|
|
|
|
Development blocks wildlife corridor
Auto dealers bank on festival season
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Audit must for govt claims, say experts
Rally to save ozone layer
Arya hails Congress decision
|
|
Development blocks wildlife corridor
Dehradun, September 19 The infrastructure development in this corridor has affected a free movement of wild elephants, leading to an increase in the incidents of crop damage and human killing on both sides of the corridor. At a time of growing awareness, this has come as a severe setback in maintaining integrity of the habitat of free-ranging tigers and elephants in Uttarakhand. This corridor was identified by the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, in 2003. Subsequently, it featured prominently in a book titled “Right of Passage” published by the Wildlife Trust of India in 2005 and endorsed by the Chief Wildlife Warden of Uttarakhand and Project Elephant Directorate, Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). However, ignoring all this scientific rationale, it is just been learnt that earlier this year, the Uttarakhand Forest Department allowed large-scale infrastructure development in this corridor. Encroachment in this area has further aggravated the problem. Concerned by these massive damages to this critical link in Terai Arc Landscape, the ministry convened an urgent meeting of stakeholders on the September 16 to discuss the status of this problem. A follow-up meeting between The Corbett Foundation, Wildlife Protection Society of India, Wildlife Trust of India and the WWF-India was held on September 18 at the secretariat of the WWF-India to decide a way forward to address this critical issue. They unanimously decided that this issue would have to be tackled with a great sense of urgency. Representatives of these four NGOs plan to join a team from the ministry for a site visit with the staff of the Uttarakhand Forest Department to assess the ground situation. Once the site visit is done, the team will come up with a joint report on the mitigation measures. While there have been efforts across the country to secure wildlife corridors, particularly those linked to pachyderms, Dikhuli, a corridor connecting tiger-famous Jim Corbett National Park to the biodiversity-rich Terai region of Uttarakhand, is also shrinking at a rapid rate, thanks to unhindered encroachments. The Dikhuli elephant corridor, which begins from Ramnagar and goes up to Mohan, is an 18-km stretch. Five rivers, the Ganga, Kho, Ramganga, Kosi and Sharda, criss-cross the Terai region in as many as 10 forest divisions. Among them, Kosi and Ramganga, constitute the lifeline of Corbett. However, encroachments along the river banks, especially Kosi, is hampering the movement of elephants. What adds to the problem is the fact that National Highway 121, which connects Ramangar to Ranikhet, is also a part of the corridor and elephants have often been hit by speeding vehicles. Most of the Dikhuli corridor is under rampant encroachments and only 4.5-km stretch is left free of for the movement of wild animals. There have also been cases of man-animal conflict. In February, a woman was attacked by a tiger in this corridor, following which the animal was captured. Hotel and resort owners are the biggest encroachers, as they resort to unlawful quarrying. Some of them along the Kosi have come up with huge walls extending from five to 20 feet tall towards the river side, which creates massive obstacles in the path of wild animals in the Dikhuli corridor. This key corridor has as many as 40 to 50 big and small hotels. Another 10 hotels have come up in this very season. The situation is worst in the 6-km patch between Ladua-Garzia-Dikhuli. At Sundarkhatt, encroachments have mostly been made by locals. At Aamdanda Khatta, a Forest Department depot impedes the movement of animals. As the corridor runs along Kosi River, wild animals often come to the river to quench their thirst. However, some hotels have installed huge lights in their backyards, which scare the animals away The Dikhuli corridor falls under the Ramangar Forest Division, which according to Uttarakhand Forest Department’s statistics, has the most number of encroachments. Albeit forest officials admit to that encroachments are rife, they often find themselves helpless, as most encroachments are now subjudice. “Dealing with new encroachments is not a problem; they are demolished immediately. However, in case of many old encroachments, the matter lies pending in courts. Therefore, we cannot do much,” said Ramanagar DFO Ravindra Kumar Juyal. The lack of effective demarcation of land has often compounded the problem. This leads to confrontation between those behind constructions and the state government had some time back planned that “Eco-Sensitive Zones” would be announced to secure these key wildlife corridors. But the plan is yet to see light
of the day. Dr Hem Singh Gehlot, an alumnus of the Wildlife Institute of India, who has been undertaking studies on wildlife corridors in Corbett for the past many years, expressed strong concerns over the speedy shrinkage of Dikhuli corridor. “Encroachments need to be tackled promptly or else the Dikhuli corridor will be history. Human-animal conflict will also increase if we fail to secure their corridors,” he observed.
|
|
Auto dealers bank on festival season
Dehradun, September 19 Discounts and other attractions are being offered to woo customers who traditionally make new purchases during the festival season that lasts till October. “We are very optimistic about an improvement in sales this season. So, we are targeting a monthly sale of 300 vehicles of all available models up to October compared to 200 vehicles in the corresponding period last year,” said Subodh Rawat of Dehradun Premier Motors Private Limited, an authorised dealer of Mahindra & Mahindra for the Garhwal region. DD Motors, dealer of the largest auto maker Maruti Suzuki India Limited
(MSIL), too, has revised its target from 350 cars sold last October. “We are confident of doing better on the back of dramatic resurgence of monsoon and double-digit growth in recent months across the country,” said PK
Upadhaya, manager of its EDP and accessories section. The major improvement is expected in the sale of Alto and
WagonR, which account for 70 per cent of the total sales. Mahindra & Mahindra is offering Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000 discount for customers under corporate tie-up. “Till last year, this discount was offered on the purchase of Logan brand, but this time around it is being offered on all variants,” added
Rawat. The company is hopeful of achieving 25 to 95 per cent market share of Scorpio, Logan, Xylo and Bolero in the state. Besides government employees, the auto companies are aggressively banking on corporate clients having major presence in
Uttarakhand. These include Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Tehri Hydroelectric Development Corporation
(THDC), National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) and Haridwar-based Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited
(BHEL). The government employees are being considered as an attractive segment in view of revision of salaries on the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission. The bait at DD Motors is 5 gm gold coin to be won in lucky draw every week up to October 31 as part of a special scheme if the vehicle is financed through the
SBI. The palpable positive market sentiment is expected to post 15-30 per cent growth in sales. “We are particularly looking forward to customary improved sale on
Dhanteras, a day ahead of Diwali. It is considered an auspicious occasion to purchase new goods. We had sold 35 cars in the first four hours on this day last year,” added
Upadhaya.
