Himachal budget session: Governor says poll promises to be fulfilled in phased manner

Pratibha Chauhan

Shimla, February 14

The 13-day budget session of the Vidhan Sabha commenced today with Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla stating that all promises made to the people will be fulfilled in a phased manner as the Congress election manifesto had been adopted as a policy document.

The Governor began his 42-page address in Hindi by stating that the government had completed one year of “vyavastha parivartan”. “The lack of funds will not be allowed to come in the way of development work, and rehabilitation work worth Rs 1741.17 lakh core had been undertaken in the aftermath of the devastation caused by unprecedented rains in the monsoons, last year,” he said.

He added that despite challenges, the government has set the goal of making Himachal economically self-reliant in the next four years and among the most prosperous states of the country in the next 10 years.

Shukla elaborated on how the under the Special Relief Package, the state government had enhanced the relief almost five to 20 times as compared to the norms issued by the Central Government. “The relief for total damage to a house has been enhanced from Rs 1.30 lakh to Rs 7 lakh, for partial damage from Rs 4,000 to Rs 1 lakh and for a partially damaged pucca house from Rs 6,000 to Rs 1 lakh,” he said.

The Governor’s address made special mention of the manner in which the state government managed to safely evacuate 75,000 tourists, stranded at various locations, across Himachal. “My government is committed to providing quality health care and 69 Adarsh Swasthya Sanstahn had been set up in each of the 68 assembly segments with all testing facility and specialist doctors,” he said. Open heart surgery had been started at Tanda medical College and a genome sequencing laboratory has been set up at the Mandi medical college, he added.

“Due to irregularities in recruitment exams, the Himachal Pradesh Staff Selection Commission, Hamirpur, was dissolved on February 21 last year and to restore public trust Himachal Pradesh Rajya Chayan Aayog (HPRCA) has been established,” he added.

The Governor said the government has approved new excise policy which will generate additional revenue of Rs 519 crore, which is 40 per cent more than last year. He also listed steps taken to curb the problem of rising drug addiction among youth.

Highlighting the importance of the tourism sector, Shukla said a budgetary allocation of Rs 3,000 crore had been made to make Kangra the tourism capital of the state. He elaborated that five new heliports were being made at Manali, Kangnidhar, Baddi, Sanjauli and Rampur and one heliport at every district headquarter apart from construction of ropeways to promote tourism.

The Governor said work is in progress to develop 63-km Bhanupali-Bialspur-Beri rail line at a cost of Rs 6753.42 crore. “The construction of 31-km Chandigarh-Baddi rail line will be done jointly by the Himachal Government and Railway Ministry at a cost of Rs 1540.13 crore,” he added.