Secondly, when the industries and companies are restricted in their business activities they generally try to reorient their staff in new skills and knowledge domains so as to prepare them to accept the challenge when the economy takes a positive turn.

Greater Pune, and I include Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad Corporations in this entity, is an interesting conglomeration of public educational institutions, private professional-skills-education providers and companies and industries that are spread in a broader spectrum covering making of small retail products, manufacturing of ancillary components, transport and medium as well as heavy machinery manufacturing industry and knowledge based industries. The Greater Pune with just one public university, many public-private universities (earlier known as Deemed-to-be-Universities) and several small and medium level private professional-skills-education providers (this number runs into a few hundreds) are in a true sense major educational hub in the country.

Today, Greater Pune attracts as many as 500 fresh foreign students every year and has 20 per cent of the entire 70,000 foreign students’ population in the country. In addition, almost 80 per cent of students in public-private professional universities and non-aided professional institutions affiliated to Pune University, and this number integrated over four to five years comes to almost 60,000, are coming from other States in the country. If one adds the students coming from different districts in Maharashtra in affiliated colleges and Pune University Post Graduate departments as well as students enrolling in private professional-skills providers and specialised central government institutions, then, presently Greater Pune has around 200,000 students that have come from outside the geographical boundaries of Greater Pune. If one adds another 100,000 local students from both the Corporations, the total number of students comes close to 300,000, which makes to 6 per cent of the population.

I do not think any other city in the country is handling such a high number of students. The challenge is to provide shelter to them, and of expanding other physical infrastructure for their movement, entertainment and food. These students certainly add wealth in to the economy of Greater Pune. It does create several ancillary support jobs. However, there is a flip side to this growth also. The real challenge for educational institutions managers, authorities connected with law and order and the political milieu is to create an effective and operative working mechanism that retain the beauty and grandeur of this cultural and academic capital of Maharashtra.