JOIN US The metro station opposite the Vidhana Soudha will be named after Ambedkar, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced on Thursday.
Addressing the gathering during the celebrations of B R Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary in Bengaluru, Siddaramaiah also said a proposal would be sent to the Centre to rename the Yeshwantpur railway station after the architect of the Indian Constitution. He said an educational institution – Ambedkar London School of Economics – would be also set up in Bengaluru.
Announcing multiple schemes for the welfare of Dalits, the chief minister said it would appropriate to name the metro station near the secretariat after the Dalit icon, as the stretch was called Ambedkar Veedhi.Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, too, had earlier mooted this proposal.
While a study chair in the name of former minister B Basavalingappa would be established in Bangalore University; Ambedkar’s debates in the Constitutional Assembly would be translated this year.
Announcing that Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary would be celebrated as ‘Ambedkar Year’, he said a decision would be taken on according reservation to the SC/STs in government contract works. The SC/ST communities will be also extended loans from the Karnataka State Finance Corporation and other banks, at four per cent rate of interest, up to Rs 10 crore.
The government conferred the B R Ambedkar Award 2016 on former Central Public Works Department engineer S Chinnaswamy Mamballi.