Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 24: Minister for Education, Syed Mohd Altaf Bukhari today said that there was no proposal to open Degree College at Mandi as three Degree Colleges are already functioning in district Poonch.
Replying to the Calling Attention Notice of NC member Dr Shehnaz Ganai in the Upper House today, the Education Minister told that uncovered areas would be the priority of the Government. He informed that at present there was no proposal to open a Degree College at tehsil Mandi, district Poonch.
“The location details for setting up of the newly sanctioned colleges are being worked out by the department. It will be an endeavor of the department that the academic activities in these colleges are started as soon as possible,” he said.
Elaborating further, he said the opening of new colleges at a particular place/area shall be subject to the availability of requisite land preferably State land and feasibility of demand which also includes the sufficient number of feeding Higher Secondary Schools in the area.
“The priority shall be accorded to uncovered Assembly segments which are presently devoid of such facility,” he added.
The Minister further said that the students of Mandi area are pursuing higher studies from Government Degree Colleges, Poonch and Surankote. He said and the subjects offered in Poonch college include General English, English Literature, Zoology, Chemistry, Sericulture, Physics, Mathematics, BCA, Geography, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Education, Political Science, Economics, Arabic, History, Philosophy, Environmental Science, Persian, Sociology, Commerce and Biotechnology with hostel facility for 60 male and 36 female students.
“Similarly, in Government Degree College Surankote subjects offered include English, Education, Urdu, Political Science and Environmental Science” he informed further.
The Minister said that the Government Degree College, Poonch is at a distance of 24 km and Degree College Surankote about 30 km from Mandi.
Besides, there is one more college functional in the district at Mendhar in which various subjects like (Applied Math, Arabic, Botany, Chemistry, Commerce, English, Hindi, Urdu. Computer Application, Economics, Educa-tion, English Lit. Environment Science, Geography, Mathema-tics, Persian, Physics, Political Science, Sociology, Zoology) are offered.
The NC member then staged walk-out from the House to mark her protest on the Government’s response.
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