguda.
The proposed national universities also had stringent criteria attached to them, which made it difficult to distribute them. For example, the PIB announcing them said:
As regards 14 Central Universities aiming at world 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 infrastructure which such universities would need.
Like the erstwhile RECs, the proposed regional universities need not have such stringent conditions allowing them to be located in places like Durgapur, Kadapa, Rourkela, Jharsuguda, etc.
Another item that I had in my mail to Prof. Yash Pal, which should be pushed for the 12th plan is as follows:
(vi) University and local communities; National and regional libraries:
I think a good library should be an integral component of each of the universities. Currently the libraries in most universities and colleges in India are pathetic. While the libraries are improved it should also mandate that a big part of the library materials, should be available for browsing for common folks who are not necessarily enrolled in the university. In the US any one can walk into a university library, be it Berkeley (a state university) or Stanford (a private university). I am not sure if that is the case with respect to the universities and colleges in India.
While we are discussing libraries, like central universities and national universities, the Indian government should establish a national library in each state capital (100% funded by the central govt.), and a regional library (funded 50-50 by the state and the central govt.) in another city of a state. In 5-10 years there should be good libraries in each district and in 10-15 years in each block. (When I walk into the local library in the US, I envy not growing up in the US and recall having to beg my local book store in a cabin near my house in Bhubaneswar to lend me translations of the world literature book series. I could not afford to buy them. Nor did my school have them.)
A new item that I have mentioned once in a while and that can be genarlized for the 12th plan is to establish centrally funded rural technological institutes like SLIET (Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology) in Punjab and the recently proposed ABA Ghani Khan Choudhary Institute of Engineering and Technology in West Bengal, in each of the other major states of the country. In Orissa, Balangir and Kalahandi (Bhawanipatna) are good possible locations for this. (Orissa should aim for having a centrally funded institute in each of the undivided KBK+Kandhamal districts.) Although centrally funded, these institutes are different from the NITs. The PIB release in the context of ABA GKC IET says the following:
The Institution will offer courses in Engineering and Technology to cater to the various manpower requirements of the region, with special emphasis on courses relevant to the local population such as in food technology & sericulture.
Initially, the Institution would start with Certificate level courses leading to Diploma, Degree and Post-graduate levels later.
The total project outlay of the Institute will be around Rs. 97 crores.
Dear Readers: Please suggest your thoughts and ideas on the 12th plan. Even if your main interest is about your home town, think of a way to put it in national terms.
September 12-13, 2009: My friend Purna Mishra has written another nice email to the CM and MP Mr. Khuntia. Following is his letter.
Dear Esteemed Chief Minister Mr. Patnaik and Member of Parliament Mr. Khuntia,
From what I hear you both have been working at the opportunity to bring the ESI Medical College to Rourkela and get it funded at the earliest. I thank you for your vision and desire to make Orissa one of the leading states.
Even states with fewer employees in their ESI pool have already started the construction project (e.g., Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, etc.). Since the employees pay for their medical care, ESI is going to establish a medical college in Orissa as this is the ESI mandate.
In my last email, I mentioned a few benefits it would bring if this medical college is established in Rourkela. I found a much bigger benefit to Orissa if this medical college is established in Rourkela. The Phase-I construction cost alone is close to 500 crores. These are the cost of tenders over the last couple of years for the following ESI medical colleges:
1. Patna: 520 Crores
2. New Delhi: 617.87 Crores
3. Bangalore: 490 Crores
4. Dental Medical College, Mumbai: 158 Crores
The tenders for Kerala, Rajasthan, and Himachal Pradesh will be at least 450 crores each.
