At the Q1 NIIT Investors/Analysts Conference Call on June 29, 2006, Vijay Thadani, CEO of NIIT, revealed more details about their plans for NIIT university. It will be located at Neemrana in Rajasthan, about 100 km south west of Delhi. In addition to funds from NIIT, they expect the NIIT University to raise funds independently from other sources over time.
Here's the relevant extract from the transcript of that conference call, of what Thadani said.
In terms of some of the projects that we talked about in the past, I thought I will give you an update. There is the university project on which many of you have asked us in the past about its progress, so I am pleased to report our progress on the university project as follows: We have received an letter of intent from Rajasthan government to set up a university in the state of Rajasthan. We have also acquired land of 100 acres in Neemrana which is about 100 kilometers away from Delhi on the Delhi-Jaipur highway, on the other side of the road of the famous Neemrana Fort. We have already appointed a master planner, which is a British firm, as well as an Indian architect firm who are at this point of time planning out the campus. While this has happened we commenced activities of the transit campus which we set up in New Delhi city, and in that we have already commenced some post graduate programs, diploma programs in education technology and bioinformatics on one side, as well as some research programs in education technology. The transit campus and the university project already has a contingent of 27 people, most of them are senior professors who are taking positions such as the project director, the deans, and some important research and professorial staff.As we speak to you we are in the process of going through the process of central government permission and we believe that that process would also happen in due course of time. We will be in a position to start our under graduate programs campus, start with the transit and later on the campus obviously subject to government clearances by 2007.
Of the phase one funding of 60 crores that we had talked to you about, we have so far spent about 7.3 crores. We are in the process of raising funds for the universities since that is an arms length relationship and an independent society at this point of time getting the support of NIIT system but it would be raising its own funds in due course of time.
In the Q&A session, one of the analysts, Pawan Suchdeva of Principal Mutual Fund, specifically asked about the ownership structure and the revenue model for NIIT (the company) from its investment in NIIT University.
Pawan Suchdeva: And lastly sir what will be the ownership structure of the university?
Vijay Thadani: The university is owned and managed by an independent society, which is not for profit society.
Pawan Suchdeva: Okay.
Vijay Thadani: And it has an arms length relationship with NIIT Limited as a corporate.
Pawan Suchdeva: Okay. So the revenue model for NIIT will be what?
Vijay Thadani: Out of the university?
Pawan Suchdeva: Yes.
Vijay Thadani: It will be to start with very indirect. It will be the benefit of the brand of the university, benefit of being able to get its very trained faculty from university, benefit of advanced research which the university is doing in education technology, benefit of some curriculum development, and benefit of getting university the access to the market place with NIIT. Of the half a million odd students which come to NIIT many of them want to join the university, NIIT could be helpful to the university in doing that. So to start will it will be indirect. We believe that over a period of time NIIT could become very important channel to get university the right set of students and university can become a very important platform on which NIIT can build relationships. So NIIT already has relationships with universities across the world, nearly 50 plus universities across the world. So this will become one more relationship and that will have its own benefit.
