Khalsa University need of the Hour for Quality Education in the Region: KCGC

AMRITSAR: Khalsa College Governing Council (KCGC) today laid bare its resolve to set up new Khalsa University Amritsar (KUA), away from historic Khalsa College’s heritage building, stating that this was the need of the hour for quality education in the region. The charitable body, running 17 colleges and schools in the state appealed all political parties to unite in the public interest to make it happen.KCGC President Satyajit Singh Majithia in a candid statement today said that concerns of all including the respected political leaders that heritage of the Khalsa College should be protected at all cost, are valid and the KCGC is committed to maintain the historic character of the building intact. He said Khalsa College is run by an elected body of the Council which is non-profit making charitable society that owns the land and it going to private hands is just a figment of an imagination.“As the same society that runs the Khalsa College and other institutions will be running the University, the question does not arise that the land or any infrastructure of the varsity will go to any individual or any particular family, least to his own, as reported in section of media’’, stated Majithia.He appealed all political parties that the quality education demands world class education infrastructure in the times of professionalism today. “We need to generate employment through professional courses thus the university degrees are must. If cities like Delhi or Hyderabad can have 7-8 universities why can not Amritsar have two Universities’’, said he, rubbishing the narrow minded statements that one city should have only one University.“In Delhi IIT and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) share the walls in Delhi and both are the top most centers of higher learning in the country’,, stated he. Meanwhile, KCGC honourary secretary Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina stated as per University Grants Commission (UGC), the country need 1500 universities by 2020 and it has just 777 today. In the state of Punjab alone 8 private universities were established in the last five years, then why the KCGC, which has the experience, financial back up and fulfill all norms required for the university as per state government and UGC rules and regulations, is being denied the opportunity to start institution of higher learning.