Mumbai:

Tasmac chairman and managing director Dr Giri Dua says the approval for Tasmac University came through a state government notification addressed to Tasmac and handed over to Dua immediately after his meeting with Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi last week.

Says Dua: "The setting up of Tasmac University is testimony to the unfailing and relentless efforts of the entire team at Tasmac in providing truly world-class higher education to students from across the country and South Asia. This is a new chapter in our lives as Tasmac accomplishes another distinguished milestone in its history.

"We have a reputation for successfully providing quality norms as prescribed and followed by University of Wales, UK, for its degree programmes and are confident that this appetite for quality will see us setting new benchmarks.

"Our international experience has kept us ahead of the times and we look forward to leveraging and consolidating a guiding role in the area of higher education in India, keeping in mind that the educational landscape of India is on the brink of a revolution under the World Trade Organization regime."

Dr P C Shejwalkar, the father of management education, has been nominated as the chancellor of the university and his detailed bio-data has been sent to the governor of Chhattisgarh, who is going to be the visitor of the university.

Says Shejwalkar: "I have known Tasmac since its inception and am extremely impressed by Tasmac''s growth over the last few years and am very happy and proud to be nominated as the chancellor of Tasmac University."

As an immediate move, Tasmac will set up its office in Raipur and plans to open its campus there as well in the future. In the meantime, students will have access to colleges and off-campus centres of Tasmac University that will be coming up shortly.

Tasmac, besides its Pune campus and the soon-to-be-launched campus in Bangalore, already has 25 study centres in India, one in Bangladesh, branch offices in Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad and with an extensive network of over 100 Tasmac information centres spread in 47 cities across India. This is in addition to the information centres in Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, making it the most extensive educational network in India.

Adds Tasmac joint managing director Sameer Dua: "All our offices and centres in India will be brought under Tasmac University. The first batch of students under the university will be enrolled with immediate effect from the July 2003 academic year onwards. The university will initially begin with the School of Business and Commerce, School of Computing and the School of Law.

"Since management is our core area of specialisation, we will begin with some niche specialisations under the School of Management and Commerce in supply chain management, sports management, investment management, financial engineering, engineering management, public relations management, advertising management. This is in addition to the more common specialisations in marketing management, human resource management, financial management, international business, information technology management and E-business management."