JOIN USRailways is speedily working on setting up the first Railway university of the country. The university will come up at Vadodara in Gujarat. The Educational Consultants India Limited (EdCIL), a public sector unit of the Human Resource Development ministry is finalising the project.
The proposed university will have its main campus at the National Academy of Indian Railways at Vadodara.
The academy is considered as the alma mater for the officers of the Railways. It is situated in a sprawling campus of 55 acres of the Pratap Vilas Palace at Lalbaug in Vadodara. It provides training to all levels of Indian Railway officers, from probationers to general managers.
The academy was founded in 1930 at Dehradun and then shifted to its present regal sylvan surroundings at Vadodara, in 1952.
“We will have satellite centres of the proposed university at Secunderabad (Telangana), Jamalpur (Bihar) and Pune (Maharashtra),” said a high official of Ministry of Railway.
“The idea is to promote study and research related to railways. We will be collaborating with Indian as well as foreign universities. We are in touch with a Chinese university situated in Beijing,” said the official.
“The Chinese university has specialisation in railway research. We are also in the process of collaborating with the Urbana University in USA. The university is pioneer in railway related research,” he added. The project for establishing centres for railway research is also in its advanced stage.