The donation is to fund establishment of its School of Environment and Sustainability.
In a joint letter, they said IIHS is at the convergence of “our interests in education, urbanisation and sustainability. We are excited about contributing to an institution which will help people engage with new challenges in an innovative and inter-disciplinary manner.”
On their part, the IIHS Board and its director, Aromar Revi, said Rohini and Nandan Nilekani’s support to the School of Environment and Sustainability is in the spirit that created some of India’s greatest universities almost a century ago.
The donation is considered a major step in a Rs 300-crore ($ 67-million) IIHS resource mobilisation campaign to fund five inter-disciplinary schools in its Bangalore campus. Once complete, this would be one of South Asia’s largest reference and digital libraries.
The institute intends to raise another Rs 100 crore ($ 22 million) for chair professorships. The IIHS is nurtured and led by a group of eminent Indians including Xerxes Desai, Jamshyd Godrej, Cyrus Guzder, Renana Jhabvala, Vijay Kelkar, Keshub Mahindra, Nandan Nilekani, Nasser Munjee, Deepak Parekh, Shirish Patel and Deepak Satwalekar.
IIHS will host multiple programmes of campus-based education and research, practical training for working professionals, distance and blended learning as well as advisory services.
