SRM University, Amaravati, which is set to commence classes from August with 300 engineering students, will be the first private university to come up in Amaravati post bifurcation.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu will inaugurate the university campus spread over 200 acres near Neerukonda of Mangalagiri mandal.
The university plans to invest ₹1,000 crore in the coming five years enrolling about 10,000 students and ₹3,000 crore in the next 10 to 15 years enrolling about 40, 000 students.
The SRM campus has been designed by the famous Perkins and Will architecture firm which designed MIT, Stanford and other top universities in the world. The campus, with six lakh sq.ft. of area, will have each half for academic needs and administration and accommodation needs, he said.
University president P. Sathyanarayanan told reporters that 70% of the first batch of engineering students is from Andhra Pradesh and the rest from other states and abroad.
“We have deliberatley enrolled a limited number of students for the first batch. All of them are highly meritorious students, including state and district toppers in various states. Also we have 30 faculty members, including foreign nationals,” he said.
“As part of collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S., the faculty from this university will be involved with MIT’s Office of Digital Learning and students will be given access to MOOCs and MITx courses, which means they will study MIT syllabus and interact with MIT professors online,” Mr. Satyanarayanan added.
“Also, as part of a programme with UC Berkley College of Engineering, California, U.S., 20 of our students will have the opportunity to study a semester at the university every year,” he said.
Sandeep Tiwari, former Dean at Cornell University, will be the Vice Chancellor and Gunasekharan will be Registrar in Amaravati.
University pro-vice chancellor Narayan Rao said that engineering courses in the CSE, ECE, EEE and Mechanical streams were offered at present.
In 2018, MTech and PhD courses will be started and later courses such as Journalism and Mass Communication will be introduced. Phase two will see the birth of a medical college.
Fee structure
The university charges ₹2.5 lakh per year for engineering courses, excluding ₹75,000 accommodation fee per year per candidate. Mr. Satyanarayanan said that about 150 students enrolled have been given scholarships and stipends based on merit.
