"Centre of Excellence to come up at five engineering colleges"
"Innovative experiment to take place under PPP mode at engineering colleges of the state"
Gujarat Industries Department signed MOUs with Siemens Software Company and other well-known companies for setting up of five centre of excellence in Engineering College for engineering students of Gujarat today in the presence of Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The MOUs were signed during a seminar related to qualitative improvements in higher education at the Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar.
The Chief Minister appreciated this project of setting up of centre of excellence on public-private partnership at the cost of Rs. 500 crore. He said that in Gujarat as many as 13 centre of excellence in engineering colleges have been set up so far with the co-operation of private sector. Around 50,000 engineering students will be benefited with the five new centre of excellence.
The MOUs include (1) MOU between Petroleum University, Gandhinagar and Maruti Suzuki and Hero Moto-Corp, (2) MOU between L.D. Engineering College, Ahmedabad and Larsen & Toubro and Tata for the aero space and defense centre of excellence, (3) MOU between IIT Ram Maninagar and ITI Kubernagar and Siemens and L & T for the centre of excellence in industrial machinery, and (5) MOU between Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara and Siemens for industrial automation.
Giving details of the MOUs Industries Minister Saurabh Patel said the decision of Germany’s Siemens company about setting up of centre of excellence of such a high skill as a part of it’s corporate-social responsibility will be useful in catering to the demand of skilled-man force in rapidly growing industries sector in Gujarat.
He said that an investment of Rs. 489 crore has been made for setting up of these five centre of excellence, in which the state government will provide Rs. 85 crore. Siemens will manage the centre of excellence for two years and then will entrust it to the state government.
Industries Minister expressed faith that the centre of excellence will be instrumental in providing skilled man-power to the industries and employment opportunities to the youths. The engineering students will be provided software training and will be trained for using latest equipments. The concerned industries partners and Siemens will give certificate after completion of the training, which will increase the employment opportunities even outside of Gujarat for engineering students.
