The Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Mahasabha (AIKM) held a protest at Lalkuan tehsil, against the state government’s moves to declare Bindukhatta a municipality. The protest demanded that Bindukhatta should be declared a revenue village. The protesters gathered in hundreds and made their way, shouting slogans, through Lalkuan bazaar to the tehsil headquarters, led by Kisan Mahasabha National Secretary comrade Purushottam Sharma, senior AIKM leader Bahadur Singh Jangi, CPI(ML) district secretary Kailash Pandey, Bhuvan Joshi, Anand Sijwali and others. Following the protest, a memorandum of objection, signed by several people, was submitted to the Director, Urban Development (Uttarakhand) through the tehsildar.
Addressing the protest meeting at Car Road, comrade Purushottam Sharma pointed out the various reasons behind the opposition to making Bindukhatta in Nainital district a municipality. Bindukhatta is a fully rural area, and its residents are dependent for their livelihood on rural occupations such as farming, animal husbandry, and associated occupations. Therefore, the appropriate step towards development of Bindukhatta would be to declare it a revenue village. If it is made a municipality, these traditional occupations will not only be badly affected, they actually stand in danger of being completely annihilated. Comrade Sharma pointed out that Bindukhatta is situated entirely in forest land, and the people here have long been demanding its transfer from the forest department to the revenue department. They have also been demanding that residents be given ownership rights of the land. All political parties and all ruling governments had promised to fulfill this demand. But the present government’s decision to make it a municipality rather than a revenue village means an effective death of all aspirations of the local residents to get ownership rights to the land. Comrade Sharma stated that the government must answer the peoples’ question: why can’t the government transfer the forest lands in the name of the poor people instead of handing over land to companies such as Birla, Indian Oil, and sleeper factories as well as to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)?
Comrade Kailash Pandey pointed out that the interim notification of the government in this regard was not even published in the public domain, thereby not informing the public in time and not giving enough time for the people to register their protest. This proves that there are hidden political and economic ulterior motives behind the declaration of Bindukhatta as a municipality.
Senior leader Bahadur Singh Jangi said that we reiterate our long-standing demand for making Bindukhatta a revenue village and we demand that the proposal of forming the municipality be immediately taken back, so that the local residents can get ownership rights to their land and get all the constitutional rights under the Panchayati Raj law. Hundreds of protesters, including Pushkar Dubadiya, Vimla Raunthan, Nirmala, Basanti Bisht, Gangaram and Kamlapati Joshi were present at the meeting.