)
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat has participated in the central zonal council meeting in Lucknow where he raised the contentious issue of division of assets and liabilities with Uttar Pradesh, among others.
"The chief minister discussed several important issues with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh at the central zonal council meeting. Rawat raised the issue of division of assets and liabilities and also signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Jamrani project with Uttar Pradesh," said an official statement, after the meeting on Monday evening.
Among other issues, Rawat requested the Union home minister for the approval of Rs 200-crore proposals for modernisation of state police and prisons. The CM also sought Rs 2000 crore as green bonus and expansion of railway networks in the hill state.
Significantly in the last meeting held at Dehradun on December 1 last year, Rawat had discussed the issue of division of assets and liabilities with his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Akhilesh Yadav, who had promised to settle the 14-year-old dispute with Uttarakhand at the earliest.
Since the inception of Uttarakhand on November 9, 2000, Uttar Pradesh had refused to hand over the control of scores of irrigation projects which are located in Haridwar and Udhamsingh Nagar districts in the hill state, stating the issue can only be resolved by the Ganga Management Board, the provision for which has been made under the Uttar Pradesh Reorganization Act, 2000. The Ganga Management Board had also not been set up so far.
The dispute relates to irrigation properties comprising 88 canals, six barrages/dams, 13,813 hectares of land, 4027 residential houses and 557 non-residential buildings, the statement said.
Besides showing no interest in the old irrigation projects, the neighbouring state has also refused to give no objection certificates (NOCs) to some important irrigation projects in the hill state.
