Former Vice Chancellors, students and teachers of the Palampur Agriculture University have appealed to the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu to reconsider the decision of transferring the university's land to the tourism department.
Sukhu had told the Assembly on Friday that they have decided to transfer 112 hectares of land from Chaudhary Sarwan Kumar (CSK) Agriculture University, Palampur to the tourism department for setting up a tourism village and the land would be transferred soon. He had said that during the past 48 years, even 50 hectares of land was not developed by the University. If the need arises in the future, the university would be provided with private land. In a letter to the chief minister, the signatories argued that those who are saying that the University has surplus land are either "ignorant or have inadequate knowledge of land grant patterns".
The students, alumni, teachers, non-teachers, retirees and former Vice Chancellor of the University are among the signatories in the letter. Pointing out that the Palampur Agriculture University was initially started as a third campus of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and after the bifurcation of Punjab in 1966, the College of Agriculture, Palampur was transferred to Himachal Pradesh and upgraded to a full-fledged Agricultural University, the letter said.
Out of the total land of PAU measuring more than 8,500 hectares, donated by the Government, the Palampur campus has only 600 hectares of land, they claimed. Out of the 600 hectares of land, four hectares of land was donated by the Raja of Nadaun, 16 hectares were gifted by the residents of Khalet and Rajpur Panchayats and more than 350 hectares of land was donated by the Government of India by transferring its National Biological Lab land to the University, the letter read. The letter further noted that the GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology in Pantnagar, the first such agricultural university was established on more than 6,400 hectares of land donated by the government.
In the past, the state government had divested the land of Palampur University only for the growth of science and education and for the helipad. Now, land equivalent to 25 per cent of the total university land has been transferred to the Department of Tourism., they said. "It is seriously felt that the transfer of the university land to the Department of Tourism for developing the Tourism Village will adversely affect the interests of agricultural education and the farming community", the letter said.
The proposal of upgrading CSKHPKV Palampur to the Central Agricultural University of North-Western Himalayan Region, aimed at serving the farming community of Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand, is under active consideration by the Union Ministry of Agriculture. The farmers' welfare and proposal would be jeopardized due to land shortage caused by the proposed transfer of more than 100 hectares of land to the Tourism Village project, the letter said.
The world-class academic culture of CSKHPKV Palampur is its hallmark which is shown by the attraction of international students from six countries and 14 Indian states and the University has so far attained the highest 11th position amongst 76 state Agriculture Universities (SAUs) and Institutes in the country. Copies of the letter have also been sent to the Governor, Speaker of the State Assembly, Leader of the Opposition and state Agriculture Minister. (Agencies)
