A Decade of Tryst with Development Aspirations in Building Uttarakhand State

Uttarakhand was carved out of Utter Pradesh and became a new state of the Indian Union on November 2000 after a prolonged struggle by the common people of Uttarakhand on the issues of governance apathy by the then UP governments and growing aspirations around an agenda for regional development. After a decade of its inception, it is now imperative to have a look at the achievements and concerns in economic governance in this state. The paper outlined a broad picture of the development efforts undertaken in the state since its inception and highlights the missing links that remained unaddressed even after the political recognition for self-governance was achieved. The paper also summarises the failure of the development design adopted since state formation and presents some key implications of such failure in upholding popular aspirations for local development that once fuelled the Uttarakhand movement for formation of a new state.