Following the directions from Prime Minister’s office, Haryana Government has finally renamed ‘Ganda’ (dirty) village as ‘Ajit Nagar’ in district Fatehabad.
The Chief Minister Manohar lal has approved the proposal to rename village ‘Ganda’ in block and tehsil Ratia in Fatehabad as ‘Ajit Nagar’, said an official spokesman
He said that the name ‘Ajit’ has been drawn from the name of the son of tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh. The proposal would now be forwarded to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs for its approval, said the spokesman.
Notably, embarrassed over the name of her village ‘Ganda’, a class VII student Harpreet Kaur had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose office had then directed the State Government to look into the matter.
In her letter, Harpreet had written about how the villagers are being humiliated and insulted due to the name of their village.
‘Ganda’ is a medium size village located in Ratia. The village has a population of around 2500 people. As per the 2011 census, the village has lower literacy rate compared to Haryana. In 2011, literacy rate of ‘Ganda’ village was 65.20 % compared to 75.55 % of Haryana.
For more than two decades, the villagers continuously made efforts to get the name of their village changed. It was in the year 1989 that the village Panchayat had requested the district administration to change the name of their village from ‘Ganda’ to ‘Ajit Nagar’.
The district administration had earlier initiated the process to change village’s name in the year 2013 but the process was delayed due to various administrative formalities.