FORMER CABINET MINISTER OF UTTARAKHAND MANTRI PRASAD NAITHANI GIVES A CALL FOR REVIVAL OF THEIR FARMLANDS IN UTTARAKHAND VILLAGES

As the electorates of Uttarakhand are feeling disenchanted with the ruling political dispensation on various fronts demand for Concrete Land Act , 1950 citizenship and giving Uttarakhand the tribal status by including it in the fifth schedule of Uttarakhand are being raised vehemently especially due to the scourge of massive migration.

According various reports lakhs of people have migrated to plains leaving their villages vacant and it is usually said that more than thirty lakh inhabitants have left Uttarakhand villages in the interstate and out of Uttarakhand exodus in view of the complete lack of job avenues, no or inadequate health facilities and schools in poor health unable to render quality education to the wards of those living in the Uttarakhand villages after Uttarakhand gained separate state entity.

Apart from these inadequacies the prevailing alleged rampant corruption at every level of governance, prevalence of illicit and substandard liquor, even drugs reaching the interior towns, criminals from outer states considering hill region as their safe haven and increasing invasion of man-eaters n other wild animals on human population including occurrence of ecological disasters have compelled people to leave in abundance to metropolises, state capital and other states from interior villages.

Today while Uttarakhand is still rated as a progressing state, its employment giving stature is highly worrisome with people from other states literary capturing the share of the local and indigenous population with several cases of appointments on fake certificates at various levels coming to light including alleged prevalent corruption at every stage of governance.

After massive migration making villages ghost villages, about three to ten thousand Uttarakhand villages have been declared ghost where none is living or very negligible people and that too of very old ages with nobody looking after them, likely to die. In Uttarakhand over three lakh houses have locks . The figure may even be more reveal sources.

A movie titled SUBHERU GHAM BATHAUN -2 and plays on exodus to plains have been made exhibiting villages becoming completely vacant or with a single age old woman waiting for her tragic death, her only fault being her most passionate attachment to the village where she has passed fifty years after her marriage when she came here as a newly wedded daughter in law.

As a sequel to these ongoing grievances and unabated exodus to plains from Uttarakhand villages, the former cabinet minister of education and water resources in ND Tiwari and Vijay Bahuguna, Harish Rawat governments , Mantri Prasad Naithani has started a new movement mobilising people of Uttarakhand origin in Uttarakhand and elsewhere including in the national capital , Mumbai and other metropolises where large numbers of Uttarakhandies reside mobilising and urging them to regularly visit their villages in Uttarakhand if not much but at least for two months in a year in order to plough the barren fields and sow seeds to revive the dead farmlands on which have grown shrubs on massive scale with village houses becoming extremely dilapidated.

Former cabinet minister Mantri Prasad Naithani who was associated earlier with late H.N.Bahuguna, union minister, Trepan Singh Negi, MP, the Uttarakhand Gandhi Indra Mani Badooni etc and instrumental in the movement of separate state was the chief guest at Avantika at a function organised by a social organisation at the initiative of N.D.Lakhera.

The meeting was presided by Dr.Mayaram Uniyal, author of several books in Herbal medicines and towering social leader and Ayurvedic doctor.

Addressing the gathering – Mantri Prasad Naithani said that unfortunately during the rule of the then CM Trivendra Singh Rawat in 2017, the land law of Uttarakhand with central government’s consent the ceiling on sale of 12.5 acres of land was lifted resulting in opening the doors for bigger land sharks enabling them to buy maximum thirty acres of land saying further that today sixty percent of Uttarakhand has been sold with its demography under absolute threat and the holy land becoming a safe haven for corrupts, criminals, liquor and land mafia and land sharks .

Expressing his immense annoyance and protest – former cabinet minister of Uttarakhand Mantri Prasad Naithani said that in the 2000 , Uttarakhand had near eight lakh hectares fertile land and today about 2 .5 lakh hectares of agricultural land has squeezed with land sharks with their massive money power buying Uttarakhand farm lands, lands in plains and in interiors including green meadows ( Bugyals) putting their boards exhibiting their ownership.

He urged each and every inhabitant of Uttarakhand living in plains to come to villages at least for two months in a month and plough and sow in their fields and give the charge of maintaining these agricultural fields to their neighbours, if necessary.

He said they can sow plants of TULSI, ALLUVIRA AND OTHER HERBAL MEDICINES, Millet Including FRUIT PLANTS ON MASSIVE SCALE and this can be done in every village by starting from today asking the patwaris to find their land records and locate their every agricultural field to bring them under ploughs, sowing of seeds and make them fertile. The wild pigs, monkeys etc never touch the Tulsi, Alluvira plants said Mantri Prasad Naithani.

Mantri said that he had a detailed meeting with Ram Dev and Acharya Bal Kishan at Patanjali who has assured that whatever you will produce in Uttarakhand we will outright buy it adding that one of of “Keeda jadee” costs Rs. 8 or 80 lakhs. People are producing it in their playhouses. The resha of Bichchu ghass, giloi are highly expensive costing 60 thousand rupees per kg. Go to u r villages, find your farm lands. Our youths can earn Rs twenty five thousand in villages through farming every month who are merely earning Rs.15000 in plains.
He said that we will have work with dedication for ten years then only can we achieve something concrete and incredible in this regard said Mantri Prasad emphatically.

He said that unless our migrated population returns back to their respective villages and revive the KHETI as used to be done by our ancestors , the day is not far when our entire farm lands will go into the hands of land sharks. He also warned that there is a central government’s land law or act which catagorically says that in 2030 there are moves that those who have not done KHETI in their farm lands for continuously fifteen years the government may acquire them.

Mantri Prasad Naithani said that he will start a new chapter of corner meeting campaigning in Delhi’s various localities from December onwards to give a call to Uttarakhandies living in Delhi to visit their villages at least for two months in a years, maintain their houses in villages, sow the seeds, plough the farmlands and harvest the crops, then only will we be able to revive our batten agricultural fields on wide scale.

This is the need of the hour said Mantri Prasad Naithani.

He catagorically announced that he will prepare a man and a woman in each of the 16882 villages of Uttarakhand to start this campaign of reviving out farm lands in every village and in a decade my primary aim is to ensure complete settlement of ten thousand people or families in Uttarakhand villages

Others who spoke in this ocassion expressing their total solidarity with this noble cause and ensuring their fullest participation and mobilisation campaign were legendary Ayurvedic doctor and author of several books Dr.Mayaram Uniyal, leading Garhwali n Hindi poets , literateurs and authors Ramesh Chandra Ghildiyal, Pooram Kandpal, former Garhwal Hiteshini Sabha president Gambhir Singh Negi, ND Lakhera, ( Narayan Dutt Lakhera), Rajeshwar Kanswal, member Uttarakhand academy in Delhi, editor UKnationnews, Director Press Club of India and President of Uttarakhand Journalists Forum Sunil Negi, also author of three books , UKD leader Ranjit Singh living in Rohini and others.