Lakshmi Narayan Mittal, the illustrious alumnus of St Xavier's College and currently the chairman & CEO of theArcelorMittal group, has promised a hefty grant to his alma mater as a tribute for making him what he is. He is likely to pay nothing less than Rs 18 crore to help his college build a swanky hostel for at least 500 students. The new hostels will come up on a plot that the college already owns on AJC Bose Road.
Mittal visited the college twice in the past three years and had shown keen interest in sponsoring any "key project" related to the college's expansion. Recently, the college authorities have been in touch with him over whether he wished to sponsor a modern hostel that could house more than 500 boys and girls. The hostel has become a necessity because the college is in an expansion mode but the hostel capacity has remained stagnant at less than 200 seats.
This first autonomous college of the state has five post-graduate departments at the moment, but it plans to add at least 10 more by the next academic session. The number of under-graduate departments is also slated to increase while a management institute on the lines of the XLRI Jamshedpur and XIMB Bhubaneswar has also been planned.
"If we bring about such expansion, we will naturally get students from across the country. Since we will have to provide hostel facilities to them, we have decided to build two towers to house boys and girls separately on the AJC Bose Road plot. We already have an old building housing under 200 boys there, but times have changed and we need to upgrade these facilities," said Father Felix Raj, principal of the college.
If things go according to plans, the old building will be pulled down and two swanky towers will come up in its place. Design for the two towers has already been approved and this will be sent to Mittal along with the cost estimates needed to build them. The latter has invited Father Raj to hisLondon residence on October 22 to discuss the project and how he could be of "financial assistance."
"The project would cost Rs 18 crore and we are expecting him to sponsor the entire amount. We are about to come up with two new campuses - one at Eastern Bypass off SRFTI and another at Rajarhat. For the latter, we have asked for 25 acre from the government in addition to the five acre that have been given to us by the state government. We would need our alumni to help out with the two new campuses also," Father Raj said. A large number of alumni has already assured of financial assistance.
Mittal was a BCom student of the college in the 1970s. He was a bright scholar and after passing from the college, he was offered a teaching position in the commerce department by the then vice-principal of the college, Father Joris.
SOURCE:THE TIMES OF INDIA
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