By Our Staff Reporter
Tehri, 17 Dec: Panchayati Raj Minister, Satpal Maharaj today announced that those who had more than 2 children, all born before 25 July 2019 were eligible to contest the three tier panchayat polls. This comes as a major relief for those who have more than two children and want to contest panchayat polls. There had been a lot of confusion in this respect before the Panchayati Raj minister today chose to clear the air in this respect.
State’s Panchayati Raj, Rural Development, Tourism, Public Works, Irrigation, Watershed, Religion and Culture Minister, Maharaj was addressing the gathering after laying the foundation stone and inaugurating various development schemes at Tehri district headquarters auditorium here today. It may be recalled that Maharaj is currently on a long tour of Garhwal and today was the seventh day of his tour. He informed that the mandatory condition restricting those with more than 2 children irrespective of their age from contesting panchayat polls has now been amended.
Maharaj on this occasion inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of development schemes worth Rs 29.55 crore and also distributed land allotment documents to 113 eligible persons of Roulakot under the scheme for the Tehri Dam affected families. Maharaj further said that the government had been continuously striving for the long-standing demands of Tehri dam affected families for compensation and rehabilitation. Due to lack of land for rehabilitation with the Rehabilitation Department, a proposal was made by the government to the Minister of Energy, Government of India, to solve the problem of rehabilitation of the affected persons, on which after the meetings of Energy Secretary and THDC and officials of Rehabilitation Directorate, the problems of the Tehri Dam affected families have been resolved to a great extent. He also reminded that it has been his priority to ensure justice to the Tehri Dam affected families.
He said that under the Parsi Damage Policy, an amount of more than Rs 40 crore had been given as compensation to the affected families so far, while the eligible people of other affected villages would also be given compensation soon and their rehabilitation related problems would also be resolved.
Tehri MLA Kishore Upadhyaya, Dhanaulti MLA Pritam Singh, District Panchayat President Sona Sajwan, BJP District President Rajesh Nautiyal, Former District President Vinod Raturi, Khem Singh Chauhan, Block Chief Rajendra Bhandari, Meena Khali, Shivani were present in the programme.
On this occasion, Maharaj laid the foundation stone and inaugurated the development schemes of the PWD, Minor Irrigation and Panchayati Raj Departments in the district, under the Chief Minister’s announcement. These works included construction of roads in Narendra Nagar and Muni Ki Reti area too. Some solar pump projects were also inaugurated on this occasion which had been installed by Minor Irrigation Department along with construction work of Panchayati Building in gram Panchayat Badola.
