vadodara m s university has decided to run the centre of excellence in industrial automation set up at its faculty of technology and engineering on selffinanced basisthe centre was commissioned in august 2015 it was established under public private partnership ppp mode between msu siemens india gujarat government and punebased designtech systems the mou to set up this centre meant for skill development of youth was signed in september 2013 in presence of prime minister narendra modi who was then serving as gujarats chief minister but in covid times the centres activities which are mainly to train students and professionals in practical aspects of automation has come to a halt the universitys syndicate body recently cleared payment worth rs 45 lakh towards salary of manpower and other expenses to be paid to the punebased firm as the three year mou period came to an end in august 2018 as per the mou for the initial three years siemens was supposed to run the centre providing training to faculty and students later the centre was to be transferred to msu offering be and me programmes in the area of mechatronicsso far we have trained 4700 students and around 35 teachers at this centre but if we want to continue this centre we will have to run it on selfsustainable model said g d karhadkar chief coordinator of the centre and former head of mechanical engineering department we will raise funds through industry contacts and also collect a token fees from students modalities about the fee structure are being worked out he said