Dehradun/Delhi: Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami met Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav in New Delhi on Wednesday and congratulated and wished him on getting the responsibility of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change again. The Chief Minister expressed confidence that under his able leadership, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change will set new records.
During the meeting, the Chief Minister informed the Union Environment and Forest Minister that at present the work of expansion of Jolly Grant Airport is in progress. For which 87.0815 hectares of land of the Forest Department is to be transferred. He said that for the expansion of Jolly Grant Airport, out of the total 96.2182 hectares of land of the areas around Jolly Grant, 87.0815 hectares of land of the Forest Department is also to be acquired.
He said that in this regard, the decision has been passed by the Hon’ble High Court in favor of the State Government / Forest Department. After the above mentioned decision of the Hon’ble Court, there is no difficulty in transferring the said 87.0815 hectare land of the Forest Department to the Civil Department for the expansion of Jolly Grant Airport.
The Chief Minister also informed the Union Minister that at present the tender process for operating air service from Jolly Grant Airport to Kathmandu (Nepal) has been completed. In view of which, there is an urgent need to speed up the process of giving Jolly Grant Airport the status of an international airport. After the process of land acquisition and possession is completed, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) will start the work of expanding Jolly Grant Airport.
During the meeting with the Union Environment and Forest Minister, the Chief Minister also requested that for the purpose of providing basic facilities to the general public in the special geographical, strategic importance and mountainous region of Uttarakhand, compensatory plantation should be done in the ‘notified degraded forest land’ available in the state as before for the non-forestry project being done by the undertakings of the Government of India and approval should be given to the ongoing forest land transfer proposals for all these purposes.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami also informed the Union Environment and Forest Minister that Government Polytechnic Chopta is being operated in a rented building in Chopta (Tallanagpur) under Kedarnath Assembly constituency of Rudraprayag district since the year 2014. In view of this, he requested to transfer 2 hectares of forest land previously selected in revenue village Kunda Dankot for the establishment of Government Polytechnic Chopta.
The Chief Minister said that non-forest land is not available anywhere in the said area for the establishment of Government Polytechnic, Chopta. The forest land selected for the establishment of Government Polytechnic, Chopta has not been transferred to the institute for about 08 years, due to which the institute is being run in a rented building, due to which the students studying in the institute are not able to provide quality education and the objective of providing employment oriented education to the young men and women there is not being achieved. With the transfer of forest land, the polytechnic will be able to operate in its own building and the students will be facilitated.