In this down economy where the central and state governments are giving incentives for private and public investments in local economy, let us see how an cash investment of 500+ crores in construction alone over a 2 year period will jump start the economy of north western Orissa. As most of the economists agree, the investment in construction sector brings the most help for local economy. Last time Rourkela received a serious investment was during the modernization drive where a capitalization of 5000 crores for expansion was made. But most of this investment were spent in acquiring
machineries and did not bring any direct investment to support the local economy. Even the second modernization scheme announced in 2005 for RSP was only 350 crores and again most of that investment was made to acquire
machineries. This will be for the first time in several decades that Rourkela and the north western Orissa would be receiving a investment of 500+ crores in local economy. Please do your best to bring this jumbo sized investment at your earliest. In this down economy this jumbo investment will jump start the local economic growth engine.
We need to build another city in Orissa that could complement Bhubaneswar as we make Orissa one of the leading states in India. The only other city that has this potential at this time is Rourkela.
The people of Orissa who will immensely benefit and will be eternally thankful for you standing up to the ESI babus and do what is right for Orissa.
With my best regards,
— Purna
September 11, 2009: Today’s Pioneer has a long article on this. (Thanks to Prashant Sahoo for the pointer.) Looks like a lot of organizations in Rourkela are now involved. But we should not rest easy until the demand is met. Following is an excerpt from that article.
It is learnt from sources that people from different walks of life have been sending e-mails to the Orissa Chief Minister requesting him to consider the relocation of the proposed ESIC Medical College. In the latest development, many Non-Resident Oriyas (NROs) are not only writing e-mails to the CM but also they are in regular touch with various civil society organisations of Rourkela to strengthen the drive into a people’s movement.
Many retired and working professors of NIT and other leading educational institutions of Rourkela like Prof Somanath Mishra, Prof SK Patel, Prof KC Patra, Prof DM Praharaj, Prof P Panda, Prof P Mallick and many others have come out openly to write letters to the CM along with pursuing others to join the movement. Even they have urged the people’s representatives of the district to take up the matter with the CM. Similarly, many civil society organisations like Disha, Envicare, Visstar, Ores, Cause, Sahayata, Basti Unnayan Samiti and many other groups have joined this drive.
Unlike others, many journalists like Pratap Padhee, Subrat Choudhury, Aurobinda Das, Sanjib Nayak, Mahendra Mishra, AP Biswal, KP Mohapatra and writers and columnists like Narayan Prasad Dash, Bhupen Mohapatra, Debendra Mohanty, KC Badjena, Bishnupriya Mohapatra and Arta Trana Mohapatra have also joined the drive. Similarly, many trade unions like RMS, SETU, RSS, SEAR, KISS, ILU, RWU, SMS and students’ organisations like SFI, AISF, ABVP, DSO and NSUI have also started campaign on their respective level. Even many student leaders have started signature campaign in their respective campuses.
September 10, 2009:
Dear all:
Following is an update on the efforts towards bringing ESIC Medical College to Rourkela.
Lots of emails have been sent to the CM’s office.
Among the media, Tathya.in and Pioneer have covered it.
The email campaign is active in several groups. (myodisa, ornet, agamiorissa, nis-iiser etc.)
MP Ram Khuntia has been contacted by phone and email.
To avoid this topic to get buried under other newer topics in Orissalinks, I have put it in the scrolling bar as well as put it prominently in red in the right hand side bar towards the top. Clicking any of those links will bring it to this article and people can comment on it. Instead of creating new posts I will just update this post.
Members of Myodisa are in the process of sending a memorandum to the CM.
Orissa Society of the Americas is also in the process of sending a memorandum to the CM.
Next Steps:
Continue emails, faxes, letters.
Get more and more people to join the movement and join the Rourkela Forum yahoo group.
The Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Textile Management in Coimbatore will be upgraded and renamed Indian School of Textiles, the government announced Thursday.
“The school will engage itself in research and will also undertake comprehensive consultancy services for the industry,” Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran told reporters here.
