Amity plans first campus in Gujarat

Ahmedabad's reputation of housing quality educational institutes is set to get an impetus. Amity University is scouting for land in Ahmedabad to set up its first campus in Gujarat.

To start with, the university will establish its Amity Business School residential campus with an investment of Rs 50-100 crore by June 2008 and plans to set up a full-fledged university campus in the city in the next two years.

The funding will be made through its internal accruals and borrowing from banks. The business school will initially offer a BBA and an MBA programme with different specialisations.

The student intake for the programmes would be 60 each for the first batch, which would be further ramped up to 200 in the next two years.

The fee for the MBA programme is likely to be between Rs 80,000 to Rs 1,20,000 per semester while that of the BBA programme would be around Rs 80,000 per semester.

Having received a government university status as per University Grants Commission (UGC) norms, the university will not require the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approval to start or conduct technical programmes.

"Ahmedabad is a big centre for education. Having established our first campus here with two programmes, we will be looking to establish a full-fledged campus offering engineering, biotechnology, communication and other courses here," said Atul Chauhan, president of the Amity Foundation. Over 50 faculty members are expected to be recruited in the coming months.

The university has 22 campuses in the country where 50,000 students have enrolled for its programmes.

Besides Ahmedabad, Amity business school campuses are in the process of coming up in Bangalore, Chennai, Indore, Mumbai, Chandigarh and Kolkata by the end of 2008.

The university offers full-time and distance learning programmes in management, IT, engineering, finance, banking, biotechnology, energy and environment, arts, fashion technology, travel and tourism, mass communication and journalism, vocational courses, nursing and forensic studies, among others.