Dehradun, July 31
Incessant downpour in the past 36 hours wrecked havoc in Dehradun city. Hundreds of houses got flooded as many boundary walls or constructions gave way to the pressure of gushing flood waters.

A house damaged by rainwater in the Suman Nagar area and (right) a portion of the Maldevta-Tehri road that was washed away by swelling Song river near Dehradun, on Saturday. Tribune photographs.

The Meteorological Department confirmed that the rainfall (364 mm) during the past 24 hours was the second highest after 25 July, 1966 when it rained 467 mm.

Two deaths were reported by the district administration, one in Vikas Nagar and another at Rishikesh. The Tehri-Maldevta road was washed away blocking traffic towards Tehri Garhwal.

Residents cross a flooded stream at Nehru Gram and (right) submerged cars in a workshop in Dehradun on Saturday. Tribune photographs

The encroachers, who had extended their houses on drains or built these entirely on drains, paid for their erroneous acts with their houses getting flooded.

The Dehradun Municipal Corporation swung into action immediately as it broke 15 such houses in Subhash Nagar and gave an ultimatum to the remaining 20 others whose constructions were blocking the drain.

Teams under the District Magistrate remained busy in doing relief work and distributing interim relief compensation to the victims.

The affected areas

A flooded office at the Government Inter-college at Ajabpur Kalan in Dehradun on Saturday. A Tribune photograph

The areas which witnessed serious repercussions of the thunderous rain were Suman Nagar, Race Course A and B parts, Azad Colony and Subhash Nagar near ISBT.

The areas which suffered partial damage were Ganga Vihar, Saraswati Vihar, Inderpur Nagar, Pahupati School, Jawahar Colony, Ganga Vihar, Green Valley, Prince Chowk, Shiv Colony and Chaksha, Adhoi wala, Ajabpur Kala, Indira Colony and Chakrota road.

In Morrowala, Cantt area, where women were rescued from rooftops by breaking the ceilings in the morning, the situation was declared normal by Brigadier Simerjeet Singh, President of Cantt Board, Clementown.

Role of DMC

Since early morning, the news of the damage due to rain started trickling in from various parts of the city.

The DMC and the administration moved swiftly to initiate damage control exercises. In Subhash Nagar, Mayor Vinod Chamoli went with his entire team and dismantled 15 houses built on the left side of a huge drain and warned the residents on the right side to remove the encroachment soon.

“It is either the persons who live on low-lying areas or have built their houses on drains such as in Azad Colony who have been affected the most. The ones who have constructed on the road side are responsible for obstructing the water flow. Today, we dismantled the houses in Subhash Nagar without much opposition, though I did not get the requisite police force and a magistrate-level officer as I had asked for the task,” said the Mayor.

The call centre established by the DMC had been constantly getting calls from affected persons. “We are providing relief in cases which are within our capacity and passing on the rest to the district administration,” said Ashok Verma, Leader of Opposition, DMC.

Sanjay Kumar, councillor of Clementown, accused the Mayor of being partisan for breaking the illegal houses of Congress supporters while sparing the BJP ones. The Mayor dismissed the charge saying it was not possible to differentiate that way in such circumstances.

Interim relief disbursed

The teams of the administration led by District Magistrate D Santhiyal Pandiyal, Additional District Magistrate (Finance) Vinod Suman and Sub-Divisional Magistrate Vinod Giri Swami were seen in action.

ADM Suman said that they had covered 90 per cent of the area by the afternoon and helped people in draining out water from their houses. Hospitals too had been put on alert.

SDM Giri said that an interim relief of Rs 2,000 each was distributed at Grant Market, Banjara, Chander Bani pockets and some patches of Rampur, Dehrakhas, Badripuri. A total of 320 houses were covered in this manner.

Six houses which got completely ruined due to rain have been selected for relief of Rs 25,000 each and 100 houses for relief amount ranging between Rs 1,500 to Rs 5,000.

Irrigation Dept at sea

The Irrigation Department, which is required to act in matters related to flooding of houses, had no clue to the extent of the damage. BK Tamta, Director Irrigation, said that he would assess the situation soon. Dr Vijayender Pal, counsellor, complained that despite the PWD and MDDA having their own Disaster Management Cell left it all on the Municipal Corporation to manage the crisis.

Schools closed

District Education Officer Geeta Nautiyal said Raja Ram Mohan Rai School at Clementown, Government Primary and above-Primary school at Rajiv Nagar and the Government College at Ajabpur were closed due to waterlogging in the premises.

Trains, flights unaffected

SD Dobhal, Railway Superintendent, confirmed that the train routine was continuing as normal. Ramesh Kumar, Airport in charge, said that barring a Jet Airlines flight from Delhi which had to be diverted from Dehradun at 11.30 yesterday, the flight schedule remained unaffected. No significant changes were reported in the bus timings at ISBT.

