‘Tourism village’ would shut the door for educational activities: Former VC

Palampur, September 1

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The construction of a proposed ‘tourism village’ by a Dubai-based company on 112 hectares of land belonging to Himachal Pradesh Agriculture University (HPAU), Palampur, has attracted widespread opposition.

Students, teachers and non-teaching employees of the university have taken to roads, opposing the setting up of the tourism village on the campus.

They are demanding that the university land not be transferred for non-educational purposes.

“Three ICAR and Government of India-funded projects have been running on this land. Now, with the transfer of land to the Tourism Department for the setting up of a ‘tourism village’, the work on the projects would be stopped,” said former HPAU Vice-Chancellor Ashok Kumar Sarial, while talking to The Tribune.

Sarial said the university had been running four colleges on its campus — the College for Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Colleges of Basic Sciences, College of Community Sciences, and the College of Agriculture and Post Graduate Study Centre.

The government should not underestimate the performance of the university as, in the past 40 years, HPAU had received numerous prizes for its commendable job in research, teaching and extension activities, he added.

Sarial said if 112 hectares of university land was transferred for the tourism village, the door for the expansion of educational activities on the campus would be closed as the university would be left with no land.

Many projects established in the state, funded by Asian Development Bank (ADB), are lying defunct.

The convention centre established in the Bhagsunag area of Dharamsala, tourist huts built in the Nagrota Surian area, tent accommodation on the banks of the Pong Dam Lake, two big tourist complexes in Kullu are Seraj are some of the ADB-funded tourism projects in Kangra that are lying unused despite public investment worth crores of rupees.

History of HP Agriculture University

• The HPAU campus is spread over 400 hectares on the outskirts of Palampur town
• After the reorganisation of states in 1966, most of what is now university land was transferred to the Himachal Pradesh Government by the National Biological Laboratory
• Earlier, this land was in the possession of the Punjab Government, and Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana, was using the premises to run a campus of the university for the BSc agriculture programme
• After the reorganisation of states, the assets of PAU in Himachal Pradesh were taken over by the state government. In 1978, during the tenure of the Shanta Kumar-led government, HPAU was set up on this land