To pressurise the State Government over their pending demands, the Gram Pradhans under the banner of Pradesh Pradhan Sangathan took out a rally towards the Chief Minister’s residence in Dehradun on Tuesday. Earlier, scores of State Pradhan Sangathan members led by its president Girveer Parmar assembled at Parade Ground and shouted slogans against the State Government for not addressing their demands. later, they started the rally towards the CM’s residence. Police, however, stopped them at a barricade at Hathibarkala. Verbal arguments ensued between the rallyists and police as the former attempted to break the barricade and march towards the CM’s residence. Stopped there, they sat at the place and demonstrated.
The protesters warned that they would intensity the movement in the coming days if their demand of the withdrawal of the order of reduction of funds for panchayats from the 14th finance commission budget is not met. Other demands include monthly allowances to the gram pradhans. The outfit’s president Girveer Parmar said that no positive step has been taken so far despite the outfit staging a movement for days. According to him, other demands include immediate implementation of Uttarakhand Panchayatiraj Act 2016. Besides, various government departments must be brought under the panchayats as per the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Act.
He further said that several memorandums have been submitted to the State Government through administrative officers in the past. “Yet, the Government has remained apathetic. Along with the association members, I recently met the state Panchayatiraj minister Arvind Pandey and he assured us of addressing our demands by September 30. However, nothing has happened. If the Government fails to meet the demands we would resort to hunger strike in the coming days,” he warned. For the present, the sit- in would continue at Parade Ground, he added.
Another protester Kundan Singh said, “We cannot sit idle with the state government being intent on smothering life of the rural democratic institutions. We would continue to protest against inclusion of gram sabhas in the jurisdictional limit of Municipal Corporation. This is in contravention of the Constitution too. We will intensify our protests in support of our demands.”