Hero Group’s varsity to open doors this July

BML Munjal University, a philanthropic initiative of the Hero Group, is set to admit its first batch of students in July this year.

The fully residential university, which has come up near Manesar, Haryana, will offer B. Tech, BBA, and MBA courses from this academic session.

On why the group ventured into higher education, Akshay Munjal, Executive Director, BML Educorp Services, says, “We felt the need for a high-quality university in the country. If you look at the top 100 rankings, rarely does an Indian university feature on the list. If we are not able to provide high-quality education, the demographic dividend will turn into a nightmare very soon.”

The university, spread across 5 lakh sq ft, has tied up with Imperial College London to mentor its school of management. The college will co-design the curriculum and content, facilitate student and faculty exchange, joint research programmes and establish digital learning platforms.

Apart from this, B. Tech students will have the opportunity to undertake a one-year M.Sc programme at the Imperial College Business School.

The university, named after Hero Group Co-founder and Chairman Brij Mohan Lall Munjal, is being developed in two phases. In the first phase, it will offer courses in engineering and management, while the second phase will see four additional schools — School of Liberal Arts, School of Art, Architecture and Design, School of Natural Sciences and School of Law. “Every year, we will keep adding new courses. In ten years, we hope to offer every major course except medicine,” Akshay said.

The college’s current capacity for academics is about 4,000 students and there are plans to add residential capacity every year.

On their student selection procedure, he said it will be based on rankings in centrally conducted entrance examinations such as the Joint Entrance Examination for engineering and the Common Admission Test and the Management Aptitude Test for management courses. “We want to use this only as eligibility criteria. After that, we will look at interviews, group discussions, essays. Initially, we will take 480 students — 360 in engineering and 120 in management (60 each for BBA and MBA). The capacity will be gradually expanded to 8,000 students,” Munjal said.

On the focus on research and innovation, Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman, Hero Corporate Services, said, “We are looking to encourage three kinds of research – practical applied research, academic papers, basic research. As far as research funding is concerned, some of it will be provided by us and some will come from industry and some will also be funded projects by Government agencies.”