Orissa should keep a watch on similar upgradations and make a case for upgradation of similar institutes in Orissa. Some of the institutes that come into mind are:
Food Craft Institute Balangir – Should be upgraded to Indian Institute of Hotel Management
Biju Patnaik National Steel Institute, Puri – Should be upgraded to Indian Institute of Steel
IIMC Dhenakanal branch – Should be upgraded to an independent IIMC
IITTM Bhubaneswar branch – Should be upgraded to an independent IITTM
If I am missing something, please add in the comments.
The Foreign Education Providers Bill, a bill that seeks regulating the entry and operations of Foreign education providers in India, is likely to be placed before the Cabinet this week.
The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry is ready with a draft of the Bill, sources from the Ministry said.
On the Foreign Education Providers Bill, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal argued that the government alone could not finance the educational needs of the country, and said, "There is an allocation of Rs.85,000 crore for education in the 11th Five-Year Plan. But this is not enough."
"The private sector has to come. But we will have to regulate it and there will be a law for it," he said, adding that such regulations would be done by experts and academics and "there would be no political interference at all."
He said 1.6 lakh Indian students go abroad every year and spend millions of dollars besides the heavy cost to the exchequer. Sibal wondered: "A student in India may be denied admission in IIT but he gets it in MIT."
As per the Bill, Foreign education providers would be given the status of deemed universities in India. This will also permit them to grant admission and award degrees, diplomas or certificates.
The Bill also proposes to bring Foreign education providers under the administrative umbrella of the University Grants Commission (UGC), which means that the admission process and fee structure of these institutes will be regulated by the UGC.
Foreign education institutions and their branches in India would have to provide for reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), in keeping with the 93rd Constitutional Amendment Act.
Foreign education institutions are currently not allowed to offer degree courses in India, although a 100% foreign investment is allowed in the sector. However, nearly 150 foreign institutes offer courses with Indian varsities under a twinning arrangement – part of the course in India and the remaining abroad.
Update: He has now joined as the VC. He will be felicitated by the alumni association in Bhubaneswar on 19th Sept 2009 at 6:30 PM in the Institue of Engineers building.
Governor and Chancellor of Universities Murlidhar Chandrakant Bhandare today appointed Prof Deba Kumar Tripathy as the new Vice-Chancellor of the Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT), Burla.
Prof Tripathy is currently Professor of Rubber Technology Department in Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur. The post was lying vacant as previously appointed Vice-Chancellor Ganapati Panda did not join.
He is considered an expert in metal and rubber forming, die mould, tool design for metal and elastomer, rubber product manufacturing, rubber processing, rubber blends and composites, vibration isolation, cellular rubber and plastic and environment engineering.
… at present Maharashtra possesses highest 40 permitted medical colleges in the country. Karnataka has 38, Andhra Pradesh has 33 and Tamilnadu has 30 medical colleges. Kerala has 22 medical colleges, Uttar Pradesh has 21, Gujarat has 14, West Bengal has 10, Madhya Pradesh has 9, Rajasthan has 9, Bihar has 8, Pondicherry has 8, Punjab has 8, Orissa has 6, Delhi has 6, Jammu & Kashmir has 4, Uttaranchal has 4, Assam has 3, Haryana has 3, Jharkhand has 3, Chhattisgarh has 2, Tripura has 1, Sikkim has 1, Manipur has 1, Goa has 1, Chandigarh has 1 medical-college.
… Nationwide, ten new medical colleges opened this year, three of them were in Gujarat. Kerala, Tamilnadu and Uttar Pradesh each added two new medical colleges this year, while Madhya Pradesh added one.
…five more new medical colleges are in pipeline in the state [Gujarat] and the government intends to start them in next academic year.
The Gujarat Government plans to start two new medical colleges in Ahmedabad by next year at Ahmedabad based Sola Civil Hospital under a charitable trust and another college at Asarwa Swadeshi Mill Compound by Gujarat Cancer and Research Institute(GCRI).The colleges each have 150 seats and a proposal is at present under process at Medical Council of India.
