Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Thursday announced that his government will implement the uniform civil code (UCC) this month.

He made the announcement at Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh while attending Uttarayan Fair organised by Uttarakhand Jan Kalyan Samiti.

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“Baba Saheb Ambedkar made provision for a uniform law for all citizens of India in Article 44 of the Constitution. This makes it mandatory for the states and the centre to implement Uniform Civil Code. The Uttarakhand government has completed the task of enacting UCC and now efforts are being made to implement it this month. It is expected that Uttarakhand UCC will make its mark in the country and set itself as an example to be followed by other states as well,” he said.

The chief minister said land jihad was a big problem in the state. Five thousand acres of land was freed from encroachment as a part of an anti encroachment drive by the state government. He claimed that action was also taken in spite of jihad cases to maintain the sanctity of the Himalayan state for it’s also known as devbhoomi (land of god’s) across the world.

Dhami stressed that his government enacted anti-conversion law to check religious conversions and anti-riot law to recover the cost of damaged public properties from rioters.

He added, “In Uttarakhand a large number of conversions happened through allurements and anti-conversion law was made effectively to curb it. Our anti-copying law is also an example for other states as this was implemented mainly to curb the activities of cheating mafia. It resulted in providing jobs to 19,000 people within four years as against 14,000 in the first 19 years of the state’s formation. Large number of people from economically weaker sections were able to get government jobs.”

Dhami shared that his government is working on a blueprint to project the state as a wedding destination in the world after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal for the people of India in 2023 to come to Uttarakhand for their marriage. Apart from this several areas are also being developed as film shooting destinations in the state.