Raghuram Rajan, corp leaders team up for Rs 750-cr liberal arts varsity

The past governor of Reserve Bank Raghuram Rajan, captains of corporate India and some eminent academics have teamed up to transform the undergraduate education by announcing setting up of Krea University at Sri City in Andhra Pradesh. R Seshasayee, chairman of IndusInd Bank and the chairman of the supervisory board of the university said the proposed liberal arts university will attract an initial investment of Rs 750 crore in the first phase. "There is a clarity on 70-80 per cent of the Rs 750-crore investment needed. The corporates are doing it as part of their philanthropy activities," he said. The first batch will commence in July 2019, admissions for which will start this November. The fees will be Rs 7-8 lakh inclusive of hostel facilities.

The university will initially will run courses from the IFMR campus in Sri Coty, and eventually shift to its own 200-acre campus which will be ready by 2020. It will offer a four-year residential undergraduate programme in liberal arts and sciences leading to BA (Honors) and BSc (Honours) degrees, for which the permissions from UGC has been sought, according to Seshasayee. "The university will weave arts and sciences, creativity and action, eastern and western perspectives. We will create an endowment which will help poor students get admissions," he said.
"Admissions will be purely on merit and the score in plus-two will not be the only determinant for it," he added. Rajan, who is an advisor to the university's governing council said, "What we're trying to do is to create a new generation of thinking Indians who will contribute to the development of the globe."
"We intend to bring something to the table that simply doesn't exist in our country today, but is very much warranted for our future," he added.

Sajjan Jindal of the JSW Group, another governing council member expressed the hope that the university will bring great global and Indian minds together to create an institution of global prominence.
Anand Mahindra, another member of the governing council, said the fact that so many like-minded and eminent personalities have enthusiastically come together is ample proof of how much the new paradigm is the need of this day.
While former banker N Vaghul is the chairman of the governing council, noted academic Sunder Ramaswamy has been named the vice-chancellor.