Mumbai To Come Up With Vertical University Campuses; First Of Its Kind

Mumbai: The state of Maharashtra will decide to approve setting up Vertical University Campus (VUC) in Mumbai and Thane due to less space available in the city thus becoming the first state in the country to approve such campuses. This concept is adopted by the United States (US) and other Western countries as of now. The decision was taken in the state cabinet meeting on July 19.

In the previous policy, a private university can be established on a minimum land of 25-acre in rural areas, 15-acre in district headquarters and 10-acre in regional headquarters, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Pune Metropolitan Region (PMR).

As Ht quotes, “The state cabinet has cleared establishing Vertical University Campus in Mumbai city, Mumbai suburbs and Thane as self-financed universities. They require a minimum 15,000 built-up area,” said Vikas Rastogi, principal secretary, Higher and technical education department.

The principal secretary of Maharashtra said, “In a city like Mumbai, it is hard to get 10-acre of land and there were demands from many colleges to come up with an alternative considering which the state government has cleared a new policy for vertical university campus."

"We are not insisting on the size of the plot for a vertical university campus. They need to have a construction of at least 15,000 square meters by using their own and additional floor space index (FSI) and will have to follow UDCPR and DCPR regulations", he added.

Former AICTE chairman S S Mantha said, "In the US, there are vertical universities in space starved cities. In India too, they can be started for certain disciplines that do not require large infrastructural requirements and machinery. Most important, there must be quality assurance and not just accreditation, that must be given, the trust must own the facility so that student interest is protected."