Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu will deliver the convocation address at the first convocation of the Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy (IIPE), scheduled to be held at VMRDA Children’s Arena on Friday (January 21), from 10.30 a.m.
Though the first convocation was supposed to held in December 2020 after the first batch had graduated, it was postponed due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We will now hold the convocation for the two batches together and 170 students will be given away their degrees,” IIPE director V.S.R.K. Prasad said.
IIPE was set up in 2016 as part of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act – 2014, and it has been accorded the status of Institute of National Importance by the Union Government, and is on par with other such institutes such as IITs and IIAMs.
The institute is promoted by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and co-promoted by oil majors such as HPCL, ONGC, GAIL, OIL and IOCL. It is currently operating from the premises leased out by Andhra University in its Engineering College and is mentored by IIT- Kharagpur.
According to Prof. Prasad, ₹200 crore was given by the co-promoters as endowment funds and the Ministry has matched it with another ₹200 crore. The total sanction is ₹1,050 crore, with ₹650 crore as Capex fund and out of which ₹150 crore has already been released, Dr. Prasad informed.
Land issue resolved
Speaking on the land issue, the director said that the State Government had sanctioned around 212 acres in 2016, but due to some issues with farmers and locals, the entire land was yet to come under its control.
“Very recently, with the intervention of the State government, District Collector and local officials and BJP MP G.V.L. Narasimha Rao, we were able to bring 168 acres under our control and the remaining will be sorted out shortly. We will take up the construction soon,” said Dr. Prasad.
He informedreporters that the boundary wallwould be built by APIIC, and the campus construction is being taken care of by the CPWD.The campus is designed by renowned architect Hafeez Contractor, he said.
President of Board of Governors, IIPE, Prof. P.K. Banik, said that 30,000 sq ft of space has been taken from AU to start the research work and 15scholars have already enrolled for Ph. D programmes. We will be starting our PG programme shortly, he said.
On placements, Dr. Prasad said that placement for the first batch was not as desired as it was hampered by the pandemic, but in the second batch48 students had got placed and in the present batch,around 50 have already been selected. We expect 100% placements in this year, he said, adding that placementsare mostly being done by players from the core sector or IT companies that are related to the core sector.
