Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday opposed a proposal to acquire the land of the century-old government agriculture college here for creating an `Oxygen Zone and City Forest.' There is a proposal to acquire the entire 115.60 hectares of college land, located in a prime area of Indore city, for the project, local officials said.
In its place, the institution would be allotted 120.51 hectares of land in rural areas of Depalpur tehsil, they said.
In a letter to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Singh said some farmer leaders informed him that a lobby of local officers, political leaders and builders was trying to usurp the precious land in the name of developing a "City Forest and Oxygen Zone." Considering the contribution of this college in the development of agriculture, the proposal should be nixed, he demanded.
Farmer leaders as well as former and current students of the college were also opposed to the plan, Singh claimed.
Farmer leaders fear that land acquisition will affect teaching, research, seed development and farmers' training among other activities of the college which has a student strength of 600, he added.
The agriculture college was established in 1924 as an Institute of Plant Industry. Noted British botanist Albert Howard developed a technique of making organic manure, known world over as the Indore method of compost making, at this institute.
Mahatma Gandhi, during a visit to Indore in 1935, is said to have praised this method of compost making.
