HP Governor seeks support for social awareness campaigns

Himachal Governor Acharya Devvrat today urged for launching active social campaigns for creating awareness about increasing drug menace, caste discrimination, organic farming and environmental issues, which are "crucial" for the development of the state.
The Governor is playing a pro-active role in this regard and had convened a meeting of secretaries and heads of department and representatives of NGS and other stakeholders at Raj Bhawan today.
Devvrat stressed that these campaigns should be made a regular affair as raising these issues was vital for the development of the state.
It was first such initiative by any Governor of Himachal Pradesh to sensitize officers about these sensitive issues.

"I am not from any political background and raising these points in the interest of development of the state and strongly feel that it is a collective responsibility of all and we need to think about the society as a whole," he said.
Governor said that he had called representatives from different sections of the society for feedback and suggestions on these issues as he found these relevant for the state which should be dealt on priority basis.

During the deliberations that lasted more than five hours, the Governor expressed unhappiness over the poor enforcement of laws against drugs menace at the ground level and asked the Police and health department to effectively check the phenomenon, lest Himachal goes the Punjab way.

"The youth is so much involved in drug use in the neighbouring state that things have gone out of the hands of the state government," he said.
Devvrat asked the Police, Revenue and Forest departments to coordinate and eradicate cannabis and opium crops and sought details from officers aboutthe efforts being made on this front.
Stating data provided by a former Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Superintendent, the Governor told police that if 30 tonnes of Opium and 100 tonnes ofCharaswas being produced in Himachal annually, it showed that things were not being taken seriously.
Devvrat said he had got a feedback that the students were being discriminated on caste basis while they are served mid- day meal in schools, which is really bad for an educated society to behave in such manner.

Devvrat strongly batted for organic farming and asked the government officers to promote it in a big way and also talked about the 'Zero budget' organic farming.
"It is surprising that we worship cow and still abandon the animals and leave them on roads when they stop yielding milk, but the cow dung of these animalsis more precious and the farmers can benefit a lot from it," he said.
He asked the agriculture and horticulture departments and the Universities of Horticulture and Agriculture in Himachal Pradesh to coordinate and develop model of 'zero budget' on organic farming by keeping cow as the basis.

The Governor evinced keen interest in cleanliness of Shimla town and asked the Shimla Municipal Corporation to work out ways to effectively manage the garbage disposal system in the state.
He asked the MC to increase the number of dustbins in the town and come out with such a design that the monkeys are unable to access the garbage.
Devvrat expressed concern over too much construction in Shimla, particularly in Sanjauli area and asked the MC officials to be strict in giving permissions.