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| Amartya Sen |
New Delhi , Oct. 7: Professor Amartya Sen today blamed bureaucrats in Delhi for causing delay in the release of funds for the under-construction Nalanda University in Bihar.
He said the university will teach only two courses to start with because of scarcity of funds but hoped the varsity,in the years to come, will not remain merely a centre of teaching but do research as well.
Sen said the university can come up sooner but for bureaucratic hurdles in the release of funds. Nalanda University was established in November 2010 by an act of Parliament. The Centre sanctioned sizeable funds for the university and the Bihar government identified and acquired 450 acres in Rajgir for the university.
But construction work has been slow. Work on constructing a boundary wall has started even as the governing board continues to face great difficulty in getting funds from Delhi. Sen said once the funds start flowing, the Nalanda University Governing Board would be able to finish construction and start its academic session of school of historical studies and school of ecology and environmental studies — two of the seven schools planned. He said more courses would be started depending on funds.
Sen said the ancient Nalanda University took 200 years to come to fruition. “We hope to achieve that quicker…in three-four year’s time,” said Sen, tongue-in-cheek as many senior government bureaucrats listened. Sen hoped “basic financial bottlenecks” in release of funds would be taken care of soon.
Sen, the chairperson of the Nalanda University Governing Board (earlier the Nalanda Mentor Group), repeatedly indicated his unhappiness at bureaucratic red tape hampering release of funds. He, however, extolled Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar for his leadership and help to the project.
Sen, along with governing board member Sugata Bose and vice-chancellor (designate) of the university, Gopa Sabharwal, held an “open session” here today on the status of the ambitious international project.
Sen also termed as inaccurate reports that former President APJ Abdul Kalam had distanced himself from the project. Sen said he had “a very good meeting” with Kalam today who stressed the need for Indian universities to become centres of research and not just teaching.