|
|
|
Khatarwa: Festival of pastoral community
Pitthoragarh: Ancient pastoral economy of various communities of Uttarakhand is punctuated with various festivals celebrated from time to time. Whether it is milk festival of Dayera Bugyal (pastoral land) or the Harela festival of Kumaon, the pastoral-era economy is still reflected very much in the festivals in the Kumaoni society. Khatarwa is one of the festivals, which reflect the prosperity based on live stocks of the society. This festival is not for human beings but for cows and other stocks accompanying them. This festival is celebrated on the sankranti of month of Asauj or September 16 this year.
“The history of the Himalayan region tells us that before the Khas tribe fled from main land to the Himalayas some 2,000 years ago, the Himalayas were inhabited by the local Koles whose economy was based on animal rearing. These pastoral people used to celebrate many festivals of their economic use, Khatarwa was one of them reflecting the importance of cow and other animals in their lives,” said Dr Madan Chandra Bhatt, a retired professor and writer of the book, “History of Himalayas”. According to a legend, when the demoness Putana, who used to torture members of the pastoral community in and around the Mathura, was killed by one-month-old lord Krishna by absorbing her blood through her breast when she had tried to feed him poison. The pastoral community celebrates the death of the demoness and after burning parts of her body they spread them in and around the area to announce that the demoness has really died. “The same ritual is observed by the villagers in Kumaon and west Nepal where the villagers produce symbol of that evil in a fire torch (mashal) made of pine wood, first smeared around the place of livestock and then assuming that the entire diseases of cattle have been absolved by that torch fire, put at a distant place and burnt,” said Padama Datt Pant, a culture expert of eastern the Kumaon region. “The scabies (itching) on the body of our animals removes after we celebrate this festival and burn the ‘Buri’( The evil lady),” claimed Sarswati Devi from Toli village in Pitthoragarh district. People in the Almora and Ranikhet areas also relate this festival with the victory of some Kumaoni king. “But, these versions are having no historical proof,” said Dr Ram Singh, a social historian of the Kumaon region. “This cattle festival has another interesting feature. On this day, the owner of the cattle stock from early morning cleans the place of cattle and collects the soft and green grass more than enough to the eating capacity of the animals because it is assumed that the cattle who can not be satisfied on this day always remain hungry,”
said Pant. As pastoral economy dwindled in the Kumaon society, the enthusiasm toward this festivals also become subdued. “But, in far-flung areas of Kumoan and in western Nepal this cattle festival is celebrated with the same enthusiasm which as witnessed 2,000 years ago,” said Pant. Adding that this is pre-Aryan and pre-Caucasian celebration reflective with the fact that like other pre-Aryan festivals in the Kumaon society, it is also celebrated according to solar
calendar.
|
|
NREGA
Dehradun, September 19 Bandopadhyay was speaking at a workshop on, “NREGA - an opportunity for rural renewal” organised on Friday at the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK). He said a social audit by an NGO should be
undertaken to arrive at a proper assessment of the programme. “As the programme is demand-and-rights driven, there are inherent safeguards. But to get the right assessment on achievements, an audit is a must.” He stressed that another aspect of NREGA that
needed to be evaluated was on the claim that the wages of women had risen substantially. “Rural mobilisatio through women workers demanding equal wage can bring drastic changes in the way wages are viewed,” said Bandopadhyay. He was also apprised about the problems plaguing the programme in Uttarakhand. Poor implementation of NREGA programme dogs the state where it is being run in five districts. NREGA was initially launched in three districts and two districts were added in 2007-08. Job cards duplication and corruption are some of the problems being encountered in Uttarakashi and Tehri districts. “Not even a single person has been given unemployment allowance under NREGA in Uttarakhand though it is mandatory in the NREGA Act that the state government has to give unemployment allowance,” said Avdhash Kaushal, chairperson, RLEK. A visit to the state by national-level monitors in December 2006 and January 2007 has revealed that water and soil conservation works constitute more than 70 per cent of the work. Moreover, retired government employees and prominent persons of villages have been identified as resource persons to conduct social audit. Training is provided to them in the Gram
Sabha.
|
|
Rally to save ozone layer
Dehradun, September 19 With schoolchildren participating in a large number, the rally that started from Primary School Lakanpur took to the Ranikhet road before concluding at the Block Office. The children shouted pro-environment slogans and carried placards seeking the protection of ozone layer for the betterment of mankind. They also displayed white umbrellas to depict
ozone layer. Children of Welfare Public School, Puspak Bal Vidhya Mandir and Great Mission Public School participated in the rally. WWF’s Dr Hem Singh Gehlot coordinated the staging of the rally.
|
|
Arya hails Congress decision
Dehradun, September 19 Arya urged party MLAs and MPs from Uttarakhand to go by it in letter and in spirit. The deductions will start from September.
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
