Telecom czar and Chairman of India's largest mobile company Airtel, Sunil Mittal, today said the Bharti family has pledged about Rs 7,000 crore to philanthropy and will open a new university to offer free education to meritorious but underprivileged students.
The Bharti family's commitment to give away 10 per cent of their personal wealth, also includes three per cent of their stake in telecom firm Bharti Airtel.
The pledged amount, totalling Rs 7,000 crore would mostly go into setting up of a new technology-oriented university in North India, while some part of it would also be used for expanding the existing Satya Bharti School Programme - Bharti Foundation's flagship initiative.
"We are not in this for business," said Sunil Mittal,who was flanked by his brothers Rakesh and Rajan at a conference to announce the family's philanthropic plans.
The proposed university will come up on a 100-acre land and "active discussions" are on with various States including Punjab and Haryana to finalise the location.
Mittal said he expected the ground breaking ceremony to take place by early next year and the first academic session would commence by 2021.
The proposed Satya Bharti University for Science and Technology would focus on advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality and Internet of Things in addition to offering degrees in electrical and electronics engineering and management.
"Given our attachment to technology we would like it to be very significantly focussed on technology on the lines of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Stanford, Berkeley..," said Sunil Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Enterprises and Bharti Foundation.
Mittal's philanthropic move comes just days after Infosysco-founder and tech titan Nandan Nilekani and his wife RohiniNilekani committed half of their wealth to philanthropy by joining the 'The Giving Pledge', a movement spearheaded by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
The new university will seek partnerships and industry linkages with tech giants like Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Apple, among others.
Over a period of time the fully-residential university will have 10,000 students, Mittal said.
"About 10 per cent of our family wealth is being earmarked and pledged to Bharti Foundation, the Group's philanthropic arm. There are certain structuring and restructuring that are right now being undertaken by lawyers and accountants (in this regard)," Mittal said.
The setting up of the university will require Rs 1,000 crore initially and a "large amount" will be needed to run it thereafter, he noted.
"In Satya Bharti School programme there is zero fee, we do not charge anything, and even here, the idea is to bring meritorious underprivileged students to give them education... it will require a lot of money," Mittal said.
While courses will be free for meritorious students who belong toeconomically weaker sections of the society - that being the prime focus of the institution - in case of any unfilled vacancies, only nominal amount will be charged in line with the Government fee.
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