May 12: The city-based Government College of Art and Crafts, the only institute of visual arts in the region, will be upgraded to a full-fledged post-graduate institute.

The decision to upgrade the college was taken at a meeting, held yesterday, between the Gauhati University vice-chancellor G.N. Talukdar and principal and other faculty members of the college.

Set up in 1947 as School of Fine Art and Crafts, the institute was provincialised in 1970 and upgraded to a degree college in 1990. The only institution of its kind in the Northeast, the Government College of Art and Crafts awards students a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree conferred by Gauhati University at present.

At yesterday’s meeting, principal Jabin Ghosh Dastidar placed several demands before the vice-chancellor. The list of demands includes awarding full affiliation to the college and setting up a visual arts department at the university.

Talukdar gave the college’s faculty a patient hearing and assured he would act on their demands soon. He asked the college authorities to submit specific proposals against their demands. The vice-chancellor also advised the college delegation to approach the state government to increase the strength of the college faculty.

The vice-chancellor said the university was considering setting up a visual arts department. He said he was personally interested in the subject.

Expectedly, the student fraternity welcomed the development. Bipul Rabha, a member of the All Guwahati Students’ Union, said the college’s upgradation to a post-graduate institute, has been a long-felt need.

“The new status will ensure that our students do not have to travel out of the state for a master’s degree. But mere assurance are not enough. The announcement has to be carried out in letter and spirit,” he added.

However, as some were quick to point out, despite the upgraded status, the college has a long way to go before it can compete with other similar institutions in the country. Sources said the art college has been a victim of negligence by the state government.

There is no permanent campus of the college which currently functions from rented premises on the Shantipur hillside.

A campus was due to come up at Basistha, where Dispur allotted a 20-bigha plot for the college. Though the state government promised, several times, to extend financial assistance to build a permanent building for the college, the plan never materialised. “The government has been citing various reasons, including acute financial crisis, for not constructing the building,” a source said.

Neither is there is any hostel for the college’s outstation students though it serves the entire northeastern region.

The college offers at present four major specialised streams of study ? painting, sculpture, graphics and applied art besides the history of art papers. Subjects from the language groups are also compulsory in the preparatory years.

According to Ghosh Dastidar, the four disciplines intermingle to allow diversity of knowledge in the different fields of art.