India's greatest natural resource

After Reliance's discovery in the KG basin back in 2002 and Cairn's discovery onshore in Rajasthan, two discoveries that have changed the shape of the upstream oil and gas industry in India, it might be tempting to believe that India could yet become one of the world's most important oil and gas investment destinations. However, there is one aspect in which India is already a world leader, and this is in the impressive human resource base on which the country is capitalizing. There are very few countries in the world where it would have been easy for Fernas to build a workforce of 1600 employees from scratch in two years; it now has plans to grow to a 5000-strong company by the end of 2011. The human resources are readily available in a country with a population of 1.2 billion; the biggest challenge is to make sure this rapid growth is completed sustainably.

Sminu Jindal, managing director, Jindal Saw

Despite the successes of Indian education institutions in creating generations of engineers and scientists, there were some in the industry who believed that a dedicated institution for oil and gas-based studies was needed in India. Sanjay Kaul, the founder and president of the University of Petroleum & Energy Studies (UPES) explains his desire to found such an institution: "when I was in the oil and gas industry working for an oil company, I could walk into any hotel on any highway and find a hotel management graduate, whereas an industry that contributed almost 16-17% of India's GDP did not even have a university." He goes on to explain the short-term insights that contributed to his vision for an institution like UPES: "IT just boomed, and suddenly there were no software engineers, there were no hardware engineers. Innovation could only come from overseas. I thought to myself that if the same reforms come to the power sector and oil and gas sector, would this also happen? That you have got the reforms done, investment is pouring in, you have got a multiplier effect fuelled by the 9-10% growth rate, but no talent to fuel it."

Sanjay Kaul, president and founder, UPES

Having had the initial idea for UPES in 1995, it was only in 2001 that Kaul felt the time was right to put his ideas into action. He believed that the only hurdle in the way of sectoral education was that there was no precedent. After successfully generating interest for the idea in the industry through round table events and forums, Kaul's dream became a reality, and the university became the first public private partnership (PPP) to be recognized by the University Grants Commission, an Indian statutory and regulatory body governing university education in the country.

SJ Chopra, the chancellor of UPES, explains his perception of the mission of the university today. "Our aim with UPES was to address the knowledge and skill gaps covering the entire gamut of the oil and gas industry: upstream, downstream and midstream components. Further, also for the management programs, our emphasis has been very specific to domains. This thinking is reflected in all our academic programs. Over the years we have made efforts to remain true to our stated vision of providing quality education and also engage effectively in training, research and consultancy in the core areas of energy, power and infrastructure. Our aim is to now address the growing needs of the entire spectrum of the energy sector with the idea of developing human talent that is tailor-made for the oil and gas industry."

Дата добавления: 2015-10-23