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Austerity measures working: Khanduri

DEHRA DUN: Confident that his austerity prescription is working, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri is optimistic that good progress would be made in the New Year in laying a sound foundation for need-based sustainable development of the State over the coming year.

“Some people did feel disheartened when we came to power and announced that wasteful expenditure would be stopped and the officials better deliver results rather than excuses. This led to suffocation among those who had become spendthrift during the earlier regime and they even spread rumours that investments were no longer coming to the State.

A few meetings with investors and industrialists cleared the confusion in a few months and a large number of industries are coming now to set shop in Uttarakhand,” Gen. Khanduri said here on New Year’s Eve, adding that special incentives would be given to those willing to set up money-generating avenues in the remote areas.

“The officials have been asked to cooperate with the investors in identifying the remote centres and prepare plans for their sustainable development. We may not throw parties but funds will not be a constraint for development activity,” he added.

For development of agriculture and horticulture in remote villages that are cut off from roads, the Government is erecting 70 cableways by which the farmers would be able to transport their produce to the road-head. Gen. Khanduri wanted a definite social action to inculcate a business sense among the farmers so that they could group together with some of them taking up processing and marketing of the produce so that greater profits reach the poorest.

The G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology has been asked to develop models for lucrative food production in the hills, he said.

To improve the prospects of locals in getting into industries, the Industrial Training Institutes are being revamped to train manpower in the trades required by the market.

Seven ITIs have already been handed over to private players to train manpower in keeping with their requirement and some more are in the pipeline to be transferred to well-meaning industries, he said.

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Austerity measures working: Khanduri

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