Teachers’ body hails HC stay on transfer of agri varsity land

The Himachal Pradesh Agriculture University Teachers’ Association (HPUTA) on Wednesday hailed the Himachal Pradesh high Court’s decision restraining the state authorities from transferring 112 hectares of university land to the Tourism Department for the setting up a tourism village.

HPUTA president Janardhan Singh told the media that the association was protesting against the proposal for the past six months. It had approached the Governor, Chief Minister, ministers and local MLA over the matter, but nobody paid a heed, he said.

“Finally, we knocked the doors of the high court, which granted a stay on the transfer of land yesterday,” he added.

The HPUTA president claimed that if the land was transferred for setting up the tourism village, the university would have to discontinue a four major projects related to farm and animal sciences.

“The area under these projects was part of 112 hectares that the state government has acquired for setting up the tourism village by a Dubai-based company,” he added.

Besides, it would have a serious impact on the teaching, research, education and extension programmes of the university, he said. The land transfer would have also jeopardise other important upcoming projects in the university, he added.

Janardhan Singh said the transfer of 112 hectares from the university pool would be a major setback to the agriculture sector in the state. He appealed to Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu to give a second thought to the proposal and set up the tourism village elsewhere.

He said the teaching community, non-teaching staff and students were never against the tourism village, but they wanted that it should not be set up in the university campus.

Meanwhile, Ashok Kumar Sarial, former Vice-Chancellor and senior agriculture scientist, said instead of acquiring the agriculture university’s farms for the tourism village, the state government should strengthen the varsity to benefit farmers of the state. Sarial said the Chief Minister must respect the public sentiments and should not drag the teachers and non-teachers in the legal battle.