“All the people’s representatives, including Members of Parliament and legislators, profusely thanked the chief minister for setting up a state university in the name of Raja Mahendra Pratap in Aligarh,” read a statement issued by the state Information Department.
A year after the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh announced the setting up of a university in Aligarh named after erstwhile king Raja Mahendra Pratap, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday directed officials to expedite construction of the state university.
“All the people’s representatives, including Members of Parliament and legislators, profusely thanked the chief minister for setting up a state university in the name of Raja Mahendra Pratap in Aligarh. They said Raja Mahendra Partap was the one who gave land for AMU (Aligarh Muslim University). But his name was never mentioned and not a single stone was erected in his name. It just because of CM Adityanath that a separate university is being set up after his name,” read a statement issued by the state Information Department.
The CM’s directives to the officials came during a meeting where he reviewed projects in Aligarh division, comprising Aligarh, Kasganj, Etah and Hathras districts, through a video conferencing.
In the Aligarh division, 25 projects worth over Rs 50 crore, including 10 in Kasganj, nine in Aligarh and six in Etah, are currently under progress.
Information Director Shishir Singh said the CM had announced the construction of the university on September 14, 2019. Land for the university has been proposed in Lodha and Musepur villages of Kol tehsil. The district administration has provided more than 37 hectares of land free of cost and another 10 hectares reclaimed from mafias. He said freedom fighter Mahendra Pratap established an asthai (temporary) Hind sarkar and was one of the co-founders of Azad Hind Fauz.
Adityanath stressed that Aligarh had to play an important role in the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ dream and asked officials to fastrack the Smart City project. He directed the divisional commissioner of Aligarh to soon complete the Integrate Command and Control Centre, and Achal Taal.
The CM reiterated that all development works should be completed in time without compromising with quality. Every timeline should be adhered to at all costs, he said. Aligarh, already one of the six nodes of the ambitious Defence Corridor project, was a hub of hardware manufacturing and held immense potential for industrialisation and job creation, he said.
