Sardar Patel University (SPU) is a public state university in Vallabh Vidyanagar, a town Gujarat, India. It is named after the iron man of India Vallabhbhai Patel, and was founded in October 1955 by an Act of the Legislative Assembly of the then-Bombay Province and was UGC recognized under 2(f) of the UGC Act in October 1968. Originally, it had the status of a rural university but now it has diversified with the motto of "Excellence Matters". History The Sardar Patel University was the dream of Shri Bhaikaka. In fact, Bhaikaka was at the peak of his career as an engineer, when he sought early retirement from Government Service in 1940 at the behest of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and joined Ahmedabad Municipality as a Chief Engineer. This was the time when his mentor, Sardar Patel, began to visualise what a soon-to-be independent India would require. Patel advised Bhaikaka to give up engineering and help Patel in transforming Charotar into the focal point of India. Serving the rural countryside would control migration of people from villages to towns in search of education, employment, and healthcare. Bhaikaka resigned from this office too in 1942 at the behest of Sardar Patel, and was appointed as Chairman of Charotar Education Society in Anand, a few years before moving on to what we now know as the township of Vallabh Vidyanagar on 3 March 1946, but not before registering Charutar Vidya Mandal as a Charitable Education Trust on 10 August 1945. What was once a wilderness at the tri-junction of Karamsad, Bakrol, and Anand thus became Vallabh Vidyanagar, and the ‘Vallabh’ was prefixed to ‘Vidyanagar’ in recognition of Sardar's advice to work for rural uplift. Containing migration required that the reasons for migration be addressed, and Bhaikaka began to work on a plan together with Shri Bhikhabhai Patel, a dedicated and farsighted educationist, who shared Bhaikaka's vision. Location Anand-Vidyanagar is on the Vadodara-Ahmedabad Railway line of the Western Railway in the heart of the Anand District of Gujarat. It is well connected with the rest of the country by railway network and roads. It is flanked by the two major airports of Gujarat: Sardar Patel International Airport at Ahmedabad and the Vadodara Airport, Vadodara. Vidyanagar is considered as Gujarat's education hub. Vidyanagar is also known for a student friendly environment and student diversity. Jurisdiction At the time of the enactment of the Sardar Patel University