Centre has approved to set up IIT near Vadodara: Anandiben Patel

VADODARA: Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel today said that the Centre has approved its proposal for setting up an IIT near here.

Patel inaugurated the L&T Institute of Project Management (IPM) and L&T Power Training Institute (PTI) at the campus of Larsen & Toubro knowledge city here.

The Chief Minister said the Union government has decided to establish the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIT) on 20 hectares of land near Vadodara after it experienced difficulties in acquiring large swathes of land for establishing the Central university here.

An IIT will be established on a public-private partnership (PPP) model where Gujarat government, the Centre and an industry partner will be the stakeholders.

Meanwhile, Patel also announced to establish sports and children university near here saying Vadodara is emerging as educational hub in the country.

"Gujarat government will provide all help for setting up of IIT, sports and children university here," she added.

The Chief Minister requested Anil M Naik, chairman of Larsen &Toubro Group of Companies to help the state government in developing Vadodara city as educational hub where 135-year-old Maharaja Sayajirao university is located.

Anil Naik said, "The purpose behind establishing of IPM and PTI is to meet requirements of infrastructure development projects and their speedy and time bound implementations in the country".

He claimed,"L&T is first private sector company in India which contributed a total amount of Rs 75 crore to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat, Swasth Bharat (Clean India, healthy India) campaign".

He further said this figure does not include contributions made by the trusts promoted by him in his personal capacity.

Naik said at present nearly 20,000 employees are working with L & T Group of Companies and 2,000 more workforce will be added.

Gujarat Finance Minister Saurabh Patel requested Naik to provide more jobs to youths from Vadodara region.