The Modi model of development is different.

We ll work out our own Share | Larger | Smaller The Indian Express Tags : the idea exchange, columns Posted: Sun Nov 14 2010, 02:14 hrs Freelance JobsWholesaleDiscount ShoppingCordless Headphone Discussion Blogs Captaiship decisions... - By niranjan Mr. - By Aravind Loud speaker - By madhu Diversion - By Raj Good work mr chidamb... - By oldindian Ok - By Lokesh HK Thank god - By Avinash Baranwal Ramesh Pokhriyal: Uttarakhand cannot be compared to other states. Uttarakhand is the soul of this country, the epicentre of knowledge and science. The Vedas and Upanishads evolved here. Ayurveda was discovered here. This state lies on the b oundary of two foreign countries. One member from every household in the state j oins the army and is ready to lay down his life for the nation. Our state has co ntributed the maximum number of soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for the nation, be it during the attacks on Akshardham, Parliament or Mumbai. The state has natural resources in abundance like lakes, parks and the Valley of Flowers. When we were fighting to become a state, many may have desired to become MLAs or politicians but I had no such urge. I was hill development minister in Kalyan S ingh s government in UP and the culture minister in Ram Prakash Gupta s Cabinet. Whe n Uttarakhand was formed in 2000, I became finance minister. The rate of develop ment then was 2.9 per cent. According to the Planning Commission report of last year, the development rate had risen to 9.31 per cent making it the third fastes t developing state. This year s report on GSDP (gross state domestic product) has data from 2000-2009 and shows Uttarakhand is the number one state in development . Ads by Google D K Singh: Uttarakhand hasn t had political stability in recent times due to infig hting in the state BJP. The BJP has never been unstable here. Those who are given charge of public offic e or any post should perform their duties well. This is a democracy and everyone is accountable for their work. People should be part of the system, not autocra tic. Why should babus head corporations when they are already part of the system ? Why should we not place the public s representatives there as they would know th e problems? Anil Bansal: You seem to have managed your party members well. Even the Congress is not opposing you in the state. What have you done? I am dedicated to the development and welfare of the state. I keep asking the op position for their opinion and suggestions. Why would I oppose their sane advice and suggestions that are in the interests of the state? Why would there be oppo sition if I agree to implement their suggestions? Fazal Iman: You are a known literary figure. How do you strike a balance between literature and politics?

There are many who know me as a politician. Very few know me as a man of letters . I believe that there is a huge difference between locking oneself in a room an d writing on the basis of imagination and going out in the field and penning dow n incidents and reactions you have witnessed. I do not count myself in the categ ory of story writers, novelists. What I do is to try and convert the day s happeni ngs that I come across into poems or stories. If I can take time out, I can writ e at least a hundred stories on the basis of what I see and feel when I am out m eeting people. The day I do not write will be the worst day of my life. Manoj C G: You said Uttarakhand has achieved a tremendous growth rate over the y ears, but when it comes to governance and development, your party leaders always cite Narendra Modi and the Gujarat model. All of you are aware that Uttarakhand is a very critical state in terms of geogr aphy. It was a backward state and now is a growing state. In the 10 years of its existence, we have had our ups and downs. It is the top state in development if it is judged and studied in depth. The Modi model is different. We will work ou t our own model. This model will be based keeping in mind the geography, social and economical situation of the state. I believe that Modiji has done a good job in Gujarat. We will try to do our bit too. Dhiraj Nayyar: When Uttarakhand was formed, the idea was to form a separate stat e comprising the hilly areas of Uttar Pradesh. But when it was formed, it includ ed many plain areas like Roorkee, Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar. Do the people of the plains dominate the population of hilly regions when it comes to policies ? Is the welfare of the hilly regions a problem? I do not believe this. When we were struggling for a separate state, many people opposed the inclusion of Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar. Our NDA ally, the Akal i Dal, opposed Udham Singh Nagar as part of Uttarakhand and threatened to pull o ut of the central government. Uttar Pradesh opposed the merger of Haridwar with Uttarakhand. On Haridwar, the state saw a huge protest. The people were misinfor med that their religious places would be taken away from them by the government. In Udham Singh Nagar, people were told that they would lose their agricultural land to the government. Badalji had a major issue with Udham Singh Nagar as his people had farmhouses there which he thought might be acquired by the government . The then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee told me to sort out the problem. I convinced people that their fears were unfounded and the protests subsided. My idea to include Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar comes from my belief that both t hese regions are like balconies to the house that is the hilly region. Now, peop le believe that Haridwar is the pride of Uttarakhand and residents are happy wit h the development. Now, when there is a landslide or cloudburst in any region, w e have to rehabilitate the affected villagers. If we did not have these two regi ons, where would we have gone for rehabilitation? Pradeep Kaushal: Baba Ramdev has shown an interest in beginning a political part y and contesting elections. Do you think that BJP will be affected by his entry into politics? I do not think the BJP will be affected as there are new parties emerging every day in this country. This is a democracy and whoever wants to start a party can do so. I have had a personal relationship with Baba Ramdev. I have asked him to reconsider starting a political party. He has been instrumental in promoting yog a and ayurveda worldwide and he should prevent that image from getting tarnished . Rakesh Tiwari: You promoted Sanskrit and made it the second official language in your state. But it has very little use in every day conversation. What is your government doing to promote Kumaoni and Garhwali dialects?

