New Delhi, June 3
The South Asian University
(SAU), an educational initiative of the eight SAARC neighbours, has
already inked a partnership agreement with Dhaka University, while it is
in the process of linking up with the Royal University of Bhutan and
Kabul University, giving it a wider footprint in the South Asian region.
According to SAU president Kavita Sharma, the collaboration with Dhaka University was signed about 20 days ago.
"We
hope to have the Royal Bhutan University and Kabul University on board.
We are exchanging letters with each other. It is in the pipeline,"
Sharma told IANS on the sidelines of the ground-breaking ceremony for
the SAU university campus at Maidangarhi near Chhattarpur here on
Wednesday.
A link-up is also planned with the Gurgaon-based
American Institute of Indian Studies as "through them we can get a lot
of South Asian specialists", she added.
External Affairs Minister
Sushma Swaraj, speaking at the ceremony on Wednesday, said that Prime
Minister Narendra Modi had proposed at the SAARC Summit in Kathmandu
last year that SAU connect with at least one university in each of the
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries.
The
campus is coming up on 100 acres of land that India has provided free
of cost. India is also funding the $198 capital cost, including the
construction. According to Sushma Swaraj, India is "committed to bearing
100 percent the capital cost towards establishment of the varsity".
Sharma
said they are working to speed up construction, with a boundary wall to
be erected first after which four sets of buildings, for housing, a
guest house and the faculties of earth sciences, life sciences and
humanities would be constructed.
Set up in 2010, SAU has been
functioning out of the Akbar Bhawan campus in Chanakyapuri. At present
it has 418 students, five faculties and seven departments. The fifth
batch of students passed out earlier this year.
The varsity at
present offers masters' and research programmes in Applied Mathematics,
Biotechnology, Computer Science, Economics, Legal Studies, International
Relations and Sociology.
When ready in five years, the campus is
estimated to cater to 5,000 students from the eight SAARC countries, as
well as 400 faculty members who would be staying on campus.
Sri Lankan High Commissioner Sudharshan Seneviratne, who was present at the ceremony, termed it a "fantastic initiative".
"The
political success of SAARC would have been much more productive once
the people get together, this is my belief," Seneviratne told IANS on
the sidelines of the event.
I always said that for SAARC, we
should have started ground up, with people-to-people connect with
artistes and academics; all the connectivity and shared heritage comes
from the ground level," he added.
He said establishment of the
SAU would have a "ripple effect" with it connecting to other varsities
in the region. He said he could write to Sri Lankan varsities and tell
them to connect to SAARC. "This (SAU) will be like a nucleus", said the
envoy, adding that political differences should not intrude into the
arena of education. "When it comes to education, no one wants to block
it," he said.
"I feel good about it; each country's students
bring in a different experience and come and share ideas. This is the
best people-to-people connect," Seneviratne said.
According to
the Indo-Nepali team of architects, from Archiplan of Nepal and Abrd
Architects of India, the campus will have 10 hostels to house the
students and faculty.
It will have a 600-seat convention centre that will act like a multi-purpose hall for baithaks and exhibitions.
The state-of the art building has already got 5-star rating fom GRIHA, India's National Rating System for Green Buildings.
Equipped
with solar panels on top of each building, the university campus would
generate 25 percent of its electricity, said an official.
The
rain water would be harvested and waste water would be recycled at three
in-house treatment plants, which would make it reusable for
horticulture and flushing and for the cooling towers, the official
added.
(Ranjana Narayan can be contacted at [email protected])
