Announcing a new university on the lines of Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan in January 2017, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said her government would build higher education institutions comparable to the best in the world. “Why should Bengal’s students run to Chicago and Harvard when we can create Chicago- and Harvard-like universities here?” she said.
“Bengal had 13 universities; we have established 16 new universities in the last five years (the Trinamool Congress led by her came to power for the first time in 2011),” she said.
Between 2017 and 2018, her government established 11 more universities across Darjeeling, Alipurduar, Balurghat, Murshidabad, Hooghly, Nadia, North 24 Parganas, Jhargram, Paschim Medinipur, Howrah and Birbhum. Classes in most of them started in 2021, when West Bengal saw its last Assembly elections.
It was only by January this year, as the government seeks a fourth term, that these universities, barring Darjeeling Hill University, got statutory recognition, or the legal authority to award degrees.
The Indian Express visited the 11 universities and found that seven continue to function out of temporary premises, none have permanent faculty, and most depend on guest lecturers working at the UGC-mandated rate of Rs 500 per class. In many universities, the student strength has been declining.
Currently, around 17,000 students are enrolled across eight of these universities, with three not sharing their exact numbers.
The Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government has been on the back foot over the state of education at various levels in Bengal, with the BJP gunning for it over scams involving the recruitment of teachers, in which senior TMC leaders are embroiled. In the case of universities, appointments were stalled between 2023 and 2024 due to a tussle between the then Governor, C V Ananda Bose, the ex officio Chancellor of all state-aided universities, and the CM, who has the authority to finalise the appointments.
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On July 8, 2024, the Supreme Court constituted a committee to break the stalemate. Since then, V-C posts have been filled and statutory status granted.
For 2025-2026, in its last full Budget, the TMC government allocated 14.8% of funds to education, close to the national average. But this was education’s lowest share in the total state budget since 2023-24.
Repeated calls and messages to Education Minister Bratya Basu and Additional Chief Secretary, Higher Education, Binod Kumar, went unanswered.
Universities without a campus
Dakshin Dinajpur University. (Express photo by Partha Paul)
Dakshin Dinajpur University, Balurghat: Started functioning in October 2021; 250 students
Banerjee announced the establishment of the university on February 21, 2018, meeting a long-standing local demand. At the time, the nearest university to the district was nearly 200 km away.
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Dakshin Dinajpur University held its first academic session in October 2021. It initially operated from a rented private residence in Balurghat when classes were online due to Covid. After the university resumed, classes were held at Balurghat College, then shifted to a hostel building at Balurghat Mahila Mahavidyalaya, and, in August 2024, to a women’s hostel at Balurghat B.Ed College.
The university offers three postgraduate courses: English, Political Science, and Maths. In the first year of admissions (2021), 136 students enrolled, of whom 39 dropped out. In 2022, 105 students got admission, but 69 left. In 2023, 133 took admissions, but 92 dropped out. In 2025, only 105 students took admission, leaving about 250 students on its rolls.
There are no permanent faculty or staff, only 21 guest lecturers, who teach in six makeshift classrooms.
About 2 km away lies an 11.07-acre plot earmarked for a permanent campus. Cows graze on the vacant land.
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Manmatha Kar and Raju Paul, both guest lecturers at Dakshin Dinajpur University, say the pinch is being felt now. “We do not have a permanent address; how will a university run?” says office staff Sudipto Majumder. About the land set aside for construction, Majumder says: “The state government spent Rs 2.5 crore to build just a wall. Then the funds dried up. In 2022, a building plan was finalised by the state government. The V-C has written many times… We have yet to hear anything on the issue.”
Local MLA and Consumer Affairs Minister Biplab Mitra says, “Work at the university got delayed because the Governor stalled V-C appointment and statutory approval for the university. The Central government forced the Governor (to do so).”
Harichand Guruchand University. (Express photo by Partha Paul)
Harichand Guruchand University, Thakurnagar: Started functioning in January 2021; 168 students
The TMC government announced a university named after Harichand Thakur and Guruchand Thakur of the Matua community in November 2018. The varsity was seen as Banerjee’s attempt to hold on to the Matua vote bank that moved to the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The nearest university to Thakurnagar at the time was about 60 km away.
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It started functioning in January 2021 with the appointment of a V-C and now offers four subjects at the PG level: Bengali, Education, History, and Journalism and Mass Communication.
Classes for Bengali and Education are held in a neighbouring government school, while Journalism and Mass Communication are taught at a college.
Apart from the V-C, there are no permanent faculty members. Around 35-40 guest faculty hold classes. Pointing to the lack of infrastructure, a guest history teacher, Milan Roy, says he comes once a week.
A Mass Communication student, Gourav Chowdhury, says: “Our teachers are sincere, but the university has no infrastructure for experiments or a library. We are managing somehow.”
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In the first batch, 132 students took admission in 2021. Before the final semester, 32 dropped out. In 2022, 124 students took admission, but 14 left. In 2023, only 57 took admission, of whom 15 left. In 2024, the numbers rose to 86 admissions, while in 2025, there was a drop to 82.
