Haridwar, July 3
With just two months of completion of the Maha Kumbh, the civic facilities, as touted by the state government and the mela administration, seem to be exposed with just two days of intermittent rains.

Choked drains, water logging at roads, bursting water pipes and surfacing of pot holes, all these in the year when the Kumbh was organised with crores spent on re-carpeting of roads, laying of separate sewer lines, maintenance of drains and water pipeline, have shocked residents.

Showers in the wee hours jammed the city traffic with most of the drainage systems being choked with rainwater.

Most of the busy intersections of the city, like Chandracharya Chowk, better known as Ranipur Mod, Bhagat Singh Chowk, several intersections at Kankhal, Bhoopatwala, Khanna Nagar, Rishikul, Jwalapur, Shivalik Nagar and SIDCUL faced traffic jams due to water logging.

At Rishikul bus terminals, water logging caused a lot of inconvenience to the passengers. “It’s pathetic, considering Haridwar is a world renowned city and the Maha Kumbh has just got over. Water is all over with no facility to clear it. My grandfather couldn’t come out of the bus due to this and I had to hire an autorickshaw just outside the bus door,” complained Sachin Kapoor, a Shivalik Nagar resident.

Municipal Corporation Chairman Kamal Johra has assured that the municipality is looking into the matter, saying all arrangements will be done prior to the monsoon season.

Small vendors and traders criticise the municipality and MLA Madan Kaushik for keeping their eyes closed to people’s woes.

“We are dependent on daily work, but if rain water gets stagnant for hours on roads, how will we be able to trade? The state government is taking credit for providing the best facilities in Haridwar, but we ask the Chief Minister to just have a ride of the city when the next rain occurs and then we will see how reality takes over his claims,” said Bhoopendra Rajput, representative of the Mini Traders’ Association.

Dehradun, July 3
Damage caused to the main skiing slope at Auli in Chamoli district has put a big question mark on the successful staging of the South Asian Federation (SAF) Winter Games. The SAF games are slated for January to February next year.

The Tuesday’s heavy downpour has destroyed the main skiing slope at Auli that had been prepared at an estimated cost of Rs 9 crore. The debris of slopes came down to Joshimath city. On June 29 heavy rains took place at Auli between 2 pm to 4 pm leading to emergence of big potholes in the slope. Apart from the slope, even the kucha road was destroyed due to the rains. Even the adjoining agriculture fields in Joshimath were damaged in process.

Experts now fear that it will be difficult to reconstruct the Auli skiing slope. They doubt organising committee’s abilities to bring the Auli slope back to shape under such a short notice.

The SAF games felicitation committee Rishi Prasad Sati has expressed apprehension over the repercussions of the fast-eroding Auli slope. “If timely treatment does not take place, the debris emanating from the Auli region can destroy the Joshimath town. Public works authorities that had pressed into service machines to clear the debris has cleared most of the debris,” he said.

SS Pangety, Winter Games Federation Chairman, said he was yet to assess the ground realities and still to make a visit to Auli after reports of damage to the slope last came in. “I am still to visit Auli and then can I come to any conclusion”, said Pangety when asked if the slope would require a re-construction.

The Winter SAF Games at Auli have been repeatedly postponed for one reason of the other since the venue of Auli was first decided. Either it has been due to lack of preparations or due to coinciding of the date of event with other international events. But the delays have been long and postponements continue one after another.

The then Chief Ministers from ND Tiwari, Gen BC Khanduri to incumbent Chief Minister Dr Nishank have been very particular to ensure that the games are held in the state on schedule and preparations get completed on time. Uttarakhand sees winter games as a big opportunity to showcase its tourism potential.

Interestingly, there have also been reports that other Himalayan states were keen to host the SAF games if Auli fails to stand up to the occasion. Those associated with the games do not rule out games getting postponed further if the reported damage to the slope is large as reconstruction of slope at this juncture looks extremely difficult particular when there are hardly six months left for the staging of the games. 

Dehradun, July 3
City goers need to brace themselves for the problems that will come flooding with the onset of the rainy season, which is already making its presence felt here in the town. The deep pits, broken roads and drains are going to give sleepless nights and troubled days to people.

The Dehradun Municipal Corporation (DMC) has thrown up its hands in advance and postponed all repair work to be carried out after the monsoon.

Reason: the DMC did not pay heed to clearing the tenders for repair work on time and remained oblivious to the impending problems till late. Now, when the officials have woken up to the reality, that too when shaken by the agitating councillors, they have hit the roadblock with contractors on the matter of “charges” of repair work. But even if the impasse over rates gets cleared, the lengthy procedure of tender clearing is going to take another one and half months to complete, by which time the monsoon will be at its peak. In such a scenario, the contractors have blatantly refused to do any repair work.

