Dehradun July 15
Exasperated at almost nil progress on all major projects of the Dehradun Municipal Corporation (DMC), which are directly related to public interest, Mayor Vinod Chamoli took Executive Engineer Ravi Pandey to task for not being able to complete any of the project given to his team.

“It is due to the failure on the part of functioning unit of the DMC, my image is taking battering before public and the media,” he said.

He was more upset on the deteriorating condition of the Gandhi Park and gave strict order to revamp it. Pandey assured him of doing so within 20 days. Be it ward office, the Gandhi Park or the Town Hall, none of these has started till date, despite the fact that the proposals had been placed long ago.

Chamoli said he had already sanctioned Rs 25 lakh for the Gandhi Park, still DMC engineers were not able to do anything on it. He also pointed out that if he wanted, he could have easily got it done by the Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA), who would finish the task within a fortnight, but then it would not reflect good on the DMC’s part.

Showing annoyance on the issue of the Town Hall, which is in a pitiable condition, he said it had taken six months just to get one signature from the Commissioner (Garhwal) and a couple of other officers and the matter was bound to get stretched longer as tenders were yet to be cleared after approval from the officers concerned were taken.

He said Rs 1.5 crore had already been sanctioned on the project, still the progress was pathetically slow. He ordered Pandey to speed up work on ward offices.

Explaining his position, he said it had become difficult for him to clear his position before the public and the media on the pending projects.

He asked Pandey to concentrate on big projects as well, besides working on repairing drains, etc.

In his reply, Pandey lamented the shortage of staff and said, “There are just three junior engineers under me who keep running from one place to another on the behest of 60 councillors. Because of excessive work, they keep complaining of physical and mental fatigue and depression. It is due to shortage of staff and excessive work load, we are not able to concentrate on big projects.”

Pandey however assured of renovating the Gandhi Park in 20 days. 

Haridwar, July 15
When a majority of Opposition parties had organised Bharat Bandh against the rising prices of essential commodities, the Bahujan Samaj Party had stayed away, but today it held a rally on its own on the same issue in Haridwar.

The rally held at Roshanabad was quite a successful one with party workers from across 13 districts of the state participating in it in large numbers. Many leaders cutting across various party lines along with hundreds of their activists joined the BSP, bringing smiles on the face of rally organisers.

Lashing out at the Central government led by the Congress, Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister Ram Achal Rajbhar said the surging price rises of essential food commodities as well as petroleum-based products had put huge pressure on the common man, particularly on the poor section of society which was taking the form of an unrest.

“The Congress has failed once again in controlling price rise while the previously BJP-led government had also failed to do so. The solution lies in having a pro-poor party at the Centre, not capitalist-oriented parties. Only the BSP has the wherewithal and concern to prove that it’s a party of the poor and the section of people who remained oppressed for centuries,” said Rajbhar.

Urging party workers to focus on the district panchayat elections in Haridwar district, Uttarakhand unit chief Megharaj said the party would emerge stronger in the upcoming panchayat elections, the beginning of which had been made with the rally.

Leader of BSP legislators in the state assembly Mohammed Shahzad criticised both the BJP and the Congress for not catering to the issues of farmers, poor, minorities and the common man. Urging party workers to gear themselves for the next assembly elections, Shahzad said now people of state were looking to the BSP as an alternative in the state.

Party sources said the rally against price rise was a symbolic one, but the real motive for organising the rally was to restrengthen the party cadre and base which had suffered a big blow in the last parliamentary elections when its heavyweight legislator Shahzad suffered defeat at the hands of Congress candidate Harish Rawat.

BSP’s Lower House representatives chief Nathi Ram claimed the rally was a huge success, the one indicating the mood of the public against both the Congress-led Central government and the BJP-led state government.

A big turnout at the rally has had leaders of rival parties, including the SP, worried.

Dehradun, July 15
Uttarakhand Governor Margaret Alva met members of three delegations at the Raj Bhawan here today. A delegation of Uttarakhand Congress leaders, headed by Subodh Uniyal, vice-president of the state Congress, met the Governor and gave a memorandum on the alleged deteriorating law and order situation in the state.

Another delegation of the All-India Banjara Sewa Sangh, led by its president Charan Singh Nayak, also submitted a memorandum to her demanding the ST status for the Banjara community living in the state.

A delegation of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Dehradun, led by its president Rajinder Singh Rajan also met her and demanded setting up of the Minorities Finance Development Corporation and constitution of a Punjabi academy and also raised other issues related with the Sikh minority community in the state.

