NEW DELHI: An "Education City" is coming up at Kundli in Haryana to provide world-class education in various disciplines like Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and Information technology.

Designed to serve as a Centre of Excellence, the Rajiv Gandhi Education City would be first of its kind in the country, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said here.

"The project will be a unique milestone," he said, but could not specify when it will be in place. "We are in the process of setting up the Education City."

The six-month-old Hooda government had increased the plan provision for education by more than 50 per cent.

Listing the various measures initiated to improve quality of education, Mr. Hooda said more than 11,000 vacant post of teachers in the state would be filled up by December this year.

As part of a special drive to bring all children in the 6-11 age group to the primary schools, a new scheme called "Rajiv Gandhi Scholarships for excellence in education" had been launched to reward 50,000 brilliant students in government schools. Under the scheme, a scholarship of Rs 750 per year would be given to each student in primary and middle schools who tops their class examination and secures more than 60 per cent marks. In the case of high school and higher secondary, the scholarship is Rs 1000.

Referring to the rapid strides in agriculture, Mr Hooda said a bill to amend the Punjab Agricultural Produce Marketing Act, 1961, would be introduced in the next session of the Vidhan Sabha to facilitate contract farming.

The Chief Minister said his government had set an ambitious target of one million jobs with an investment of Rs. 2,00,000 crore during the next ten years. Investment worth Rs 7000 crore catalysed during the last six months.

An Overseas Employment Bureau was being set up for facilitating placement.

Saying that his government had been laying a special thrust on infrastructure development, Mr. Hooda said a mega petrochemical hub was being set up near Panipat. Three new industrial modern townships of international standard, Special Economic Zones, Industrial clusters, IT Parks and Food Technology parks were proposed along the proposed Western Periphery Expressway (Kundli-Manesar-Palwal).

In order to meet the increasing demand of power for agriculture and industry, an additional 5000 MW of power would be generated in the next 3 to 4 years.

Touching upon issues involving the Centre, Mr Hoonda said the Union Government should make specific budget provisions for the development of the National Capital Region (NCR). The Centre should give budgetary support for modernisation of police force in the entire NCR at par with the National Capital Territory.

He made an appeal to extend the Delhi Metro Rail Project to Gurgaon and all the NCR towns of Haryana, especially Faridabad, Bahadurgarh and Kundli.

Mr Hooda urged the Centre to take up the construction of Kishau, Lakhvar-Vyasi and Renuka dams in the upper reaches of Yamuna, besides completing the Sutlej Yamuna Link canal in compliance of the directions of the Supreme Court.

Suggesting that the Centre should encourage better performing States like Haryana instead of penalising them, the Chief Minister said norms should be changed to give more funds for upgradation of rural roads in Haryana under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana.

"The Centre should expedite sanction of the detailed project for establishing State Wide Area Network with an outlay of Rs. 102 crores," he said.

Mr Hooda said he had sent a proposal to the Centre seeking assistance to set up community toilets in all villages for scheduled caste women.

He said he had sought inclusion of three more districts - Jhajjar, Mewat and Rewari - in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, in addition to the district of Mahendragarh which was only one covered at present. --UNI

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