Nityanand sworn in CM
Barnala first Uttaranchal Governor
From Baljit Singh
Tribune News Service

DEHARA DUN, Nov 8 — The new state of Uttaranchal was formally rung in at a simple open air ceremony at the Parade Ground at midnight here tonight.

Its first CM, Mr Nityanand Swami, was administered the oath of office and secrecy at midnight by its first Governor, Mr Surjit Singh Barnala. Mr Barnala in turn had been administered the oath of office earlier by the Uttaranchal Chief Justice, Mr Justice A.A. Desai. The new Cabinet will be sworn in on November 10 in the morning soon after which the government will leave for Nainital to inaugurate the new High Court as a state that was 40 years in the making crystallizes in just three months.

Mr Barnala arrived by car from Chandigarh just a few hours before his swearing in, taking in the inauguration of a factory project some 20 km outside the town.

Mr Nityanand Swami had also come in by train from New Delhi last morning, as did most of the new state’s MLA’s for the meeting that formally elected him.

So grinding has been the pace that bureaucrats, sole in charge in the absence of political leaders who were in Delhi for weeks, have had a hard time keeping up. The uncertainty that surrounded the timing of the swearing in ceremony only added to the pressure. Finally the administration pushed ahead with the mid-night swearing in rather than skirt constitutional ambiguities.

In fact ever since the state was announced three months ago with a launch date of November 1, the administration has been working overtime to put the apparatus of state in place. Then, three weeks ago when Dehra Dun was named interim capital it began to move its figures from account books to the ground. But four week is no time to put together a capital city for a bureaucracy used to a more leisurely pace. So despite commandeering a host of Central government buildings the lack of time shows, with officials and government alike forced to camp in city hotels as work on the Secretariat, CM’s residence, Governor’s residence and ministers accommodation presses on.