As founder director of India’s first training and certification institute for construction industry managers — the National Institute of Construction Management and Research (NICMAR, estb. 1994) — Prof. K.N. Vaid pioneered innovative study programmes to train students for employment in the booming construction, infrastructure and real estate industries. Now in a new avatar this well-respected academic, popularly referred to as the “father of construction management education in India”, is helping to promote a full-fledged private university dedicated to education and research in the disciplines of construction management, real estate and environment sciences. Promoted by the Akruti City Foundation (ACF, estb. 2006), the Akruti Citygold University, whose application for deemed university status is pending with the University Grants Commission, will be sited on a state-of-the-art 200 acre campus in Panvel, 22 km from Mumbai.
“The mandate of the Akruti City Foundation is to establish world-class universities for seamless cross-discipline education and research-based learning. Akruti Citygold Institute (ACI) which will be transformed into a university after its application for deemed university status is approved by UGC, is the first world class higher education institution to be established by the foundation. It has started operations in a well-equipped campus in Mumbai,” says Prof. K.N. Vaid, an alumnus of Delhi and Cornell univer-sities and director general of ACF.
According to Vaid, even as the ACI Panvel campus is under construction, it has begun conducting classes in a 30,000 sq. ft fully wired building in Mumbai offering internet connectivity, modern classrooms, seminar and workshop halls and faculty chambers. “Three of the five schools of the proposed university are already operational. They are the Akruti Centre of Real Estate Studies, School of Extension Education and Development, and School of Environment Sciences and Climatology,” says Vaid, who acquired 14 years teaching experience in the blue- chip Cornell and Michigan universities before returning to India in 1974. Back home, he accepted a job offer with CIDCO (City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd) and was designated chief executive of the Maharashtra government’s multi-billion dollar plan to develop north Bombay as New Bombay.
It was during his tenure as head of the New Bombay development project that Vaid became aware of the severe shortage of appropriately trained mana-gers in the infrastructure construction industry. “Although we have excellent engineering graduates, most of them lack management capability. This prompted me to persuade the Hindustan Construction Company to promote NICMAR in 1994. Starting from a parking lot in Tardeo, Mumbai, NICMAR pioneered India’s first postgraduate study programme in construction management. Since then the institute has steadily contributed thousands of trained professionals with project management and execution skills to the infrastructure construction industry,” says Vaid who has recorded his experiences in The NICMAR Story (2007).
Now in his new innings with the Akruti City Foundation, Vaid is determined to build a world-class university offering global standard study programmes to develop trained managers for the infrastructure construction and real estate industries. “These vital industries have been the blindspot of Indian higher education. The proposed Akruti Citygold University will rectify this unacceptable situation,” says Vaid.
Vidya Sundaresan (Mumbai)