Uttarakhand has a total of 83 lakh voters, including 93,699 service voters . Of these, there are 42.5 lakh male and 39.4 lakh female voters, while 283 voters belong to the third gender. Of the service voters, 91,107 are male and 2,592 female.
The data was released by the revised electoral roll of the . People who have turned 18 on January 1, April 1 or July 1 this year have been asked to get their names enrolled in the voters’ list.
Theforest departmenthas decided to develop 37 model crew stations, spacious facilities in remote, disaster-prone areas which rescue forces can access quickly to tackleforest fires, wildlife attacks or natural disasters.
The model crew stations have been selected based on their accessibility, connectivity and space available for camping and storage (for convenience of rescue personnel). These are basically moderndisastermanagement centres of the forest department. The idea is to let all departments: Police, Disaster Management, fire-fighting units as well as work under the same roof, in synergy, to save maximum lives and Resources“>Natural Resources in case of any mishap. These centres will also be used as camping sites for theState Disaster Response Force(SDRF) andNational Disaster Response Force(NDRF), if they are deployed.
TheUttarakhandtax department has collected a staggering Rs 2,648.1 crores in sales tax/VAT on liquor in 22 years starting from the fiscal year 2001-02 to 2022-23, as per recent data obtained by Right To Information (RTI) activist Nadeem Uddin, a resident of Kashipur in Udham Singh Nagar district. This tax revenue was generated solely from the sale of liquor in the state.
The data reveals a continuous increase in tax revenue collected on liquor in the state. The information was provided by the public information officer Deepak Brijwal, who is posted as the deputy commissioner at state tax headquarters in Dehradun, in response to a request made by Nadeem for information on the amount of tax revenue collected on liquor across the state. The data indicates that the tax revenue from liquor sales in the state has consistently been on an upward trend, with fiscal year 2022-23 recording the highest revenue collection to date.
It is pertinent to mention here that 312 deaths had occurred in the mountainous states from March 15 last year to April 30 this year. It shows that an almost equal number of deaths has occurred in the hill districts in the last 14 days when compared to the previous 13 months of pandemic. The share of deaths of mountainous districts in total number of deaths too has increased from 11.9 percent ( from March 15, 2020 to April 30,2021) to 18.6 percent ( May 1 to May 13, 2021). A total of 4245 deaths have occurred from Covid 19 so far in the state out of which 613 deaths have occurred in the mountainous districts.
Pauri districts leads the table of mortality from Covid 19 with 200 deaths followed by Almora (89), Pithoragarh (80), Tehri (52), Rudraprayag (49), Uttarkashi (43), Bageshwar (39), Chamoli (34) and Champawat (27).
Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has said that innovation is necessary in Education. He said that the objective of education is balanced development of every dimension and it is impossible without innovations. The CM was addressing a programme organised on the occasion of Praveshotsav ( enrollment festival) at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose residential school Bhaniyawala here on Tuesday. He said that apart from inculcating high ideals and virtues in an individual, education provides solutions for the problems of the Society. Dhami said that the is consistently working to promote girl education. He added that the government is committed to a bright future of the students. The CM opined that any society can become powerful and enrich only with the help of education. He said that the National Education Policy (NEP) -2020 would provide EMPLOYMENT oriented education to the students and now they would not have to prepare separately for the competitive examinations. It would also encourage research and innovations and it would go a long way in making India a developed nation. He said that Uttarakhand is the first State in the country which has implemented the NEP-2020.
The governor lieutenant general (retd) Gurmit Singh said the is planning to double the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of Uttarakhand by the year 2025 when the State completes 25 years of its creation. He said that the Pushkar Singh Dhami government has taken a commitment to fulfill the expectation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the third decade of the 21stcentury will belong to Uttarakhand. The governor was addressing the first day of the budget session of the State Assembly at Bharadisain in Gairsain.
Amid continued interruption from the opposition benches the governor read out the achievements and vision of the Dhami government. He said that the State government has set up a State Institute for Empowering and Transforming Uttarakhand (SETU) on the lines of NITI Aayog of the Centre. Similarly, Uttarakhand Infrastructure and Investment Development Board (UIIDB) has been set up to provide an impetus to the economy of the State. Presenting a rosy picture of the economy of Uttarakhand, the governor said that the per capita income (PCI) of the State stands at Rs 2,05, 840 which is 37 per cent more than the PCI of the country which is Rs 1,50,007. In the India Innovation Index 2021 of the NITI Aayog, Uttarakhand has been placed in second position among the Himalayan States and in fifth spot in the whole country.
The governor said that to give more representation to the Women of the State in government jobs, the Uttarakhand Public Service (horizontal reservation)-2022 Act was brought in. He said that in order to put an effective control on the use of unfair means and copying in the recruitment examinations the Dhami government has brought the Uttarakhand Recruitment Examinations (prevention of unfair means) ordinance 2023. The Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture and Farmer Welfare department has undertaken a State millet mission to encourage the cultivation of Millets and has initiated CM natural farming scheme and Namami Gange natural farming corridor scheme.
