BHUBANESWAR: The State will soon have a new veterinary university and a detailed proposal has already been submitted to the Chief Minister by Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT).
This was informed by Agriculture Minister Pradip Maharathy at an event organised by OUAT to felicitate students for bagging a record number of research fellowships from Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) on Monday. “The proposal will be tabled in the Cabinet soon,” the Minister said adding that it has also been decided that the proposed second agriculture university will come up in one of the KBK districts.
“OUAT as the lone agriculture university has been playing a major role in agriculture research and education and there is a need for another such university to meet the State’s demands,” he said. The newly established Xavier University of Bhubaneswar (XUB) is also planning to establish an agriculture college, he added.
Siksha O Anusandhan (SoA) University is the first private university to start its own agriculture college. OUAT students had created a record by getting 37 fellowships after clearing the All India Entrance Test-2014 conducted by ICAR, the highest among 60 agriculture universities and 700 agriculture colleges in the country. In recognition of this, the ICAR has accorded Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) Award to OUAT. ICAR will further release `74 lakh - `2 lakh each for 37 students - to OUAT.
Vice-Chancellor Kar said the amount will be used to create students’ amenities in the university. “OUAT has tied up with reputed international and national institutions such as IRRI Philippines; Hawai University, US; Department of Science and Technology, Japan and ICRISAT - Hyderabad for quality research,” he said.
Meanwhile, the university has planned to open two new institutes - a dairy technology college at Baripada and a veterinary college in Sambalpur.