Vedanta to cut land need for university

Ever since its conception in 2006, the Vedanta University Project, proposed at Puri by AAF, has been mired in controversy over the land large patch of land demanded by the promoters

In a significant development, Vedanta University Project has brought down its land requirement by more than half to enable the project, comprising centres of excellence in various academic streams, research institutions, hospital and a smart city, come to fruition.

"There is no need to go for further land acquisition. We can start the project with available 3,000 acres. About Rs 5,000 core will be invested in the project," said Bijaya Kumar Patnaik, president of the project. Patnaik, a former chief secretary of Odisha, has taken over this new assignment recently.

Ever since its conception in 2006, the Vedanta University Project, proposed at Puri by Anil Agarwal Foundation (AAF), has been mired in controversy over the land large patch of land demanded by the promoters.

AAF had initially applied to the state government for acquisition of 7184 acre land in Puri-Konark marine drive. The government later truncated its land size to 6138 acre.

The government had acquired 3495.21 acres of private land and made available another 509.27 acres from its own holdings for the project before stiff resistance by locals and legal hurdles put a break on the progress of the project.

In 2010, the High Court of Orissa had quashed all land acquisition procedures for the Vedanta University, terming the state government's notifications made to acquire and award the land in favour of AAF for the proposed varsity as 'illegal' and 'bad in the eye of law'. The land acquisition process was questioned by the state Lokpal, which had detected violation of the Land Acquisition Act, the Sri Jagannath Temple Act, 1954 and the Companies Act.

The Odisha government and Vedanta have challenged the High Court's verdict in the Supreme Court which, in 2011, ordered status quo on the acquired land.

Apart from faults in land acquisition process, several civil society and political organisations had questioned the amount of land required by the group for its proposed university.

In a bid to mitigate the public acrimony against the project, the newly appointed project chief said, AAF should first set up a hospital in the acquired land. The multi-speciality hospital would have 300 beds, he added.

Besides, the project would comprise of a smart city in line with the smart cities planned by the Central government, he opined. It may be noted, to facilitate the project, the Odisha government in 2009 had passed a Vedanta University Bill.