Tripura to set up new varsity

Agartala, Jan 8 (IANS) The Left Front government will set up a state university in Tripura and this will be taken up in the budget session of the assembly beginning Feb 16, a minister said here Thursday.

"A bill to set up the university will be presented in the budget session of the Tripura assembly," Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty told reporters.

"After passing the bill in the assembly and obtaining the governor's assent, it would be sent to union human resource development ministry and the University Grants Commission for their approval."

The budget session will last two weeks.

The proposed university would be named after erstwhile Tripura ruler Maharaja Birbikram Kishore Manikya Bahadur (1923-1947), who set up the state's first degree college in Agartala in 1947.

"The proposed university would further boost higher education in the state and would also attract students from Bangladesh and other northeastern states," the minister said.

The Tripura University was set up in 1987 and turned into a central university in 2007. It has been ranked fourth in eastern India and 43rd in the country in a survey conducted by private study groups.

To ease the pressure of the Tripura University, the proposed university would help to boost the quality of higher education, Chakraborty said.

The central varsity has 15 post-graduate courses in science and 19 courses in arts and commerce. Besides, the university has one-year post-graduate diploma courses in bamboo cultivation and resource utilisation, tribal language and rubber technology.

Tripura has 22 degree colleges, two medical colleges and 15 other professional and technical colleges with around 18,000 students enrolled every year in the colleges.