For decades, the Chenab Valley comprising the mountainous districts of Doda, Kishtwar, and Ramban has produced students who consistently excel in competitive examinations and professional fields. This track record of achievement is not accidental. It reflects a deeply rooted culture of learning and aspiration that persists despite, not because of, the educational infrastructure available locally.

Seventy-five years after independence, the gap between the region’s talent and its institutional capacity remains glaring. The Chenab Valley continues to function as a supplier of raw human potential to educational institutions elsewhere, while the basic framework for higher education and technical training at home remains incomplete.

Agriculture Without an Agricultural College

The Chenab Valley’s economy is built on agriculture and horticulture. Farmers here cultivate maize, rajma, walnuts, apples, and a range of temperate crops suited to the region’s varied altitudes and climate. Agriculture is not just an occupation it is the primary source of livelihood for a majority of households.

Yet the region has no campus of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST-Jammu). Students who wish to study agriculture, horticulture, or forestry must travel to Jammu or beyond. This is not merely an inconvenience. It means that formal agricultural education happens far removed from the very farms and conditions it is meant to serve.

A SKUAST-Jammu affiliated college in the Chenab Valley would serve two clear purposes. It would provide local students access to higher education in a field directly relevant to their surroundings. And it would allow research and extension services to reach farmers who currently have limited access to scientific expertise tailored to mountain agriculture.

Technical Education: A Basic Gap

The absence of an engineering college in the entire Chenab Valley is difficult to justify by any measure. For a region of this size and population, the lack of a single government technical institution represents a fundamental gap in educational planning.

Students who wish to pursue engineering must migrate to Jammu, Srinagar, or other cities. For families in villages like Marwah, Warwan, or Bhalessa, this means bearing accommodation costs, travel expenses, and the financial pressure of supporting a student far from home. Many simply cannot afford it.

Technical education is not a luxury. It is the foundation for participation in a modern economy. Without local institutions, the region’s youth remain at a structural disadvantage before they even begin.

Higher Education and Women’s Access

The issue of access affects women students most sharply. In a region where social norms and geographical distance intersect, the location of a college often determines whether a young woman continues her education. When the nearest college is hours away, many families choose to keep their daughters at home.

The absence of dedicated women’s colleges in large parts of the Chenab Valley means that a significant portion of the population is effectively excluded from higher education—not by merit, not by aspiration, but by the simple fact of distance. This is not an abstract concern. It translates directly into lower enrolment rates and reduced opportunities for an entire generation of women.

What GMC Doda Demonstrates

Government Medical College Doda was established in 2020 with the primary goal of improving healthcare access. But its impact on education has been equally significant.

The college admits approximately 100 students annually through NEET, drawing applicants from across the Union Territory. For local students, its presence has changed perceptions. A medical degree, once seen as something attainable only by leaving the region, is now visible and accessible close to home. Students from Doda, Kishtwar, and Ramban who might never have considered medicine are now preparing for entrance examinations.

This is not sentiment. It is a straightforward demonstration of what happens when institutions are placed where people live. Aspirations adjust to match opportunities. The GMC Doda model is functional, accessible, and merit-based offers a template that could be applied to other professional fields.

The Examination Barrier

Even appearing for entrance tests remains unnecessarily difficult. For computer-based examinations conducted by agencies like the National Testing Agency, students from the Chenab Valley must frequently travel to Jammu. This means overnight journeys, often through difficult terrain, for an examination that lasts a few hours.

Students from remote areas face the greatest burden. A candidate from a village in Gool or Bhalessa must factor in travel time, accommodation costs, and the physical toll of reaching the examination centre. These are barriers that have nothing to do with a student’s ability or preparation. They are purely logistical, and they are entirely avoidable.

Performance Despite Constraints

Despite these conditions, students from the Chenab Valley continue to perform well in state and national examinations. Year after year, they secure admissions in professional colleges across the country. This is not evidence that the current arrangements are adequate. It is evidence that the region’s students are overcoming obstacles that should not exist.

Their performance is a return on the investment made by families and communities. But it also highlights the inefficiency of a system that forces students to leave their home region to access education that could be provided locally.

The Chenab Valley does not require exceptional treatment. It requires the same basic educational infrastructure that exists in other parts of the Union Territory. Specifically:

An agricultural or horticultural college affiliated with SKUAST-Jammu, to serve a region whose economy depends on farming.

A government engineering college to provide technical education within accessible distance.

Women’s colleges in underserved areas to ensure that distance does not determine educational outcomes for female students.

Local examination centres for national-level tests, so that students do not have to travel long distances simply to appear for exams.

These are not ambitious demands. They are standard provisions that should have been in place years ago.

The students of the Chenab Valley have demonstrated their capability consistently. They have done so while studying in schools with limited resources, while travelling long distances for examinations, and while watching their peers leave for colleges elsewhere because staying home was not an option.

What they need is not sympathy. It is infrastructure. The establishment of GMC Doda has shown what happens when institutions are placed in the region. That same logic should now be extended to agriculture, engineering, and higher education.

The Chenab Valley’s talent is not in question. What remains to be seen is whether the educational system will finally match the potential of the people it is meant to serve.

Adnan Ur Rehman, M.Sc Physics, Jamia Millia Islamia New Delhi.

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