With the advent of liberalization in the early '90s, it was recognized that the mainstay of economic development is sound infrastructure. This heralded the beginning of a new era of infrastructure-centric governance in India.

Thanks to huge investments, major private sector participation and paradigm shifts, ‘infrastructure’ is all set to become the most happening sector of the Indian economy. Be it physical, social, economic or environmental infrastructure, the demand for holistically trained professionals is becoming unprecedented. One estimate is that there are nearly 400 infrastructure organizations in the country , with the prospect of nearly a million jobs opening up in the coming decade.

Infrastructure sector is the engine of growth for sustained economic development. India has made considerable progress in the last ten years in attracting private investment into the infrastructure sectors viz, roads, telecommunications and in other projects.

India is one of the six fastest growing economies of the world and Asia's biggest Infrastructure Investment opportunity. With the huge investment of the order of about US$488.24 billion set for the 11 th Plan and a spate of new investor-friendly policies in the offing, infrastructure is all set to become the most ‘happening’ sector of the Indian economy. The immediate requirement of the Indian economy is a pool of holistically trained domain-ready infrastructure managers.

It was against the above background that the VTU and the STEM, Bangalore, concluded a MOU on June 1, 2005, for the institution of the unique one-year PGDIM Programme. The programme is being delivered by the VTU through MINDS, a Division of STEM.