‘Preparing students for lifelong learning’

The National Rail and Transportation Institute (NRTI) became the Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya in 2022. Focussed on transport and logistics, it will complete three years as a central university in August. Manoj Choudhary, VC of Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya, talks to Sheena Sachdeva about industry partnerships, placements, new MTech courses, scholarships and more. Edited excerpts:

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Q. What was the vision behind the university?

A. The growth in the transportation and logistics sectors in the country required a coordinated and synergistic approach. Complementing the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (announced in 2021) and National Logistics Policy (announced in 2022), the parliament created Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya as a central university, through an Act in August 2022. The reason was to have a specialised university focusing on the entire transportation and logistics sector.

As we aspire to become a developed country by 2047, the transportation sector will play a significant role, including railways, roadways, aviation, ports and others. Further, logistics infrastructure and efficiency are extremely important. Such a critical national need demands a dedicated university to produce superior human resources for the sector. We are a specialised sector-specific university. We focus on the entire transportation sector, including railways, aviation, shipping, highways, inland waterways, gas pipeline, and the entire logistics sector.

Q. As a one-of-a-kind university, what is the key issue it is solving?

A. Gati Shakti National Master Plan was announced in October, 2021, to focus on technology enabled approach to project planning and monitoring for infrastructure projects and building synergies across various departments/ministries. Today, Indian Railways is the fourth-largest network in the world. We roughly carry around 700 crore passengers a year with roughly two crore passengers every day. We operate approximately 10,500 passenger trains and nearly 10,000 freight trains daily. We currently have 15,000 locomotives, 90,000 coaches, around 4 lakh wagons, roughly 1,40,000 km of track length to maintain and so forth. Therefore, Indian Railways is a big organisation that employs 12 lakh and requires technology-oriented people.