V-C Nemai Chandra Saha says: “7.66 acres of land has been identified for the campus, plus another plot identified for a second campus. We are working on it.”
Hindi University
Hindi University, Howrah: Started functioning in January 2020, 133 students
Banerjee laid the foundation stone for the university, with a focus on higher education in Hindi and related languages, in March 2019, and it began operations in January 2020.
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Classes were initially held at Narasingha Dutta College, with the university later moving to an abandoned Howrah Municipal Corporation building. A new building for the university is ready in Baltikuri in Howrah, but it is yet to shift there.
Hindi University offers four PG courses – Hindi, Translation Studies, Political Science and History – and has 133 students.
Suman Bhattacharya, a retired Education Department officer who works as the Registrar, says, “All the staff are contractual apart from the V-C. There are eight classrooms, a small library and a small seminar hall.”
Bhattacharya says he doesn’t know why the university is not moving to the new premises. But he can hazard a guess: “The annual maintenance cost would be Rs 2 crore. Who will pay the money?”
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V-C Nandini Sahu admits there are constraints. “The new building has no furniture and no security. In the past year, I have written at least 10 times to the Higher Education Department. Nothing has happened.”
“We just got our statutory status. We are planning to recruit permanent staff and faculty now,” Sahu adds.
TMC Hindi Cell Bengal chief and Jorasanko MLA Vivek Gupta blames the Centre: “Their Governor did not appoint the V-C for a long time, and did not approve the statute. Without those, a university can’t develop.”
Darjeeling Hill University,
Darjeeling Hill University, Jogighat: Started in October 2021, around 80 students
The first university for Bengal’s hill area, a fierce battleground between the TMC and BJP, Darjeeling Hill University’s foundation stone was laid by the CM in September 2018. A signboard says the Phase 1 construction, with an approved amount of Rs 33.44 crore, commenced on October 5, 2021.
More than four years later, all that stands are a dilapidated gate and foundation work for the academic and administration building. The staff say the university started functioning in 2021 from the North Bengal University Campus, about 60 km away, moved online during Covid, and is now housed on the premises of the Industrial Training Institute, Bhasmey.
The university offers PG in English, Nepali, History, Political Science, Mathematics and Mass Communication.
In 2021, Darjeeling Hill University saw 169 admissions, of whom 25 left. In 2022, 110 took admission, but 50 dropped out. These two years, classes were held online. In 2023, no student was admitted. In 2024, 41 students were admitted, but 22 left. In 2025, the number of admissions increased to 60.
There are 72 guest teachers. Apart from V-C Tejmala Gurung, no one is permanent.
Susma Rai, one of the office employees, says that three of them take care of university work, including cleaning. “Our V-C madam is very enthusiastic, and we are all trying our best to run this university because it is the first in the hill region,” Rai says.
Rani Rashmoni Green University
Rani Rashmoni Green University, Singur: Started in 2020, “around 200 students”
Its location holds political significance as Singur in Hooghly district helped catapult the Banerjee-led TMC to power. Called Singur University when it was announced in 2017, it was renamed a year later after philanthropist Rani Rashmoni.
In 2020, it began its academic year by offering two undergraduate subjects: Chemistry and Environmental Science. Now it offers 14, including an MBA and a PG diploma, and has about 200 students. But the university continues to run from the premises of the Government General Degree College in Singur. A room partitioned by plywood houses three classrooms.
V-C Amiya Kumar Panda says the university has been allotted 7 acres at Baliguri in Singur-Kamarkundu area, with Rs 144 crore sanctioned for a new campus. The land enclosed by a large gate stands barren, with heaps of sand and rusted iron beams lying around. Panda says the work has stalled due to a tender problem. “The contractor will be changed.”
Panda is also hopeful of getting permanent staff for the university soon, saying they were in the process of applying to the government. Currently, the university has 85-100 guest lecturers, none of them permanent.
Kanyashree University
Kanyashree University, Nadia: Started in 2020, “around 1,000 students”
The university is the only one exclusively for girls among the 11 started by the state government, and its foundation was laid by the CM in 2019. But five years after it started functioning, in 2020, classes continue to be held in one of the buildings of Krishnanagar Collegiate School.
The Indian Express team was not allowed into the building. Registrar Krishnandu Rakshit did not respond to queries about the university.
The website of Kanyashree University says it has 11 departments offering PG courses, “around a thousand” students and “more than a hundred” faculty members. All faculty work on a temporary basis.
Girl students say that despite it being a university for them, there is no hostel as there is no dedicated campus. Ritu Biswas, 24, who is in the first semester of her law course, says she lives in Barrackpore and travels 100 km to study.
Mahatma Gandhi University
Mahatma Gandhi University, Mahishadal: Started in 2020, “around 200 students”
An Act to set up Purba Medinipur University was passed by the Assembly in 2017, and the name was changed to Mahatma Gandhi University the next year.
Its academic journey started in 2020 with PG offered in two subjects, Bengali and History. In 2021, Mathematics and English were introduced, also offering PG.
