The Hindu Business Line : RIL offers expertise, faculty to Gujarat’s petroleum varsity

Snapshot
The university will help India emerge as a global hub for top-class human resources in the sector.
India will need 75,000 petroleum engineers in the next five years.

Our Bureau

Gandhinagar, Oct. 11

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) will offer expertise and visiting faculty to the newly-created Petroleum University, its Founder-President and RIL Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Mr Mukesh Ambani, has said, amid some of the big-wigs of hydrocarbon sector who maintained that the institution could emerge among the top 10 hydrocarbon management institutes in the world by 2017.

Among the Board of Governors of the Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU) are former ONGC Chairman Mr Subir Raha, who is now President of All-India Management Association, and the Shell Group Chairman, Mr Vikram Mehta. The University has been promoted by state-owned Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Ltd (GSPC).

Formally inaugurating the university, the Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, urged the Centre to promote teaching and research on nuclear and solar energy, and nano-technology at the University and to come out with a new, comprehensive energy policy.

Noting that both RIL and GSPC have tasted “great success” in the recent past in oil and gas exploration in deep waters off the India coast, Mr Ambani said Reliance would strive to make the University a world-class institution to provide human resources to the hydrocarbon sector.

Gujarat has seen 13 successful oil and gas discoveries so far and the country’s 50 per cent production comes from this State.

Mr Ambani expressed hope that the State would emerge not only with physical assets but also as one with intellectual assets. This would establish Gujarat as the “petroleum capital of India”.

Applauding the first “sector-specific University” in India, he complimented the State Government for its speedy decision-making process which, he added, was “better than even in the private sector”.

Mr Raha noted that independent India’s first major oil discovery as well as sinking of the country’s first offshore oil well were both in Gujarat.

Mr Mehra said India would need 75,000 petroleum engineers in the next five years and PDPU could go a long way in filling this gap between demand and supply.

More Stories on : Education | Petroleum | Reliance Industries Ltd

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page