NROs welcome Bhakta’s bid for VAL in Kalahandi

The Pioneer, Sept 20, 2009
Pioneer News Service | Bhubaneswar

From Lebanon to the Netherlands, non-residential Oriyas (NROs) on Saturday come out in support of Kalahandi MP Bhakta Das’ proposed package of Rs 1,000 crore for Vedanta Aluminum Ltd (VAL) for overall development of the people of the district, particularly in the fields of technical education.

They also urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Union Minister for Human Resources Development Kapil Sibal and other national and regional political leaders to take appropriate steps to convince VAL to establish a national standard university in Kalahandi similar to the setting up of a world-class institution proposed in Puri.

The NROs pledged their support through emails after a report appeared in The Pioneer on Saturday on the MP’s proposal to VAL.

Digambara Patra, Assistant Professor, American University of Beirut, in copy of his email to The Pioneer, mentioned, “When a company along with its sister organisation, Anil Agrawal Foundation, is willing to invest a mammoth amount of Rs 15,000 crore to establish a world-class institution somewhere else in the State, it is not going be difficult for the same company to invest Rs 1,000 crore to establish a national-standard university under the UGC Act in Kalahandi.”

Tanmaya K Panda from Los Angeles, USA, reiterated the demand and said, “We had earlier proposed to the state Government that a State-level university ought to be established by Vedanta, but we are yet to receive any reply on the matter. However, the draft proposal can be modified if the MP and the State and Central Governments are willing to pursue a completely new national-standard university to be set up by VAL in Kalahandi.”

Madhusmita Panda from Lebanon offered a liberal approach to the proposal in her email, saying, “A national-standard university in Kalahandi can be set up in collaboration with the UGC in the PPP mode.”

“The five technical colleges as proposed by Das, along with other courses in science, management, law, arts and pharmacy, will be a vital factor as it will contribute towards the educational and economic development of backward regions like Kalahandi and Nuapada,” said Dr Sanjib Kumar Karmee of the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, while welcoming the MP’s proposal.