Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said here on Thursday that Jammu is fast emerging as a major education hub and the boost received by Jammu under the Modi government in the education sector is far more compared to many other surrounding regions.

Addressing, online, the inaugural program of the new batch of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Jammu, Dr. Jitendra Singh recalled that in the last six years, Jammu has received six to seven academic institutes of national importance, in addition to nearly ten more centrally funded educational institutions. The academic institutions of national importance allocated to Jammu Division include the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), first-ever National Institute of High-altitude Medicine and North India�s first Biotech Industrial Park cum Research Institution. Even though the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) had started its regional center around 2012-13 but the setting up of a permanent campus was undertaken under the present government and similarly the Indian Institute of Integrated Medicines (IIIM) was given a big boost by this govt with international collaboration projects.

The centrally funded academic institutions allotted to Jammu Division in the last six years, said Dr. Jitendra Singh, include four Medical Colleges, host of RUSA funded Engineering Colleges, Ayurvedic Colleges, and Homeopathic College. This has addressed the complaint of regional discrimination of the past decades and placed Jammu way ahead as an academic center, he added.

As far as IIM, Jammu is concerned, said Dr. Jitendra Singh, it started its academic session at the right time when the constitutional barriers interfering with the healthy growth of education institutes have been removed since 5-6 August 2019. He said the biggest constraints for national level institutions like IIM, IIT, and AIIMS was that the best of the faculty from the rest of India felt discouraged to take up teaching assignments because they were debarred from the basic amenities like purchasing a plot of land for construction of a house or seeking of admission for their children in academic institutions, but in the changed scenario it is hoped that Jammu will get the benefit of some of best faculty from all over. A positive outcome of new Domicile Law would be the enrichment of academic faculty at Jammu in all the new premier institutes, he added.

He also said that IIM, IIT and other institutes will have a bigger contribution to make since Jammu is now opening up for big investments.

Dr. Jitendra Singh expressed satisfaction to note that the new batch of scholars at IIM included students from as many as 30 different states/UTs of India which, he said, will give it a pan-Indian face. He hoped that the scholars from all over India will go back from Jammu with rich experience of the native culture here and, would, thus also act as ambassadors of healthy cultural symbiosis. With 35% of the scholars belonging to the Engineering stream, he hoped that their technical skills would do value-addition to them in carrying forward several of the new flagship programs initiated by the Modi government.

To conclude, Dr. Jitendra Singh said, the new generation of management scholars enjoys a special privilege because India today is on the threshold of becoming a superpower and this generation of experts will have the satisfaction of telling their children and grandchildren that they too were architects of the �New India�, envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Dr Milind Kamble, Chairman of Board of Governors, IIM and Professor B S Sahya, Founder Director of IIM Jammu also spoke on the occasion. A video film was also played to depict a walk-through of the upcoming new campus of IIM, Jammu.