Mamata Banerjee visits, gives nod to proposed site for Biswa Bangla University at Santiniketan

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday visited and approved the site where the proposed Biswa Bangla University will come up at Santiniketan.

She was accompanied by the state Urban Development minister Firhad Hakim, Debasis Sen chairman, West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) and Vivek Kumar, principal secretary higher education. She had announced setting up of the university at the state-level meeting of the teachers held at Netaji Indoor Stadium on January 7. This is for the first time when the Chief Minister visited the site with three days after the announcement to set up a university.

HIDCO has been entrusted to prepare the plan for the proposed university. A high-level meeting to discuss the matter will be held in HIDCO Bhavan on Monday. Experts from Kala Bhavan will be asked to join the meeting. Banerjee said that the university should be a combination of both tradition and modernity. The thoughts of Tagore will be used to design the exterior of the university which will have all the state of the art facilities. It will come up on 18 acres of land and will be situated close to the Gitabitan township. HIDCO and the Higher Education department will work hand in hand to prepare plans of the university. After the Chief Minister left, a meeting was held between Sen and Kumar on the design of the university.

The agency who will construct the university as well details of the estimated cost will be calculated later.

Meanwhile, work is on to distribute plots in Gitabitan township. Senior officials of HIDCO, Webel, WBSEDCL, Urban development and Municipal Affairs met to discuss about the township in details. Discussion between the senior HIDCO officials and their counterparts in a nationalised bank also took place on January 7 to discuss about the issuing of brochure and other details regarding booking of plots. HIDCO will provide assistance to the willing people to construct their buildings. Plans for the proposed buildings will be given along with the possession of plots.