Two hydropower engineering colleges will be set up in Himachal

Bijender Sharma
JAWALAMUKHI---Two hydropower engineering colleges will be set up in Shimla and Bilaspur districts in order to produce hydropower engineers to meet the growing requirement in the power projects.
This was disclosed by Ravinder Singh Ravi, Minister for Irrigation and Public Health, while addressing the annual function of Govt. Degree College, Dhaliara, today. He said the twin colleges would be set up with the help of the NHPC, the SJVNL and the NTPC. He said these colleges would provide opportunities to the Himachali youth to shape their future within the state. He said that the State was likely to propose five courses in hydro engineering in the college with intake capacity of about 300 students in all. He said that the course contents would be designed by a team of high professionals so that competent and skilled hydro power engineers were produced to take up the exploitation of the hydro potential for power generation.

The Minister said that a number of hydro electric projects were under execution in the State in Public, Private and Joint Venture and the State was making concerted efforts to exploit entire identified hydro electric potential of over 23,000 MW at the earliest which would not only meet the power requirements of the northern states of the country but also generate employment and self employment to local youth while the demand for skilled manpower would be met by the proposed hydro engineering college. He said that Himachal Pradesh was likely to emerge the ‘Power State’ with the exploitation of the entire identified hydel potential. He said NHPC, NTPC and SJVNL were major power project executors in the State allotted high capacity projects for execution.
In order to provide quality education to students during the last three years, 10 private universities and a technical university in the public sector was established in the state. He said in Solan district, Atal Educational Centre had been set up where internationally reputed educational institutions would come up.
He announced Rs 2 lakh for the boundary wall and Rs. 11,000 for the cultural activities in the college. He distributed prizes among the meritorious students on the occasion.