It is not only the 89 development work of 55 wards which have not been cleared, but also the 60 others who are waiting to be cleared through bureaucratic bottle necks. Mohan Singh Rawat, President, Contractor Association, said, “The DMC takes long to clear the tenders. Even if it clears the backlog of 60 tenders, we will not be able to do them now. The repair work done during monsoon gets washed away with the rain. People will blame us for the shoddy work even if we do it for the sake of absolving us”.

Rawat said they had given their quotation three months ago, and the repair work should have been done by now, but now the corporation has begun getting jitters about it.

Ravi Pandey, Executive Engineer, who supervises the tender process, defends himself saying, “We remained busy with the census work for two months and could not attend to tenders”.

Pandey also reiterated the same complaint of less number of engineers working in the DMC which caused the delay. “There are only four junior engineers and one executive engineer, ” he said.

Councillors are miffed with the working of the DMC for obstructing development work in their wards. “Dr Vijaynder Pal Singh, Congress councillor, said, “Even last year, they delayed the repair work to be carried before the rainy season, giving excuse of code and conduct imposed before the Parliament election. This year too they have done the same. It is we who have to face the people’s wrath, not they”.

Assessing the whole situation, Mayor Vinod Chamoli said, “We will not be able to carry out any repair work except of clearing blocked drains this rainy season. But once the tender process get cleared, the repair can be done even after the monsoon”.

But for the alleged delay, people who live in susceptible areas that remain submerged or where the problems cropped up recently, will have a traumatic time this monsoon. Ranjan Gupta, resident of Bhagat Singh Colony, said, “The road in my area has broken into several wide patches. Vehicles are seen stranded in these puddles in heavy rains. Fearing the monsoon, we had sounded the authorities a month ago, but till date nobody from the corporation came to mend the patches”.

The areas where the DMC was to carry its special drive of repair work this year are surrounding areas of Prince Chowk, Budha Park, Lohiya Road and Bhagat Singh Colony. The other parts, such as Alaknanda, Dronapuri, Brahampuri, Panditwari and the ISBT, which get soaked each time monsoon arrives, too need heavy repairs.

Many areas where the DMC carried out repair work, namely Trimuti Vihar, Vani Vihar, Ashima Vihar, JMS road, Araghar, Dharmapur, Shastri Vihar, Kishan Pur Chowk in the past few areas, too face exacerbating effects because the repair work are not maintained. 

Dehradun, July 3
With the Central government-sanctioned pyrolyzer reaching the District Doon Hospital, the problem of disposal of bio-medical waste (BMW) at the site will soon be solved as it will be operational after getting clearance from the State Pollution Control Board.

As of now, the hospital authorities have outsourced the collection and transportation of BMW to Pehal, an NGO, that later passed it on to the Bhagwanpur Medical Pollution Control Committee (MPCC), a private agency nominated by the State Pollution Control Board. The private agency charges Rs 2.50 per bed from the hospital.

The plasma pyrolyzer will be able to burn the BMW at 12,000° C and is supposed to be more efficient than the incinerator that burns waste at 900° C.

“The plasma pyrolyzer proves to be better than the incinerator, burning even small quantities of waste to ashes. As it is, the Doon Hospital does not produce more than 10 kg of BMW in a day. On the other hand, incinerators are energy intensive,” said Ankur Kansal, Assistant Environment Officer, State Pollution Control Board.

The BMW of all government and private hospitals and clinics in Dehradun, Rishikesh, Haridwar and Roorkee is disposed of at the MPCC incinerator.

The DG, Health, CP Arya has already issued letters to three or more government and private hospitals that have still not complied by the deadline to set up the BMW facility. The State Pollution Control Board had issued a deadline in March to 41 government and private hospitals and clinics for setting for BMW compliance under Section 5 of the Act. 

Haridwar, July 3
The much-awaited Commonwealth Games 2010 Exhibition Express train comes to Haridwar tomorrow, putting the city on the map of selected cities in the country where the Commonwealth Games Exhibition Express passes through.

In view of this, special arrangements are being done at the railway station with special emphasis on publicising the event as the very motive of this Express lies in as many people seeing the sporting event Express on the wheels.

Speaking to The Tribune about the Express, ADRM AK Singhal said Haridwar is the ninth station where the train would halt and exhibit information about the Commonwealth Games scheduled to be held in New Delhi in October this year.

“Haridwar has been selected as the one among stations coming under Moradabad railway division. After its three-day stay, the Express will be leaving for Lucknow on July 7 night and the exhibition is open for all from 9 am till 8 pm,” said Singhal.

Elaborate arrangements have been made so that visitors don’t face any problem. For this, an inquiry counter has been shifted and drinking water, toilet facilities have been increased in view of the expected crowd.

Deputy Regional Manager Ramesh Chandra will be inaugurating the opening of the exhibition at 9 in the morning at the platform No. 9. Additional stalls will also be showing up near the exhibition Express.

