Although Indian industry is the prime user and beneficiary of the countrys education system, corporate captains and leaders tend to be divorced from education and institution development. An exception to this rule is the Delhi-based Jaypee Group of construction, power, hospitality and real estate companies (estimated annual revenue: Rs.5,500 crore) and its chairman Jaiprakash Gaur in particular. Under the aegis of its not-for-profit Jaiprakash Sewa Sansthan (estb. 1993), the Jaypee Group is providing K-Ph D education to more than 20,000 students through two trust-promoted universities: The Jaypee Institute of Information Technology University, Noida, and Jaypee Univer-sity of Information Technology, Waknaghat (Himachal Pradesh), two ITIs, a polytechnic, B-school, two degree colleges and 16 primary-secondary schools.No industrial group in India has promoted as wide a variety of education institutions with such commitment and speed. Our chairman is fully supportive of the trusts education initiatives and resources have never been a const-raint, says Yajalu Medury, who doubles as chief operating officer of the Jaypee Groups education initiatives and vice chancellor of the Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat. An alumnus of IIT- Kharagpur and University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA, Medury signed up with the Jaypee group in 2001 after serving with the Union HRD ministry- promoted Educational Consultants India Ltd. (Ed CIL) in various capacities and rising to the position of managing director in 2001.
However, by common consensus the commander-strategist of Jaypee Groups higher education ventures is Prof. J.P. Gupta, who joined in 1999 as founder director of the JIIT Noida campus and master-minded its growth into a highly reputed private technical university, of which he has been the first vice chancellor since 2005. My association with the Jaypee Groups education initiatives has been an exciting journey. We started JIIT, Noida in 2001 and have produced brilliant engineers from the very outset. In 2004 we were granted deemed university status and in 2005 we introduced our first B.Tech, postgrad and Ph D programmes. In 2007 we started our B-school within the campus. Today I can state with confidence that our infrastructure, facilities and faculty are comparable with the best in the world, says Gupta, an alumnus of the Benares Hindu University and Westminister University, UK who served as professor of electronics and communication at IIT-Roorke for 25 years before signing up with the Jaypee Group in 2001.
According to Gupta the defining characteristic of Jaypee institutions is their industry orientation and linkages. The in-house requirements of the Jaypee Group for highly skilled technocrats gives us a definite edge in conceptualising and shaping syllabuses and curriculums. Thats why our graduates are in great demand and the top IT companies recruit our students, adds Gupta.
From the current 20,000 students enroled in Jaypee Group institutions, the target is to reach 100,000 in the next two-three years, for which a 21-storey building is under construction on the JIIT, Noida campus. The way we are expanding and consolidating our B.Tech programmes backed by proactive R&D, its a realistic target, says Medury.
Right on!
Autar Nehru (Delhi)