Pantnagar is a town and a university campus in Udham Singh Nagar District, Uttarakhand. Nainital, Kashipur, Rudrapur, Kiccha and Haldwani are the major cities surrounding Pantnagar. The town is home to the first agricultural university of India which was established on 17 November 1960. The university was earlier called the Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University or Pantnagar University. It was renamed G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology. keeping in view the contributions of Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant, the then Chief Minister of UP. In recent years, an integrated industrial estate has been established near the campus which houses companies such as Tata Motors, Bajaj, Britannia, Hewlett Packard, Hindustan Computers Ltd., Voltas, Schneider Electric, Nestle, Dabur, Vedanta Resources, etc., as a part of SIDCUL Industrial Area developed by the government owned State Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand. History Before November 2000 Pantnagar was in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. After 9 November 2000 it became part of the new Indian state of Uttarakhand, which is located in the northern part of India. Uttarakhand was carved out of Himalayan and adjoining districts of Uttar Pradesh. After independence, development of the rural sector was considered the primary concern of the Government of India. In 1949, with the appointment of the Radhakrishnan University Education Commission, imparting of agricultural education through the setting up of rural universities became the focal point. Later, in 1954 an Indo-American team led by Dr. K.R. Damle, the Vice-President of ICAR, was constituted that arrived at the idea of establishing a ‘Rural University’ on the land-grant pattern of US. As a consequence a contract between the Government of India, the Technical Cooperation Mission and some land-grant universities of US, was signed to promote agricultural education in the country. The US universities included the universities of Tennessee, the Ohio State University, the Kansas State University, The University of Illinois, the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Missouri. The task of assisting Uttar Pradesh in establishing an agricultural university was assigned to the University of Illinois which signed a contract in 1959 to establish an agricultural University in the State. Dean, H.W. Hannah, of the University of Illinois prepared a blueprint for a Rural University to be set up at the Tarai State Farm in the district Nainital, UP. In the initial stage the University of Illinois also offered the services of its scientists and teachers. Thus, in 1960,