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| Spread of education must to convert despair into hope: Azad | | | Early Times Reporter
Tangdhar | June 24
Asserting that education was the main instrument to change the situation from despair to hope, Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has said that poverty and unemployment were the main concern of his government and one of the effective ways to address these grave issues was to spread the reach of education in the State.
The Chief Minister was addressing a large public meeting after inaugurating the newly set up government degree college here.
Minister for Higher Education, Gulchain Singh Charak, MLA, Kafil ur Rehman and District Development Commissioner, Kupwara, Isfandyar Khan were also present when the Chief Minister formally launched classes in the new degree college. He interacted with the students who were very happy on the opening of a college in this remote area of the State. Most of them told him that if the college was not set up they would not have been able to pursue higher education.
Azad said that spreading higher education to remote and neglected areas like Tangdhar was aimed at eradicating the centuries old deprivation and under-development. He said the degree college was set up here without the locals making a demand for it. This, he said, was because he fully understood the importance of education for the removal of poverty and backwardness. He said recently the University of Kashmir decided to set up an additional campus at Kupwara which meant that students from Karnah and other parts of the district no longer needed to go to Srinagar or elsewhere for post-graduation. He said during the past two and half years he had been visiting the State's far-flung and backward areas where people did not have basic amenities like roads, schools, hospitals and drinking water and which remain cut of from even district headquarters for six months in winter. He said areas like Gurez, Karnah, Machhil, Dachhan, Warwan, Paddar, Marwah or distant habitations in Ladakh region lacked facilities and his government had focused its attention on providing these to every village, howsoever distant, in the State. He said his government believed in justice to all areas of the State irrespective of people's religion, political affiliation, caste or geographical location. He said he was satisfied over having made a beginning and hoped that with the support of the people the deficiencies would be made up.
Referring to reconstruction of Tangdhar after the devastating earthquake of 2005 Azad said that he was happy to see a new town having emerged over the ruins of the old one. He said the central and state governments worked in tandem to rebuild the town. He said the residential houses had almost been fully reconstructed while work on damaged amenities like roads, healthcare centres, schools and drinking water and irrigation facilities was going apace. He said he was hopeful of seeing within two years a modern town replacing the quake hit habitation. He said he would send a team of officers who would stay here for a week to supervise reconstruction of damaged facilities. He took a serious note of absence of employees in distant areas and said that development works at such places suffered because of absentee employees rather than because of lack of funds. He referred to his surprise visit of Marwah two days back where he ordered action against absentee officials and warned that employees found unauthorisedly absent from duty for 10 days would lose their jobs.
The Chief Minister also visited the upcoming multi-facility hospital at Tangdhar and inspected the pace of work. He asked the project executing agency to ensure timely completion of the hospital. |
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