Four border villages of Uttarakhand, included under the Vibrant Village Scheme, have knocked the Center out of the Inner Line. These four villages include Selakhet and Gunji of Pithoragarh and Niti and Malari of Chamoli.
Due to coming in the inner line, tourists cannot visit these villages without a permit. At present, 51 villages have been identified in the state under the Vibrant Village Scheme. Under the Vibrant Village Scheme, work is to be done on development plans along with basic facilities in these villages.
51 villages of Uttarakhand have been included in the ambitious Vibrant Village program of the Central Government. The aim is to promote schemes focused on tourism and culture as well as livelihood in these villages.
All these villages are border villages. Some of these villages are within the Inner Line. Actually, India-China international borders meet in Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Pithoragarh districts of Uttarakhand. At a certain distance from these boundaries, the central government has fixed the inner line.
No one is allowed to enter this inner line without a permit. Especially foreign tourists are not allowed to come here. Only in special circumstances, these tourists are given this permit for limited areas on the basis of their embassy letter.
In the past, the state government had written a letter to the Center to exclude several border areas from the inner line for tourism purposes. On this, the central government asked the state government to first conduct a detailed survey in this regard after talking to the Survey of India and ITBP. This exercise is still going on.
Meanwhile, the Central Government has started the Vibrant Village Scheme. Four villages coming under the purview of this scheme are coming within the inner line. In such a situation, the state government is requesting the center to exclude these villages from the inner line.
What is inner line:
The area located close to the international border, which is strategically important, is declared as the Inner Line. To visit such areas, all persons have to obtain an Inner Line Permit. These also include persons living in that district. Even on this permit, they can roam in the inner line area only up to the limit, they cannot rest at night.
