India News | Bill to Abolish Devasthanam Board Introduced in Uttarakhand Assembly
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. A bill to abolish the Devasthanam Board was introduced in the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly on Friday.
Dehradun, Dec 10 (PTI) A bill to abolish the Devasthanam Board was introduced in the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly on Friday.
The state government on November 30 decided to withdraw the Uttarakhand Char Dham Devasthanam Management Act, 2019, bowing to the movement of pilgrim priests demanding the dissolution of the Devasthanam Board set up to manage the four Himalayan shrines - Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri, and 49 other temples.
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The Uttarakhand Char Dham Devasthanam Management (Repeal) Bill was introduced in the Vidhan Sabha on the second day of the Winter session by the state's Culture Minister Satpal Maharaj.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had said in this regard that keeping in mind the respect of the pilgrimage priests, rights holders and the interests of all the people associated with Char Dham, the state government has decided to withdraw the Devasthanam Act.
The decision to dissolve the Devasthanam Board, exactly two years after it came into existence, was taken on the basis of the recommendation of a high-level committee headed by senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manoharkant Dhyani.
The pilgrimage priests of the four Dhams had warned to intensify their agitation in view of the approaching assembly elections, and the Dhami government's decision is believed to be the result of this pressure.
The Devasthanam Act was passed in December 2019 during the tenure of the former Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat-led government, under which the board was constituted in January 2020.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)