Jammu has emerged as education hub of north India: Union minister Jitendra Singh

NEW DELHI: Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Friday said Jammu region has emerged as the education hub of north India over the last seven years after Narendra Modi took over as the country’s prime minister.

He said projects sanctioned simultaneously for Jammu and Srinagar have taken off in the winter capital but are languishing in the valley owing to “peculiar circumstances” there.

“Jammu today has virtually emerged as the education hub of north India. We have IIMs, IITs, Indian Institute of Mass Communication, AIIMS, three government medical colleges within a range of 10 to 20 km as well as north India’s first ever teaching department of space technology by ISRO in central University Jammu,” the minister of state in the Prime Minister’s office said.

He was speaking at the third fourth convocation of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) presided over by Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu here.

Singh, who represents Udhampur-Kathua constituency of Jammu and Kashmir in parliament, said north India’s first biotech park is coming up in Kathua besides several engineering colleges.

“All this has happened in the last seven years and we owe it to the central government headed by Modi,” he said, adding one the largest stadiums in the country is also coming up in Jammu region named after former finance minister Arun Jaitley besides a water sports complex at Mansar in Udhampur.

“The stadium is next to only Ahmedabad stadium and Kolkata’s Eden Garden,” said the Union minister who had laid the foundation stone of the Rs 58.23 crore mega-sports complex spread over 270 kanals of land at Hiranagar in Kathua in September last year.

“This is actually happening around us which has a direct connection with our youth. Earlier, the common grievance was that discrimination was happening against Jammu,” he said.

He said all the projects which were sanctioned simultaneously for Jammu and Srinagar are progressing in Jammu, while they are languishing in the valley.

“We have the first phase of ring road already functional in Jammu, first batch of 50 students selected for AIIMS and an industrial park is also ready in Kathua but the projects are yet to take off in the valley whatever be the reason or peculiar circumstances over there,” he said.

“Despite all this, some people still keep claiming that there is discrimination (against Jammu). Maybe they are the victims of the victimhood hangover of the past,” he added. (PTI)