The Heritage group of institutions started a self-financed general degree college on Wednesday.
The Heritage College on Chowbaga Road in Anandapur will take the number of self-financed colleges affiliated to Calcutta University to four.
The college, inaugurated by higher education minister Partha Chatterjee on Wednesday, will offer honours courses in English, physics, chemistry, math, economics and commerce from this academic session. Classes are expected to start from the end of this month.
The new college shares its campus with other Heritage group institutions on Chowbaga Road.
A higher education department official said the college would address the growing demand for undergraduate seats in top city colleges.
"The new college is expected to have infrastructure and faculty of the highest standard," the official said. "The college will provide many good students with the opportunity to pursue general degree courses."
The Heritage College now has 460 seats - 200 in commerce, 60 in English and 50 each in physics, chemistry, math and economics. A BSc in electronics is on the anvil.
H.K. Chaudhary, chairman of the Kalyan Bharti Trust that runs the Heritage group, said schools had mushroomed in Calcutta over the past couple of decades but the number of colleges had remained stagnant.
"The engineering market is down. Everyone doesn't have the means to afford technical education. In comparison, students with general degrees are getting absorbed by companies after in-house training," Chaudhary said.
Vikram Swarup, chairman of The Heritage College, said almost 20 per cent of Plus II pass-outs migrated to other cities for higher education. "We want to stem the flow."
Calcutta University rules prevented self-financed colleges offering undergraduate courses in science, arts and commerce from affiliating to the university till 2008.
Till then, only self-financed colleges offering undergraduate courses in subjects like molecular biology, genetics, business administration, computer application, journalism and media production, computer science and microbiology could be affiliated to the university.
Sree Agrasain College and Taradevi Harakhchand Kankaria College were the only two self-financed colleges affiliated to Calcutta University till 2011.
After the change of government in 2011, the university received two proposals for opening self-financed colleges that would offer traditional courses, a CU official said.
The LJD College in Falta is the other self-financed general degree college to start operating from this academic session.
