4 yrs on, only entry gate at Karnal MHU

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, March 1

The fate of MaharanaPratap Horticulture University (MHU) at Anjanthali hangs in balance as almost four years after laying of the foundation stone, only boundary wall and entry gate has been constructed. The project drawing and construction agency are yet to be finalised.

With the aim to develop human resources in the field of horticulture, the state had announced this university for Karnal district. The foundation stone of the project was laid by former Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on April 6, 2016.

The government had planned to construct this university on 118 acres with the estimated cost of Rs 486 crore with three regional centres one each at Raiya in Jhajjar, Chandsoli in Ambala and Badhana in Jind. The government has sanctioned Rs 150 for the project so far.

The classes for MSc and PhD are running from the campus of Haryana Agriculture University, Hisar, for the last two years. Now, the authorities of the university have planned to start the classes of BSc (Horticulture) from July this year for which pre-engineering structural buildings will be constructed on the premises of the horticulture university.

“The government is only making promises. Nothing has been done on ground. The ambitious projects are hanging fire for several months in the CM’s district,” said Pankaj Punia, former state Congress secretary.

Prof Samar Singh, VC of the university, admitted that the drawing and construction agency were yet to be approved, but he is hopeful that it will be finalised by March-end and the work will commence in April.

“Earlier, the HAU, Hisar, was assigned the work for holding tenders and finalising the agency. It had invited tenders for boys’ hostel in 2019, but it was cancelled. Now, we have started the process to invite tenders. The drawing is being finalised for which a meeting has been held with the ACS of the department,” said the VC.