At a function on Wednesday when the MERI, Kolkata, was renamed as the Kolkata Campus of the Indian Marine University, the authorities agreed that the institute could be developed as a full-fledged university soon. “There is an opportunity of a university coming up at each extension campus of the IMU. It is up to the respective campus to take it up,” said APVN Sarma, secretary, ministry of shipping and road transport in Kolkata.

Sarma’s view was supported by IMU Vice Chancellor P Vijayan, who said the university is open to converting all its campuses as a full-fledged university.

A full-fledged university status for the MERI has been a long demand of its employees. “The institute was set up in 1953 . We have 33 acres of land and the institute should have been developed into a full-fledged university. This will not remain an extension campus of the university in Chennai,” said Samar Bose, secretary of MERI employees union.

In March 2007, Left and DMK MPs virtually came to blows over the introduction of a Bill to set up a Maritime University in Tamil Nadu. Left members, who were demanding that the university be set up in Kolkata, had tried to stop Shipping Minister TR Baalu from tabling the Bill, arguing that if MERI is not declared a university, it will be reduced to a mere appendage of the IMU at Chennai.

The IMU at Chennai was set up on December 31, 2008 with institutes like MERI Kolkata, MERI Mumbai, T. S. Chanakya, Navi Mumbai, Lal Bahadur Shastri College of Advanced Maritime Studies and Research, Mumbai, Indian Institute of Port Management Kolkata, National Ship Design and Research Centre, Visakhapatnam and Indian Maritime Institute at Chennai under one roof.