Uttarakhand Chintan and Ekta Manch organise Dharna to demand inclusion of Uttarakhand in 5 th schedule of the Constitution
Several women activists, youths, representatives of various social organisations, NGO activists of Uttarakhand active in Delhi and NCR participated in a protest Dharna organised by Uttarakhand Chintan and Uttarakhand Ekta Manch at Jantar Mantar on Tuesday, 6 th February demanding inclusion of Uttarakhand into 5 th Schedule of the Constitution.
The activists raising slogans in support of the above demand also appealed to the Uttarakhand government to implement the Concrete Land Act and 1950, Mool Pramaan Patra etc at the earliest as being demanded by several socio political organisations of Uttarakhand who held impressive rallies at Dehradun and Haldwani few days ago.
It may be recalled that the demands for concrete land act and 1950, Mool Niwas Pramaan Patra are long pending and the successive governments of both the national parties Congress and BJP have never addressed both these demands despite Uttarakhand changing 9 chief Ministers in just 24 years becoming the first state among three new states that came into existence in the month of November, 2000.
Not only this but the massive sale of lands to private hands in Uttarakhand have become a usual affair as the ceiling on 12.5 acres of land was lifted during the tenure of the then BJP CM Trivendra Singh Rawat enabling ultra rich buy large tracts of land under the guise of opening industries or petty businesses. Today more than 40% of Uttarakhand is believed to have been allegedly sold to these private corporate or industrial honchos, many of whom have not constructed any industry on it to enable employment to the local populace, but are waiting to sell them on enhanced rates to mint excessive profits.
Today, not only the agricultural land has squeezed in Uttarakhand but due to the massive migration of village population to cities, towns and metropolis for want of job avenues, health treatment and quality education to children the remaining agricultural fields have turned barren as the working hands have squeezed too.
Those who spoke today at the protest Dharna were senior journalist, activist and founder of Uttarakhand Chintan Suresh Nautiyal , UKD vice president Pratap Singh Shahi, Uttarakhand Journalists Forum president Sunil Negi, Laxmi Negi of Uttarakhand Ekta Manch, Mr. Jalandhari of Uttarakhand Bhasha Andolan, Vinod Rawat, Mr. Mundepi, Uttarakhand Chintan etc.
Majority of the speakers while speaking in favour of the inclusion of Uttarakhand in the fifth schedule of the Constitution said that had the youths of Uttarakhand given adequate jobs, had there been ample number of hospitals, had the state been corruption free and had our women been safe, the need for inclusion of Uttarakhand in the 5 th schedule would not have arose.
The speakers were highly critical of the present government of Uttarakhand for not being at all serious to implement the concrete land act and 150, Mool Niwas Pramaan Patra despite massive protest demonstrations at Degrading, Haldwani etc but is much eager to implement the Uniform Civil Code bill which hardly concerns the majority of the population of the state.
It may be recalled that fifth schedule provides for the administration of tribal areas in ten states in India including Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand,Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan and Telangana. If a particular state is brought under fifth schedule , all the land in the scheduled area is presumed to have been an Adivasi land. According to the Vikaspedia in the article 244 (1) of the Constitution, expression scheduled areas mean such areas as the president may by order declare to be Scheduled areas.
