
"Our resolve to take PM Modi's Swachh Bharat Mission to every street": Uttarakhand CM Dhami announces cleanliness drive
Chief Minister Dhami has given strict instructions to all municipal bodies and gram panchayats, including the District Magistrates, to take this initiative in mission mode and give priority to cleanliness at the local level. He has also appealed to common citizens, youth, and voluntary organisations to participate enthusiastically in this campaign.
The Chief Minister said that it is our resolve to take Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat Mission to every village and every street. 'Wherever I go or stay overnight, a pledge of cleanliness will be taken there. This is not just cleanliness, but a movement of social awareness.'
In addition, the Chief Minister also made it clear to the District Magistrates that he could suddenly reach any Tehsil Diwas in the state to assess the ground-level functioning of the administration and ensure a quick solution to public problems.
This initiative will not only give a new direction to the cleanliness system in Uttarakhand, but it will also play an important role in making the Prime Minister's Swachhata Abhiyan a people's campaign.
Meanwhile, in a cabinet meeting chaired by Pushkar Singh Dhami, many important decisions were made, including the approval of an amendment to the departmental structure of the Uttarakhand Biotechnology Council, according to a press statement from the CMO on Wednesday.
The Haldwani Headquarters and Dehradun Centre posts will be kept in the integrated cadre. Approval has been given for creating 18 new Geology and Mining Department posts to deal with incidents like land subsidence. It has been decided to issue the final notification of flood plain zoning on both banks of the Asan River (from Bhatta Fall to Asan Barrage) and to include some construction works in the permissible category.
UIIDB has been entrusted with monetising the operation of 5 inspection buildings (Ranikhet, Uttarkashi, Duggalbitta, Harshil, and Rishikesh) of the Public Works Department in PPP mode. The formation of the Uttarakhand State Allied and Healthcare Council has been approved under the National Allied and Healthcare Professions Commission Act 2021.
The cabinet has decided to operate the fund from the cess on foreign liquor/beer under the Chief Minister's Women and Child Multipurpose Assistance Fund (Corpus Fund). It will be used for assistance in schemes run for women and children, the operation of innovative schemes, and support to orphaned children, destitute people, and old women in disaster. (ANI)
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


News18
31 minutes ago
- News18
PM Modi To Undertake A State Visit To Maldives From July 25 to 26
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit the country as the chief guest at the 60th National Day celebrations.


New Indian Express
2 hours ago
- New Indian Express
Centre to address global private sector fears over nuclear investment: Jitendra Singh
Singh said the legislative changes to the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act are aimed at addressing the concerns of the private sector that has been reluctant to invest in the nuclear power segment. "It is just that the suppliers, most of them private and most of them from the other countries, had their own apprehensions from a business point of view. I am sure in the course of time, we will be able to address that also, able to satisfy them and reassure them to venture in," Singh, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, said. Singh said the decision to open up the nuclear sector for private participation was more difficult than unleashing space sector reforms. "It has been possible only because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal indulgence. Even the nuclear sector stakeholders are conditioned to work behind a veil of secrecy. They feel now this is the norm," he said. The minister said opening up the nuclear sector was crucial to realise the aim of India becoming a developed nation by 2047 and emerging as the top ranking economy globally. "If we have to realise this goal, our strategy has to be global. Because we are going to meet the global benchmarks. So global strategies require us to move in an integrated fashion, devoid of silos. And, therefore, we are now following the same course as it has been followed by the other developed countries," Singh said. The minister said the government had tried to address the apprehensions voiced by the foreign suppliers who had been allocated sites to develop nuclear power parks at Jaitapur in Maharashtra, Mithi Virdi in Gujarat and Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh about the liability laws. "India's position was very clear, but somehow there is some scepticism on the part of the suppliers. Soon after this government came, we made it abundantly clear, not once but more than once, that this is a misplaced apprehension," he said. The minister said in case of an incident, the first onus will be on the operator of the plant and then on the supplier and after a certain limit the insurance pool will come to the rescue. He said India is also signatory to the Convention of Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage of those parties which are part of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Currently, India produces 8780 MWe of nuclear power and plans to scale it up to 22,480 MW by 2031-32.


Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
Who is surprised by a Monojit Mishra? A look at Bengal colleges, governing bodies, and political control
The alleged rape of a student at a law college in Kolkata last month brought into focus a well-known West Bengal secret: the control by politicians of colleges in the state, largely through their governing bodies (GBs). In his latest visit to the state, which goes to the polls next year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday raised 'the state of the education sector' in Bengal, specifically the school jobs scam. 'What is happening in West Bengal is worrying. Be it primary education or higher education, the situation is the same everywhere. Thousands of teachers have lost their jobs because of grassroots corruption … Trinamool has put both the present and future of Bengal in crisis,' he said at a rally in Durgapur in Paschim Bardhaman district. The Indian Express looked at several colleges in and around Kolkata, some of which are affiliated to the University of Calcutta (CU), where Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders wield influence in the governing bodies. Following the case of alleged rape at the law college, it emerged that the main accused, Monojit Mishra, is a member of the TMC's student wing Trinamool Chhatra Parishad and was appointed a 'casual' clerical staffer after he graduated. A TMC MLA heads the college's governing body. Some MLAs and ministers, in fact, are the governing body presidents of multiple colleges. To questions about how this affects academic and administrative freedom in these institutions, the TMC points out that the appointments are well within the rules. The West Bengal Universities and Colleges (Administration and Regulation) Act, 2017, which sets out the rules on governing bodies, says in Article 5(3) that their tenure will be 'determined by the State Government from time to time'. As a result, many of these GBs have remained unchanged for over half a decade, with the government routinely extending their tenure every six months. The structure of these 10-member bodies is also such that it allows the government to stack them with people whom it either directly nominates or those who are closely linked to the TMC. Only four elected members make it to the governing bodies — three teachers and one non-teaching staff representative — and often, they too have links to the ruling party. Since student union elections have not been held in colleges for the past several years, the post of student representative continues to remain vacant. Some TMC leaders and the college governing bodies they are presidents of are: . Ashok Kumar Deb, Budge Budge MLA: Bangabasi College, Acharya Girish Chandra Bose College, Budge Budge College, South Kolkata Law College, and Sarsuna College . Shashi Panja, Industry Minister: Maharaja Manindra Chandra College, Maharaja Srischandra College, Baghbazar Women's College, and Chittaranjan College . Chandrima Bhattacharya, Health Minister: Mrinalini Datta Mahavidyapith and Gopal Chandra Memorial College of Education . Sudip Banerjee, Kolkata North MP: Maulana Azad College and Seth Anandram Jaipuria College . Madan Mitra, Kamarhati MLA: Hiralal Mazumdar Memorial College for Women . Md Nadimul Haque, Rajya Sabha MP: Calcutta Girls' College The Indian Express reached out to all of them but received no response. 'Principals are now sandwiched between politics and college administration. There is no freedom to work,' said a college principal who refused to be identified. A recurring complaint among principals is the lack of change in the governing bodies. 'The GB in my college was last officially formed in 2018. Every six months, the government sends an extension order,' said Dr Satya Upadhyay, principal of Calcutta Girls' College. However, he added, that despite TMC MP Haque heading the college governing body, he didn't face any pressure. 'We sometimes have differences of opinion, but we end up finding a solution. You cannot take politics out of campuses,' Upadhyay said. Last month, after the principal of Kolkata's Rani Birla Girls' College, Srabanti Bhatacharya, initiated the election of teaching and non-teaching staff representatives to the GB — which has been unchanged for seven years — a government nominee dropped in a day before voting was to take place. The election was subsequently cancelled, with Bhattacharya hospitalised on complaint of acute chest discomfort. In a letter, the faculty and other staff members alleged that the government nominee had put pressure on the principal to halt the election. 'Those who don't listen to orders face consequences. Many principals have been suspended because of differences. For instance, it happened in Purulia Raghunathpur College because the principal didn't listen to the GB,' claimed former All Bengal Principals' Council president and retired AJC Bose College principal Purna Chandra Maity. Alleged political interference in colleges also extends beyond GB appointments, with instances of former leaders and general secretaries of TMCP getting appointed to non-teaching positions. In one instance, a powerful TMCP leader became the head clerk at Ashutosh College and a former general secretary was appointed the college accountant, said a source. This shows an 'urgent need for comprehensive reforms to restore academic autonomy and ensure transparent, democratic governance in colleges', said a college principal, who did not wish to be identified. Another feature of the political limbo on college campuses is the absence of regular student union elections. 'Non-functional student unions give the TMCP all the advantage,' said a CU official. 'College authorities also treat the TMCP unit as the students' union. Every college used to have a separate fund for these unions, and that now goes to the outfit.' Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha state president Indranil Khan alleged that 'over-politicisation of campuses' by the TMC had 'ruined the academic atmosphere'. 'Such people control colleges, admissions, and examinations. They would never nominate a fair academic to the governing body, as then they will not be able to rig elections,' he said. CPI(M) student wing SFI's All India Joint Secretary Dipsita Dhar accused the TMC of running a monopoly in colleges. 'The whole idea of having a governing body without a student in it is antithetical to internal democracy. Sadly, in Bengal, colleges have turned into a source of income for the Trinamool nexus,' she said. The institutional control of universities and educational institutions, however, is not exclusive to the TMC years. It was a source of consternation for the middle classes during the three-decade Left rule, too. In Economic and Political Weekly in June 2011, economist Pranab Bardhan, analysing the fall of the CPI(M), mentioned its all-pervasive control of institutions, including colleges and universities, and the damage it caused. 'The appointments and promotions in colleges and universities, directly orchestrated from the party office in Alimuddin Street and screened for party loyalty, decimated Bengal's long-enjoyed advantage in academic, intellectual and professional pursuits,' he wrote. TMCP state president Trinankur Bhattacharya defended the extended term of the general bodies, saying it was within the rules. 'I do not understand the problem if the GB president is a political person and is efficient. For example, Dr Shashi Panja is so efficient. Also, not all college GBs are in the party's control,' he said.