Central University of Bihar vice-chancellor Janak Pandey addresses the news meet on Tuesday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Vice-President Hamid Ansari will hand 134 students of Central University of Bihar their degrees at the varsity’s first convocation on Thursday.

Since opening in 2009, as many as 154 students of the varsity have completed their two-year postgraduation programmes. While 134 of them have given consent to attend the convocation, the remaining 20 students will receive their degrees in absentia.

The convocation will be held at the central university’s transit campus, Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Patna. The varsity’s chancellor and Lok Sabha Speaker, Meira Kumar, Governor and chancellor of the state universities D.Y. Patil, chief minister Nitish Kumar and education minister P.K. Shahi will attend the ceremony.

Meira Kumar will hand the chancellor’s gold medal to students of the three consecutive batches (2009-11, 2010-12, 2011-13) — Arvind Prakash Suraj, Anshupriya and Thakur Aditi Bishnu, respectively. While Suraj pursued development studies, the first course launched by the central university, Anshupriya and Bishnu studied biotechnology and psychology in their respective batches.

Among the 134 students who will receive their degrees at the ceremony, 79 are boys and 55 girls.

Central University of Bihar vice-chancellor Janak Pandey, at a news meet on Tuesday, said: “The university started in 2009 with limited resources and only one postgraduate programme, MA in development studies. Since then, the varsity has grown manifold. At present, the varsity offers postgraduate programmes in 16 courses.”

At Thursday’s ceremony, the university authorities will also release the University Geet (song).

Registrar Mohammed Nehal said: “Academic Hari Narayan Dubey has written the lyrics of the varsity song. R.P. Shastri, a retired faculty member of Banaras Hindu University (BHU), and Vijay, a BHU faculty member, have composed the music. Central University of Bihar faculty member Richa Vats and six students have lent their voice to the song.”

A rendition of the university song will follow the National Anthem on Thursday.

In 2010, the Central University of Bihar increased the number of postgraduate programmes to six. It launched MA courses in mathematics, statistics and environmental science, and MSc courses in biotechnology and computer science. A year later, while the state and central governments were at loggerheads to finalise a permanent address for the varsity, the administration introduced two more postgraduate programmes — MSc in bioinformatics and MA in communication and media studies

Among the postgraduates of the varsity, 68 students have been placed at different firms, while 34 students are doing their MPhil and another 32 have cleared the National Eligibility Test, qualifying for Junior Research Fellowship.