Pranab praises for Buddhadeb

Lauding the “positive response” from the state government for providing quality education to a vast section of the population in backward areas of the state,Mukherjee said the Centre had sanctioned Rs 50 crore for the Murshidabad centre and the state government provided 265 acre by purchasing land from the Central Water Resources Department here.

The chief minister addressed Mukherjee as a “respected leader” and said,”I wrote a letter for setting up of an AMU centre in the state and later contacted Pranabda. Now the dream has come true.”

Bhattacharjee said,”The day is important for spread of education in West Bengal and it is a matter of pride for us and AMU,known for modernising and secularising education in the country,that it has a branch in our state.”

Mukherjee said,”The vision should be that the AMU centre here promotes higher education in the entire eastern region and contributes to the spread of education.”

He recalled the initiative taken by Sir Syed Ahmed,who had set up the Anglo Mohammedan Oriental college in Aligarh in 1875 which grew to a full-fledged university in 1920,19 years after his death.

“I can recall the remarkable role played by the Begum Saheba of Murshidabad who delivered a speech at Aligarh in 1901 after Sir Ahmed’s death and donated a sum of Rs one lakh especially for women’s education there,” he said.

Noting that the building plan was ready,Mukherjee said the academic session would start from January from a temporary building and work for the new project would start as early as possible.

AMU would shortly open more branches at Mallapuram in Kerala,Kishanganj in Bihar,Bhopal in MP and Pune in Maharashtra,he said.

Mukherjee said that a centre of IFC management Institute,Gurgaon,would come up near Telai village in Murshidabad district,shortly.

Purandeswari said the AMU centre here would fulfill to some extent the Sachar committee report on the need for improved and quality education for Muslims.

Bansal hoped that it would cater to the educational needs of a large section of the people.

AMU Vice-Chancellor P K Azia was present along with West Bengal Higher Education minister Sudarshan Roychowdhury and MPs Mainul Hasan and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

With the AMU centre,West Bengal now has a total of 19 universities.