Shimla, Jun 12: Two Himachal Pradesh Ministers today defended leasing out of land to yoga guru Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust saying the move was aimed at boosting herbiculture and cultivation of medicinal plants in the state.
The state government has allotted a total of 96 bighas (19.2 acres) of land in village Sadhupul on Kandaghat-Chail road to the Patanjali Trust.
In a joint statement, Education Minister I D Dhiman and Irrigation and Public Health Minister Ravinder Singh Ravi justified the leasing out of land to the Trust.
The state had vast scope for environment-friendly activities like herbiculture and the government had launched programmes like “Ghar Ghar Sanjivini” to promote cultivation of herbs, they said.
The Patanjali Trust with vast expertise and experience could help the state to a large extent in this regard, the two Ministers said.
The land was lying unutilised and barren for the past 30 years and setting up of the Yogpeeth would not only promote herbiculture but also generate income for people, they said.
“HP is a storehouse of rare herbs and any attempt to thwart government's initiative to promote herbiculture will tantamount to blocking development of people,” the Ministers said.
They said the statement by some Congress leaders that “two lakh hectares of land” had been given to non-Himachalise by the government was “politically-motivated, concocted and baseless”. PTI
