BHUBANESWAR: Manojranjan Nayak, the founder of the SUM Hospital on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, is a bit like the hospital itself: low-profile, if swank inside.
After the killer blaze that claimed 21 lives Monday evening, there is intense speculation about what now lies in store for Manojranjan Nayak as the head of SOA University, the parent body of the private medical college and hospital. Television channels have been calling for his arrest, protestors are turning up in front of the hospital demanding its shutdown, and the the Odisha government of Naveen Patnaik has put out a lookout notice against him and his wife.
Suave and soft-spoken, Manojranjan Nayak liked to fancied himself as an 'edupreneur' rather than an entrepreneur. An alumnus of NIT Rourkela, he started off as a computer science teacher at the College of Engineering and Technology affiliated to the Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT), where he later picked up a PhD degree after an M Tech from IIT Kharagpur.
It was during his stint as a teacher that Manojranjan Nayak came up with the idea of setting up an engineering college which eventually saw light of day in 1996 as the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER). He has not looked back ever since.
From teaching 118 students at ITER, his 'edupreneurship' saw the institute grow into a group of institutions that 20 years later boasts of nine constituent colleges, eight research centres where 16 undergraduate and 20 post-graduate programmes are offered to students.
From engineering to medical, from hospitality to nano-science, there is not anything important that Manojranjan Nayak's institutions do not offer.
With Manojranjan Nayak's influence growing in political circles, Siksha O Anusandhan Charitable Trust, which runs the entire gamut of his institutions, ventured into the media with a newspaper and a TV channel that have grabbed space in the mainstream media sphere of Odisha.
Nayak has had his trysts with controversy in the past. His university was in a spot after health minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak’s wife was found to be working as a zoology lecturer at ITER.
From a shindig over seat blocking in his engineering college to squabbles with the University Grants Commission (UHC) over deemed university status, Manojranjan Nayak managed to wriggle out of of each tight spot without much trouble. Till October 17.
Since that harrowing day, SUM Hospital, with a prestigious National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) certification, appears to have taken him down.