Dehradun: The Uttarakhand government has decided to take back the Char Dham Devasthanam Management Board Bill on Monday.

The announcement comes after a high-level committee set up by the Dhami government to look into the Uttarakhand Char Dham Devasthanam Management Act, 2019 submitted its final report to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami in Rishikesh on Sunday.

Announcing the decision today, Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami said, " Devasthanam has been of paramount importance for us. We respect the centuries-old tradition in these centres of faith, hence, our government has decided to withdraw the Devasthanam Board Act after extensive deliberations".

"I express my gratitude to all the priests, our scholars,  and all the sections associated with the Chardham for expressing their suggestions on this subject.

Char Dham priests had threatened to intensify protests from December 1 if the Devasthanam Management Board Act was not scrapped before November 30. Before that the priests also took out a protest march -- Aakrosh Rally -- from Gandhi Park to the state secretariat in Dehradun on Saturday. The rally was held to mark the completion of two years since the proposal was passed by the state cabinet in 2019.

Former CM Trivendra Singh Rawat, who was known as the principal architect of the Devasthanam Board, then justified the government's decision to  form a board to oversee the Char Dham shrines and other temples was "unanimous and a correct one". Aslo, he had urged the incumbent government "not bow to pressure.”