Rabindra Bharati University vice-chancellor Karunasindhu Das inaugurates the Rabindra-Nazrul Janma Jayanti in Siliguri on Sunday. Picture by Kundan Yomo

Siliguri, May 25: The north Bengal campus of Rabindra Bharati University (RBU) will start functioning from as early as next month.

Karunasindhu Das, vice-chancellor of RBU, said today the campus would operate from the Rahul Sankrityana Bhawan of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education near North Bengal University for the time being.

“To begin with, we will offer courses on Rabindrasangeet and visual arts,” he said. “After we are able to set up a new campus of our own, we will offer courses in dance, drama and music.”

Das was accompanied by Amit Mukherjee, registrar of the RBU, and Aditya Prasad Mitra, dean of the department of visual arts.

Here to primarily look for land for RBU’s north Bengal campus, they were also invited to the four-day Rabindra-Nazrul Janma Jayanti celebrations organised by the Siliguri Municipal Corporation. Das inaugurated the programme this evening.

About 100 RBU students have come along with the officials, who will put up cultural programmes for the whole day tomorrow.

“We have seen about four plots in the Phansidewa and Khoribari blocks,” Das said.

“Very soon, we will choose one of them keeping in mind its accessibility to students and the environment it offers. We will need about 100 acres. If we can get our campus ready by 2011, we will be able to shift there on Pochise Boisakh of the same year, when we all will be celebrating 150 years of Tagore’s birth,” he added.

Das said courses associated with music — BA, MA, M Phil — would be offered on the varsity campus.

“There will be courses in painting, sculpture, graphics, multimedia and museology too,” Das added.

Das said the initiative was part of the RBU’s larger vision to make the varsity more broad-based. “In due course, we will set up campuses in the Northeast, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal too,” he said.

A campus would also be set up at Purulia for the study of local culture and tradition, he said.

Mani Thapa, sabhadhipati of Siliguri Mahakuma Parishat, said youths in the region would now have an opportunity to pursue vocational courses in a formal manner and also studies related to these fields.