Vedanta working on varsity project

Land acquisition case is still pending in Supreme Court

The Vedanta group seems to be reviving its controversial mega university project in Odisha as it has recently appointed retired chief secretary of the state Bijay Kumar Patnaik as president of the multi-crore project.
 

The former bureaucrat, considered to be close to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, has already taken up his new job. 

Vedanta had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Odisha government in 2006 to set up a world-class university near the temple town of Puri. 

The Patnaik administration had already acquired about 3,000 of the 6,000 acres of land required for the university besides passing a bill in the state Assembly exclusively for the project when some individuals and associations in Puri moved the Orissa High Court against the project.  The High Court in 2010 quashed the land acquisition process declaring it as illegal. The Vedanta group and the state government moved the Supreme Court challenging the verdict. The apex court in 2012 ordered maintenance of status quo on the acquired land. The case is still pending in the Supreme Court. The project had remained in cold storage since then. 

After taking over his new assignment, Bijay Patnaik, who was the principal secretary to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik when Vedanta signed the MoU for the project, has indicated that he would be expediting works for the stalled project. In a recent interview, he had said that he would try to keep the project within the 3,000 acres already acquired and additional 3,000 acres may not required. 

In addition to the university, he has also spelled out the plan for a smart city on the lines of the smart city project announced by the Narendra Modi government within the already acquired 3,000 acres. 

However, the project may face fresh hurdles as several organisations in Puri have reportedly begun preparations to resist any attempt to revive the stalled university project.