Ludhiana: The UPA-rule at the Centre has proved to be an era of 21st century for the education segment and significant reforms have been brought in this segment under various schemes of the Union government.

This was stated by Rakesh Pandey, MLA from Ludhiana North and DCC (U) president Pawan Dewan while addressing gatherings held at various schools which were distributed cheques of grants worth Rs. 7 lakh out of MPLAD Fund belonging to the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Manish Tewari on Moni day.

Of this amount, government primary school at Karabara was handed over a cheque of grant of Rs. 5 lakh for construction of the building and purchase of computer. Duglaspura SD Girls Senior Secondary School, Haridev Mandir was given a grant of Rs. 2 lakh for development works. At the time of distribution of cheques of these grants, both Pandey and Dewan said it was difficult to face challenges without getting education. They added education played a key role in building the society.

This was why the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre had given special attention on education. They revealed that the government has set up 16 new universities and 8 new IITs. These included the opening of Business School at Mohali and a Central University at Bathinda, they said. They said stress on primary education had been laid through SSA and other similar schemes.

Among others, Mani Grewal, Parminder Mehta, MC Hans Raj, Pawan chopra, Sanjiv Sehgal, Tikshan Mehta, Mangal Passi, Daljit Singh, Sat Rohan, Ashok Kumar, Subhash Tehna, Navnish Malhotra, Rohit Pahwa, Sushil Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Ashwani Kumar, Rajinder Raja, Gulshan kumar, Karnail Singh principal government primary school, Sunita Sharma principal SD school and BEO Bharat Bhushan were present.