Region’s 5 on Centre’s heritage college list

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 5

Five colleges from the region have outsmarted others in the race for grant of 'special heritage status' by the Centre today. These include St Bede's College, Shimla; Kanya Mahavidyalaya, Jalandhar; Government Gandhi Memorial Science College, Jammu; DAV College, Ambala and Khalsa College, Amritsar.

In all, 19 colleges have been selected out of 60 from across the country for the grant of the heritage status and related financial funding for conservation of buildings. 

Other heritage institutions such as St Xavier's Colleges in Kolkata and Mumbai; Meerut College, UP; Langat Singh College, Muzaffarpur, Bihar; and Cotton College, Guwahati, too are on the list.

Among other selected colleges are CMS, Kottayam; Government Brennan College, Kannur; Fergusson College, Pune; Hislop College, Nagpur; Midnapore College, West Bengal and Agra College. Cotton College has been selected for the grant of maximum funding of Rs 4.35 crore under the UGC's Grant of Special Heritage Status to Universities and Colleges Scheme. The project envisages hand-holding of top heritage institutions, which have maintained fine standards of instruction for over 100 years of their existence.

The scheme, part of the 12th Plan, provides for one-time lump-sum grant of up to Rs 10 crore to a heritage university and up to Rs 5 crore to a college for preservation and upkeep of buildings, libraries, artefacts, manuscripts or equipment of historical value.

In the region, St Bede's is the heritage institution selected for the highest financial support of Rs 1.15 crore, followed by Rs 80 lakh for KMV, Jalandhar; Rs 55 lakh for GGM College, Jammu; Rs 35 lakh for DAV (Lahore), Ambala and Rs 10 lakh for Khalsa College, Amritsar. St Bede's has received majority grant for the conservation of Marian block and survey of heritage sites in Shimla. The Khalsa College will be helped to preserve rare manuscripts and DAV-Ambala maintain equipment and books of heritage value. GGM-Jammu has been recommended for grant to support the Museum of Geology Department and to sensitise the community about the cultural implications of rich heritage structures of Jammu and Kashmir.

Among the 41 colleges rejected under the scheme, four are from the region: Government Sai Pratap College, Srinagar; NJSA Government College, Kapurthala; Government Mohindra College, Patiala, and DAV College, Dehradun.