Dehradun, 30 Dec 2008

The Uttarakhand Assembly’s sitting of a mere 20 days this year is woefully short of the sittings recommended for recently created states.

According to the officials of the Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha secretariat, the Assembly is supposed to meet for at least 60 days, but this quota was never fulfilled.

This 60 day sitting period has been recommended by the 13th Whips Conference held in New Delhi in 2007. Chief whips of various political parties from every state participate in the Whips Conference and the days of Assembly sittings recommended vary from state to state. In case of bigger states, the number of sittings recommended is more.

The number of sittings held this year is more than the previous year. The Uttarakhand Assembly had met for just 16 days last year.

Assembly speaker Harbans Kapoor told The Indian Express, “Ours is a new state. We too want the House to have more sittings so that development issues are taken up at length. Efforts are being made in this direction and things are happening gradually.”

The six-day winter session of the state Assembly concluded on December 20 this year. The session was scheduled from December 15 to December 19 but it got extended by a day on account of the election of the first deputy speaker of the House.

The winter session saw both the ruling and the Opposition parties accusing each other of not allowing the proceedings to take place in a smoothly and preventing taking up development issues. Congress and the BSP leaders staged a boycott of the proceedings for two days alleging that the B C Khanduri-led BJP Government in the state acted contrary to the decisions taken at the all party meeting before the session. On the other hand the ruling party charged them for making a display of disruptions for political motives.

The speaker has expressed his dismay over the conduct of the legislators during session. “Despite so much effort, it is disheartening that the MLAs created a ruckus in the House. The manner in which the proceedings were disrupted was extremely unfortunate,” said Kapoor. In order to encourage smooth democratic functioning of the House, a committee has been constituted which will choose the best MLA on the basis of the conduct of the legislators in the House, he added.

News Source: http://www.indianexpress.com

Lucknow, 30 Dec 2008

Gloom and desperation continues to engulf the small hilly state of Uttarakhand, created eight years back in 2000 as economic disparity and development continues to widen the rift between the hilly and plain regions of the state.

A number of Uttarakhand people sacrificed their lives, bore the brunt of the state and refused to compromise on their demand of having their own state away from Uttar Pradesh which has failed to address their problems and neglected the region since independence.

Finally, both Uttar Pradesh and the Centre bowed before the determined Uttarakhand people and declared Uttarakhand as a separate state in 2000.The state celebrated “Diwali” the day Uttarakhand was announced as a new state and the local people started dreaming of having a government of their own people, to be run by their own people and to address the problems of their people.

With the passage of time, the locals felt that their dream is not coming true. Their first demand was of having a state capital, not in a plain region like Dehradoon, but in Garrisand, a hill spot. But it did not materialise and the capital was created in Dehradoon.

Secondly, the locals rued the fact that the hilly parts of the state had remained neglected for decades and the creation of separate state would solve this problem, employment, medical and education. But it did not materialise at all which affected the economic prosperity and the developments were confined to the plain region of the state in Hardwar, Rudrapur, Pantnagar, Doon Valley regions.

“The economic disparity between the hills and the plain region of the state is quiet visible. More than 1,500 small and big industries have sprung in the plains of the state while the hills continue to be bereft of any industrial development”, lamented a principal secretary rank officer. Like the previous years too, the industrial units enjoyed the tax heaven in the plains and expressed least desire in scaling the hills of the state in the year 2008 also.

The year almost gone has failed to cheer up the Uttarakhand people, because in the 2007 Assembly elections the people had voted the Congress out of power because the then government headed by the chief minister, Narain Dutt Tewari failed to live up to its expectations and formed the BJP government.

Unfortunately the BJP government too toes the Congress line. The chief minister, Bhuwan Chand Khandoori, was hounded by his own MLAs when three months, 29 BJP MLAs led by Bhagat Singh Koshiyari former chief minister and head of the anti – Khandoori camp threatened to resign and squatted in Delhi before the party high command. They were silenced by the BJP leadership by offering Koshiyari a berth in Rajya Sabha and “Lal Battis” (minister of state rank) to the disgruntled MLAs.

Khandoori has, thus ,shut the mouth of his opponents within the BJP, but how will he satisfy the general masses who are already burdened with over Rs 12,000 crore debt and, barring the plain areas, he has nothing to offer for the people of the hilly region.

It is true the 13-14 per cent GDP of the state is better then the average of the nation, but it is risen because of the developments in the plains of the state while the hills are still crying for development, but nobody is looking towards them.

The hilly region still depends on the money order economy and migration remains as it was a decade back so what is the use of having own state when it can not offer to make the state self-reliant and stand up on the fledgling state on its feet.

Will the new year bring cheer on the face of people in Uttarakhand, remains a big question mark.

News Source: http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in

Nainital, 30 Dec 2008

A botanical garden called the ‘Nature Study Centre’ in the hilly region of Uttarakhand consisting of rare medicinal plants is receiving the attention of conservationists.

The hilly areas of Uttarakhand known for its natural and spread over an area of 35 hectares consists of a wide variety of rare medicinal plants.

“The endangered plants of Uttaranchal Himalayas which are very scanty in number are being developed here. We are preparing a herbarium here for botanists,” said Kunwar Singh Rawat, Range Officer, Himalayan Botanicalarden.

Bamboo enclosures have been put in place to protect the medicinal plants from landslides.

“We have a lot of medicinal plants, demonstration plots where we are housing endangered and rare high value medicinal plants. We have three demonstration areas where we have been planting trees from all over Uttarakhand,” said Neha Verma, Forest Silviculturist, Himalayan Botanical Garden, Nainital.

The Himlayan Botanical Garden is a centre of study for the scientists and the botanists. At the same time, it serves as a huge attraction for the tourists visiting the area. By Vipul Goel (ANI).