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Maha working with 5 more foreign universities to set up campuses in MMR: CM

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday said that the state government is working with five more foreign universities to set up their campuses in the Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR), after it granted letters of intent (LoI) to five foreign varsities to set up campuses in Navi Mumbai, a part of MMR. 'We are working with them. But we cannot disclose their names,' Fadnavis said on Saturday after the government granted LOIs to Aberdeen University, the University of York, the University of Western Australia, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and Istituto Europeo di Design (IED), aiming to create an international education city at Navi Mumbai. He said EduCity is being developed by the City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) of Maharashtra, and the campuses are planned within a 5-kilometre radius of the Navi Mumbai International Airport. Fadnavis clarified that the government will only facilitate the universities' plans to set up campuses in MMR and that the state will not bear any financial responsibility. Professor Guy Littlefair, deputy vice-chancellor (education and student experience), University of Western Australia, said, 'We've worked with the University Grants Commission, and we've looked at the expertise we have at our university, and we've looked at the demand locally here within the region. And we have decided to progress in the first instance with business courses and also STEM courses, in particular computer science.' Littlefair confirmed that the UGC has given universities an 18-month window to start their operations after receiving the LoIs. Speaking about the student enrollment plans, Littlefair said, 'We're going to start off in the hundreds and head towards the thousands in the next five to ten years.' Besides, Fadnavis stated that, apart from an educity, the government is also creating a medicity, a sports city and an innovation city. 'This innovation city will be one of its kind, will host all the innovation ecosystems in the arena, and it will be such an ecosystem that will foster all the next-generation technologies and innovations.'