Traffic jams in city

Shahjahan Khan, DSP Traffic, said that the department had successfully managed to pull out all trapped vehicles from pits or mud. The fact that people used four-wheelers to fetch their children due to rain than the usual two-wheelers created jams in the city. Khan said that she made two teams to streamline the traffic and rein in defaulters on the Dila Ram Road and Ghanta Ghar in the evening.

Weather

Anand Sharma, Director, Meteorological Department, said that the moisture level in the air had touched 95 per cent.

Lastly, cable connections and power supply remained disrupted for long hours in many parts of the city.

Shuklapur village inundated
lCampus of HESCO worst affected
l Eminent environmentalist Sunder Lal Bahuguna evacuated
l Standing crops destroyed due to flooding of Rispana river
Tribune News Service

A flooded campus of HESCO at Shuklapur village near Dehradun on Saturday.

Dehradun, July 31
Large swathes of agriculture land were inundated and houses flooded in villages surrounding Dehradun due to rain on Friday and Saturday. The campus of the Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation (HESCO) located at Shuklapur village on the banks of Assan river was the worst affected.

Sunder Lal Bahuguna, eminent environmentalist, who was staying at HESCO campus, had to evacuated during night following inundation of the campus.

Shuklapur village located some distance from Dehradun bore the maximum brunt with water entering several houses and crumbling huts and kuccha houses.

Standing crops in adjoining villages of Sewali, Buddi, Donkwala, Kesuwala and Parwal were completely destroyed due to flooding of Rispana river. The villagers, who had already sown paddy crops, were a worried lot and waiting for the rain to stop, so as to salvage their remaining crop that now seems difficult.

Dr Anil Joshi, patron of the HESCO said Shuklapur village was completely submerged and most of their property had been destroyed.

He demanded compensation for villagers whose crops had been destroyed in the rain and urged the government to drew a long-term contingency plan. He also announced that his organisation would be providing aid to the affected farmers.

Dehradun, July 31
Due to the inefficiency of the Dehradun Municipal Corporation (DMC) in providing a cleaner and hygienic environment to the city, the District Magistrate has had to step into matter now.

On his orders, a local wing of the solid waste management was constituted which conducted workshops at Doon Cambridge School and Children’s Academy here yesterday.

Vipin Kumar, the man behind this project and adviser to the state government, is working for the environment. Through his demonstration on the solid waste management at the workshop, Kumar persuaded the participants to segregate the biodegradable waste and non-biodegradable waste in separate bins.

“Installing separate dustbins will help in segregating the organic trash from the rest. The junk can be recycled, which will reduce the emission of toxic methane gas as well as lead to less chopping of trees,” quipped Kumar.

“Instead of throwing the garbage on roads or sending it to the dumping sites, an organisation should dig up pits in the backyard of their schools, colleges or hostels to chuck in their biodegradable trash into it. While the non-biodegradable waste can be sold and good money could be fetched out of it,” he added.

Accompanied him was the City Magistrate, MS Bisht, that led the campaign of establishing garbage compost inside the schools and colleges itself. “We have initiated the project from educational institutes as it can lead to behavioural and attitudinal change in a student. It can be started as an assignment in SUPW or awarding them as the best garbage managed class,” said Bisht.

“This eco-friendly drive can be proved as a mission statement of the administration or the DMC. If the mass, along with the state government, adopts the easy and affordable methods of recycling their garbage themselves, we can make a difference to catastrophic mayhem of the future,” he added.

Principals, directors and chairmen of several schools and degree colleges have attended the workshop to seek guidance and training on garbage composting within a feasible price.

Dehradun, July 31
The Children’s Academy School celebrated its 53rd investiture ceremony and annual function here today.Brigadier Prithvi Pal Singh, Deputy Director General, NCC, was the chief guest at the function. Prem Kashyap, secretary, school association, and Kiran Kashyap, Principal of the school were present on the occasion.

The function started with a formal welcome of the chief guest followed by the introduction with the members of the staff.

The academy Principal presented a brief annual report for 2009-10 and encouraged students to participate in different events.

The chief guest presented badges and flags to the new office-bearers of the year. Student council member Yash Kulshreshtha as head boy and Vishakha Khandelwal as head girl took oath with the newly elected team of captain, vice-captain and coordinators.

The occasion became more colourful when ‘Mother Lamp’ was lit by the former head boy and head girl. The new school captains took oath and promised to fulfil their responsibilities and live up to the school motto - work is worship.

The programme concluded with a vote of thanks followed by the national anthem. 

Dehradun, July 31
To celebrate the monsoon season, Phoolchand Narishilp Mandir Girls Inter College, in association with the Swayum, an NGO, conducted inter-school mehndi designing, poster-making and slogan-writing competitions here today. The competitions were held on the premises of the school wherein a large number of students from its different branches also participated.