The government also plans to start three new medical colleges in next academic year at Vadodara, Patan and Valsad also will get new medical colleges . While medical college in Vadodara will be attached with TB hospital, the medical colleges in Patan and Valsad will be attached with the government hospitals there.
Four more Indian Institutes of Mass Communication (IIMC) will soon be set up in different parts of the country to meet growing demand for media professionals, taking the number of IIMCs to six.
The new IIMCs will come up in Jammu and Kashmir and Mizoram, besides in the southern and western regions, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni today said.
… She said the ministry will firm up proposals for setting up of IIMCs and the work will start soon.
Currently, there are two IIMCs in Delhi and Dhenkanal (Orissa).
Soni also said that her ministry is working out the modalities of upgrading IIMC as a world class university to provide undergraduate courses, offer MPhil and PhD degrees and serve as a think tank for media.
Currently IIMC (both Delhi and Dhenkanal campus included) has a total full-time faculty of 14, with only one mentioned in the context of Dhenkanal. I hope by upgrading IIMC both Delhi and Dhenkanal, especially Dhenkanal will have more faculty. The Orissa government should be proactive on this and try to find out if more land is needed at IIMC Dhenkanal.
Many misguided activists of Orissa and India have tooth and nail opposed any and all operations of Vedanta in Orissa. Their vendetta against Vedanta is so much that they even oppose Vedanta University, regardless of its benefit to people of Orissa.
At a drop of a hat they will mention that Vedanta is blacklisted by the Norway government pension fund; also referred to as the oil fund. But what the activists fail to mention is that the Norway government pension fund also blacklists Boeing, Wal-mart, General Dynamics, Honeywell, etc. All of these are well respected multi-nationals. See the whole list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway#Excluded_companies.
Many activists also often question the credibility of Vedanta and its subsidiary Sterlite. For them here is a quote from an Arizona newspaper.
Arizona joined several other states in supporting an Indian company’s bid for Tucson-based copper producer Asarco LLC, during closing arguments of a bankruptcy hearing in Texas Tuesday.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Richard S. Schmidt heard the final oral arguments about who should get the local copper producer: Sterlite Industries, the Indian company that has been actively working with Asarco management and workers …
The U.S. government supported Sterlite’s bid, as did the states of Washington, Montana, Texas and Arizona, among others. The United Steelworkers, which represents many of Asarco’s workers, also has supported Sterlite’s bid and threatened to strike if Grupo Mexico gets the company back.
… Grupo Mexico and Sterlite have each offered to fully repay all of Asarco’s creditors, who claim to be owed $3.62 billion. A majority of those creditors, which include several state and federal environmental agencies, say they would prefer Sterlite, according to court records.
Unfortunately, the judge did not recommend Sterlite and it goes to the District Court of Texas for a decision in 4-6 weeks. The main reason behind the judge’s recommendation was that Sterlite was offering less upfront cash. However the fact to note is that Sterlite was backed by the US government and various states as well as the workers of the company and state and federal environment agencies. In fact the workers union support it so much that they are threatening to go on strike if the judge does not favor Sterlite. See http://www.vccircle.com/500/news/sterlite-suffers-setback-on-asarco-bid-but-has-workers-support for more details.
Yet the activists in Orissa and India are misleading the common people there with all kinds of propaganda against Vedanta and Sterlite. So much so that their plans in Lanjigarh, Jharsuguda and Puri have all been delayed. I hope the people of Orissa see and understand what the US and the states of Washinton, Montana, Texas and Arizona are seeing and support Vedanta University. I also hope that they negotate with Sterlite/Vedanta in Lanjigarh and Jharsuguda so that the company establishes branches of Vedanta University and its medical college in or near Lanjigarh as well as Jharsuguda.
Moreover, I hope the people of Lanjigarh learn about this and directly negotiate with Sterlite regarding their concerns and work with them, as the workers of ASARCO in Arizona are doing, rather than getting swayed by the propaganda of the activists who are blinded by their (perceived) supreme court loss and care less about the people and more about their vendetta against Vedanta.