As Uttarakhand is a dev bhoomi (God s land) and Sanskrit is dev language, the stat e should be the first to promote it officially. A society which is not able to c onnect with its root language cannot grow and sustain itself. Homoeopathy and ay urveda are popular now. We need to learn the language of ayurveda in order to un derstand the science. Hence Sanskrit. We believe vernacular languages should be strengthened. That is why we have decided to form an institute of vernacular lan guages which will preserve and promote Garhwali and Kumaoni languages. Surya Nath Singh: Would you outline some of the progress in the state? Your dema nd for increased budget has been declined. Do you think this will affect the sta te s growth? We have prepared a Vision 2020 for the state. We imagine that by 2020, we will h ave an ideal state. We have earmarked five things to make our dream come true. T here are thousands of Switzerlands in the state. One aspect of Vision 2020 is to bring this beauty before the world. We have the Valley of Flowers, mountain cli mbing and water games and winter games. The state would be developed as the worl d s biggest spot for winter games. We have initiated a programme called Uttarakhand a heaven on earth . We have identified 21 spots to be developed for tourism. We wil l construct 52 helipads. The char dham circuit will be linked with flights. On t he Kedarnath route, 40 helicopters have become taxis. The country s biggest pharma ceutical company is in Dehra Dun. We have established an Ayurveda University. We have signed a contract with Baba Ramdev where he will take medicinal plants wor th Rs 1,000 crore from us every year. Education is very important for us. We have schools like Doon School and other i mportant schools. This is the first state which has branches of every institute recognised in the world, like the Uttarakhand Academy of Administration, the Ind ian Military Academy, IIM, IIT, Krishi Vishwavidyala and others. Anil Bansal: You face environmental challenges, like the cloudburst in September . Many floods are caused by the development of infrastructure, roads. The destruction was not due to the building of roads or due to development. The recent cloudburst took place in a place that was forested. We have not built roa ds there. We are promoting environment conservation. Sparsh Ganga is a programme for forest conservation. We are the first state to have 12,000 van panchayats w here people take care of trees like their children. I must also say that the withdrawal of the industrial package to the state was u nfair. This is happening for the first time in Indian history. I have spoken to the prime minister about this. It is unfair to us on two counts: first, the indu strial package had been allocated to us by Atalji and was valid till 2013. It s fo r the first time that a government has snatched an industrial package from a sta te given by a former government. The policy on industrial packages should be the same for every state. North-eastern states had an industrial package for ten ye ars, from 1997 to 2007. This has been extended from 2007 to 2017. These double s tandards are unfair. Our package should not have been taken away from us. They s hould have given us a ten-year extension. Ambreen Khan: What do you have to say about Mayawati s style of governance? Mayawati s government is r, when anyone wanted to eputation. Now the state when I planned the first ow it is her personal matter. I am concerned with my state. Earlie punish an officer, he would be sent to Uttarakhand on d is growing and progressing at its own pace. I remember budget for the state in 1997, it was of Rs 670 crore; n

Rs 6,800 crore. Uttarakhand has progressed a lot.

Pratibha: The Kumbh mela concluded without any major mishaps and was a great suc cess. What was your strategy? Also you faced a natural calamity in the form of t he cloudburst. How did you handle it? The cloudburst, a natural calamity, came after 150 years and the loss was estima ted to be around Rs 21,000 crore. The char dham yatra was most affected as roads were blocked and shut. In terms of tourism, business stopped as there were no v isitors to the Valley of Flowers, the lakes and other natural resources. We gear ed up and tackled the calamity on a war-footing. Around 1,600 roads were damaged . The villagers helped to open the roads. Thus, roads which otherwise would have taken a year to be opened for traffic, were cleared in a month s time. Kumbh mela is the second biggest event of the kind in world. We took the support of NASA and satellites. We had threats from three or four militant groups. I we nt to Haridwar in disguise nearly four times leaving my security around midnight as I wanted to be satisfied with the arrangements. There were huge crowds a singl e push could get 20,000 hurt in a stampede. I told my team about the loopholes a nd we worked on those. D K Singh: Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has raised the red flag on many po wer projects in the state. What do you think of his approach? I told him that those people who are sitting in AC bungalows should not teach us environment conservation. Our people are born environmentalists. We are telling the environment minister not to tamper with our policies. Why are they focusing on conserving forests in Uttarakhand when they are being conserved? Our rivers bring silt and if we do not remove the silt, the river will change its course. H e said this is de-silting. How is this de-silting? When rains continued for 72 h ours, rivers changed their course and flooded our fields, colonies and residenti al areas. I called him up and told him that he is responsible for the loss. D K Singh: What about the power project next to the Valley of Flowers on Bhagira thi? What is the objection? Of the three projects you are talking about, two were ours Bhairon Ghati and Pala Maneri. One is 120 MW and the other is 320 MW. Our two projects on the Ganga wer e stopped by the environment ministry. I argued that a 600 MW power production a t Lohari Nagpala by the NTPC was forcing the Ganga into a tunnel for 16 km. That is also an environmental hazard. If our two small projects are a hazard to the environment, how has that project got environmental clearance? I have written to the minister that this project needs to be stopped and 2000 MW should be given free of cost. If small projects can affect the environment, big projects do more harm. Rakesh TIWARI: In the last Lok Sabha election, the BJP lost all five seats and y ou became chief minister after Khanduri was removed. There must have been reason s behind that. What were the shortcomings and what lessons have you learnt? My duty is to deliver. My only desire is to perform my work with dedication. Transcribed by Pragya Kaushika