New Delhi: Acting on the demand of Lok Sabha member from Shillong, Vincent Pala, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has moved the Union Ministry of Education to create two additional departments in the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) to complete the formation of the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA).
Pala had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging his intervention to create the Transport Planning and Town and Country Planning departments.
Pala’s demand has been referred to the Department of Higher Education (DoHE) of the Ministry of Education, PMO sources said, adding that the DoHE will take further action.
“The proposal for setting up of the SPA at Shillong in line with the SPA, New Delhi is the need of the hour for the people of the Northeastern region,” Pala said in his letter to the Prime Minister on August 6. He said that once these departments are created, the Architecture department in the University would constitute the SPA.
“The two departments may kindly be started in the University immediately after providing the necessary infrastructure and manpower syllabi etc., and approval from the All India Council for Technical Education and reorganization by the Institute of Town Planners India,” Pala said. The SPA is one of the eminent institutes of the country that offers courses on planning such as regional, urban, transport, housing, environment planning and others, adding that these are all “job-oriented, he added. “With the present pandemic situation which has affected the economy at the national and international level, another alternative proposal is the creation of two departments namely, the Transport Planning and the Town and Country Planning departments in the University since the Architecture Department is already in existence thereby will form/constitute a SPA within this central university,” Pala stated.
Pala said that students who complete the postgraduate degrees are easily employed in the government and private sectors, and the SPA generates employment and enhances skills and professional capabilities of the people.
