Strange but true that the Chief Minister Office (CMO) is busy in preparing the CM Trivendra Singh Rawat’s speech for the Independence Day function. As is known, this would be first tricolour hoisting by Rawat’s after his becoming the Chief Minister so the CMO is busy in giving final touches to his address.
Sources said that CM Rawat may not make any new announcements but he will present a road map before the people of the State regarding which way and how the State would be taken on a progressive path in the coming days. As State Government has already made an announcement that contracts for works costing upto Rs 5crore will be given only to the residents of Uttarakhand, the CM may give direction on this.
The CM has already made announcement that the State Government has made a provision for giving Rs 2 lakh cash assistance as loan to the farmers so that they can do value addition of their agriculture produce. Sources said that the programme will be launched by September on the occasion of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay’s birth anniversary. Due to this reason, being the Chief Minister of the State he had recently visited the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarter in Nagpur and also met senior leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his recent visit to Delhi.
Several projects like the Rishikesh-Karnprayag railway line, all-weather roads and national highway are supposed to be executed by 2018 so CM may lay emphasis on the execution of such projects in his address. He has already made a presentation in front of industrialists in Maharashtra and they have expressed their desire to make investments in the State. Meanwhile, political parties are expecting some major announcement from Chief Minister because it would be his first Independence Day when he would hoist tricolour as Chief Minister of the State.
Sources said that the Chief Minister is under pressure to send a message among the people that a majority Government is in place so he would not make any populist announcement because he believes in execution than in making false announcements like his predecessors did during their tenure. The officials of the CMO are busy in drafting CM speech which is why they don’t want to leave any stone unturned so they have collected all the relevant information from different departments. Rawat is also said to have been categorically told by the party high command that they would be expecting something like serious steps which should appeal to the people.
On the condition of anonymity an official said that the Chief Minister has categorically told the Government officials that he does not want to make any populist announcement in his Independence Day address so they should better concentrate on ground reality and works which can be executed on ground without any hassles.
The officials further said that the Chief Minister believes that his predecessors had made several announcements which were followed by media reports about the Chief Minister making announcements on which the necessary ground work had yet to be started. The incumbent wants to avoid such a situation and leave no room for the media to highlight such a scenario during his tenure. As we know that when foundation stone for the ambitious all-weather road was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Dehradun during December 2016 then Union Minister Nitin Gadkari had announced that the project gestation period would be 2019 but the PM has asked him to complete by 2018 so he would put all his effort to complete the said work within the new deadline.
In addition to this, the BJP State Government is also in place in Uttarakhand so there is no any technical issue which may cause hindrance, considering which the CM has been asked to clear all the pendency as soon as possible which is why CM is keeping away from making any false claims. The officials have been instructed to hold review meetings on a weekly basis so that the project can be completed within the given time frame.
The Chief Minister has already announced that contracts for projects costing upto Rs 5 crore project would be executed by people of Uttarakhand and projects costing more than Rs 5 crore would be open for all. With this announcement he had tried to send a message across the State that their Government is committed to check migration and that this is the first step towards meeting that target.
Besides this, the State Government has already invited ex-Army doctors and decided to give Srinagar medical college, which is struggling hard to cope up with public demand, to the Army. During his Independence Day address, the Chief Minister may also present a clear road map in this regard.