Decision on knowledge park at Hyderabad university next week

A decision on the proposed Knowledge and Innovation Park on the University of Hyderabad campus would be taken next week, said its vice-chancellor Syede E Hasnain.

The park, proposed on 200 acres, is facing stiff resistance from employees and faculty, who allege that the university was doling out land in favour of various companies and that such activities would reduce the land for its future expansion.

“The university in 1975 was allotted 2,324 acre of which 680 acre was alienated till 2004 and 621 acre in the last five years. A large chunk of the remaining land consists lakes and undulated areas, which are not useful for expansion,” they said.

 

If the project is shelved, the central university stands to lose about Rs 100 crore that was to come from various companies that had planned to set up their research and development units.

But, the members are of the view that the returns from the park, like corpus fund and others, are not significant in the long run. “The objective of a public university is not to promote private profit making or to act as a real estate company.”

Speaking to Business Standard, Hasnain said the idea was to initially develop the park on 50 acres and then expand it to 200 acres with an incremental increase in the lease values. The rents would be revised every five years. The park would be an all government company and the land would belong to the university, he clarified.

“The tenants will create the required pay-and-use facilities for conducting research and development activities in their respective fields. Each tenant will be given 1-4 acre space for creating its facility,” Hasnain said.

So far, eight companies, including seven biotech and one IT, have expressed interest to set up their research centres at the park, which is a joint venture between UoH and the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation with the former holding 89 per cent equity and the latter the remaining 11 per cent. Alexandria Real Estates, provider of lab space, had also proposed to create its plug-and-play facility.

Hasnain said the university would get a corpus of about Rs 100 by March 31 this year if the park was initiated. The interest accrued on it could be used to increase fellowships, fund study tours and take up other activities, he said.

“The revenues earned from the park will also be shared in the same ratio - 89 per cent for the university and 11 per cent for the APIIC. The spin-offs and intellectual property coming from it will belong to UoH and APIIC,” he said.