Dehradun, November 8
As a small state separated from the mother state of Uttar Pradesh on November 9, 2000, Uttarakhand has made rapid strides in some key areas in the last eight years but the fruits of development are yet to reach the marginalised people living in far-flung hilly areas.

After a successful agitation by the people of the Himalayan regions of Kumoan and Garhwal, a separate state came into being. The major grouse of the people of the hilly regions was the slow pace of development, geographical distances in reaching capital Lucknow and the insensitivity of the bureaucrats and politicians towards the special needs of the hill people.

With a new state, a new army of bureaucrats and equally large number of politicians, the real issue of development of the hilly areas has been lost.

The state had taken birth with a deficit of Rs 1,605 crore which it had received from the mother state of Uttar Pradesh as part of the division of assets and liabilities between the two states.

Moreover, the state has also been burdened with market debts of Rs 697 crore including World Bank loans and national saving debt of Rs 288 crore. Now after eight years, with the implementation of the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Panel for its 'employees', the state would be burdened with a debt of Rs 15,000 crore in the next two years.

However, in some key sectors, namely power generation and industry, Uttarakhand has done exceptionally well.

For building roads, a major factor in the development of hilly regions, the state claims to have built and repaired 9,800 km of roads including 404 bridges linking more than 9,527 villages with roads and propose to link all 16,829 villages of the state by road by 2010. The situation was really bad during Uttar Pradesh days with not more than 4,000 villages connected with roads till 2000.

Before the separate state of Uttarakhand came up, no efforts were made to tap the tremendous potential of hydroelectric power generation. Hydroelectric power plants built till November 2000 had a maximum capacity of 1200 MW but practically not more than 500 MW of power was produced due to various technical reasons.

After Uttarakhand came into being, a total of 20,000 MW of hydroelectric potential was not only identified but the state government has already allocated works for 45 hydroelectric power projects with a capacity of 12,348 MW having an estimated cost of Rs 65,000 crore.

The state has also done well to take advantage of the special status given by the Central government to attract industry. With near zero industry before the state came into being, Uttarakhand after setting several industrial estates at Dehradun, Haridwar, Pantnagar, Sitarganj and Kotdwar was able to attract industrial investment worth more than Rs 20,000 crore.

The annual growth rate of the state, which was 5.94 per cent in 2001-2002, has gone up to 11.24 per cent. The industrial growth rate of the state was a mere 1.9 per cent that has galloped to 18.91 per cent as per the state government statistics.

In the field of tourism, from 1.17 crore tourists in 2002, the state received 1.64 crore tourists till 2005. The number of foreign tourists also increased from 55,000 in 2002 to more than a lakh in 2008.

In education, the state has also improved from the earlier situation. With recruitment of 30,000 teachers, the teacher-student ratio that was 1:43 in 2001 has come down to 1:27. A total of 2725 new schools including 1035 primary, 780 middle, 604 high schools and 306 inter colleges have been opened in the past six years in the state.

Despite such remarkable achievements, there are skeptics also. Dr Anil Joshi, a famous social scientist and Padma Shri awardee of the state said that more than 4000 villages still remain unconnected. "People in the remote villages have to travel long distances on foot to reach the road head," he said.

Reacting on the growth of employment opportunities, Suryakant Dhasmana, a senior Congress leader said that despite industrial growth, the number of unemployed registered with the employment exchanges have doubled from 2 lakh to more than 5 lakh till 2008. "The number of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families have risen from 3.76 lakh to 6.21 lakh now," he added.

The fruits of development have not yet fully reached the hilly areas. "We are trying to attract eco-friendly industry to the hills by offering a special package so that people get employment and industrial growth fuels economic growth in the hills to make the state as per the aspirations of those who laid down their lives for the cause," said CM Maj Gen B.C. Khanduri (retd).

Dehradun, November 8
Rising number of road accidents, deterioration of the physical infrastructure, poor transport facilities, spurt in crime, worsening of the condition of the roads in Uttarakhand, increase in the pollution levels, unplanned urbanisation and environmental degradation is what the state seems to have achieved, ever since Uttarakhand became a separate entity eight years back.

While the state government is holding celebrations to mark the foundation day of Uttarakhand which falls on November 9, residents have little to cheer about.

Though during the past eight years, tourism in the state had witnessed a boost but the number of the road mishaps, especially during the ‘Char Dham’ yatra had also registered a steep increase.

The roads to Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri situated in Garhwal Himalayas are dangerous and have achieved the dubious distinction of ‘killer roads’ on account of large number of accidents occurring every year.

Since the new state came into being, safety records of Uttarakhand buses had remained dismal with more than 500 persons dying every year particularly during the yatra season. As per official records, a total of 869 persons lost their lives in road accidents in 2005, while 1842 got injured. Next year, the number of dead increased to 975, while the number of injured were 1910. In 2007, a total of 991 persons lost their lives with the number of injured soaring to 1988. Though official data is not available but the trend of increasing road accidents continued in 2008 as well.

Out of total strength of 816 employees, the transport department has only half the staff. “Lack of repairs of the old state transport buses is one of the major reasons for the re-occurrence of accidents,” rued Sujit Kumar, a resident of Dehradun.

“Notwithstanding the fact that with growing vehicular traffic and increasing population, there is urgent need for a systematic and futuristic planning for creating physical infrastructure including flyovers, bridges, subways, railway overbridges and better road connectivity. But the political parties are busy in blame game and petty politics, thereby ignoring the interests of the state,” said Avdesh Kaushal, founder of Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK).

Another major concern is the rising crime graph. While in 2004, as many as 6960 crimes were reported, the number increased to 6735 in 2005. In 2006, the figure again registered an upward trend with 7133 crime reports being lodged, which further rose to around 8000 in 2007. This year’s crime data till September 30 reveals that 6301 crime incidents were reported in state.

The increase in pollution levels, unplanned urbanisation and environmental degradation are some other matters of concern for the state. “There is still enormous scope for improvement. The people of Uttarakhand do not appear satisfied with the performance of the government,” remarked Dr Ravi Chopra of People’s Science Institute. 

Haridwar, November 8
To demand that Gairsain be made the state capital, the Uttarakhand Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti (USSS) held a dharna in front of the office of the district magistrate here today, the eve of the eighth anniversary of Uttarakhand state.

Dhirendra Pratap, president of the USSS, said that it was high time that the government announces Gairsain as the state capital.

He alleged that the government, by giving repeated extensions to the Dixit commission appointed to select a permanent capital of the state, doesn't seem serious as it had not made the report public.

The samiti also gave a memorandum to the Governor B.L. Joshi, who was in the city today to attend a function. Later, the agitators held a two-minute silence in remembrance of the martyrs of the Uttarakhand movement.

Dehradun, November 8
In run up to the proposed stir by the contractual employees from Uttarakhand Technical University, a joint meeting between the agitating employees and the Uttarakhand Technical University’s officials took place today where a consensus was arrived on certain issues. It was decided to reinstate Arvind Singh and Hari Singh Bisht, two of the agitating employees who were removed earlier. Further, the demand of immediate release of the salaries for the employees that were not being provided with salaries for a long was also accepted.

It was also decided to convene a meeting of the finance committee on Nov 15, to resolve the concerns of those employees who have worked on contract for period of two years.

The contractual employees union submitted a memorandum on Nov 1, to the VC of Uttarakhand Technical University, seeking prompt redressal of their demands. Mahim Verma, Mohit Dobhal and Amit Mohan represented the union in the meeting, while Prof V K Tiwari was from VC Uttarakhand Technical University.