Dehradun, July 15
Hundreds of villagers applied for jobs under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) at a campaign stirred by the state unit of the CPM today.

Party secretary Vijay Rawat said as per the decision taken by the state unit of the party, several meetings were held with the rural unemployed youth hailing from 50 gram sabhas of Dehradun, Tehri, Chamoli, Rudraprayag, Almora and Udham Singh Nagar and they were mobilised to go for employment after a briefing on the scheme. The officers concerned too were asked to reach to the gram sabhas which received the applications from the applicants. The party has asked the officers to provide jobs to these applicants within 15 days.

Rawat said in case the government failed to provide employment to the applicants within 15 days then their party would begin a statewide movement from July 30. 

Dehradun, July 15
New Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Dehradun GS Martoliya said controlling the rising graph of crime in the state capital and working on the traffic menace would be his first priority.

Martoliya succeeds Abhinav Kumar who has been sent to the Police Headquarters after the BJP MLA Raj Kumar beating incident, which saw a major reshuffle of senior police officers in Dehradun.

Martoliya, who assumed the charge yesterday, was earlier serving as commandant of a Battalion of the PAC.

Addressing a press conference at his office today, in view of beating of police personnel on the city roads, he said under-training sub-inspectors would not be engaged in checking drives alone. They would be accompanied by their senior counterparts.

He also talked about making regular checking in hotels, railway station and cinemas. The SSP added that the police force would work on making its presence felt in public. “School, office and shopping hours, when the public is on the roads, we should also be there to make our presence felt,” he added.

He further said the cops should know where to draw the line between the public and criminals. “The criminals will be dealt with sternly and there will be no leniency with them, whereas we will make sure that innocent public is not bothered,” he said.

Nainital, July 15
The Haldwani police have arrested two persons for the gruesome murder of a moneylender reported earlier this week, while one of the accused is still at large.

According to the police, the two, Zahid and Abrar, had killed Faiyyaz after being instigated to do so by another money lender named Imran, who had professional rivalry with the victim.

Abrar had allegedly borrowed Rs 75,000 from the victim for gambling. On Sunday night, the three had consumed liquor and had then called Faiyyaz to the spot of the incident on the pretext of returning the money with interest.

Faiyyaz went to Mangal Pandav Sabzi Mandi, along with his friend Imroz, to take the pending payment from the two. When the victim met the two accused, an altercation erupted between them, following which one of the accused threw chilly powder into Faiyyaz’s eyes while the other stabbed him repeatedly in the neck.

Having witnessed the murderous assault, Imroz fled from the spot and informed the victim’s family members about the incident. The injured Faiyyaz was rushed to the hospital, where he succumbed to the injuries on Monday.

Dehradun, July 15
It has been almost two months since the state government gave a directive to both the Irrigation Department (ID) and the Minor Irrigation (MI) to probe into the possibilities of a merger by setting up a committee of heads of both departments and submit their reports within a month, but till date neither department has floated any such committee nor met even once in this direction.

The representative of the state government in this matter, Irrigation Minister Matbar Singh Kandari too seemed the least interested in pursuing it now, after having given tall orders and big assurances in this matter.

It is no longer shocking that the state government announces the formation of a committee to quell a controversy and dissidence on any issue which then lingers on unless the protesters lose interest due to apathy of the authorities involved or simply forget about it. This is what has happened with this committee also.

Mohammad Omar, Head of Department (HOD), MI, said, “I never met the HOD of the ID in this regard, though we keep seeing each other in meetings otherwise”. He had no reason to explain why both officers could not meet.

Similarly, BK Tamta, HOD, ID, said both personnel had been talking about the issue whenever they ran into each other for other meetings, but formally never discussed it under mechanism of any committee. It is the Irrigation Minister’s reluctance which is having cascading effects on both HODs.

Kandari, despite knowing that a time limit of one month was set in the government orders to deliberate over the matter, tried to push the issue under the carpet by saying, “Yes, the committee was set up, but no time limit was fixed for it to find the solution. But I am not aware that the officers never met each other on this issue”.

When asked how could he expect a solution if no time limit was fixed, he muttered, “No, I will make the officers to push the matter forward”.

