Demanding jobs, a large number of unemployed youths held a massive demonstration outside Vidhan Sabha on the maiden day of the winter session of the state Assembly on Tuesday.
Under the banner of Uttarakhand Unemployed Federation, the youths started to gather since the morning at Parade Ground here on the day.
Addressing the unemployed, former president of the DBS college students’ union Kamlesh Bhatt said that despite a large number of posts in different departments of the state government lying vacant, the state government has no intention to fill them.
He further said that instead of making regular appointments, the government is making contractual appointments. “But here too, the agents and the middlemen are calling the shots,” he said.
Other speakers demanded the state government to ensure that the contractual appointments are done by the recruitment agencies of the government to end nepotism and favoritism and also to make the appointments transparent.
The agitators then marched towards the state Assembly. Earlier, in anticipation of a huge rally heading towards the Assembly, the administration had put into place elaborate arrangements to stop the march from reaching the Assembly.
A large police contingent stopped the march at the first barricade put near Rispana bridge where some of the agitators had heated exchanges with the police personnel. Unable to move further, the unemployed sat on a dharna on the road itself. They later handed over a memorandum addressed to the chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat to the administrative officers.
March of Ayurveda students
Demanding implementation of the High Court order on refunding the excess fees to the Ayurveda college students, hundreds of students of different Ayurveda colleges hit the road and marched towards the state Vidhan Sabha on Tuesday. The National Students Union of India ( NSUI), Congress’s student affiliate, threw their weight behind the march of these students.
The students gathered at Fountain Chowk and started to head towards the Vidhan Sabha. But they were stopped by the police personnel near Rispana bridge.
The state NSUI president Mohan Bhandari said that the HC had directed all the 16 Ayurveda colleges based in the state to refund the extra fees they had taken from the students.
“ But these colleges are not acting on it. We wonder why as the court quashed the Government Order of October 2015 based on which the fee of these colleges was hiked,” he said.
The agitating students said that their tuition fees had been hiked from Rs 80,000 per year to Rs 2.15 lakh in one go.