The martial traditions and native cultural heritage of Uttarakhand should be preserved, said Chief Minister Harish Rawat. He said this while addressing the gathering at the one-day Amar Shaheed Sainik Mela held in the remote Sawad village in Dewal development block of Chamoli district on Wednesday. The remote Sawad village has a tradition of soldiery with men from the village fighting in various wars including 22 men in the first world war, 38 men in the second world war, 14 in the Peshawar incident, 17 in the independence struggle army and one soldier each in the 1971 Bangladesh war and operation blue star. At present this village has 72 ex servicemen, 16 widow pensioners and 66 villagers currently serving in the army.
Addressing a large public gathering on the occasion, the Chief Minister announced financial provision of `3 lakh for giving a “grand look” to the martyr memorial in Sawad village. He directed the Chamoli district magistrate to make the action plan for this purpose. He said that motor roads, link roads and developmental works here will be named after the Indian freedom movement activists from the village. A sum of `50,000 was also announced for developing the Government inter college at Swad into a model school and for the decoration of the village Mahila Mangal Dal office. Rawat also accorded approval for work on the three-kilometre long Balpatta-Goyla motor road. The Chief Minister said that Dewal development block is also one of the five development blocks of the State selected for work towards the achievement of model development in the sphere of medicinal plants with the last village Ghes as the focal point. The CM stressed on plantation of as many fruit and fodder providing trees as possible in the region to boost dairy production in the area. He further said that in the coming three years, all the women of this region will be linked with the Ganga Gai Yojana in addition to which a milk process unit will also be established for making dairy products. The construction of 1,000 roads has been started in the State which also include about 200 roads of the district, he said.
Regarding the developmental efforts of the State Government, the chief minister averred that `5,000 each is being provided to women self help groups in order to strengthen them. Further, the self help groups which are working are being provide `20,000 grant while `1lakh grant is being given to those groups which undertake community farming.
The local MlA Jeetram Tamta thanked the chief minister and gave information about the developmental works being undertaken in the area. Block Pramukh Urmila Bisht and junior deputy Pramukh Manoj Kumar submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister demanding the tarring of Dewal-Swad motor road and adopting Dewal development block to develop it into a model block for tourism among other issues.