Dehradun, March 22
The Uttarakhand Assembly has constituted a five-member committee that will look into the new Vidhan Bhawan building issue. The Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker made this announcement in the House today. The time-bound committee will be coming up with its report within one month.

Responding to a query raised by Congress MLA Amrita Rawat, Uttarakhand Parliamentary Minister Prakash Pant disclosed that a grant of Rs 88 crore had been recommended by the 13th Finance Commission for the construction of the Vidhan Bhawan building. While the Aswansan Samiti was looking into it, its decision on the matter is awaited. The minister also pointed out that the issue was sensitive.

Raising the query during question hour, Amrita argued that while the states of Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh had Assembly sessions at two places, why couldn’t Uttarakhand have Assembly session during summer at Gairsain and in Dehradun during winter? She asked the government whether a decision had been made for selecting a permanent capital of the state.

Joining the issue, Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) MLA Pushpesh Tripathy asked the government whether it would refer to the Kaushik Committee while taking up the issue of permanent capital of the state.

Congress MLA Dinesh Agarwal stressed the need for constructing the new Vidhan Bhawan building. He said crores of rupees were being spent on the construction of the Mukhyamantri Awas and other residences but no attention had been paid towards the construction of the new Assembly building.

Om Gopal, UKD MLA, termed the Dixit Commission report on capital as baseless. Pauri MLA Yashpal Benam, Congress MLA Tilak Raj Behad and Pritam Singh also took part in the deliberations.

Dehradun, March 22
Senior Congress leader and Pauri Garhwal MP Satpal Maharaj has accused the state BJP Government of incapability and inefficiency as it has failed to spend the annual state Budget and the funds released under the Centrally sponsored schemes in the state.

In a statement, Satpal Maharaj, former Union Minister of State for Railway, stated it was most unfortunate that on one hand the state government had been creating a hype of its developmental activities and on the other it had failed to even spend the entire Budget with only eight days of this fiscal year remaining. He alleged that most of the developmental activities in the state had come to a halt during the BJP rule. Out of the total Budget outlay of Rs 6,343 crore for 2010-11, the state government till date had spent only Rs 3,083 crore, which was only 45 per cent of the total Budget, he added.

The MP said similarly for Centrally sponsored schemes, a sum of Rs 5,391 crore was provided in the same year, but the state could spend only Rs 1,997 crore, which was 37 per cent of the total amount.

He said while the state government had started an ambitious scheme to feed the poor, the BJP ministers were saying that they would not lift foodgrains from the Central pool. “It is contradictory since the state does not have that much foodgrain and the state government has not lifted 19.09 thousand metric tonne of foodgrains meant for below poverty line (BPL) families and 15.65 thousand metric tonne meant for above poverty line (APL) families from the Central pool,” he alleged.

Satpal Maharaj said the victims of the rail-related disaster last year were still struggling to stand on their own feet as all the while the state government had been taking credit for child births in 108 Emergency service ambulances. “Most of the roads and paths, which were damaged during the rains last year, have not been repaired so far and the state BJP Government has been blaming the Central Government for all its ills,” he said.

Dehradun, March 22
Uttarakhand Governor Margaret Alva has said there does exist a serious mismatch between what is being taught by higher educational institutions and what the job market is actually demanding.

Addressing participants at a workshop on “Higher Education in Uttarakhand-Issues and Challenges”, which was organised by Doon University here today, the Governor said this had raised a big question mark on the very legitimacy of the higher educational system in the state.

Throwing a word of caution on awarding degrees in “convenient courses”, the Governor said: “In a state like ours, it does not make sense to award degrees in ‘convenient courses’. We cannot ignore the implications of creating a pool of literate, but unemployable youth. I would suggest that wherever required, surgical action be taken by grafting certain disciplines into professional courses rather than running them on their own”.

In her hour-long address to a galaxy of educationists led by the Vice-Chancellor of Doon University, Dr Girijesh Pant, the Governor highlighted a large number of pressing issues confronting the higher education in Uttarakhand and emphasised upon the need for its modernisation and standardisation. “We live in a global age. We are talking of global factor mobility. Clearly we must be talking of global standards. How do we achieve them? We need to do bold thinking and adopt innovative methods,” she said.

On the occasion, the Governor said the present system needed to be revisited to meet the emerging challenges, especially at a time when the Higher Education Department of the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development was proactively engaged in the education reforms process.

