Nainital MP and the former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Bhagat Singh Koshyari has rubbished the charge of the Harish Rawat Government that the Centre has slashed allocation for Uttarakhand. “The contrary is true as the Centre has approved the 14th Finance Commission recommendation as a result of which the State would get 42 per cent in place of the earlier figure of 32 percent. The State would get Rs40,000 crore in the next five years while the figure was a paltry Rs15,000 crore over the last five years,” he said on Wednesday. He asked the Chief Minister to desist from such vilification campaign against the Centre and focus instead on using the resources to boost development of the State.
He also mentioned the fact that the Centre is all set to spend Rs200292.20 crore through the Panchayats in the next five years. “The Centre has already released Rs161.63 crore to the Gram Panchayats based in Uttarakhand for the ongoing financial year 2015-16. Contrastingly, the erstwhile UPA Government had released mere Rs86.42 crore over the corresponding period, the sum based on the recommendation of the 13th Finance Commission,” the senior BJP leader said.
Tearing further into the State Government, he said they had released the sum to the GPs under pressure with the Centre making it clear that if the State Government chooses to hold the fund meant for the GPs they would have to pay hefty interest on the fund released by the Centre exclusively for the GPs. “Now, doing petty politics, they have asked the GPs to keep 50 percent of the allotted funds for the execution of the Chief Minister’s announcements,” Koshyari added.
Trashing the Uttarakhand government’s charge that the Centre is not allocating funds required to relocate the disaster prone villages, Koshyari said they have not yet conducted a real survey about how many villages located in the disaster prone areas ought to be relocated. “Have they identified the land to be used to rehabilitate the persons to be thus displacedIJ Have they prepared a plan like what then UP Government had made for the rehabilitation of the uprooted people due to the implementation of Tehri Dam projectIJ” he asked.
He further alleged that the State Government, bent on facilitating the capitalists, is more interested in spending billions of rupees in developing lands under SIIDCUl than in rehabilitating the people from the disaster prone villages. “Harish Rawat Government must earmark land to rehabilitate them. If they fail the people would make it to kiss the dust during the Assembly election-2017,” he warned.
Reacting to the ruling party’s allegation that the BJP MPs are not cooperating with the state government on matters of development, Koshyari said the state government is yet to convene a meeting to bring the saffron MPs on board. “They are blaming them for narrow political reason instead of inviting them to a meeting to fix priorities in terms of the state’s long-term interests. As part of their myopic brand of politics, they are making it a point that the foundation stones do not contain the names of the local MPs if they happen to be from the Opposition. Does it mean that they respect the norms of parliamentary democracy where the role of the Opposition is immenseIJ By trashing the MPs, they are humiliating the people who have chosen them as their representatives in the parliament, to vent their needs and aspirations for development,” he said. He further said that the people are eagerly waiting for the Assembly election to show them the door. “The people of the state are not as gullible as they think them to be. They would soon understand it to their peril,” the former CM said.