Demanding immediate closure of the camp office of Migration Commission located in Dehradun, the activists of Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) staged a stir on Saturday. They said that the camp office here is a mockery of the cause of stopping migration as it is being used by the Government higher-ups who are meant to stay where the migration is assuming grim forms to idle away time while enjoying the creature comforts the capital city gives them. They said that the officials must instead stay put in Pauri as Pauri district is bearing the maximum brunt of migration which is reducing villages in their hundreds to ghost villages with passing time.

The activists earlier assembled at the camp office of the commission at IT Park to vent anger against the state government’s supposed nonchalance regarding the most serious issue the state is beset with.

The party’s general secretary, Jai Prakash Upadhyaya said that the purpose of setting up the office of Migration Commission was to stop migration and it was accordingly set up at Pauri as this district faces the maximum brunt of migration. “However, we wonder what purpose is being served by the existence of the camp office in Dehradun, far away from the migration-affected places. Does it exist to help officials to migrate from the places hit by migration and to spend days while enjoying the comforts the city life provides? We are demanding the state government to force such officials to go back to Pauri or else we would ourselves close it down,” he said.

The agitators also resented the recent recruitment advertisement of the commission which has made the people who have passed out of the state-based universities non-eligible for the advertised posts.

The activists opined that three months should be fixed for the Migration Commission to submit its report. “The tenure of the commission should be fixed or else it would perpetuate while making a severe dent into the limited financial resource of the cash-strapped state. Things being reduced to cheap gimmickry, the state government should concentrate fully on resource mobilisation and employment generation in the mountainous areas of the state to effectively take on the menace of migration,’’ said an activist who participated in the stir.

The UKD activists threatened that they would forcibly close down the camp office if it is not closed down by the state government within seven days.