RAJASTHAN-university bloom

In India’s Northern Desert, Universities Bloom

By Sruthi Gottipati

India Ink

New York Times

Courtesy of National Law University, JodhpurThe National Law University campus located on the Jodhpur Highway.

On a 25-kilometer (16-mile) stretch of highway cutting through rock, sand and stone outside the desert city of Jodhpur, several colleges are rising, transforming the arid landscape into an education powerhouse.
During a recent afternoon visit, workers were sculpting the campus of a National Institute of Fashion Technology, part of a prestigious string of sartorial schools, which features the N.I.F.T. acronym proudly carved on the peach stones of the compound wall. A stone’s throw away, the backbone of an Indian Institute of Technology, one of the elite M.I.T.’s of India, is being built on an 862-acre campus, which is scheduled to open next year. Further along the highway, the National Law University, Jodhpur and Dr. Sarvepali Radhakrishnan Rajasthan Ayurved University, Jodhpur, all sprouted in the last decade, stood burnished in the late afternoon sun
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Courtesy of the National Institute of Fashion Technology, JodhpurThe National Institute of Fashion Technology is one of the several reputed schools, building a campus in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.

“There is no doubt this is coming up as an education hub,” said Jabber Singh, director of N.I.F.T. Jodhpur, from the school’s makeshift accommodation in the city, where it’s been running two degree programs since 2010. It plans to offer seven to eight degrees at their new campus.
Jodhpur, the second-largest city in Rajasthan, is a natural choice for a new branch of the fashion institute, he said. It’s a city with a colorful handicraft tradition that fuels exports, inspiring architecture of palaces and forts, and a rich cultural legacy. Mr. Singh notes that his students and local artisans can swap notes; a three-day workshop on tie-and-dye and block printing was taught by craftsmen in April.
When the campus is built, most likely by 2014, it will house students and would draw upon its location in the hub to collaborate with other colleges, Mr. Singh said.
Rajasthan had 22 universities and university-level institutions as of September 2007, according to this government report released last year. That number has grown to 48 as of December 2011, according to another report culling information from the same source –– more than doubling in a four-year period. Only the states of Tamil Nadu (59) and Uttar Pradesh (58) have more institutes that award degrees in the country.
The Indian Institute of Technology and N.I.F.T. are highly competitive federally funded universities. Their respective boards decide where to place new branches of the university in the country. College officials say the allocation of land by the state and the accessibility of the location are a few of the factors that govern this decision.
Brij Kishore Sharma, the education minister of Rajasthan, said the government has worked hard to attract these top colleges by offering free land among other benefits. “It’s all because of government policy,” he said. “The government wants Rajasthan to become an education hub.”
Mr. Sharma said the government is also focused on making the state a medical hub. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the pre-eminent public hospital and top medical college, is also slated to start its new branch in Jodhpur this year.

Keith Bedford for The New York TimesA view of the city from Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, in this Oct. 24, 2009 file photo.

Education analysts also point out a politically shrewd reason that Jodhpur is becoming an education hub — it’s the constituency of the current chief minister of Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot. The state has some funds for such measures because education falls on the concurrent list, meaning that the state, in addition to the federal government, is responsible for it.
Residents of the city aren’t complaining.
The principal of Delhi Public School in Jodhpur, Bikram Singh Yadav, said the prestigious universities that have come to the city are bound to encourage local students to aspire to join their vaulted ranks.
But it works both ways. College officials say they are just as likely to benefit from the local residents.
The director of the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Prem Kalra, said that the ethos of Jodhpur, also known as Sun City, will shape the construction as well as the culture of the new institute. Mr. Kalra, whose college has been running in temporary quarters since 2010, said he plans to source technology from locals and invest heavily in solar energy on the new campus.

“Locals use very little water for cooking and washing clothes,” said Mr. Kalra, citing it as an example of local conservation. It’s a practice he said he plans to bring to his campus dormitories.