Dehradun, July 3
Pavillion B team and Marshal School will meet in the finals of the Promotional Football Tournament by winning their respective semifinal matches played at the Pavillion Ground here today.

In the first match, the Pavillion B team got past Thakurpur team 3-2 in the tie-breaker. After the match was tied at the required time, a tie-breaker was applied.

The Pavillion team scored through Ravi, Manish and Anshul while Thakurpur Boys could score only two goals through Avinash and Sagar Thapa.

In the second semifinal match, the Marshal School defeated Gujrada team by 5-4 in a tie-breaker. The second semifinal also went into a tie-breaker after the requisite time. For the Marshal School, Mohit, Nitesh Kumar and Akash scored goals while for Gujrada Boys, Abhay, Ashu and Deepak Berry scored three goals.

Marshal School and Pavillion B team would meet for the final tomorrow.

Dehradun, July 3
Doon Eagles and Uttarakhand Police won their respective matches in the Dehradun Football League played at the Police Lines grounds here today.

In the first match, Doon Eagles trounced Pachhwa Doon by 4-1. The Doon Eagles completely dominated the game. They took an early lead by scoring a goal through Samir in the 14th minute. Brijesh and Arjun scored in the 26th and 29th minutes to give a 3-0 lead to Doon Eagles. Manoj of Doon Eagles scored the fourth goal in the 36th minutes to complete the misery of the Pachhwa Doon team. Pachhwa Doon boys did try hard and got a chance when Vipul scored a field goal in the 42nd minute.

In the second match, Uttarakhand Police beat the Doon Valley Club by 2-0. The Uttarakhand Police scored the first goal in the 13th minute through Ashok, while Suresh scored the second goal for the police team in the 26th minute.

In tomorrow’s matches, the Khalanga Boys will meet Vijay Cantt and the Sports Hostel will play the Garhwal Sporting team.

Dehradun, July 3
Kayaking has finally found little space in the Ganga white waters. Among a total of 109 white water rafting companies that are into rafting in the Ganges, a few have started the kayaking courses with the credit of its introduction going to Dharmendra Bhandari’s River Explorers, Shivpuri.

It all started in the late ’90s, when a local lad Dharmendra made friends with westerners, who frequented Shivpuri for Kayaking adventures. Slowly and steadily Dharmendra picked up and started getting the control of the kayaks. His major success came in 2007, when he was selected by the Indian Kayaking and Cannoning Federation for representing India in the Salalom Kayaking South America Brazil in 2007. He even later underwent Rescue Three International, a course in Kayaking offered by the United States.

Dharmendra was now also into kayaking training. He constituted River Explorers, Shivpuri, exclusively dealing with kayaking, a white water sport new to the region as only white water rafting have so far been taken up by the companies. But then, infrastructure stood a big challenge for him. Getting kayaking equipment was not easy. A kayak, which is imported from the United States or other European countries, costs around 1,000 US dollars and 1,200 euros. But Dharmendra found a way out. He started purchasing kayaks left out by the westerners. Thus, the cost for a kayak now stood somewhere between Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000. He has so far trained a number of local youths. And thus from individual efforts, kayaking activities today does have some presence in the Ganga white water activities.

River Explorers, Shivpuri, imparts two types of training to the aspirants. While one, fun kayaking is open to one and all and is meant to give a feel of kayaking, the other courses are more professional in approach.

Dharmendra finds the Deoprayag-Rishikesh stretch the best for kayaling. This stretch falls in the Pool Drop Category River, which proves most ideal for the sport, as a kayak here hits a rapid and subsequently falls into a drop into a still pool which makes it a thrilling experience.

Being an Olympic discipline, kayaking entails a big opportunity. Dharmendra hopes bigger initiatives on part of the Uttarakhand government to promote the sport in the region. He said the sport was already attracting adventure seekers from Mumbai, Pune and Delhi.

He said the unconcerned attitude on the part of both state tourism and forest departments were only belittling the cause of the sport in the state. But then Dharmendra single-handedly continues to promote kayaking in the state. 

Dehradun, July 3
Six players continued to maintain their lead by scoring 3.5 points on the second day of the BS Bisht Memorial Chess Tournament being played at the Hindi Bhawan here today. After the fourth round, Harish Sharma from New Delhi, Vinay Raj Bhatt, Mohan Naithani, Anil Gairola, (all from Dehradun), Narinder Singh from Srinagar and Vinodanad from Pauri Garhwal scored the highest 3.5 points.

Sanjeev Suri, AP Tewari, Dr Anil Maithani and Ashutosh with 3 points were in the second positions. Ravi Rawat, AS Negi, SP Pokhriyal, SA Zaidi, Kailash Pandey and Kuldeep with two pints each were in the third positions.