If and when IIT Bhubaneswar wants, it can have its own programs in Design. One of the best design programs in India is at the IIT Bombay Industrial Design Center. IIT Guwahati’s Department of Design also has a good program in design. So there is no need for Bhubaneswar to have an NID.
However, my guess is that there is a tough debate going on in the central government about the NID location in the east. So far among the new 4 NIDs only one location is announced. That is Bhopal. My guess is that among the other three, one will be in the southern states, one in the northern states and one in the eastern states.
I think for Orissa to get an NID it will help if a proper plan in terms of what the focus of this NID will be and why it is appropriate to be in Orissa is presented. People campaigning for an NID in their area of Orissa should prepare a document to that effect. Such a document will help the Orissa CM to make the case better.
Mostly I have seen campaigns for the NID to be in Berhampur. Some people have quipped, why not Sambalpur. I think both groups should focus on making the case in terms of what the focus of an NID in that area should be and tie it in to some special attributes of that area.
Note that a big part of the history behind getting NID to Orissa can be found through this site. The earliest articles that I could locate were about June 25, 2007. There were two conflicting reports on that day.
Business Standard, June 25, 2007 reporting that the then MOS Chandrasekhar Sahu saying that he had discussed with Union minister of commerce Mr. Kamal Nath regarding an NID in Berhampur and Mr. Kamal Nath having agreed to that.
So in my opinion, the proper argument for having NID at some place other than Bhubaneswar is to focus on why that place is appropriate for an NID and then point out that good design programs can be at IIT Bhubaneswar and thus NID need not be at Bhubaneswar.
In light of some comments in Orissalinks and several efforts that are going around in the Cyberspace, I would like to give a bit of history of Orissalinks that would make our stand clear in terms of promoting all around development of HRD infrastructure in Orissa.
We had several blogs that are precursor to Orissalinks.com. The first two were:
http://iiser.blogspot.com/started October 2005: This was about getting NIS to Bhubaneswar which was earlier announced in 2003 by the President of India and HRD minister of India but was omitted when IISERs were proposed.
http://newiits.blogspot.com/started December 2005: At that time there were plans to upgrade some existing institutions to an IIT or existing IITs opening branches in other locations. We pursued both.
http://iits-11thplan.blogspot.com/started January 2007: After the first three new IITs were announced and Orissa was left out this was to push for an IIT in Orissa.
With the help of Prashant Sahoo, we started this consolidated blog orissalinks.com in Novermber 2006. The first postings of this blog was about KBK Central University. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/date/2006/11.
We have been fortunate that the goals of our initial efforts were achieved and we now have NISER, an IIT and a Central University in Orissa.
There were other achievements including helping the UCE Burla students and alumni in their efforts to make UCE Burla an unitary university. The idea was mooted in this blog in October 2007 (see https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/693) and later support was provided by email. See their acknowledgement in their souvenir.
While a lot of our initial focus had been about getting Orissa its fair share, dealing with inequality within Orissa was also a concern from the very beginning. Although we did not frame it in the terms of "inequity within Orissa" our initial postings on KBK University and the kbkcentral blog were about addressing the lack of opportunities in the KBK districts.We continue with several other efforts such as making VSSUT, Burla an IIEST, having a branch of IGNTU in Kandhamal and getting an ESIC medical college to Rourkela.
We also wrote specifically about inequality within Orissa. One of our early post was in April 2007. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/100. Since then we have raised this several times and will continue to do so.
But we would like it to be done, at least in this forum, in a respectful way and avoiding divisiveness. I also think that is the most effective way.
Following are some of my suggestions:
We should not show any hatred towards any region of Orissa. (Sometimes one may not mean that, but the words imply that.) While it is ok to point out that some area, say the Bhubaneswar area, has too many of something as compared to the rest of the state, it is really not helpful to say something like since X will be in the Bhubaneswar area, I would rather not have it in Orissa at all.