Under the Jal Jeevan Mission drinking water connection has been provided to 10,93,281 rural families. The Irrigation department is preparing a comprehensive master plan for construction of check Dams and stop dams for augmenting the ground water table. A total of 1,102 Amrit Sarovars (ponds) were constructed by the rural development department and out of them 340 ponds were handed over for fishery. The governor said that ropeway projects are underway in Yamunotri, Hemkund Sahib and Kedarnath which will make the Yatra more accessible. Work on 15 projects is underway as per the master plan to make Badrinath shrine a smart spiritual hill town. Free textbooks were given to 7.42 lakh students of classes I to VIII in the government and the aided schools of the State. Similarly for the first time free textbooks were given to 3.19 lakh students of classes IX to XII in the State. Under the higher Education department 20 institutes would be developed as the centre of excellence. Under the startup policy recognition has been given to 139 startups and financial assistance has been provided to 33 start-ups. The State government has applied for Geographical Indication (GI) tags for stinging nettle, pichhoda, crafted candles of Nainital, Mukhota (mask) of Chamoli and temple templates of Rudraprayag.
In line with the overall policy to further step-up military and economic ties with the energy-rich Central Asian republics, India on Monday kicked off a joint combat exercise with Uzbekistan at Pithoragarh inUttarakhand. The 14-day exercise – ‘Dustlik’ – will see Indian and Uzbek soldiers focus on joint counter-terrorist operations in mountainous and semi-urban scenarios under the UN mandate.
The Founder of Social Development for Communities (SDC) foundation Anoop Nautiyal has advocated for Uttarkashi model for increase in voting Percentage in the mountainous areas of the state. He said that the governments, policy makers and public representatives should deeply understand the reasons for the high percentage of voting in Uttarkashi district as compared to hill districts.
The SDC foundation has released a report Migration and Uttarakhand Election 2017 which is based on the voting patterns and percentages of the assembly of 2017 in the state.
The report claims that the number of voters in the assembly seats in the hilly areas is less than in the plain areas, as well as fewer people go to vote in these areas than in the plain areas. In this way, about 40 to 50 per cent of the voters of mountainous areas are not able to participate in the democratic process. According to the report, heavy migration in the state is one of the likely reasons behind the low turnout.
Nautiyal said that in the 2017 assembly elections, the Average turnout in Uttarakhand was 65.6 per cent and except Uttarkashi district, the voting in all other mountainous districts was far less than the average turnout of the state. The lowest polling percentage was in the districts of Tehri, Pauri and Almora.Nauitiyal said that in the plains district of Haridwar; the assembly constituencies of Laksar, Haridwar (Rural) and Piran Kalier had the highest voting in the state. The turnout in the three constituencies was between 81 and 82 per cent.
Nautiyal said that only Uttarkashi district had recorded a good polling percentage (69.38 per cent) in the mountainous districts and for the state Uttarkashi should serve as a role model.
The on Thursday apprised investors about various policies and perks in the offing for them at a day-long event “Advantage Uttarakhand” inDehradun.
Major thrust would be given upon natural products derived out of Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture, Organic Farming, Horticulture and eco-tourism as the state has abundance of it, officers said, adding that overall Environment naturally enables the state to outperform others in these fields.
The investors were also told that the state has an electronics manufacturing cluster, a pharmaceutical park and one aroma park.Agriculture minister Ganesh Joshisaid the state has a single window system for giving clearance for industrial investments.
Releasing a detailed analytical report on Uttarakhand’s performance in the Swachh Survekshan 2021 (SS21), the Social Development for Communities (SDC) Foundation articulated that the state has performed poorly at the national level in the survey and (ULBs) must bring systematic changes in Waste Management to improve the rankings in SS22 and tackle other upcoming waste-centric challenges in future. According to the report, the general performance of the state in various categories like Citizens Voice, Service Level Progress, Garbage Free Cities and Open Defecation Free (ODF) are far lower than the national Average. Uttarakhand got 1,531 scores out of 6,000 points in SS21 and the national average score is 2,072 that clearly shows the states overall poor performance in the survey at the national level. The report mentioned that though Dehradun has become the first city in the state with 82nd position to rank in the top 100 cities in the 1-10 lakh Population category, it should be noted that this position was achieved only amongst 369 cities and not amongst 4,320 cities that participated in SS21. Dehradun ranked 375 amongst these 4,320 cities. Such misunderstandings must not mislead people about the current sanitation situation of the cities across the state as it can be fatal for future sanitation efforts.
According to the report, the state generates annual waste of over 125 crore kilogramme excluding the waste generated by pilgrims and tourists and this quantity will certainly increase with the increasing footfalls of tourists when the projects like Delhi Dehradun economic corridor and the Char Dham All weather Road will get completed. According to the recommendations in the report, the ULBs first need to address the shortcomings found in SS21 and make efforts to improve the conditions irrespective of rankings attained in the survey. The administration should also implement policies like Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and tourism policy to facilitate waste management besides adopting sustainable waste management practices as the current system is inefficient and poses a consistent risk to public Health, the Environment and the economy.