The competition was conducted in two categories of senior and junior participants. Girls demonstrated their artistic skills by applying henna on one another’s hands. Participants made interesting posters and wrote thought-provoking slogans based on the topic of environment conservation.

“The competition has been aimed at spreading awareness on saving environment among students and making them participate in the noble cause,” said Virmani, secretary of the Swayum.

“We have been conducting this competition for the past six years. It has helped students in honing their skills,” she asserted.

Also present on the occasion were Dr Kusum Rani Naithani, Principal of Nari Shilp, Manju Saxena, Shanti Bisht, Sadhna Garg, Meenu Gupta, Seema Singh, Geeta Kumar, Kiran Arya and other staff members of the college.

Dehradun, July 31
The second day of Ghummakkad Narain - The Travelling Children’s Literature Festival saw an interesting storytelling session by Prof Bharti Jagannathan, professor of history, Miranda House.

The festival, an initiative of NIVESH and Himalayan Hub for Art, Culture and Heritage (HHACH), is being organised under the aegis of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). It was launched yesterday at The Heritage School here.

Professor Jagannathan at length interacted with the students deliberating with them on history. She said history was an interesting subject and it had much of scope from higher studies point of view.

Students from The Heritage School today participated in the session and were seen enthusiastically lined up to take autographs from the storyteller. Earlier in the day, a general knowledge competition was also held on the school campus by Sterling Publications.

Nine-week festival will see interactions with authors, illustrators, poets, storytellers, puppeteers and musicians for the students. 

Dehradun, July 31
Doon Star outplayed Sarvodaya 4-0 in the Nemi Dass District Super League played on the Pavilion Ground here today. Nitin Saini scored a brace for Doon Star and was the main contributor in the one-sided win of his team.

Lobsang (24th) drew the first blood for Doon Star in the match. Nitin scored the next goal for the side very soon in the 26th minute to end the first half on 2-0 in Doon Star’s favour.

Rival Sarvodaya continued its miserable performance in the second half too failing to score even a single goal. Sanjay of the winning team found the target in the 72nd minute.

Nitin also scored his next in the 85th minute to lead his team to a 4-0 win. For tomorrow, Akranta is scheduled to play against City Young.

Mussoorie, July 31
If all goes well, the dream of sports lovers to have an international-level stadium at Bhilaru in Mussoorie could become a reality soon.

According to OP Uniyal, Mussoorie Palika President, senior officials, at a meeting held recently in Dehradun on the directions of Chief Minister RP Nishank, sent a three-member committee consisting of members from the Forest, Sports and other departments to assess the situation at Bhilaru and look into the prospect of building a stadium on priority basis.

Uniyal added that the process of taking out the land at Bhilaru from the jurisdiction of Rajaji wildlife sanctuary has also begun. This has been corroborated by the Director of the Park.

He said that the area under consideration was a human settlement area and had been included in the sanctuary by mistake. Efforts to correct the mistake were on.

Uniyal said that once the land is transferred back to the Palika, an international high-altitude stadium would be constructed for which even Sunil Gavaskar has assured arrangement of funds from various sources.

He said that Gavaskar was of the view that the Bhilaru stadium if built would surpass in beauty other stadiums in India as it is surrounded by snow-clad Himalayan peaks.

The stadium would add another landmark to the city which will augment the revenue and generate employment for the local population, he said.

Dehradun, July 31
Various organisations namely Akhil Bhartiya Kisan Sabha, Centre of Indian Trade Union, Janvadi Mahila Samiti, Student Federation of India, District Youth Federation of India, Akhil Bhartiya Adhivakta Sangh and Kedarghati Bachao Sangarsh Samiti submitted a memorandum to District Magistrate in the name of Governor complaining about the defiance of environment-related rules in matters of acting on hydro-power projects.

These organisations advocated the cause of producing power through hydro-power projects but not at the cost of environment and criticised implicating people fighting for “Jal-Jangal-Jameen” in legal cases. They also indicated towards the gradual decreasing water level because of the above cited reasons.

The illegal mining and felling of trees were weakening the hills leading to landslides and further damage to the houses of hill people, spokespersons for the organisations said. They said the state government had no policy to rehabilitate them. The big companies, which had been enrolled in the distribution of the hydro projects, were serving the corrupt officials and their own self-interest, at the cost of public.

They has been agitating for a long time against Bayung Phata in Rudrapraya and Singoli-Bhatwadi projects. The groups led by Akhil Bhartiya Kisan Sabha expressed solidarity for the people of Rudraprayag. Virender Bhandari, Nuresa Ansari, Gagan Garg Udhav Baloni, Santosh and R Purohit were eminent speakers on the occasion.

