Question of Permanent Capital in Uttarakhand: Administrative Rationality, Regional Balance, and the Case for Gairsain

Abstract

Uttarakhand's administrative and geographic preferences are not what determine the location of the state's permanent capital. Structural problems of spatial inequality, regional disproportionality, and the state's legitimacy is what determine the location of permanent capital. With the establishment of Uttarakhand in 2000, there had also been the establishment of the upland districts and there had been a historical neglect of the upland districts of the Himalayan region which had been part of Uttar Pradesh. Uttarakhand has a severe and historical plains-hills divide, which is a geographic imbalance. Although Uttarakhand was a newly established state, the choice of Dehradun as the capital led to the concentration of administrative facilities in the plains, creating geographic imbalance and centralizing access to governance for the remote hill districts.