CM lays foundation stone of Planetarium near Shoghi

Himachal's first Planetarium, to be known as Science Learning Centre, will come up at Anandpur near Shoghi, about 18 km from here.
"The Planetarium, which would be known as 'Science Learning Centre', would be set up a cost of Rs 11 crore and the proposed remote Sensing Centre to be constructed under this project would help in analyzing the nature of glaciers, floods and rivers," Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said after laying the foundation stone of the Planetarium.
The Science Learning Centre would also have a science museum, bio-diversity park and modern laboratories besides a corner projecting the culture and traditions of the state.

"This would be amongst few planetariums in the country which would also be tourist attraction besides offering an opportunity to the local people to learn the mysteries of world of planets," he added.
Later speaking at the closing ceremony of 19th Zonal schools tournament at Shoghi, the Chief Minister said the Government was according top priority to the education sector and efforts were afoot to provide state of the art education facilities to the student's nearer to their homes.
"The government was laying equal emphasis on school level education and has upgraded and opened as many as 695 schools over all the state during short spell of 18 months and the stress was on quality education to the girl students nearer to their homes," he said.

Singh said 14 new degree colleges have been opened in far flung and rural areas of state by his government and due to the efforts of the government, the girl students have outnumbered boys in colleges.
He said that the state government was providing netbooks to 7500 meritorious student of class 10th and 12th during the current financial year under Rajiv Gandhi Digital Yojna.