Patna: CM Samrat Choudhary on Tuesday asked the higher education department to start academic and teaching activities in newly established degree colleges in 211 blocks that currently do not have any such institution.Reviewing the department’s functioning, Samrat asked officials to take steps to make the colleges fully operational and ordered formation of a recruitment committee to assess staffing requirements. He also directed preparation of a combined vacancy list for all colleges.The CM appealed to private citizens to donate land for new colleges, saying institutions could be named on their suggestion. He also invited support for construction of college buildings and stressed that new campuses should have proper road connectivity.Samrat further directed officials to prepare an assessment of infrastructure and staff in non-aided degree colleges to streamline grant allocation.In another initiative, he asked the department to identify the country’s top 10 universities and explore MoUs for affiliating select Bihar colleges with them.He also directed the department to inform the Union ministry about the state govt’s decision to provide land for the proposed Vikramshila University project and ordered reorganisation of research institutes and university research centres in the state.