Brinda Karat, who was at Burrabazar on Wednesday, will be part of a parliamentary inspection team to tour CU on Thursday. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

A 21-member parliamentary standing committee will visit Calcutta University (CU) on Thursday to inspect how it intends to spend the Rs 100-crore grant that the Centre had approved in 2006.

The panel, attached to the human resource development ministry, will have two members from Bengal — Brinda Karat and Basudeb Acharya, both of the CPM. It will review the university’s action plan to spend the money and assess the help it requires to make the projects funded by the grant self-sustainable after three years.

The Centre wants the fund, sanctioned on the university’s 150th anniversary, utilised by 2009.

According to the condition laid down by the human resource development ministry, the money has to be spent on studies and research in nanoscience, nanotechnology and biomedical nanotechnology.

As directed by the Centre, the university has decided to set up a nanotechnology centre in Salt Lake, on its new technology campus.

“This is the first visit to the university by a parliamentary standing committee,” said registrar Samir Bandyopadhyay. “After reviewing our action plan, the panel members will attend interactive sessions with the teachers and students.”

Of the Rs 100-crore grant, Rs 30 crore has been released and the university has spent Rs 10 crore, sources said.

The Centre, which had also approved a similar grant for Mumbai and Chennai universities, has specified that the institutions will have to generate funds from other sources to run the new projects on their own after three years.

“Huge amounts of funds are required to run research centres in frontier areas like nanoscience and nanotechnology,” said a CU official.

The parliamentary panel will discuss the steps being taken by CU to generate resources and the public-private partnerships it has planned to make the projects self-sustainable.

The committee is also likely to check whether the university is following a “transparent process” in buying equipment for the projects.

The Centre has asked the universities to spend as little as possible from the fund on construction.