Almost a year after it faced a heart-breaking bifurcation - with Telangana carved out of it - Andhra Pradesh will soon have a new Petroleum University, only a fourth one to come up in the country specifically dedicated to studies related to the petroleum sector.
Seen as a move by the Centre to soothe the partition wound inflicted on the state where the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is also a key ally of the NDA Government, the proposed petroleum university is most likely to come in Vakalapudi, situated in East Godavari district of the state.
According to information available with The Pioneer, the Andhra Pradesh Government has written to the Petroleum Ministry on holding a joint inspection of the proposed site at Vakalapudi, where a huge tract of land is available.
Though quite a few sites have been jointly inspected in various districts of the state in the past few months by the Union Petroleum Ministry as well as State Government officials, the one in Vakalapudi has been strongly recommended by the district as well as the state administration, as most suitable for setting up the project.
After Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated and Telangana came into existence on June 2, 2014, according to the provisions of the then newly passed Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014, a series of premier institutions were announced to be set up there.
The proposed petroleum university is one of the many such institutions, which are to come up in Andhra Pradesh in the near future, sources said.
Once it comes up, the petroleum university will only be the fourth such institution to be solely dedicated to petroleum studies. Currently there are three petroleum universities across the country - the University of Petroleum & Energy Studies (UPES) in Dehradun (Uttarakhand), Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU) located in Gandhinagar (Gujarat), and Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology (RGIPT) in Uttar Pradesh.
Apart from the petroleum university, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has also been aggressively lobbying for a lNG terminal in Gangavaram (near Visakhapatnam). Though already a lNG terminal is coming up in the state at Kakinada, the State Government's contention is that after the bifurcation, its gas requirement has gone up and therefore two such terminals can easily co-exist there.
Naidu in fact has made several trips to New Delhi in the past one year, seeking greater sops for the bifurcated Andhra Pradesh.
Coming back to the petroleum university, the Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani had informed the Parliament in July last year that high profile institutions like an IIT, an IIM, a NIT, a central university and a petroleum university would be set up in Andhra Pradesh as envisaged in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014.
She had also informed at that time, that steps would also be taken to set up an Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), a tribal university, an Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), an agriculture university, a National Institute of Disaster Management, an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and the type of institutes in the state.