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PATNA: Sounds strange, but it is a fact that 100-year-old Patna University (PU) does not have any alumni association till date. Thanks to its vice-chancellor

Rash Bihari Prasad Singh

, the first ever meeting of PU alumni was held at

Patna Science College

gymnasium here on Sunday.

More than 100 alumni attended the meeting and recalled their days spent in the university as a student. They assured of their help and cooperation in ensuring all-round development of their alma mater.

The prominent alumni who spoke on the occasion included Abhimanyu Singh, Kishore Kunal, Jitendra Singh, Raj Vardhan Sharma, R K Sinha and Usha Singh.

The VC, in his address, appealed to the alumni to donate funds for creating endowments in the name of their family members for the award of gold medals to the toppers of different examinations. There are 41 departments in PU and as many alumni could come forward with Rs4 lakh each donation for meeting the cost of gold medals. “The alumni do not need any invitation for visiting their campus,” he said. The VC also extended an open invitation at least on four occasions, including Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti and PU Foundation Day celebrations.

Kishore Kunal announced the donation of Rs4 lakh for the award of gold medal in the name of Mahavir Trust.

Some other alumni also announced necessary funds for creating endowments.

As many as 11 senior most alumni were felicitated at the function. They included Ram Yatan Sinha (the oldest alumnus who passed intermediate examination in 1945), Shashi Dhar Singh, Keshaw Pratap Sinha, Babban Lal, Rameshwar Gauntiya, Nand Lal Singh, Brajendra Kumar Srivastava, Raghubansh Prasad Sinha, L N Ram, K V Srinivasan and Abhimanyu Singh.

A 13-member core committee consisting of Raj Vardhan Sharma, Yogendra Paswan, Amulya Kumar Singh, Chandrama Singh, Kriteshwar Prasad, Dhruv Kumar, Alok Kumar, Parijat Saurabh, K N Paswan, Devendra Prasad Sinha, Mamta Das Sharma, Vidu Rani and Vandana Sinha was constituted for drafting the bylaws of the

PU Alumni Association

and facilitating election of its office-bearers.

PU pro-VC Dolly Sinha, Patna Science College principal Sudhir Kumar Srivastava and alumni committee convener Kriteshwar Prasad also addressed the meeting.