The decision to solve the merger issue through a committee was sought to dispel the increasing discontent among employees of the ID who had been ruing the inflating crisis of funds and work in their department despite its larger size in contrast to the MI which enjoys a sufficient number of projects and liberal funding because of the work nature whereby it caters to building and maintaining smaller rivers all over the hill area in comparison to few large canals in plains by the ID.

Ramesh Ramola, General Secretary of the ID, had aptly put it saying, “The Irrigation Department which has 8,000 employees gets Rs 200 crore annually to pay the salaries, projects and other expenses. In complete contrast, the Minor Department, which has merely 357 employees, gets more budget. Then, it is the working style of the MI which does not entail much of documentation and accountability, which is why there have been umpteen cases of misappropriation of funds in the past. Their 10 officers are under suspension for this very reason.”

The Minor Irrgiation was branched out of the Irrigation Department to manage smaller rivers, but has been under the scanner on the question of merger. The ID wants it to be back to its older fold to improve its own financial condition, but the MI does not want to lose its independence and more importantly its hierarchical structure and fastened pace of promotions which are bound to face set back in the much bigger hierarchy ladder of the ID. The attempts to merge it back with the ID has already fizzled out thrice in the past.

LP Baduni, President of the Diploma Engineers Association, Minor Irrigation, said, “In all these years, the strength of employees too has risen up from 300 to 457 and, we have our own full-fledged department with an HOD. In such a scenario, it is wrong to think of merging it with irrigation where our promotions and seniority in the large organisation of irrigation will get a major setback. Therefore, we will continue to oppose any attempt to merge it with the ID tooth and nail”. 

Nainital, July 15
The Nainital Nagar Palika has started a unique exercise aimed at maintaining cleanliness in the Lake City. The civic body is using the power of the Internet and mobile service to monitor whether those entrusted the responsibility of sanitation and cleanliness are doing their job properly or not.

Talking to The Tribune, Executive Officer of the Palika Neeraj Joshi said: “We are trying to make people aware of our initiatives through pamphlets and other material. To ensure that the people engaged under Mission Butterfly, we are asking people to make use of the SMS facility. All they have to do is write NPP space MB space number of the Mohalla Swachta Samiti and the number of Mission Butterfly membership followed by capital A, B or C.”

“A stands for the sanitation worker not turning up, B for his not functioning properly and C for the problem in the cluster bin,” he added.

Joshi said the initiative would take a bit of time for the people to grasp. But, once people start using it, the monitoring would become very simple.”

There are 37 Mohalla Swachta Samitis in Nainital and 13 wards covered by the Palika. The Palika is making efforts to make maximum use of technology to reach out to the people. Being a small town, the results of the initiative would be easy to evaluate.

The Nainital Nagar Palika had gone online about a month ago as it launched an impressive website that is rich in content. The aim is now to get people to register their complaints at the press of a button.

Palika functionaries feel that tourists and local residents will be able to take advantage of e-governance. Besides, all required important information about the city, including its history, can now be accessed within seconds. The most important aspect of the website for the local citizens is the information related to various taxes and other civic fees. With the information being easily available on the Internet the people do not have to waste time on gathering information.

For tourists the website provides important information like the parking fee at various places, charges for various other facilities that are available. Joshi said that effort would be made to include new feature on the website with the passage of time. Even the detail of births and deaths that are available in the Palika records are being posted online for the convenience of the people.

Dehradun, July 15
A delegation of protesters, who are demanding a probe into the alleged honour killing of Meena Gola, will meet Governor Margaret Alva and Additional Principal Secretary (Home) here tomorrow.

Jyoti and Rajni have been sitting on fast unto death at the Gandhi Park for the past nine days seeking justice for the Kumaon girl.

The delegation is scheduled to meet Additional Principal Secretary (Home) at 11 am tomorrow and with the Governor at 4 pm.

SBI union state president BP Mamgai and All-India Student Federation state vice-president Sindhu Khantwal today met the two girls and extended their support to the cause.

The police was also deployed today at the Gandhi Park supposedly to take the two girls, whose health is deteriorating, to the hospital. Till the filing of the report they were not taken away. The strike today entered its ninth day. 

Dehradun, July 15
A driver with the Army died and three officials got injured when the vehicle they were travelling in was hit by an oil tanker near Datkali Mandir here.The driver of the tanker has been arrested and the injured have been admitted to a local hospital.

The Army vehicle was going to its office in Roorkee from Dehradun when the accident occurred. The tanker hit them from the front and with the impact Army vehicle driver Ankush died on the spot.

A case has been registered at a Datkali police post.