In an exclusive chat with BusinessLine on Campus in Manipal on Wednesday, H Vinod Bhat, vice-chancellor of MAHE, said that the institution is now looking at starting new campuses in Jamshedpur and Bengaluru, and Sri Lanka.
Expansion plans
The Jamshedpur campus will be set up in collaboration with TATA. MAHE also wants to set up a medical school, nursing and allied health institutes in the first phase in the city, Bhat added.
Though MAHE already has a campus in Bengaluru, plans are afoot to set up a larger one in the metro. “We want to bring more programmes, such as design, architecture, economics, liberal arts and humanities, to Bengaluru,” he said.
On the plans of setting up a campus in Sri Lanka, Bhat said it would be located at Kalutara, around 40 kilometres from Colombo. MAHE plans on offering engineering, management, pharmacy, hospitality and humanities courses there.
Asked when these campuses are likely to be functional, Bhat said they are waiting for the notification on autonomy from the Government. “The minute the notification is announced, we will apply, and if the Government approves it quickly, we will begin work on the campuses. At the very least, I think the new campuses in India should be ready in the next 12 months,” he said.
Recognition
Stating that silver jubilee year is a special one for the institute, Bhat said it has received a lot of international recognition this year.
“We are the highest ranked private university in India, according to the QS World ranking and are number 11 in the NIRF university rankings, in the country,” he said, adding that four of the five colleges of the university that had entered the rankings were in the top 10.
Recently, MAHE was among the 60 higher educational institutions that were granted the graded autonomy by University Grants Commission (UGC). Though these universities remain within the ambit of UGC, they will have the freedom to start new courses, off-campus centres, skill development courses, research parks and other new academic programmes.