Science city to be set up in Jalandhar

Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral will lay the foundation of the country's second science city on the Jalandhar-Kapurthala road on Friday during his visit to the city. He will also address a "thanksgiving" rally being organised by the Punjab government.

The National Council of Science Museums, an autonomous body of the Union government's department of culture, has set up the science city, intended to spawn scientific awareness through personal experience.

A spokesperson said on Thursday that the Punjab government would bear the recurring expenditure of the science city till it became self-supporting. He said the estimated Rs 800 million project would be shared equally by the central and state governments. The Punjab government would provide land and infrastructural facilities for the project, while the Centre would provide the exhibits and the equipment, he said.

The Jalandhar science city is to come up on land originally earmarked for an international airport. Now that the Centre has decided to make Amritsar's Rajasansi airport Punjab's first international airport, a part of the land is being transferred to the science city. The Centre is to provide half of the Rs 4 billion earmarked for the five science cities across the country. The states in which the science cities were located would bear the rest of the burden, the spokesperson said.