A private engineering college of Bankura is trying to attract students, riding on its location within a “green” zone on Bengal’s Covid map.

A district is labelled “green” if it reports no new infections for 21 days and Bankura is among the five Bengal districts on that list currently.

Although the status is impermanent in nature, Bankura Unnayani Institute of Engineering has tried to cash in.

“We have to live with corona in the ensuing days and prospective guardians must consider admitting their wards in a college situated in a green zone and remain free of worry,” reads a print advertisement released by the institute.

Sasanka Dutta, the chairman of the college, told Metro over the phone that at a time when places like Calcutta have multiple hotspots, it would be safer for parents to admit their wards to a college 218km away from the city. He stressed how thinly populated the area around the college was and “so full of greenery”.

“I don’t think guardians would find institutes in and around Calcutta a safe option to admit their children in the wake of a pandemic that is likely to stay. They should come to our campus. We are in the green zone. We offer good placements,” said Dutta.

Any other time, placements would have topped the list of benefits offered.

Marketing professionals and ad men loved his pitch.

“They have made a claim that could immediately strike a chord with prospective parents ahead of the admission season,” said Kanchan Datta of Inner Circle Advertising.

He suggested that the college could take the pitch further and promise ahead of others that it would strictly abide by the physical distancing norms within the classrooms, canteens and hostels.“For the immediate, they opted for a more sensational spin,” added Datta.

A marketing professional said the text was also trying to drive home the point that institutes in less populated zones were a safer option to pursue studies during a raging pandemic. “Corona is perceived by many to be an urban outbreak. The language of the advertisement has sought to play on this sentiment,” he said.

But the green label could be short-lived, warned a health official. If a case is reported in a “green” zone, it immediately gets converted into an “orange” zone.

Sabyasachi Sengupta, former vice-chancellor of the state tech university to which the college is affiliated, said the advertisement gave a signal of things to come.

“As the days progress, colleges would compete to draw students based on how many Covid-19 cases are reported from that area. It is hard to imagine that a district would remain a ‘green’ zone forever,” said Sengupta.