While the State Congress has announced to raise the party’s organisational districts from 18 to 28 in a bid to empower its local units, the same party’s Government keeps on dithering on decentralisation of power by way of carving out more districts from the administrative point of view.
The procrastination on the part of the State Government is leaving the people to sulk as this is a long-standing popular demand. It may be recalled that alive to the enduring strength of the demand, the former BJP Government in the State had announced creation of a few districts on the occasion of the Independence Day in 2011.
Keeping with its commitment to smaller administrative units for the cause of better administration, the same Government upgraded Haldwani and Haridwar civic bodies as municipal corporations before the 2012 State Assembly polls.
Though these exercises did not help BJP retain power, the party succeeded to convey a message to the electorate that it took care of popular sentiments. However, Chief Minister Harish Rawat’s statement during his recent visit to his native Ranikhet, suggesting that there are certain administrative obstacles in the creation of new districts, has put a damper on the popular demand.
However, he maintained that his Government is strengthening tehsil to smoothen the public delivery system at the lower rungs of the administration. A municipal council will soon be set up in Ranikhet, CM added.
It is pertinent to mention here that there is a popular demand to make Didihat, Ranikhet, Kotdwar, Purola, Kashipur, Ramnagar, to name a few parts of the hill State, as new districts. Notably, different social organisations also staged agitation, demanding Ramnagar be made a district ahead of the 2012 state Assembly polls. A section of the society here believes that carving smaller administrative units is an imperative for administrative convenience, given Uttarakhand’s tough geographical terrain.
The fact is that even for small official works, we have to trudge to district headquarters from a remote village of a hill district like Pithoragarh. If there are smaller district administrative units it will obviously be easier for the common man to get his routine official works done, a resident of Ramnagar said. That is why there is also a demand for having State capital at a centrally-located place like Gairsain, he maintained.