Hyderabad :

A major landmark of the city is set to disappear soon with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi government firming up plans to turn the iconic Hyderabad Race Club into an education hub.

Leading into the elections, TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao, promised a slew of sops to boost education, and one idea, which startled educationists, was turning the 100-year-old iconic race course into an education hub.

After he assumed power, the education department has been entrusted the task of preparing a blueprint for establishing 150 educational institutions in and around the sprawling Malakpet race course. These institutes will offer post-graduate courses in various subjects, specialize in research and development, it is learnt.

In fact, a similar proposal to create an educational hub by the then Congress chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, was shelved in 2008 after vehement opposition from the race course authorities, backed by political parties.

Now the higher education department has pulled out the old blueprint and is re-working it with renewed zeal and giving it proper shape, at the behest of the state government.

The government’s plan is to build about 150 higher education institutes on 500 acres of land, which includes the race course and also the Chanchalguda jail.

When asked about the plan, G Jagadish Reddy, minister for higher education said that the manifesto will be implemented at any cost.

“We will implement the manifesto at any cost. The hub will come up and the modalities will be discussed soon,” the minister said.

As per the plan, the whole concept is at the formative stage and the government has plans to rope in several stakeholders and finalise the mega project. Education department officials said companies like Wipro and Infosys, among others will be roped in for the project.

Educationists are privately criticising the move saying Telangana already has plenty of quality educational institutions, including IIT-Hyderabad, National Institute of Technology in Warangal and Indian School of Business among others.

“Educational hub is a good concept, but establishing it by destroying an iconic landmark is definitely a bad idea. There is a plenty of open land where the government can set up such institutions, why here?” questioned a former vice-chancellor, who did not wish to be named.

Incidentally, the present race course in Malakpet was shifted from Secunderabad a century ago as the British government wanted it closer to the city and now thanks to Telangana chief minister K Chandrshekar Rao, it is all set to move out of the city again.

The race course and the Chanchalguda jail are part of a sprawling 2,000 acres of land, which the new government has been eyeing. In fact, the chief minister said clearly that his government would not allow such prime land to be wasted on racing and wanted the jail to be shifted out of the city, but has not specified where.

The 2008 plan envisaged a smaller project where only part of the race course would have been affected, officials in the know of things said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Hyderabad / by Nikhila Henry, TNN / June 20th, 2014