By IANS
Hissar (Haryana) : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday expressed concern at the shortage of power in the country and said his government had called a meeting of all state chief ministers later this month to take necessary steps in this regard.
The prime minister, who laid the foundation stone of a 1,200 MW thermal power station at Khedar village near here, announced that work on a nuclear power station in Haryana would be started shortly.
Addressing a public rally at Barwala near here, the prime minister said a site for setting up a nuclear power plant had been identified in Haryana.
He assured the Haryana government that adequate supply of coal and gas would be made to the state for all its future power projects.
The prime minister also dedicated the world's largest EDUSAT network programme to the people of Haryana. It is aimed at covering 1.6 million children in 11,000 schools across Haryana for satellite-based educational programmes.
Expressing concern over "the slow progress of literacy" in the country, he said: "We need a crash programme to increase literacy to over 80 percent in all regions of the country. I am also concerned about the poor functioning of our government schools, especially in rural areas.
"Numeracy skills and scientific knowledge are the key to success in the knowledge economy and the EDUSAT programme can be an important tool for improving science education in schools," Manmohan Singh said.
"I hope these objectives are addressed and served by the EDUSAT programme," he said.
"We have invested crores of rupees in good quality hardware. We must ensure that the software is equally good. Educational programmes should not be bored and dull," Manmohan Singh said, hoping that students will enjoy learning through EDUSAT.