A renewed push to expand Assam’s technical capability took shape on Saturday as Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman laid the foundation stone for the state’s first university dedicated entirely to technical and vocational education. The project is being viewed as a major step towards aligning Assam’s youth with emerging global technologies and new-age employment demands.
The ‘Swahid Kanaklata Barua State University’, coming up at Bholaguri in Gohpur in Biswanath district, has been sanctioned at an estimated cost of ₹415 crore. Spread across 241 acres, the institution will have a built-up area of around seven lakh square feet, making it one of the largest higher-education campuses planned in Upper Assam in recent years.
Officials associated with the project said the campus will accommodate academic blocks for at least 2,000 students, with hostel facilities for 1,620 students, alongside residential quarters, a guest house and a student facility centre. The focus on residential infrastructure, they added, reflects an attempt to draw students from remote parts of the Northeast who often migrate outside the region for specialised courses.
The university’s academic direction marks a departure from traditional disciplines, with its curriculum designed around frontier technologies. Programmes will be offered in artificial intelligence and machine learning, cybersecurity, blockchain, drone and navigation systems, quantum computing, brain–computer interfaces, the internet of things, and smart city frameworks.
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Education officials described it as a bid to prepare the state’s young workforce for “jobs of the next decade”, especially as India sharpens its emphasis on digital production, defence technology and automation.
Sitharaman, who is on a two-day visit to the state, said the institution would anchor Assam’s aspiration to emerge as a technology-driven economy within the Northeast. Her visit has included a review of ongoing central projects and discussions with state authorities on strengthening industry–linked skill development pipelines.
The project has also been linked to the government’s broader push to expand opportunities for technical training outside metropolitan clusters, especially for first-generation learners in rural and semi-rural districts. Educationists in the region noted that the university, once operational, could help reduce the outflow of students to cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, where most technology-centric courses are currently concentrated.
Construction is expected to progress in phases, with core academic blocks and residential units prioritised in the first stage.
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