Gauhati University: Going green

Guwahati, March 5: Cash-strapped Gauhati University has come up with a unique project that has twin benefits — conservation of the region’s flora and fauna and a subsequent inflow of the much-needed funds.

The region’s oldest university has decided to convert its sprawling campus into a bio-diversity hotspot.

GU vice-chancellor Okhil Kumar Medhi told The Telegraph that a bio-diversity park would be set up to promote floriculture, conserve medicinal plants and collect and nurture rare orchids of the Northeast.

He said preliminary work on the proposed park has started and vacant plots are being cultivated to plant flowers.

“The project is a major effort on part of the GU to mobilise its internal resources to become financially self-sufficient. We hope to earn a good income from the project within two to three years. A variety of flowers and rare orchids will be exported to different parts of India and abroad. Medicinal plants will be used for various purposes,” Medhi said.

Apart from raking in the moolah, the project aims at promoting entrepreneurship among students. Medhi said many educated youths could take up floriculture and earn a good amount of money. The same is the case with medicinal plants.

“The university has plans to introduce job-oriented courses on floriculture,” he added.

J.C. Kalita, a senior professor of the university’s zoology department and the general secretary of GU Teachers’ Association, said the university had about 1,400 bighas of vacant land which could be used for the project. He said the bio-diversity park would attract tourists.

“The bio-diversity park will also have water bodies which will provide refuge to local and migratory birds,” he added.

Besides, GU has decided to set up a cultural heritage centre with documentation facilities.

Medhi said the centre would try to preserve almost all documents concerning Assam and the rest of the region by collecting digitised copies of the documents available all over the world.

The proposed centre will also house the departments of visual arts, music, dance and theatre, to begin with, under the faculty of fine arts. It will offer courses in bachelor of fine arts (BFA), master of fine arts (MFA), M. Phil and PhD. The syllabi for these courses are being prepared.