Dey is forgotten, Nehru’s ‘daughter’ too

Ranbir Singh

It had been built by the muscles of refugees who had been uprooted from their homes as a result of the Partition and put in a camp commanded by the great visionary, SK Dey. He decided to construct Nilokheri as an agro-industrial township as well as a focal point for rural development by linking the adjoining villages with it. It could claim to be the first planned township of North India. The township had been divided into Kisan Basti and poultry, hospital and school area. Its Gole Market was based on the model of the Connaught Place of New Delhi. 

An Integrated Industrial Training Centre had been set up by the Government of India at Nilokheri for training the youth in different trades. It is a different matter that today its building located on the GT Road has been lying unused for about two decades. 

Dey had also set up the Orientation Training Centre in 1953 for converting the general administrators inherited from the colonial era into development administrators. However, it was relegated to the status of an extension training centre for the training of officials of the Development and Panchayats Department, and named it as the State Community Development Centre. Renaming it as Rajiv Gandhi State Institute of Panchayati Raj and Community Development has in no way enhanced its status to the extent of matching the Orientation Training Centre, which used to be headed by ICS officers. Even the Haryana Institute of Rural Development, established in 1994, could not fill the wide gap created by the abolition of the Orientation Training Centre. 

The Government Polytechnic at Nilokheri, the first such institution in north-west India, too, was set up by Dey. Students from J&K and undivided Punjab used to study there. It had acquired a great status. But now, it has lost its glory after the proliferation of government and private polytechnics. Even Government Engineering College, which came up in 2014, has not been able to acquire that status. 

The Government of India Printing Press, from where the Journal of Rural Development, Kurukshetra, used to be published, was also Dey’s idea. The press has since been closed. Nilokheri was considered as a site for building the capital of Punjab in the 1950s. However, the proposal was sabotaged on the pretext that it was a flood-prone area. 

Nehru had once declared Nilokheri as his daughter! He had also desired that at least 10,000 Nilokheris be built up in various parts of India. But the tragedy is that today nobody bothers about this orphan of Nehru. Dey has also been completely forgotten. No institution could be named after him, despite the strenuous efforts of his daughter, Purbi Pandey, in 2006 — the centenary year of that great visionary.