UP has no money for Mahatma Gandhi, ample for Ambedkar
Thursday November 08, 2012 01:46:51 PM,
Mohit Dubey,
IANS
|
|
|
|
Lucknow: Does Mahatma
Gandhi belong to the Congress? In Uttar Pradesh, it would seem so
as a Right to Information (RTI) poser has revealed that the state
government "does not allocate any funds for celebrating the birth
anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi."
In response to a query by RTI activist Gaurav Agarwal, the
National Integration Department has said that though funds are
available for other leaders like Bhimrao Ambedkar and Sardar Patel
there is no provision for earmarking funds for the Mahatma.
But then, it wasn't always so.
"When we were in power, we duly observed the birth and death
anniversaries of Gandhiji," Deepa Kaul, the information minister
in the last Congress government of Veer Bahadur Singh that was
voted out in 1989, told IANS.
"The information department would release advertisements in
newspaper and the Congress party would separately mark the
anniversaries," Kaul added.
Old timers in Lucknow can't exactly recall when the advertisements
stopped but say this coincided with non-Congress governments
coming to power. Since 1989, Uttar Pradesh has been successively
ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Samajwadi Party and the
Bahujan Samaj Party.
In the budget for the year 2012-13, a few crore rupees have been
marked for functions to be held on "dates of significance." For
Ambedkar, Rs. 26.25 lakh has been allocated.
Every year on his April 14 birth anniversary, the National
Integration Department "encourages" every district to hold
functions remembering and promoting the ideals of the Dalit icon.
Each district gets Rs.35,000 for this day. The scheme was
kickstarted in 2009-10 by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) regime.
An allocation of Rs.3.75 lakh has been made for the Oct 31 birth
anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India's first home
minister. Every district gets Rs.5,000 to celebrate the day as the
'Rashtriya Akhandata Diwas' or National Unity Day.
The Maulana Azad Memorial Academy, Lucknow, gets Rs.3 lakh to
"encourage writing, translation of literature on Azad."
A Guru Gobind Singh National Integration Award has also been
constituted and carries a cash award of Rs.100,000. Constituted in
2001, it is given every year on January 5. An additional Rs.26.25
lakh is earmarked for celebrating the anniversaries of other
people, though no specific names have been given.
Officials at the National Integration Department were evasive on
why Gandhi had not been given due weightage. "Well, all I can say
is that it has been so ever since, what can we do?" said a senior
official.
Anand Sinha, the deputy secretary of the National Integration
Department, told IANS that right from the beginning there was no
monetary fund allocation for Gandhi's birth anniversary. "There
has never been any such provision," he insisted.
Ironically, the department's website prominently features Gandhi.
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ins.in)
|
Home |
Top of the Page
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
I |
|
|
More Headlines |
29 die in Guatemala quake |
Over 3.5 lakh poor to get free LPG cylinders in Delhi |
China will not copy Western system in political reform: Hu |
EC rejects Swamy's plea to derecognise Congress |
BJP reposes 'full faith' in Gadkari |
Kids banned for dirty school dress: Bihar
orders probe |
Blair was wrong in invading Iraq, says his spin doctor |
Taslimiddin quits Nitish's JD-U, joins
Lalu's RJD |
Governor can't bypass government on
Lokayukta, Gujarat tells SC |
Clash over Bengal land
acquisition, 33 injured |
We will 'socially engineer' votes away from
Modi: Gordhan Zadaphia |
|
Top Stories |
'Forward': Barack Obama again rewrites
history
Chanting
"Yes We Can", Barack Hussein Obama made history four years ago as
he became America's first African-American president. On Tuesday,
he did it again to retain the world's most powerful office.
»
Obama third consecutive president to retain
office
The best is yet to come, says triumphant Obama
|
|
Most Read |
Mitt Romney concedes defeat
Republican Mitt Romney conceded defeat in the US presidential
elections and congratulated Barack Obama for winning a second term
in the White House. Addressing a gathering of cheering supporters
in Boston »
|
We will 'socially engineer' votes away from
Modi: Gordhan Zadaphia
Once a
trusted aide of Narendra Modi, former Gujarat minister Gordhan
Zadaphia is out of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and believes
that the Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP) he has joined will do what
Mayawati »
Gujarat Elections: Survey predicts landslide
win for BJP
|
|
News Pick |
Electricity load shedding - Blessing for
Powerloom weavers?
Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s announcement that the state
will be ‘load shedding free’ by the end of 2012 may appear as a
new-year gift
»
|
Eyeing 2014, BJP in Uttar Pradesh bends
'backwards'
Is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bending 'backwards', literally, in
Uttar Pradesh to realize its national political ambitions? They
are tailoring an "all inclusive" major action plan to pitchfork
its backward caste leaders as they undertake a major campaign in
the country's most populous state »
|
Blair was wrong in invading Iraq, says his spin doctor
Former British
prime minister Tony Blair committed a mistake by sending his
country to war in Iraq, according to Lord Mandelson, a former
Labour cabinet minister.
Mandelson has been Labour party's former king of
»
|
Missing: Muslims' thirst for knowledge
There aren’t many public libraries in Dubai. Well, there are some,
run by the Dubai government, but they aren’t most popular with the
residents. You don’t see a fraction of the crowd that you
»
|
|
Picture of the Day |
 |
President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Mohd. Hamid Ansari,
Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and other dignitaries at a
prayer meeting at the Samadhi of former Prime Minister, Late
Mrs. Indira Gandhi, on her death anniversary, at Shakti Sthal,
in Delhi on October 31, 2012. |
|
Recommend the story to
your friends |
|
|
|
|
|