Nilekanis gift Rs 50 crore for school on environment

BANGALORE: UID chairman and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and his wife Rohini have gifted Rs 50 crore to the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) to fund the establishment of its school of environment and sustainability. Their gift is one of the largest for a new school at a prospective national university for urban studies.

In a joint statement, the Nilekanis said, "IIHS is at the convergence of both our interests in education, urbanisation and sustainability. We are excited about contributing to an institution which will help people engage with new challenges in an innovative and inter-disciplinary manner."

This gift is a part of the Rs 300 crore IIHS resource mobilisation campaign to fund five inter-disciplinary schools, one of South Asia's largest reference and digital libraries and other facilities for its Bangalore campus. An additional Rs 100 crore will be raised for chair professorships. The IIHS is led by a group of eminent Indians who include Xerxes Desai, Jamshyd Godrej, Cyrus Guzder, Renana Jhabvala, Vijay Kelkar, Keshub Mahindra, Kishore Mariwala, Rahul Mehrotra, Bansi Mehta, Rakesh Mohan, Nandan Nilekani, Nasser Munjee, Deepak Parekh, Shirish Patel and Deepak Satwalekar.

The school of environment and sustainability will be part of the IIHS mother campus located on a 54-acre site in Kengeri. Work on planning the first phase of the 0.45 million sqft campus has started. It will be executed over the next five to seven years.