Malda, April 23: The Bengal higher education department is pushing to get the university in Malda functioning by the end of the current financial year.

Malda district magistrate Chittaranjan Das said today that the state government had released Rs 1 crore to construct a boundary wall around the 25.5-acre plot of land earmarked for the university campus.

“The state higher education department has already sent a letter to the University Grants Commission (UGC), seeking recognition for the varsity,” Das said.

Gourbanga University has already been ratified by passing a bill in the state legislature.

Minister Sailen Sarkar, one of the main movers behind the university, said the disciplines to be taught in the new institution would be chosen to meet the requirements of the next 25 years. “We are also going to have subjects that will cater to the needs of the region,” he said.

Sarkar said people had “spontaneously” donated Rs 1.3 crore. “We had fixed a target of Rs 1 crore and I am happy to see that we have managed to go beyond that,” the minister said.

The principal of Malda’s Gour College, Prantosh Sen, said bio-technology was one of the subjects that should be included among the courses. “This is a subject that is of immense relevance for north Bengal, where the economy is agriculture dependent,” he said.

Sen added that subjects like sericulture and plantation technology should also find top priority in the region.

According to the principal, when North Bengal University was founded in 1962, the disciplines were restricted to the traditional arts, science and commerce.

“In today’s world, we have so many job-oriented professional courses but NBU faces difficulty in getting teachers. This will not be the case with Gourbanga University if we introduce these courses from the very beginning,” Sen said.

Chaitali Chattaraj, the principal of Malda Women’s College, said job-oriented education was very much the need of the hour. “Gourbanga University should be able to help students learn professional skills that they can use to build their careers,” she said.

“We should remember that Malda district was 512nd in the list of the 530 most backward districts in the country. The university is an opportunity for development that cannot be passed by and therefore the higher education council (under the higher education department) should be very careful while choosing the faculty members,” Chattaraj said.

In a recent visit here, the chairman of the higher education council, Subimal Sen, had suggested that the new university should also bring in guest lecturers from premier institutes across the state.

“He told us that in order to get guest lecturers, good communication is a must and that is why the re-introduction of commercial flights between Malda and Calcutta is so important,” minister Sarkar said.