Taking a serious note of the previous State Government having signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a China-based company to develop smart city without seeking approval from the Union Government, the Centre has asked the State Government to send the details of such MoUs, the previous State Government signed with the companies based in foreign countries at the earliest. It is learnt that the State’s Chief Secretary to whom the Centre wrote, has been asked to provide the details sought.
Notably, though the previous Government had signed MoU with a China-based company by way of developing a smart city as per the smart city project envisaged by the Union urban ministry, the project plan sent by the previous State Government failed to pass the scrutiny of the Centre. What happened is that the previous State Government on being asked to submit the detail project report (DPR) on the smart city project submitted the DPR in 2016 and without waiting for the approval from the Centre, it singed MoU with the China-based company. The decision courted controversy at the time with many questioning the authority of the state Government to ink a MoU with a foreign country-based company without caring to take the Centre into confidence. However, the previous State Government defended its decision, claiming that the matter did not warrant taking prior approval from the Centre.
Sources say that the Centre having a taken a serious view of the MoU with a China-based company is justified, given the fact that Uttarakhand shares borders with China and Nepal. “The relation with China remaining volatile with the Tibet’s supreme leader Dalai lama currently visiting the north eastern states, particularly Arunachal Pradesh- which China claims as its own showing it southern Tibet- the Centre’s action has come as no surprise. In case the Centre decides to scrutinize the MoU, it would land some high-profile bureaucrats in trouble as it was the officials who signed the deal with the China-based company on behalf of the previous State Government, say the sources.