The ambitious proposal of setting up a common university for eight SAARC countries has taken off with the dedication of land for the institute by India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Speaking at the dedication ceremony in Maidan Garhi on May 26, Mukherjee announced that the South Asian University (SAU) would hold its first academic session in 2010.

The main campus in New Delhi will be hosting nearly 5,000 students and an international faculty. It will also have campuses in all other seven SAARC countries—Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.

"The university will help realise the dream of thousands of young men and women who will gather here, not only for high quality education, but also in a spirit of fraternity and friendship," Mukherjee said.

It may be recalled that the proposal for setting up such a university was mooted by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the 13th SAARC Summit in Dhaka in December 2005.The External Affairs Minister stressed that SAARC has moved towards it relatively quickly as an inter-governmental agreement on it was signed only at the 14th SAARC summit held in New Delhi last year.

Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Member PK Chaddha has been entrusted with the responsibility to oversee the university's construction, land acquisition and drawing up its charter, byelaws, business plan, governance structure and course curricula.
Chadha will hold the post of CEO of the SAARC university for two years until the university becomes functional in 2010 when a Vice-Chancellor would be appointed.
The project is being executed by the ministry of external affairs in consultation with the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Department of Education of the Human Resource Development Ministry.The Government of India has offered to bear the entire cost of setting up the university which is expected to be a non-profit Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

Once fully operational, the SAU would witness free flow of students as well as faculty from Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, India and the Maldives. The university will offer both undergraduate as well as post graduate courses.