Currently, classes are run from two floors of the annexe building of Mahishadal College.
In 2018, 25 acres of land in the Kapas area, around 5 km away, was allotted. The initial Rs 25 crore, say officials, was used to make boundary walls. Then, construction stopped.
V-C Sourangshu Mukhopadhyay, who took over recently, says: “We plan to introduce courses like Philosophy, especially Gandhian Philosophy… But for all this, we should have our own campus.”
Another drawback, the V-C says, is no permanent faculty or staff. “Only recently did the Governor approve statutory status for us. Now we are preparing to hire seven regular professors in each department,” Mukhopadhyay says.
A guest teacher, Shankar Ram Burman, says the lack of classrooms prevents any future planning.
Mukhopadhyay points to one ray of hope. “In all other new universities, student strength is on the decline. But here our students, though very small in number, are increasing year on year.”
The university saw 128 admissions in 2025, compared to 84 in 2024.
Universities with a campus
Sadhu Ramchand Murmu University, Jhargram: Started in 2021; 1,500 students
The Act for the university was passed in 2018, and classes started in 2021. It now offers 18 subjects, of which 13 are full-fledged PG courses, and five are diploma programmes.
Initially, it functioned from Jhargram Mahila College, with 1,500 students on its rolls. In 2022, Sadhu Ramchand Murmu University shifted to its own campus, spread over 27 acres, with a playground and a seminar hall. The clearances were apparently smoother here since no side wanted to be seen as obstructing development in a tribal area.
V-C Chandradipa Ghosh says the campus includes a girls’ hostel with accommodation for 25, more than 30 classrooms, an administrative building and an academic building. “We have 35-40 guest lecturers and 12-14 casual office staff.”
Pranab Mondol, a student of Music and Performing Arts, says: “It is a new university, so we don’t have many things. But we are happy with the learning process. What we need is proper library support.”
Bengal Forest Minister Birbaha Hansda, who is the MLA from Jhargram, calls the university a success story. “As more subjects are introduced, more and more students are taking admission.”
Biswa Bangla University, Bolpur: Started in 2021; 992 students
The university in Birbhum district has an impressive campus, built by the same architectural firm that helped design JNU in Delhi. It has 85 classrooms across three separate buildings for Humanities, Social Sciences and Science.
However, there are only 992 students on the rolls. The university now offers PG programmes in all 19 of its departments, but there is no permanent faculty. It has 58 guest lecturers and 33 casual office staff.
Abu Taleb Khan, a former professor of IIT-Guwahati who took over as V-C in February, says, “Nothing was handed down to me by the former V-C… We will shortly advertise for faculty, as we now have statutory powers.”
University sources say 60 students took admission in 2020, which jumped to 199 in 2021. Numbers went up the next three years, to 177 in 2022, 265 in 2023, 544 in 2024, before taking a slight dip to 448 in 2024.
Suman Saha, Deputy Controller of Examinations and a faculty member in the History department, says, “We have enough infrastructure, enough resources, but we don’t have a proper campaign to bring in students.”
V-C Khan agrees. “I have seen how IITs advertise with proper campaigns. That did not happen for this university.”
TMC Bolpur MLA Chandranath Sinha says, “We are giving priority now to career-oriented Master’s degrees. We are hoping this will attract students.”
Colleges that became universities
Alipurduar University, Alipurduar: Started in 2020; 9,000 students
Alipurduar College, established in 1957, became Alipurduar University following an Act in 2018 and started functioning two years later. It has more than 6,000 students in its undergraduate courses, and about 3,000 in the 14 postgraduate subjects.
Around 71 teachers who worked at the college were absorbed into the university. The university also has 23 contractual office staff and around 30 visiting lecturers, and is using the existing college infrastructure.
While there is a new girls’ hostel now, an academic building and a V-C’s residence are planned.
V-C Sarit Kumar Chowdhury says the fact that the university was carved out of a college meant “we got ready-made infrastructure, especially science laboratories”. Adding that more was needed for a university, he says that now that they have statutory powers, they will push ahead with it. “We will now have permanent posts, and will recruit regular professors.”
Maharaja Krishnanath University, Murshidabad: Started in 2021; 3,400 students
Maharaja Krishnanath College was one of Bengal’s oldest colleges, built in 1853 and modelled after Christ College of Britain. This was turned into Murshidabad University under an Act passed by the Assembly in 2018. The university formally started operations in 2021.
On February 9 this year, the state government changed its name to Maharaja Krishnanath, after a 19th-century zamindar and philanthropist.
While there are around 2,500 students in UG, 900-odd are enrolled for PG. While the office staff and teachers were also absorbed, the university does not have any permanent posts yet, excluding V-C Jane Alam.
Alam says of the 50 classrooms, 15 are under renovation. On what had changed since the college became a university, Alam says: “It is a great advantage that this university is coming up in a heritage college which is already well-known and has a strong alumni network. What we have to do is to develop and renovate its infrastructure.”