“At this juncture, when the Central Government is having a serious re-look at the higher education regime, it is time that we in our state of Uttarakhand give serious attention to the education sector in general and higher education, in particular. In the recent

past, a number of universities have come up in the state while many more are in the pipeline. It is a dream of the state government to make the state an education hub. These are indeed noble goals. But expansion alone will not help us achieve our objectives,” she said.

The Governor said: “Even in state-run colleges, we do not have adequate number of teachers and infrastructure. What is most alarming is that in many colleges, we do not have the viable number of students. I am told that given the pathetic state of some of these

colleges, local students avoid going there to attend classes. The serious question to be asked today is, how can we harness our human resources from the mountain region with inadequate infrastructure? Rather than further adding to numbers, our priority must be to consolidate what has been created”.

Addressing the workshop, the Governor emphasised various important factors that would be required for the qualitative growth and development of higher education in the state. She mentioned several important steps that would be required to overhaul the higher education regime in the state. These included the need for imbibing and inculcating skill sets for knowledge delivery, moving towards a knowledge application regime, autonomy and accountability as means to achieve excellence, parity in inter-university courses and facility of credit transfer, reducing external interference while preventing inbreeding, promoting intra-faculty communication and inter-institutional networking, establishing more education institutions in hill areas, pedagogy and public private partnership to prevent obsolescence, among other things.

The Governor said: “In the modern context of university education and higher education, it is important that the education being given to students, helps them in becoming good citizens and human beings”.

“We need to address the issue of quality to enable our students to face the highly competitive market. But, quality should not be defined in terms of competition alone. It is equally important that our students become responsible citizens. This requires that competition and values are made integral components of our education. Apparently these concerns are not adequately reflected in our institutions of higher learning today,” she said.

“Quality education is the rock on which India must build her political destiny, and educational institutions must strive to produce citizens who are healthy in body and mind and qualified to face the emerging challenges of the modern world,” she added.

Earlier, Dr Pant highlighted the aims and objectives behind organising the workshop. Those who were present on the occasion include Secretary to the Governor Ashok Pai, the Vice-Chancellors of all the state universities.

Dehradun, March 22
Munna Singh Chauhan, former MLA and president of the Uttarakhand Janvadi Party (UJP), has joined hands with the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) faction led by Trivender Singh Panwar and dissolved the UJP, which was floated by him.

The move, he said, was aimed at emerging as a joint force with likeminded political parties and posing a strong challenge to the national parties, the Congress and the BJP. “Both the BJP and the Congress have exploited the state resources to the hilt and did nothing to achieve any of the regional aspirations for which the state was formed 10 years ago. Therefore, I urge even other political parties who share our agenda to be a part of our fight,” he said.

Chauhan and Panwar had consensus on five issues, which were campaign against corruption, jobs to the unemployed, compensation and security to farmers against damage to lives and properties by wild animals, formulation of policies according to the peculiar and extreme geographical conditions and the reinstatement of the rights of people on water, forest and land and amendments to the Forest Act to bring about an effective implementation of development schemes.

Chauhan refused to clear his stand on the chief issue of the UKD pertaining to shifting the state capital to Gairsain, which was nowhere in the common-minimum programme of both the parties. He reiterated his stand to work on these five points first of all. He also declined to clear the air about taking their alliance forward in the Assembly elections. “We want people to take our issues and commitment seriously. The alliance is not intended for the elections as of now as winning elections has never been my priority in life,” he said.

While welcoming the support extended by Chauhan, Panwar indicated towards buttressing their campaign (‘Pol Khol Abhiyan’ from March 25 to April 3) against the alleged corrupt practices of the BJP and the Congress. Taking a swipe at the Election Commission of India for freezing their election symbol “chair” owing to fight in the party factions, he said, they had written a letter to the Commission to reconsider its decision and in case it persisted then they would move the HC against the decision. Symbol or no symbol, he said “we don’t need a symbol to go amid public. We garnered 1.5 lakh votes in the election of 1989 without any party symbol.”

Dehradun, March 22
Anganwari and Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers and Bojan Matas once again held a protest at the Vidhan Sabha, under the leadership of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, here today.

