11 Sep : Congress Prez Sonia Gandhi on Thursday addressed a public rally in Tirupati and formally inaugurated the Rajiv Gandhi Knowledge University and further maintained that the employment scheme ‘Indira Kranti Pathakam’ has benefitted about one lakh women in the state.
Sonia also praised the state government for efficient implementation of NREG schemes and promoting Self Help Groups.
The Centre has drawn up plans for massive expansion of universities and colleges over the next five years with an emphasis on improving access to higher education for rural students, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi today said.
Despite significant growth in the number of colleges in the country since Independence, the bitter reality is that only ten per cent of the college-going population are enrolled in the institutes of higher learning, Gandhi said.
She had arrived in this lonely village in Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy’s home district of Kadapa to inaugurate the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies (RGUKT) Idupulapaya.
The Andhra Pradesh government has established three autonomous Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIITs) under RGUKT at Idupulapaya, Basara (Adilabad district) and Nuziveedu (Krishna district), each with an initial investment of Rs 320 crore.
Aimed at catering to the educational needs of meritorious rural students, the IIITs, commencing from this academic year, specialise in teaching and research in information technology and other emerging disciplines.
Noting that the challenge before the country was to provide educational facilities and access to the rural students, she said the UPA government is making determined efforts in this direction so that the young boys and girls could fulfill their aspirations by pursuing higher education. DDINEWS