Govt plans entangled in code web

Certain major decisions, which would have benefited the ruling Congress party in the elections have been put off with the imposition of model code of conduct.

The government had planned to recruit nearly 20,000 employees in various departments before the polls to ward off the incumbency factor. Recruitment of large number of employees would have certainly benefited the ruling party.

The selection process of recruiting 10,000 teachers, employees in transport, technical education and health departments were stalled following the announcement for polls. 8220;We had given jobs to the maximum number of people in the education department in the past five years and wanted to recruit more when elections were announced,8221; said Education Minister Narender Singh Bhandari.

Similarly, the process involving selection of 2,000 policemen for the Uttarakhand Police has also been deferred till elections are over. 8220;We had conducted the physical measurement of the candidates and further process of selections for these posts would start after the elections,8221; Manjul Kumar Joshi, Deputy Secretary, Home told The Indian Express. The state government could also not take a decision regarding the increase in number of districts in the state from 13 to 18. The process of delimitation of the state assembly constituencies was on since past two years, and notification delimiting the constituencies also came in the last week of December, 2006. This gave the government no time to go ahead with announcing new districts.

After coming to power in the state in 2002, the Congress had increased the number of tehsils from 48 to 79 and promised to carve out five new districts of Chakrata and Kotdwar in Garhwal, Kashipur and Didihat in Kumaon and Roorkee in Haridwar district. However, the ongoing delimitation process and the subsequent election process prevented the Congress government from coming up with such populist measures. 8220;The early announcement of polls did affect some of our decisions,8221; said Surender Aggarwal, Uttarakhand Congress spokesperson.

Asked about implementation of the code, Chief Electoral Officer N. Ravishankar said it was being followed in letter and spirit. 8220;There is no bar on ongoing works, but no new project can start till the process is over.8221;