Amid pandemonium and strong protest by the Congress members, the Tourism, Culture and Religious aAfairs Minister Satpal Maharaj tabled ‘The Uttarakhand Char Dham Shrine Management bill-2019’ in the Assembly on Monday.

The Government claims that the bill would be a milestone for rejuvenation of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, Yamunotri and other famous temples in the State on the lines of the Vaishno Devi temple of Jammu and Kashmir. 

The bill provides for constitution of a board in which the Chief Minister (CM)  of Uttarakhand would be the chairperson. In the case of the CM being a non Hindu, a senior Hindu member of the council of ministers would be the chairperson.

 The minister in charge of culture and religious matters shall be the Vice- Chairperson. The chief secretary, tourism secretary, culture and finance secretaries of Uttarakhand would be the ex- officio-members of the board.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the board would be appointed by the Government and would be the member secretary. Apart from these members the board would have nominated members which include a member of royal family of Tehri, Member of parliaments (MP) from State ( not more than three), MLAs ( not more than six), donors, one renowned person having wide experience in religious affairs of Hindu.

Similarly three renowned persons representing the priests would be the members of the board.

The board would have wide powers to manage these temples. In the draft of the bill itself the Government has cleared that the rights of all stakeholders would remain intact.