We should not use divisive terminologies.
Personally I think it is usually better to argue for certain amenities and infrastructure elements in particular metropolitan areas rather than whole regions especially when there are divisive stereotypes about those regional distinctions.
As described in http://orissa2020.org (in particular http://www.orissa2020.org/home/area-wise-plan ) I think we can initially focus on five tier 2 regions (Rourkela area, Berhampur area, Baragarh-Sambalpur-Jharsuguda area, Balasore-Baripada area and Koraput-Jeypore-Sunabeda area) and five trier 3 A regions (Bhawanipatna, Balangir, Phulbani, Angul and Keonjhar). See the above links for the reasoning behind why these ten are our first choice. Specific mailing lists or yahoo groups on each of them would be useful in interfacing cybercitizens with people phyiscally located in those areas. This will allow organization of some ground level teams and actions when needed.
While looking out for our own backyard is important, it is more effective if one does not only focus on their own backyard or one is not too obsessed on their own backyard.
It is more effective to argue for a location of an institute, when another location for it has not been announced. It creates divisiveness when one suggests or campaigns that institute X announced for location L should be moved to location M. A better alternative in that case is to say that a branch of X or something like X should also be in M. That is what we used when campaigning for NIS in Bhubaneswar. We never said that the IISER in Kolkata should be moved to Bhubaneswar. We said that we are happy that Kolkata gets an IISER but we would like Bhubaneswar to have an NIS or an IISER. That way the campaign does not pit people in favor of L against the people in favor of M. The more unified an effort is the better its chances of success. Especially, if one makes enemies or treats others as enemies then it works against their goals. The intelligent and effective approach is to convert others to support or even pursue your goals and not make enemies.
On the other hand if X is announced for location L and someone from L says that I am from L but I think for these reasons the institute X should be in M, then that is the right spirit. That is what is happening in the ESIC medical college in Rourkela effort.
There will be cases when several areas are under consideration for a single exclusive institute. At that time we should keep the debate about the location civil and logic based. In such debates people arguing for their own backyard is expected and reasonable, but one must keep in mind that it automatically decreases their credibility in the eyes of the others.
In summary, if we work unitedly for all of Orissa and respect some ground rules (such as the ones above), the chances of success are much higher.
Dear Esteemed Chief Minister Mr. Patnaik and Member of Parliament Mr. Khuntia,
I am writing this note to plead before you the need to have the ESI medical college in Rourkela. ESI administration has made an easy decision and you both know from your long public career that easy decisions are not always the best decisions. If we look at the existing ESI medical colleges there are many which are not locate in the state capital. The decision in the last 2-3 years to have the ESI medical College in Himachal Pradesh to be located in Mandi (150 km from Shimla) could be a basis for arguing why this ESI medical college for Orissa could not be located in Rourklela?
Here are the reasons I believe why thi ESI medical should be located in Rourkela instead of Bhubaneswar:
1. Orissa has close to 50+ ESI medical clinics and a half dozen or so medical hospitals. These ESI clinics are the Tier-III medical facilities where the patients go initially for the consultation. Based on the severity of their cases, they are referred to the Tier-II ESI medical hospitals. Most of these Tier-II ESI medical hospitals are located closer to Rourkela than Bhubaneswar. Based on the numbers of members and their usage pattern, one could easily see most of these members live in places closer to Rourkela
than Bhubaneswar.
2. When these ESI members travel to these medical hospitals, the out of pocket allowance they receive from ESI is meager. So it would be an additional hardship for these members to travel to Bhubaneswar at a greater distance and a costlier city for specialty medical care.
3. Since most of the Tier-II medical facilities are located closer to Rourkela, it would be a boon for the ESI doctors working in these hospitals to get additional training and the patients could be referred for additional diagnostics (CAT scan, MRI scan, Ultrasound, advanced blood works) and thus improving the decision making if the medical college to be located closer to the existing hospitals.
