Silchar, Dec. 10: Assam University, located at Dargakona hills near this south Assam town, has proposed to set up a medical college on its 550-acre campus.

Announcing this today, vice-chancellor Tapodhir Bhattacharjee said the university had already set apart 50 acres for the proposed multi-disciplinary medical college, which would have a state-of-the-art tag.

It has also submitted a blueprint to the Union human resource development ministry and the UGC for approval and funding.

An outlay of Rs 500 crore would be needed for the institution, he added.

Bhattacharjee, a scholar in Bengali literature, said the central university, which was set up in 1994 by an act of Parliament, was poised for diversified growth to cater to the needs of students and scholars in the state and from across the country.

The centre for higher education plans to overhaul its existing courses and make the professional courses more relevant and industry-friendly to open a greater job vista for students.

Bhattacharjee identified these courses as computer and information technology, biotechnology, social work, agriculture science, pharmaceutical science, microbiology, electronic and telecommunication engineering and library science.

The vice-chancellor said the university had already set up a partnership with industry under the guidance of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to enable its students to gain access to jobs. A meeting between the university authorities and the industry to draw up a blueprint to re-frame the syllabi will be held in September or October next year. It has also been proposed that teachers will do consultancy for the industry.

Under an innovative inter-university programme, called Choice Based Credit System, to be introduced by Assam University from next session, its students will be able to pursue studies for a semester in any other university of the country or abroad and their evaluated marks in those universities would be appended to the marks obtained by the students here.

The university has also set up an internal quality assessment cell according to UGC guidelines to sustain and enhance the quality of education.

Bhattacharjee said the university would soon introduce phase-wise e-governance and use computers and information technology for teaching, learning and research.

He said under the supervision of the university, 62 students had obtained PhD so far, which was an index of the in-house research programme in its portal.

Assam University now has 1,976 students enrolled for post-graduation courses in 32 subjects. It also has 56 degree colleges under it in the four districts of south Assam. Its proposed medical college will be the second of its kind in south Assam, the first being the Silchar Medical College set up in 1977.