Ajit Nagar ‘Ganda’ no more, thanks to her

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 7

Thanks to the initiative by a plucky 12-year-old girl, residents of Fatehabad’s Ganda village are hopeful their village will finally get a new name. For, the authorities at Ratia sub-division have recommended to the state government to rename Ganda as Ajit Nagar, as resolved by the village panchayat.

Harpreet Kaur, a Class VII student at the village government school, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January this year, drawing his attention to the acute embarrassment faced by residents owing to their village name. “While some betray a contemptuous smile, others openly mock at us,” Harpreet wrote. She also spoke of the plight of her school and the adjoining veterinary hospital.

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“As our school does not have a boundary wall, children bunk classes at will. The adjoining veterinary hospital with hundreds of plants also has no wall. Stray animals rule the roost,” she wrote. 

Sources said the authorities in Fatehabad had received a communication from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to  act on her demands.

“I am waiting for a report from the Ratia SDM. Changing a village’s name needs the Cabinet nod and then approval by the Union Home Ministry,” explained Deputy Commissioner NK Solanki.

Ratia SDM Pooja Chanwaria said the Ganda panchayat had passed a resolution for a change of name to Ajit Nagar way back in 1998. “However, there was no follow-up action and we continued to use the name for official purposes,” she said.

She said now that a fresh resolution had been passed by the panchayat, the file was being sent to the DC.

Harpreet belongs to a family of modest means. Her own house does not have a boundary wall.