4. Most of these members live in the geographical segment of Orissa that is under the evil grip of the growing Sickle Cell disease and cerebral malaria. Both these medical challenges require quick access to specialty medical care which could be provided if these patients travel to the specialty medical closer to their home which again makes Rourkela a more ideal location.
5. ESI would be spending 600 crores to build and run this medical college. Orissa should not lose this investment. Also 50% of the seats would be reserved for students from the domiciled state which would again benefit our children if we get this medical college in Orissa.
6. The state has to give a contiguous cluster of 35 acres of land for this ESI medical college at no cost to ESI. This kind of land would cost close to at least 10 crores an acre in Bhubaneswar whereas it would cost no more than a crore in Rourkela. From a pure selfish perspective, why not we give 35 crores (35 acres in Rourkela) rather than 350 crores (35 acres in Bhubaneswar) to get this investment of 600 crores from ESI.
We are looking up to you to work across the party lines to get this beneficial scheme for Orissa. To have this medical college in Rourkela would significantly improve the health of the growing workforce and thus bring in additional investments for Orissa. We know you both could make this happen and the ESI members would be eternally thankful to you for your leadership.
With my best regards,
Purna
ps – Originally from Bhubaneswar but currently lives in North America
Following are three recent videos on Vedanta University from youtube. The first two are about couple of CSR activities undertaken by Vedanta University and the third one is a collage of Vedanta University design diagrams.
The Vedanta University Teaching Hospital located in the State of Orissa, India, will be the first building of the ambitious Vedanta University Master Plan. As a first building, the hospital’s orientation, program and design represent a signifi¬cant opportunity to launch Vedanta University and provide connectivity between the campus and the community.
The Vedanta Teaching Hospital was programmed initially for 500 acute care beds and 67 intensive care beds (Phase l). In a future phase (Phase2), the bed
count will double.
The Guiding Principles in the development of the Space Program relate program-matically to the idea of creating true synergy between research, teaching and clinical care, as well as creating Centers of Excellence in the areas of Cardiology and Endocrinology. Physically, the Space Program is conceived as highly modu¬lar so as to be able to grow and evolve with ease and flexibility. The Inpatient and Outpatient spaces are conceived as relating programmatically by level.
The architectural and operational framework of the organization’s information technology capability is envisioned as a mission-critical 24/7 operational util¬ity service delivered and managed in a cost-effective manner. In addition, the selection of state-of-the-art medical equipment for both patient care and clinical research will be a critical success factor for the university.
The right side of that page lists other projects handled by Jensen Partners. It includes UCLA and Emory University (Atlanta).
Update: This article in healthcaredesignmagazine.com also mentions the design. Some Chinese sites such this one and this one also mention it. This article at the freelibrary.com shows that Perkin+Wills is one of the top architectural firms in LA county and its 2008 billings included billing Vedanta University Hospital.
Working together with the Anil Agarwal Foundation, Perkins+Will have developed the master plan for the Medical Precinct of a new teaching hospital in the extremely remote section of Puri, Orissa, India.
Vedanta University Teaching Hospital is part of a very ambitious plan to develop this rural area into a global center of education and healthcare that would be on par with Harvard, Stanford and Oxford. The 500-bed world-class facility, set to open in 2011, would serve as a regional hub for critical medical specialties such as cardiology and diabetes and focus research on prevalent public health issues in the surrounding area. With the heart of the project geared toward giving back to the community, Perkins+Will architects have carefully incorporated the area’s cultural values by working with local materials and artisans to capture India’s modern art trends within the building plans.
Additionally, some of the hospital’s sustainable features will include daylighting, atriums, storm water management and water conservation through site run-off and an onsite sewage treatment plant, use of local materials, landscaping with local plants and green roof.
