Board members oppose HP Agriculture University land acquisition

Palampur, January 7

Seven members of the HP Agriculture University Board of Management recently urged the Chancellor to direct the state government to not acquire over 120 hectares of university land for the setting up a tourism village on the campus. The members who signed the letter are Urmil Bhuria, Suresh Chaudhary, Narinder Negi, Ms Mandchali Thakur, Prof Suresh Gautam, Prof Adarash Kumar and Prof Pardeep Kumar

In a letter to Chancellor Shiv Partap Shukla, who is also Governor of the state, the members said the university had already spared more than 100 hectares of land for the establishment of Vikram Batra College, Science Museum, wool federation Office and a heliport. Now the land with university is only meant to run the existing four colleges, namely College of Agriculture, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, College of Community Sciences and College of Basic science.

“With the implementation of National Education Policy 2020, the intake of undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate students is increasing year after year and the existing experimental area is falling short for various scientific field experiments. The proposed area is under development to meet the increasing requirement for students, field experimentation and to sustain dairy farming of the university. As per the minimum requirement for the accreditation of College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, new infrastructure is to be added shortly to start piggery and goat farm,” they apprised the Chancellor.

These members said many undergraduate and postgraduate students, especially girls, were living outside the university campus due to scarcity of hostel accommodation. Hence, more area is required for the construction of hostel for students. Moreover, new colleges and new programmes are to be initiated in different colleges under new education policy, they added.