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11 Akali MPs petition President against including Udham Singh Nagar in Uttarakhand

The Shiromani Akali Dal, an alliance partner of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, has taken strong exception to the Union Cabinet's decision to include Udham Singh Nagar in the proposed hill state of Uttaranchal, and all its members of Parliament have petitioned President K R Narayanan for a revision of the decision.

In a letter to the President, 11 Akali MPs from both houses of Parliament have sought his immediate intervention, saying that the merger of the district into the proposed hill state would lead to discrimination against the people there.

The letter, released to the media in New Delhi, said the previous yardstick of reorganisation of states on the basis of language, culture and traditions, did not fit in the case of inclusion of Udham Singh Nagar into the proposed state since the mixed population of the district had nothing common with the hill people.

The letter, a copy of which was also sent to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said 83 per cent of village panchayats of the district had already submitted written memorandum to the Centre opposing the merger of their area into the proposed hill state.

Incidentally, the MPs did not say anything about Akali minister Surjit Singh Barnala attending the Union Cabinet meeting on Monday that decided to include the controversial Udham Singh Nagar area into the proposed hill state.

Signatories to the letter included prominent Akali leader G S Tohra, B S Bhundar, S S Dhindsa, S S Libra, Raj Mohinder Singh (all Rajya Sabha MPs), Prem Singh Chandumajra, Satwinder Kaur Dhaliwal, Satnam Singh Kainth, Chitin Singh, Zora Singh Mann, T S Tur (all Lok Sabha MPs).

The Akali MPs move came even as Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Amrinder Singh asked the Akali Dal leadership to explain the reasons for their sudden change in stand on merging Udham Singh Nagar district with the proposed Uttaranchal hill state.

Barnala is a member of the Union Cabinet and the select committee on this issue "and therefore he cannot say that he is not a party to the Cabinet decision to merge this district with the proposed state", Capt Amrinder Singh told the media.

He wanted to know whether the Akali Dal nominee would be withdrawn from the Cabinet or the Akali Dal would support the demand for keeping Udham Singh Nagar back with Uttar Pradesh. People would not be satisfied with the "eyewash" of the Akali Dal leadership, he said.

Asserting that the Punjab Congress was for keeping the district with Uttar Pradesh, he said, ''If it was taken out of UP, the local sugar industry would collapse.''

Singh also expressed serious concern over the falling law and order in Punjab, rising prices and increase in the power tariff and bus fares.

The PPCC chief said militancy was staging a comeback and it was a dangerous development. The reasons which helped the growth of militancy in Punjab, "like unemployment and lack of industries" were not getting any attention from the Akali Dal, he said. The government was not doing anything for developing infrastructure or setting up industries so that more job opportunities were created, he said.

The return of militancy to the neighbouring states was really alarming, but the Punjab chief minister has not uttered a word about this, he said.

Meanwhile, the approval by the Union Cabinet of the draft bill for the creation of Uttaranchal or Uttarakhand state paves the way for removal of a glaring anomaly.

Uttarakhand is the only sector in the entire Himalayan arch from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh not given statehood so far. That seems to be close to happening now.

Uttarakhand Today,a book edited by well-know scholar K S Valdiya of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, and published recently, profiles the problems and potentialities of the region which, on acquiring a statehood, would be the largest of the Himalayan states in population, strongest in terms of human resources and adequately endowed with natural resources.

Covering nearly 51,125 sq km in the central Himalayas, Uttarakhand is larger in area than 11 states of the Union, namely Punjab, Haryana, Kerala, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, Goa and Delhi.

In terms of population, it is above nine states, namely Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Goa, Arunachal, Mizoram and Sikkim.

About 49 per cent of the population of Uttarakhand is literate against 34 per cent in entire Uttar Pradesh, its parent state.

The area has three universities -- Kumaon, Garhwal and Pantnagar (agriculture).

It has more than 30,000 men serving in the armed forces and over 300,000 ex-servicemen.

Valdiya highlights failure of developmental activities making a visible impact on the socio-economic condition of the region and its inhabitants in the past four decades. He says the area is rich in mineral, irrigation, power and forest resources which remain largely either untapped or mistapped. The immense horticulture potential of the area also remains unexploited.

About 70 per cent of Uttarakhand lives below the poverty line and there are very few avenues of employment in the absence of any worthwhile economic or industrial activities.

Valdiya notes that the administrative system of Uttarakhand until 1940 was different from the rest of UP because of its peculiar geographical and social conditions. This distinctiveness continues in many respect to this day. For example, he says, the 1951 UP zamindari abolition act was not applicable in the area.

UNI

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