By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 13 Feb: Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress media in-charge Rajiv Mehrishi, today, blamed the BJP’s double engine government for the exodus from the hill districts of the state, saying that 1700 villages of the state had emptied out. The BJP double engine claim was fake.
He said that the report of the State Migration Commission says that there are one thousand villages where less than a hundred people are left. It is clear that, till now, people have migrated from 3900 villages. Migration of people from villages that are considered the second defence line of the country was a serious matter. About 60 percent of the population of the mountainous areas, 32 lakh people, have left their homes. He said that due to the terror of wild life in the hills, people have not only turned away from agriculture but have also been forced to migrate. The main reason for migration from Chamoli, Rudraprayag, Tehri, Pauri, Uttarkashi, Almora, Bageshwar, Pithoragarh and Champawat districts has been the terror of wildlife but, during the last five years, the BJP’s double engine government has done little in the direction of solving this problem. It didn’t even try. He said that, in the last five years, 85 villages in Almora district alone have become empty. In Pauri, this number is more than a hundred. The situation in Chamoli, Tehri and Bageshwar is also no different. Due to bears, monkeys, wild boar and tigers in all the villages of the mountain, people are finding it difficult to survive and people are taking shelter elsewhere to save their lives.
He gave the assurance, that after the formation of the Congress government after March 10, this problem would be resolved on priority basis.
He said that agriculture is done in a total area of 6.48 lakh hectares in the state. Of this, 3.50 lakh hectares are in the mountains and 2.98 lakh hectares in the plains. About 14.25 lakh families are living in rural areas of the state. In this, the livelihood of 8.81 lakh (61.84 percent) families is dependent on agriculture. But the BJP never gave importance to hill farming. Congress will change this picture.
Mehrishi said that protection of the environment is a serious problem in Uttarakhand. Wherever the debris from construction of the All Weather Road is being dumped, the precious forest wealth of the state is being damaged. Even lakhs of trees of Uttarakhand, which are called oxygen reserves of the country, have been destroyed. The BJP, which claims to have a double engine, is directly to blame for this national loss.
Mehrishi said that Uttarakhand was emerging as a hub of adventure tourism. BJP had put brakes on the possibilities of rafting from Rishikesh to Kaudiyala and on Kali River in Kumaon. He said that the state government should have made alternate arrangements with the NGT norms being followed, but the BJP slept for the entire five years. He said that all these discrepancies will be removed after the formation of the Congress government. Congress will find ways to follow the rules of NGT and ensure employment of the people. After March every problem will be solved.