Malda, Nov. 4: The state cabinet has given its nod to an engineering college in Old Malda in memory of the late A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury, his brother Abu Naser said today.

The MLA of Malda’s Sujapur said the state cabinet has approved the project on 100 acres in Narayanpur that the Khan Choudhurys bought from farmers for the Ghani Khan Choudhury Institute of Engineering and Technology.

“We thank chief minister Mamata Banerjee for clearing the project,” said Abu Naser, the chairman of the board of governors of the institute.

In January this year, Abu Naser had hinted that he wanted to join Trinamul but backtracked soon after.

Today he said: “The chief minister called me up personally at the end of last month and told me that the project had been approved. We are now trying to set a date for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to come and lay the foundation stone. The mutation of the land has also been completed,” he said.

“We could have never achieved that (setting up the institute) without the approval of the state government,” he said, adding that the date for the foundation stone-laying could be set between November 17 and 19.