The Ramakrishna temple at Belur Math, the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission

campus call

• Likely name of the centre: Vivek Tirtha

• Purpose: To offer courses in value education

• Target: Students, youths and professionals

• Model: Mission-run Vivekananda Institute of Human Excellence in Hyderabad

• Courses to include: Yoga, meditation, public dealing and human interaction

The Ramakrishna Mission will set up an institute offering courses in value education on a Rajarhat plot the government will soon hand over to the order.

The centre, likely to be named Vivek Tirtha, will offer courses for students, youths and professionals and be modelled on the Mission-run Vivekananda Institute of Human Excellence in Hyderabad.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced at Writers’ Buildings that her government would soon hand over the five-acre plot where the institute would come up to the Mission.

“The main aim of the institute will be to inculcate in oneself nobler values of life,” said a source in the Mission. “Personality development and human excellence are some of the areas the institute will focus on.”

The courses will be designed in a way that they provide “life-building, man-making, character-making and nation-building” education and training. Yoga, meditation, public dealing, human interaction and summer camp will be among the compulsory activities.

Once the institute takes shape, the Mission might shift there the social science departments of Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, the source said.

Though the Mission has decided that the programmes to be offered by the Rajarhat centre would be similar to the ones taught at the Hyderabad institute, the “exact content” of the courses on the upcoming campus is yet to be finalised.

The Mission had planned to set up an institute of human excellence in Calcutta a few years back. “We couldn’t start the project because we did not have land. We are happy that the chief minister has agreed to allot the Rajarhat plot to us,” the Mission source said.

The chief minister had assured the monks when she visited Belur Math earlier this month that a suitable plot would be made available for the Mission to set up the institute of human excellence.

The chief minister, who has taken a keen interest in the expansion of Mission activities, had expressed her willingness to provide help to the monks for undertaking a suitable project on the occasion of Swami Vivekananda’s 150th birth anniversary in 2012.

She had initially evinced interest in setting up a replica of the Art Institute of Chicago, where Vivekananda had delivered lectures at the Parliament of World’s Religions in 1893, but the plan had to be scrapped because of some difficulties.

Later, Mamata wanted the Mission to set up a unique institute of higher learning. This proposal, too, did not materialise as the Mission runs a university at Belur Math.

In January this year, at a meeting the chief minister held with senior government officials and monks, the earlier proposal to set up an institute of human excellence was discussed. “The idea of setting up an institute of human excellence on the lines of the Hyderabad institute was accepted. The chief minister assured the Mission that land would not be a hurdle this time,” said a government source.