Kolkata: Last year, the state legislative assembly passed a bill paving the way for a private University, Techno India University to setup its campus in the Kolkata. In accordance with the same norm, the West Bengal cabinet has recently given its approval to proposals for establishing more private Universities, in the state capital.
According to the sources, five such proposals by the Eastern Institute for Integrated Learning in Management (EIILM), IEM, JIS Group, Pailan Group and Seacom Group that were pending with the government, have been presented before the state higher education department. After the cabinet’s decision to go through with them, the department has set up separate committees to review these proposals. However, the state higher education department has also received two more proposals one from Amity University, headquartered in Uttar Pradesh and the second from Durgapur-based NSHM.
As per official sources, the proposal from EIILM stated that the proposed University will be established near Baruipur and would be named as ‘Sonar Bangla University. In addition, it will include eight broad areas of academics, which will be divided in four departments each. Nonetheless, the University would mainly focus on providing professional education by offering courses in domains like entertainment, food technology, media studies and communications, hospital management, eco tourism etc., apart from the usual arts, sciences and engineering courses.
On the other hand, Pailan Group’s proposal says that, its university will be located in Bankura, for which the group has already acquired 25 acres of land. Unlike the EIILM, this University will focus on providing specialized courses on rainwater harvesting, alternative energy, rural development and increasing agricultural productivity of dry and infertile land, in Bankura region.
While explaining about the issue, a higher education official informed that, it was a worrisome problem that, despite six lakh students completing plus two studies, yearly, the traditional colleges and unitary universities in the region, only have the capacity to induct around 5 lakh students. More often, the students, who are left out, are from the deprived sections of the society. Once the private universities will become functional, the wealthier section will indeed be attracted to these professional courses. Thereafter, the problem of lack of seats in state-run varsities will certainly be solved.
Furthermore, when asked why the esteemed groups want to start private Universities, Samir Bandopadhyay, Vice Chancellor, West Bengal University of Technology commented that nowadays, the rising trend among all students is to study professional courses, which would straightaway lead to placements with good salary packages. Though, it is also a fact that, thousands of seats in engineering colleges are lying vacant, he pointed out.
