The state is set to have a veterinary university to help improve its fish and animal resources. Twelve states of the country have such universities.
“The OUAT has already submitted a detailed proposal to the chief minister and it will soon be tabled in the cabinet,” said agriculture minister Pradip Maharathy.
It has also been decided that the proposed second agriculture university of the state would come up in one of the KBK districts.
“As the lone agriculture university of the state, OUAT is playing a major role in agriculture research and education and there is a need for another such varsity to meet the state’s demands,” he said adding that the newly-established Xavier University of Bhubaneswar (XUB) is also planning an agriculture college.
XUB will be the second private varsity in the state after the Siksha O Anusandhan (SoA) University, to start its own agriculture college.
XUB will be the second private varsity in the state after the Siksha O Anusandhan (SoA) University, to start its own agriculture college.
Maharthy was at OUAT to felicitate students for having bagged a record number of research fellowships from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
The students have created a record by getting 37 fellowships after clearing the All-India Entrance Test 2014 conducted by ICAR, the highest among the 60 agriculture universities and 700 agriculture colleges in the country.
In recognition of the students’ performance, the ICAR has awarded Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) award to OUAT. OUAT vice-chancellor Manoranjan Kar received the award from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 29.
The council will also release Rs 74 lakh (Rs 2 lakh for each student) to the university.
While OUAT achieved the top position in this year’s AIEEA-PG, the Central Agriculture University, Imphal, came second with 33 fellowships and University of Agriculture Sciences (UAS), Gandhi Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Bangalore came third with 25.