The song written by Hemant Bisht, a Government teacher from Nainital, was selected for the State song by the committee constituted for the purpose.
The committee in its sixth meeting on Tuesday also authorised the celebrated folk singer and deputy chairman of the committee, Narendra Singh Negi to select the musical composition for the song penned by the Hemant Bisht.
The President of the state song selection committee, laxman Singh Bisht ‘Batrohi’ said the committee invited applications for preparing an appropriate state song on July 15, 2015 and a total of 203 entries were received.
He said that as a measure of transparency and impartiality the department of culture forwarded the entries to the committee sans the name of the composer. “The committee shortlisted nine entries which had the potential of State song and in the later stages the exercise was
truncated to three entries. Finally after much deliberation the entry of Hemant Bisht was selected for state song,” said Batrohi.
The committee has recorded three versions of the song in the voices of Narendra Singh Negi, Hira Singh Rana and Vijay Krishna. A final decision on the music and voice would be taken by Negi now.
Earlier it was decided that the State song would be played at the State foundation day last year but later the date was shifted to January 26 this year but it appears that the song would not be ready till then also. Controversy was created in the initial phases over the choice of language (Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari) for the state song. It was later decided that the song would be in Hindi with spattering of local words.
When contacted, Hemant Bisht sounded ecstatic on his entry being selected for the State song. Interestingly Bisht is a lecturer of Biology in Government inter college in Nainital district. He said that he has a flair for writing and has penned many poems. “My through knowledge of state helped me in understanding the concept of state song. I am very happy and thank the people of the state for the selection of state song,’’ he said.
