Himalaya Harbinger, Rudrapur Bureau
Today, three important centers in the university, namely Madhuvatika, Gaura Devi Training Center and Devki Nandan Agrawal Student Recreation Center were unveiled by the Chief Guest, Hon’ble Governor of Uttarakhand Lt Gen Gurmit Singh in the presence of the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Dr. Manmohan Singh Chauhan and District Magistrate of Udham Singh Singh Nagar, Mr. Nitin Bhadoria and other dignitaries. Thereafter, in the program organized in Ratan Singh Auditorium, the Chief Guest addressed the officials, faculty members and students of the University. On this occasion, Dr. Sham Sundar Goyal, a student of the 1960 batch of the Agricultural College of the University, was present as a special guest.
During his address, the Hon’ble Governor said that Pantnagar University is making progress in every field and with the establishment of these new centres, students will get practical experience along with academic knowledge. He congratulated the Vice Chancellor and all the faculty members, students and staff of the University on the University getting 209th rank in the QS World Rankings this year and said that a quantum jump of more than 100 places from last year’s rank of 311 is a very significant achievement. He said that Gaura Devi Training Centre, Madhuvatika and Devki Nandan Agrawal Student Recreation Centre would prove to be a milestone in the overall development journey of the University. He particularly emphasized that Devki Nandan Agrawal Student Recreation Centre would provide students an opportunity for cordial interaction along with academic and research work. The chief guest expressed his gratitude to Dr. Sham Sundar Goyal who established the Devki Nandan Agrawal Student Recreation Centre in the name of his father with a fund of Rs. 1 crore and has travelled from California along with his family to handover the premises to the University. He expects that this exemplary tradition should be adopted by other alumni of the University.
Throwing light on the usefulness of Madhuvatika, the Chief Guest said that this centre will give a new direction in the field of beekeeping and honey production, which will benefit the farmers and at present the production of honey in Uttarakhand is three thousand metric tons, which will also help in achieving the target of increasing it to sixty thousand metric tons. Throwing light on the usefulness of the establishment of Gaura Devi Training Centre, he said that this centre will make women self-reliant by training them in various skills and said that the University has always given priority to women empowerment, and this centre will open new opportunities of self-employment and entrepreneurship for women. Along with this, in the last Kisan Mela organized by the University, Mrs. Preeti Bhandari earned about Rs. 10000 by value addition in mushroom and ShriAnna. He praised her for earning 10 lakhs and also suggested other women to increase their income by adopting entrepreneurship.
While welcoming Her Excellency, Vice-Chancellor Dr. Manmohan Singh Chauhan said that three important inaugurations were done by the chief guest in the university, the first of which was Madhuvatika (Honey Garden) through which farmers will get a chance to join beekeeping on one hand and on the other hand api-tourism will be promoted through training. Gaura Devi Training Centre will help rural women to train them entrepreneurship for enhancing their income. The third inauguration of Devki Nandan Agrawal Student Recreation Centre will prove to be helpful to the students in improving their own activities. He said that the university has achieved unprecedented achievements in the field of products, technical development, patents and publications and this will continue to be achieved with the cooperation of all.
Special guest Dr. Sham Sunder Goyal expressed his happiness on the inauguration of the Student Recreation Centre by the hands of the Hon’ble Governor and said that his dream of thirty years has come true today. He said that whatever I am today is because of Pantnagar University. He said that I hope that the students will consider this centre as their own and come here and increase mutual coordination and exchange of ideas. Dr. Goyal thanked the Vice Chancellor of the University, Dr. S.N. Maurya of 1960 batch, Dr. Deepa Vinay, Registrar and others for their cooperation in the inauguration of this centre.
On this occasion, the Vice-Chancellor and Dr. Sham Sunder Goyal jointly signed the gift deed and various publications were released by the Chief Guest and Jai Gopal Singh Earthworm was presented to two farmer women. At the end of the programme, Registrar Dr. Deepa Vinay thanked everyone. Later during the interaction meeting, the Hon’ble Governor suggested to all the Deans and Directors of the University to achieve the objectives of the University with team spirit.
