According to Chief Secretary Navin Kumar, the state government sanctioned a single plot of 224.02 acres near Chakla and Govindpur villages. The Land and Revenue department would soon formally transfer the plot to the state Human Resource Department, which in turn, will hand over the land to AMU administration for starting construction work.

Earlier, the AMU authorities had refused to accept 243 acres of land offered by the Bihar government on the plea that they were either water-logged or encroached plots and situated at three different places.

The state government buckled under the pressure of people’s movement launched on October 12 last. Thousands of people, some reports said about one lakh, gathered in Kishanganj, to block road and rail traffic and sat on dharna outside the office of district magistrate to press their demand.

MPs and MLAs of Congress, RJD and NCP led the movement. Even Trinamool and Congress leaders from West Bengal participated in the stir. This includeds a West Bengal government minister. This infuriated Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who reportedly sent strong missive to his counterpart in West Bengal.

The non-allotment of land also became an issue at the International Seminar of Islamic Scholars at A N Sinha Institute earlier this month. Two groups of people clashed in the present of the Chief Minister.

In the first week of November state’s HRD Minister, P K Shahi, met Union HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal, to sort out the matter. Shahi tried to escape the blame for the delay by stating that the issue of AMU Centre is pending in the Allahabad High Court. However, the AMU Registrar denied his claim. The state government had repeatedly been accusing the AMU VC, P K Abdul Azis, for the row. But those championing the cause of the AMU Centre held the state government responsible for it.

The idea of setting up the AMU campus in Bihar was first floated during the UPA-I regime in the Centre, when Arjun Singh was the HRD Minister and M A A Fatmi, the Minister of State. The original idea was to open it in Katihar, but the Nitish government refused to allot land there and instead asked the Centre to open it in Kishanganj. Interestingly, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students’ wing of the ruling BJP, insisted that the AMU Centre should be opened at Katihar and not Kishanganj.

As per the plan the AMU Centre had come up in seven states. Maharashtra is another state where there is tussle over the choice of place. While one section wants it to open in Malegaon, others are of the view that it should come up in Aurangabad district, because of better infrastructure and connectivity. In other states the work is in progress and even classes have started from makeshift campuses.

Meanwhile, the cabinet also approved a proposal for constructing a medical college and a nursing college on the premises of Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna at a cost of Rs 586 crore. The cabinet sanctioned Rs 25 crore for the 2011-12 financial year under this head.

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