Uttarakhand CM Dhami allots portfolios, keeps over two dozen departments with himself

Not much has been changed in the portfolio of senior cabinet minister Satpal Maharaj. Maharaj has been given charge of the Public Works Department (PWD), Panchayati Raj, rural construction, culture, religious affairs, tourism, flood control, and irrigation. Maharaj is both the eldest and richest minister in the Dhami cabinet of eight ministers.

Dhan Singh Rawat has been given more responsibility with the school education of both basic and secondary levels along with the higher education department going under him. Rawat will also be the minister of Medical Health and Education along with that of Cooperation and Cultural Education. In the previous cabinet, he was in charge of the higher education, cooperatives, disaster management, dairy development, and protocols departments.

Subodh Uniyal, who served as the agriculture minister in the previous Uttarakhand cabinet, has been given charge of the forest, language, election and technical education departments. The only woman in the new cabinet, Rekha Arya, has been given the portfolios of women empowerment and child development, food, civil supplies and consumer protection, and sports and youth welfare departments. Ganesh Joshi has been given the responsibility of agriculture and farmer welfare, soldier welfare and village development.

Out of the three first-time ministers, former speaker Prem Chand Agarwal has the most important portfolios of finance, housing and urban development, parliamentary affairs, and census. Saurabh Bahuguna, the son of former Uttarakhand CM Vijay Bahuguna, has been given the responsibility of animal husbandry, dairy development, fisheries, skill development, protocol and sugarcane development, and sugar trade departments. He is another new face in the cabinet.

Chandan Ram Das, a four-time MLA from the Bageshwar constituency and a first-time minister, was given the portfolio of social welfare, minority welfare, transport, and micro, small and medium industries.