By Najam Gilani, TwoCircles.net,
Patna: The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has decided to open its regional campus in Katihar (Bihar) besides four other such campuses in the country. The Katihar campus is expected to be operational by 2011. AMU has also decided to shift its proposed Pune entrance test center to Hyderabad.
In the 2009-10 admission policy of (AMU), Pune has been replaced by Hyderabad as one of its entrance test centers as it was thought Pune may not be attracting enough students. AMU also decided to open a centre in Lucknow.
The selection of Katihar as AMU centre in Bihar may be surprising many who were expecting that Patna, the capital city of state, will be chosen for the centre. Every year thousands of students (majority of them Muslims) from Bihar appear for AMU entrance tests. Asked why Patna was not made the regional centre AMU PRO Rahat Abrar told TwoCircles.net: “There was not any specific reason as to why Patna was not selected. However, good news for Bihar is that Katihar along with other four regions has been selected as one of the centre for its regional campus.” The other four regional campuses are Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Pune (Maharashtra) – now Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh) – Murshidabad (West Bengal) and Malappuram (Kerala).
Total project cost for all the five regions will be Rs.2,000 crore – Rs.400 crore for each centre. The proposal demanding a sum of Rs 2,000 crore has been submitted to the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
AMU Vice Chancellor, P K Abdul Azis met Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on December 17 in regard with the Katihar centre.
After opening of these five new centres as approved by the University Bodies, it is proposed to replicate the AMU model in all the centres. The university would establish a medical college, dental college, engineering college, law school, business school and various departments depending on the needs of the regional centres. The centres will be managed by the University Court and the Executive Council and the headquarters will be Aligarh. Details of the governing, structure and other aspects remain to be worked out.
Earlier, while speaking to one of the leading broadsheet daily published from South, AMU Vice Chancellor, P K Abdul Azis said “One of the important objectives of the university is to work for the educational and social advancement of the Muslims of India. The purpose of starting regional campuses is to address this issue in the context of the social and educational exclusion highlighted by Justice Sachhar in his report submitted to the Government of India”.