No progress made to justify D’sala as 2nd capital

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, April 21

No progress has yet been made on a major decision of the present government to grant second capital to Dharamsala. It was January 18 this year when Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, after a Cabinet meeting at Dharamsala, during his winter sojourn, declared that Dharamsala would be officially the second capital of state. After that on March 2, Himachal Cabinet granted approval to the decision of the Chief Minister to make Dharamsala the second capital.

However, since then nothing has happened on the ground to justify the government decision. The first impact of the decision being expected was the General Administration Department (GAD) would take over the old secretariat of Dharamsala and make provisions for offices of ministers of Himachal Cabinet there. The old secretariat building presently houses the offices of the Chief Minister and two ministers from Kangra, GS Bali Minister for Food and Civil Supplies, Transport and Technical Education and Sudhir Sharma Minister for Urban Development.

However, till date the district administration was looking after the building half of which has been given to other government departments. The GAD was yet to take over the building.

Sudhir Sharma, who represents the Dharamsala Assembly constituency and was the pivot behind the decision, had stated that some government departments might also be shifted to Dharamsala and ministers would be made to sit in secretariat here. Though Sudhir was not available for comments over the issue today, no government department has been shifted to Dharamsala and move to declared second capital of the state has remained in papers.

The Congress had announced the political move of declaring Dharamsala as second capital of state with an eye on the forthcoming Assembly elections later this year. The Congress had won 10 out of 15 Assembly segments in Kangra in the last elections. During its present stint in power the Congress government had declared a large number of development projects in Kangra district. These were more than 10 new government colleges, four new sub divisions, more tehsils, hospitals and schools. Though only a few of the announced projects have been implemented, the Congress was hoping to cash on them and repeat its performance in Kangra. Declaring Dharamsala as second capital was one of major decisions of present government around which it was planning to focus its campaign in Kangra district. However, since the decision was not being implemented it was giving ammunition to the BJP leaders to attack congress. Former minister and senior leader of the BJP Kishan Kapoor has alleged that the decision to make Dharamsala was just a ploy to influence the voters of Kangra and Dharamsala Assembly constituency.

Meanwhile, the declaration of the state to make Dharamsala the second capital had also raised expectations of many sections of society. The Dharamsala bar association had welcomed the move and demanded that a permanent bench of Himachal High court should also be set up here as part of second capital.

Just a ploy: BJP leader

• Senior BJP leader Kishan Kapoor has alleged that the decision to grant second capital status to Dharamsala was just a ploy to influence voters of the constituency. 
• He said that during the stint of the previous BJP government at least one minister used to sit in Dharamsala mini secretariat to listen to the grievances of the people. 
• However, the practice has been done away with by the present government. 

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