'Nalanda University campus to be fully operational by December next year'

PATNA: All the non-residential buildings of Nalanda University (NU) will become fully operational by December next year. The new campus is spread over 465 acres of land in Rajgir, about 110km southeast of Patna.
According to vice-chancellor (VC) Suniana Singh, five of the 17 non-residential buildings, including the academic, administrative, laboratory, teaching and faculty blocks, are already operational.
“There will also be 80 residential buildings that will include the VC’s bungalow, hostels for girls, boys and married couples as well as quarters for teaching and non-teaching employees. As of now, we only provide accommodation to the students enrolled in postgraduate (PG) courses,” the VC said.
At present, NU has altogether 100 students in different postgraduate courses and 650 in diploma and certificate programmes. Almost 60% of them are from Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada and other European countries.
Talking about the facilities on the new campus, Singh said, “We are developing a green and zero waste campus with most areas covered with trees and water bodies. We will also have battery-operated vehicles, organic farms, composting system, cycling tracks, green corridors, shaded walkways as well as waste-to-energy, sewage treatment and solar power plants here.”
Besides, there will be research centres, auditorium, library, incubation centre, sports complex, gym, buildings for various programmes and a common facility centre on NU campus.
The VC said, “The School of Business Management, which will become functional from this academic session, will run an MBA programme in sustainable development and management. Three more centres — Centre for Bay of Bengal, Centre for Conflict Resolution and Peace Building, and Common Archival Resource Centre — will also come up soon.”
Stressing on the need for research centres, Singh pointed out, “At the Centre for Conflict Resolution, which had been envisioned by chief minister Nitish Kumar, scholars will study the conflicts going around in the world and come up with solutions. The Ministry of External Affairs has approved the Common Archival Resource Centre, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the Centre for Bay of Bengal.”
She added that NU would soon be among the top universities.
Presently, NU has four schools — languages and literature/humanities, historical studies, Buddhist studies, philosophy and comparative religions, and environmental studies.