VIJAYAWADA: With the State government proposal to allocate 400 acres of land near the new capital city of Andhra Pradesh to Coimbatore-based Isha Foundation of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev being criticised from every quarters, Human Resource Development minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao has sought to clarify the situation.
Speaking to mediapersons here Thursday, the Minister said the land is not being allocated to Isha foundation for setting up a meditation and yoga centre, as being reported by some sections of the media.
“Since the state is not having any national and international institutes of higher education, efforts are on to get as many of them as possible. In this regard, IIM, IIT and other institutes are being brought from the Centre. When Isha Foundation had expressed its willingness to set up three institutes - Leadership Academy, International School and Law School - we welcomed the proposal.
We should be happy that an internally recognised organisation had evinced interest to set up institutions here even though many State governments are lobbying with them to have those institutes set up in their states,” the minister said.
He clarified that the entire thing is still at a proposal stage only and after a detailed discussion with Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, a decision will be taken as to how much land is to be given to them.
“We don’t want to give away the lands just like that. The benefits accruing to the state from such institutions are carefully evaluated before allocating the land,” he said.
On the status of deemed and private universities, he said a decision in this regard will be taken in a couple of months. The government had also set up an expert committee to suggest amendments to the Universities Act, he said.
Irrigation minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao lashed out at the Congress party for its remarks regarding land allocations and said the people were aware of its true colours.