HimVani
Shimla: Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has once again advocated the setting up of a Trans-Himalayan Development Authority for ensuring peace, development and stability in all Himalayan states of the country.
The Chief Minister said the entire Himalayan region was facing complex problems of naxalism, terrorism, global warming, etc, and it needed a joint mechanism and united efforts to solve these problems. Earlier this year in June horticulture ministers from hill states had called a meeting in Shimla and had decided constitution of a Trans-Himalayan Development Authority to raise the problems and issues peculiar to hilly areas. The conference expressed concern that same norms were being applied to both the Himalayan states and other areas, ignoring the ground realities and difficult topography of hilly areas resulting in perpetual discrimination against these states.
Dhumal himself admitted that the previous NDA regime had decided to set up such an authority and the announcement in this regard was also made by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the year 2002 but the idea could not be carried further.
