Presidency seeks funds to set up Chairs

Chairman of Presidency Mentor Group Sugata Bose today sought more funds from state Finance Minister Amit Mitra for development of the university and for setting up distinguished chairs in the name of reputed personalities at the university.

Senior officials of the finance department said in 2011-12, the university received merely Rs 3 crore from the state government as against a sanction of Rs 20 crore for development purpose. In 2010-11, too, the University was given Rs 4 crore with their plea for additional funds to the tune of Rs 240 crore being put on hold.

It was learnt that Bose urged Mitra to sanction the amount immediately so that they could carry forward the development work.

While Bose admitted that he met the finance minister, he did not divulge the details of the meeting. He only said a number of issues, including financial planning, were discussed.

Officials, meanwhile, said Bose wanted to know from the finance minister on how to go ahead with financial planning despite the fund crunch. He also discussed the plan for a second campus of Presidency University at Rajarhat with its infrastructure at par with foreign universities.

It may mentioned that the mentor group had a few days ago decided to publish the advertisement for the chairs of the Distinguished Professor Programme of the university in foreign educational magazines. Bose had said the decision was taken in order to attract foreign scholars. It was also decided that to attract best scholars we will pay them higher salary package and their salary scale will not be at par with University Grant Commission.

The Chairs will be created in the name of great Indian scholars like Rabindranath Tagore, Jagdish Chandra Bose, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Swami Vivekananda. Eminent personalities from various fields will be hired for the programme.

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