Dehradun, July 31
Joy and togetherness are round the corner with the beginning of August as the day of sharing and caring is just few hours ahead. On the eve of Friendship Day Doonites in a large number were seen rushing towards gift galleries which are decked up with variety of gifts to celebrate the special occasion.

”Keeping the whether in mind, this year we are planning to organise a rain dance party followed by a luxuriant Chinese lunch at my residence. It will be so much fun to celebrate the day with friends and dear ones. I am so excited for the party and busy shopping for tomorrow,” quipped Netra, student of Graphic Era University.

To celebrate the occasion one can pick an array of gifts, from chocolates to friendship bands, from soft toys to music CDs or even fresh flowers can do wonders. Archie’s, which specialises in gifts for every occasion, this year also has loads of gift items to choose from. From funny cards and sentimental laminated love quotes, Archie’s has launched photo frames, mugs and fizzy soft toys, which are extremely lovable and ideal to present on the occasion. “Every year we bring fresh stocks of gift items for the occasion but soft toys, along with the chocolate boxes, remain all time favourite for youngsters. Ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 7,000 are in demand with mugs, cards and quotation notebooks,” said one of the salesgirls at Archie’s gift store.

Fresh flowers like orchids, roses, gladiolus and primroses are the best option to present to the near and dear ones. Pankhuri Florist at Abhishek Tower is the best in this trade. From reasonable rose sticks priced at Rs 15 to bunchy bouquet of Rs 500 are available at their shop. “Mostly students throng to our shop during such special occasions. We take special care of the taste and preferences of the customers as flowers render smiles to everyone,” said Sunil at the florist shop.

Bakeries and confectionery shops are another option for the youth to throng at. Special cakes and other confectionery items are prepared for such special occasions. Enticing plum cakes filled with rich dry fruits and gooey chocolate fudge are speciality for the occasion. “We have got jujubes and bakery chocolates in different designs like heart shapes, flowers and animals to gift somebody,” said one of the workers at Melting Moments, a bakery.

Interestingly, some believe in celebrating this occasion for a week while others like to stick to one-day celebration to let their dear ones know that they really care and cherish this beautiful relationship. Where Sarah, a student from Scholars Home, feels that its fun to celebrate it for a week with friends, Nihal, customer care executive, feels one doesn’t need a special day as friends are inseparable part of life, as apart from family and relatives this is the only relationship, which we freely choose without any sort of hesitation or compulsion.

Dehradun, July 31
Resenting the state government’s decision to appoint an IAS officer, Piyush Kumar, as Director (Administration), the government doctors owing allegiance to Provincial Medical Services (PMS) will wear black bands from tomorrow onwards and have even chalked out a boycott plan for the coming days.

At a meeting held here today, the doctors declared that they would wear black bands till August 6, boycott indoor OPD on August 6, 7 and 8 and emergency on 9, 10 and 11, but the postmortem services would be open for the entire period.

Surprised with the government’s decision to appoint a non-medical professional as Director (Administration), Director General Health and Family Welfare, Dr DP Joshi, Secretary Provincial Medical Services (PMS), said it was a deliberate ploy to undermine the medical profession and foist IAS officers in key positions. “We have been fighting for promotions as per the Tickoo Committee Recommendations, which came our way only after a long fight. They raised the posts of Directors from two to six but now this decision is a big setback,” said Dr Joshi.

It may be mentioned that earlier Piyush Singh was a Project Director of the National Rural Health Mission. 

Dehradun, July 31
The elusive smart health cards for more than two lakh serving and retired state employees may be in sight, with the selection of a company expected to roll out the much-delayed cashless service.

The scheme to be administered through third party was set into motion in 2008, now it is awaiting final touches, after which it will be formally launched by Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.

Set into motion in July 2008, the ATM-like scheme is expected to greatly aid in the medical billing of the serving and retired government employees, total to around Rs 2.50 lakh.

According to sources, six parties/companies had responded to the government tenders, but only two were selected while four companies failed to qualify.

In 2008, however, all companies that had applied could not fulfil the terms and conditions of the government as a result the tendering was undertaken.

The ATM-like cashless scheme is expected to put an end to the bill reimbursement procedure to be looked after the selected company. The single card can provide access to a packages of treatments available at the empanelled hospitals in the state as well outside the state.

The empanelled hospitals could be a 10-bed hospital offering range of services comprising pathology, surgery, etc. to other specialised hospitals outside the state. The authorities are expected to target provide 100 per cent coverage.

All employees are expected to get a guide book that includes a list of empanelled hospitals inside and outside the state, along with a list of treatments being offered, once the scheme becomes operational.

As per the health authorities, the selected agency would be required to prepare the software and smart card technology, issue smart cards and open offices in each district for issuance of cards.