Kota Srinivas Poojary, Minister for Ports and Muzrai, said on Monday that the government wanted the coal-based thermal power plant of Udupi Power Corporation Ltd (UPCL) at Yellur in Udupi district to operate with all pollution control safeguards.
He was speaking at an interaction programme with students and lecturers of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) College in Udupi.
Replying to a question by a first year BA student, Ramanjaneya, Mr. Poojary said the State faced power shortage. Hence, emphasis was being given to increase power generation. But there was opposition from people, including farmers and fishermen, to UPCL’s plant owing to pollution. The government understood the problems of the people living in villages near the plant. Hence, it had given stern instructions to UPCL to follow all pollution control norms, he added.
To a question by professor of Political Science Surendranath Shetty that the colleges found it increasingly difficult to cover the syllabi on account of frequent strikes by student unions affiliated to political parties, Mr. Poojary said that the unions could not behave in a dictatorial manner.
They should study the pros and cons of an issue before going on a strike. All political parties had their students’ wings to propagate their policies and to develop future leaders. The “Total Revolution” movement of Jayaprakash Narayan against Emergency (1975-77) was successful only because of active cooperation of students. Hence, student unions could not be wished away, he said.
On the closure of Kannada-medium schools, Mr. Poojary said there were 925 primary schools in the district. Of them, 675 were run by the government. The government had allocated Rs. 15,071 crore to the education sector. It was providing free textbooks, uniforms and even bicycles to students to retain them in Kannada medium.
But if the present trends continued, nearly 25 per cent of Kannada medium school might close down in the next five years in the district. This was because most of the parents wanted to send their children to English medium schools. The Government’s proposal to start English medium classes in Government schools had invited the ire of the Kannada litterateurs, most of whom, sent their children and grand-children to English medium schools, he said.
On the increasing number of road accidents on Udupi-Manipal Road, the Minister said that he would direct the Deputy Commissioner to look into it.
Mr. Poojary said that the government would spend Rs. 2 crore on the second phase of Koti Chennaya Theme Park in Karkala. It would spend a similar amount on the second phase of work on Kota Shivaram Karanth Kala Bhavan at Kota, he added.
Principal of MGM First Grade College P.V. Gowda welcomed the gathering. Principal of MGM PU College Malati Devi and scholar U.P. Upadhyaya were present.
