JHARSUGUDA: Chairman of Vedanta Limited Anil Agrawal, though sounds skeptical, is confident that the Vedanta University in Puri would materialise some day.
‘Man Proposes, God Disposes’ was how he responded to a query on the fate of the proposed university. It was Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s idea and he had decided on Puri, he said. Agrawal was thrilled to latch on to the idea because of Lord Jagannath and the sea that attracted him.
“I wanted to develop a university in the lines of Harvard which would attract research scholars and students from all over the world,” he said. The idea was to develop it more as a research-oriented university with thrust on liberal arts and world-class facilities for sports. According to him, more than 5,000 faculties from the US had consented to join the proposed university and that he had even contacted NASA for collaboration in developing a nutrition supplement capsule to tackle malnutrition in the country.
He informed that intake of a capsule would have required only 20 per cent of food consumption which would have changed fate of Odisha. Besides, lakhs of children would have benefited in terms of education on the sidelines of the university along Puri-Konark Marine Drive.
He also recalled difficulties he faced to set up the alumina plant of Vedanta in Jharsuguda. A lot has changed since then in the area, Agrawal said. He promised to support a defecation free periphery around the Vedanta plant.