High fever
The setting up of a high-powered Himalayan Development Authority has run into rough weather. A committee headed by Planning Commission member S Z Qasim, set up in March 1992 to address the problems of the Himalayan region, has recommended the setting up of the Authority to check the ecological destabilisation of the Himalaya.
The government is having second thoughts about the comprehensive action plan proposed by the committee. Critics say that such a powerful central body -- to be headed by the prime minister and to include the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and the chief ministers of the Himalayan states -- might take decisions that clash with the interests of the mountain states. They also claim that these recommendations are designed to strengthen the role of the Planning Commission.
Qasim, however, says that when the idea of an apex authority was mooted in a meeting of the chief ministers of the states concerned, they had approved of it wholeheartedly. He feels that an authority on the same lines as the Island Development Authority, which supervises activities in the island states, will go a long way in disciplining the planning and fiscal management of the Himalayan states. The committee has also suggested that a National Himalayan Environment and Development Fund be formed, with an initial investment of Rs 500-1,000 crores to finance programmes that cut across state boundaries.
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