Great Lakes inaugurates its new Green campus on outskirts of Chennai

Mr. Adi Godrej, CMD, Godrej Consumer Products remotely inaugurated the new campus, in the presence of Chief Guest, Thiru. K.S. Sripathy, IAS, Chief Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu.
Some of the other guests who attended the ceremony were Jamshyd Godrej, CMD, Godrej & Boyce Mfg.Co.Ltd.; Madhur Bajaj, Vice Chairman, Bajaj Auto Ltd.; M.S. Sundara Rajan, CMD, Indian Bank; Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Former Under Secretary General, UN; and G.R.K. Reddy, CMD, Marg Ltd.

Great Lakes Institute of Managements new green campus is situated very close to the famous shore temple of Mamallapuram, 50km from the city of Chennai. The sprawling new campus is erected on 18 acres of land, the first phase that has been completed has a built-up area of 1,65,000 sq ft. There are different blocks dedicated to research, faculty offices and housing, administrative, student residences, recreation centers.
Inaugurating the green campus, Mr. Adi Godrej said lot of people in the country feel it is the infrastructure bottleneck that stood in the way of India becoming a strong nation in the world. While this should be overcome, he is of the firm view the biggest hurdle to be overcome is in the field of education. India is required to focus more on primary, secondary and tertiary education. Even before the slow down, India had seen shortage of talent. This called for more establishing premier B schools to offer education oriented programmes. Mr Godrej asked the management students not to be concerned about the slow down and job opportunities. Very soon, slow down will come to an end. When Indias growth again picks up, sky will be the limit he told them.

Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary, K S Sripathy said it remains a leading state for investment by the MNCs in the manufacturing and services sector. It has become a hub for sectors like automobile, textiles and IT.
Speaking on the occasion, a delighted Prof. Bala V Balachandran said, We at Great Lakes believe that true knowledge will help a student stand a chance to win in the competitive environment. We wanted to give our students not only the greatest of faculties but also set the right environment, to help them realize their potential. The start-of-the art green buildings are designed with an aesthetic and global appeal thereby creating the right ambience for creating thorough bred professionals who are ready to take on the future.

It has been designed to be LEED Platinum rated green campus and would be one of the first in India and among very few in the world. Aspiring to be a platinum rated green campus, the institutes design concept derives itself from the tagline of the institute Global mindset Indian roots. It aims to generate in students a sense of social responsibility. The design reflects the basic essence of simplicity, humbleness and clarity of thought.
The entire campus is a 100% day-lit, recycles all its water and waste and uses a lot of reused and recycled products as some of the measures towards making a sustainable and green campus.