Hero Group rides into new territory, forays into education

Announces the opening of BML Munjal University in Haryana

The Hero Group, the country’s largest motorcycle maker, on Wednesday announced the opening of BML Munjal University in Haryana. The institution, named after group patriarch Brij Mohan Lall Munjal, will launch operations from the next academic year and offer courses in engineering, management and liberal arts.

The university will be run by the Munjal family, through a foundation. The Hero Group said students would be selected on the basis of any examination approved by the government, including Common Admission Test, Management Aptitude Test and the Joint Entrance Examination. The institute will charge annual fees of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh for bachelor’s in business administration, engineering and master’s in business administration programmes, respectively.

“There is a deficit of high quality education in India and a gap in the skills and training of students. We hope to bridge that gap,” said Pawan Munjal, managing director and chief executive of Hero MotoCorp.

The university is located close to Manesar, about 50 km from New Delhi. Spread across 50 acres, it will have a corpus to provide scholarships and centres of excellence in the campus. German engineering major, Siemens, is already developing such a centre. It will have 300 seats for B Tech courses in mechanical, civil, electrical & electronics, computer sciences and electronics & communications streams. The institute has also tied up with Imperial College, London, for structuring its courses, as well as to facilitate student and faculty exchange programmes for management courses.

“We are looking at adding schools of liberal arts, arts, law and architecture by 2015,” said Akshay Munjal, executive director, BML Munjal University. “We will try to be one of the leading universities in the next 10 years.”

The university marks the second investment by the Munjal family in the education sector in India. The family is the founder promoter of Indian School of Business, Mohali.

Currently, there is no Indian university among the top 200 universities in the world. The central government had asked the private sector to fund research programmes in India to boost the prospects of Indian universities.

The Munjal family’s foray into education is in line with the emerging trend of business houses showing interest in the education sector.