STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said here on Wednesday that Kathua is fast emerging as an important education centre and a series of new academic institutions in the last three or four years, with liberal funding from the Modi government, have placed it as a front-ranking education-imparting district in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
Dr Jitendra was interacting with a group of high-school students from Kathua who called on him at the Parliament House on Wednesday.
The students were accompanied by Kathua born Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) from Misrikh, Uttar Pradesh, Anju Bala. The young students were excited to visit the Parliament House complex and were later conducted to various wings of the Parliament House.
Dr Jitendra said, in the last three years, the foundation stone of a Medical College funded by Union Health Ministry was laid at Kathua and an Engineering College was sanctioned by the Government of India under “Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan”(RUSA).
Similarly, the Union Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India is coming up with North India’s first-ever “Bio-Tech Park” near Gaati in Kathua at a budget of Rs. 100 crore. This is going to be a unique institution of research, study and job generation with a game – changing outcome for youth, he said.
The Kathua Campus of the University of Jammu existed prior to 2014, said Dr Singh, but it was only recently that the decks were cleared for acquisition of land for the construction of its own building under the ownership of the University authorities.
As for school education, Dr Jitendra mentioned that the existing Kendriya Vidyalaya in Kathua is being shifted to a newly constructed building shortly, while a proposal is being filed for another Kendriya Vidyalaya. In addition, he said, the AIIMS approved by the Government of India is also likely to come up in close proximity on the Kathua-Jammu National Highway.
He also informed that he had facilitated an MoU between ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) and the J&K State Department of Education, under which the possibilities are being explored to start coaching through satellite tele-education for Civil Services / IAS examinations in with the help of faculty persons from Delhi and other centres.
Dr Singh said, the youth of the region are intelligent and aspirational, but due to lack of opportunity and access to higher education, they have not been able to exploit their potential to the maximum extent. He said, we owe it to the youth to create conditions compatible to the realisation of their dreams and potentials.
