GADVASU fund crunch: M S Gill grants Rs 25 lakh, urges other MPs to help

"We need much more to make crop diversification a success. My contribution is still insufficient to complete the project but I wanted to contribute in some way,” said Gill.

Congress Rajya Sabha member Dr M S Gill visited the Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU), Ludhiana and announced a grant of Rs 25 lakh from his MP funds for the stalled girls’ hostel.

The Indian Express had earlier highlighted how GADVASU, the state’s only veterinary university, is reeling under severe financial crunch and six projects are suffering due to this. The university is awaiting Rs 11 crore clearance from the state finance department.

“I am surprised to know that there are few vet varsities in the country. We need much more to make crop diversification a success. My contribution is still insufficient to complete the project but I wanted to contribute in some way,” said Gill.

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“Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu is sitting in Lok Sabha from Ludhiana, it his own constituency. Now, Dullo (Shamsher Singh) has been elected from Congress to the Rajya Sabha and so is Partap Singh Bajwa. It is an appeal to the MPs of my own party first that they should help GADVASU. It is shocking that funds of most of MPs are not fully utilised and they lapse,” he said.

The girls hostel project costs around Rs 4 crore of which Rs 1.21 crore are yet to arrive from the state since September last. GADVASU vice-chancellor Dr AS Nanda was ecstatic over the announcement.

“We cannot express in words how much we are thankful to you for this grant. It might be a small amount but it is literally doobtey ko tinke ka sahara (Hope for someone who is dying) for us,” said Nanda to Gill.

The buildings still incomplete include the College of Dairy Science and Technology and Girls Hostel for which state government had committed Rs 11.88 crore. Of this, Rs 5.38 crore are still awaited. Since September last, no funds have been released for the same.

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Four other projects lying stalled since three years include College of Fisheries, Veterinary referral hospital, school of animal biotechnology and a milk plant. The varsity is awaiting reimbursement of bills worth Rs 5.50 crore submitted for these four projects projects which were sanctioned through National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).

Divya Goyal

Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab. Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also explores the legacy of India's partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab. She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on “Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers” had won accolades at IIMC. She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012. Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab. ... Read More

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