Amravati in Andhra Pradesh will soon have the largest and most beautiful campus of SRM University. This is the first private university of the state post bifurcation and will start its academic session from this month with around 300 engineering students.

Inaugurated by N Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of the state, and M Venkaiah Naidu, the former union information and broadcasting minister, the university plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore in the coming five years, enrolling around 10,000 students.

“I am sure within a span of few years, SRM University would be a top-ranked world class university, with multi-stream research in the fields of engineering, management, liberal arts and humanities, law, medicine and health sciences to make Amravati recognised by foreign countries as the best educational hub of the globe,” said Naidu, during inauguration ceremony.

The university has taken various steps to bring excellence. It has forged ties with various top international universities like MIT, UC Berkeley College of Engineering, US and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, for design and development of their curriculum. It has also partnered with UC Berkley College of Engineering, California, to enable bi-directional information exchange in the areas of engineering education.

“SRM is embracing a contemporary method of learning for the digital world, not seen before in India. We will emphasise on application-oriented learning via projects and lab courses rather than monologues that are the typical feature of our classrooms,” said P Sathyanarayanan, president of the university, Amravati.

The university will hire over 90 per cent of the faculty having international academic exposure and all faculty members having PhDs from foreign universities, IITs or IISc. They have already appointed 30 faculty members from across the world in different disciplines.

The university will have exchange programme for students as well faculty members. Around 20 undergraduate students will be given an opportunity to go to UC Berkeley for a semester to study engineering. Similarly faculty members will also travel at Berkeley to imbibe ideas. “We aim to bring a confluence of international ideas, technological innovation and social impact, providing an ecosystem of meaningful creation originating at Amaravati and impacting the entire state, nation and the world,” said Sandip Tiwari, vice-chancellor of the university.

SRM is trying hard to attract meritorious students. It will give 50 per cent tuition waiver to those who got an aggregate of 90 per cent and above in PCM subjects in CBSE or an aggregate of 95 per cent and above in PCM subjects in any state board. The top 25 admitted students, who meet this criterion, would be given 100 per cent tuition and hostel fee waiver. Programmes like BTech in CSE, ECE, EEE and mechanical engineering will be offered.

The university will also establish centres of excellence in renewable energy, satellite technology, Internet of things, blue economy, artificial intelligence and machine learning for pushing the frontiers of modern technology.