The main demands of the anganwari workers are appointment of anganwari workers as supervisors, leave facility, appointment as teachers as per their qualification at Government Primary Schools, Provident Fund, ESI facilities for workers, declaration as government employees and eligibility for pension after retirement etc.

The ASHA workers are demanding minimum wages, travel allowance and disbursement of salaries through cheques. The Bhojan Matas are demanding payment of incentives for 11 months, the government had recently reduced it to 10 months. The protesters will also stage a march from the Gandhi Park tomorrow. —TNS

Dehradun, March 22
A body of the Gurdwara Baba Lakhi Shah has strongly condemned the practice of removing turbans of Sikhs for security checks at international airports abroad.

The body has expressed its anguish over two such recent incidents in which golfer Jeev Milkha Singh’s coach Amritinder Singh and Padam Shri Bhai Nirmal Singh Khalsa were forced to take off their turbans at Milan Airport.

At a press conference held here today, its president Kuldeep Singh said it was very insulting and outrageous for the Sikh community that their turbans were removed in public for a security check. This was a matter of respect and honour for the Sikhs and they cannot tolerate such incidents, he added.

“We through the media demand from the state and the Central governments to take positive action in this regard soon. We also request the foreign ministry to promote the attire of the Sikhs at the international level to avoid such unpleasant situations,” he added.

Meanwhile, the body has demanded that basic facilities, including public conveniences, health care and security, be made available for a large number of Sikhs who will be undertaking the Hemkund Sahib pilgrimage in the coming days.

Pitthoragarh, March 22
As the Kumoan Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN) prepares for the Kailash Mansarowar Yatra, which begins on June 1, the ITBP team that has gone to survey the route this week has found more than 8 feet of snow between the last camp Nabhidhang and Lipulekh Pass.

“The way is thickly covered with snow and the track route is hardly visible,” said Commandant of the force Vishamitra Anand.

According to ITBP officials, the snow cover is unexpected. “If these conditions remain at the time of the commencement of the yatra, it will be difficult to cross the route,” they added.

“The high Himalayan ranges of Dharchula sub-division received more than average snowfall during the months of January and February this year, due to which the Kailash Mansarovar route is densely snow covered till date. The snow will have to melt before June 7, when the first batch of the yatra batch reaches on this route,” said the commandant.

The ITBP survey team that went to survey the route on March 15, has also witnessed damaged roofs of two KMVN camps at Gunji and 2 to 3 m of snow between lower camps of Kalapani and Gunji and invisible way from Nabhidhang onwards.

Dehradun, March 22
To take stock of the spending under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), a team led by Deputy Director, Health and Family Welfare, New Delhi, Dr DC Jain today reviewed the asset building exercise underway at the District Doon Hospital.

The members were keen to know the steps undertaken to reduce the infant mortality rate in the state and expressed surprise at the large number of patients being admitted to the hospital.

“Against the sanctioned strength of 252 beds in the hospital, we are forced to make arrangements for 290 beds,” said CMS, District Doon Hospital, Dr BC Pathak.

In addition, the hospital is also mulling increasing 80 beds for which human resource arrangements, too, have to be made. As of now, the total number of patients at the Doon Hospital is 1,506.

Dr Jain also showed interest in the early intervention project to be run by an NGO. He also questioned CMS, Female Hospital, Dr Deepa Sharma on the number of beneficiaries under the Janani Suraksha Yojana and progress in bringing as many people under the Rashtriya Suraksha Bima Yojana (RSBY).

Dehradun, March 22
Lux DID Doubles dancing ‘jodi’ (pair) Prithvi-Vivek is in the city to judge an inter-collegiate dance competition “Dehradun Ke Dancing Doubles Kaun” at the Tagore Park, Indira Nagar, here today.

Prithvi from Hyderabad and Vivek from Nagpur are the talented dancers from Geeta Ma’s team. Their chances of winning the ultimate recognition in the field of dance now rests in the hands of the viewers and the judges, as the show has thrown open its voting lines since February 26.

While speaking at a press conference at a city hotel, Vivek said, “We are in the top six and have come here to interact with our fans. For the past four months, we have been with the DID and it has been a fabulous journey”.

“We will also select a jodi in Dehradun as part of the programme. It will be really a different experience for us,” he added.

Six jodis from six different cities will be selected and they will be selected by these top six pairs of the DID. “It is a great opportunity for all of us and we are looking forward to select a dance jodi from here,” said Prithvi.