Dehradun, May 1
Various trade unions, namely the Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), All-India Democratic Youth Federation, Anganwari, Bhojanmata, Labour Unions and the representatives of various employees unions of corporations participated in a May Day programme held at Clock Tower under the leadership of trade union leaders Jot Singh, Mahabir Sharma, Anil Uniyal, Manoj Kumar and Sohan Singh Rajvar.

General secretary of INTUC KR Kashyap said the government was trying to give the maintenance work of the old hydro-power projects to the private sector and was not regularising the employees working at the old hydro-power projects who were on strike these days.

President, CITU, Krishan Guniyal said the state was not regularising thousands of employees working in various corporations. They were deprived of the basic facilities. He mentioned of the labour working in tea-gardens and said they were still getting Rs 90 a day. The matter has not been taken up by the government for the past nine years.

Janki Chauhan, general secretary of the Anganwari Union, said the anganwari workers were neither getting gratuity nor provident fund and by employing supervisors from outside, the state government was encouraging corruption.

Kamla Gurang of the Bhojan Matas Union, said by reducing their salary period from 11 months to 10 months, the government had treated them mercilessly.

Pithoragarh, May 1
Congress MP from Pauri Garhwal and chairman of Permanent Committee of Defence Ministry Satpal Maharaj, said today that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, chaired by Murali Manohar Joshi, did not follow the rule of justice in its proceedings and played.

“Even after the Prime Minister had agreed to appear before the committee, the committee did not even send a letter to call him, but prepared a one-sided report on its own,” said Satpal Maharaj, who was here in connection with the Congress “Satyagraha yatra”, which is scheduled to start from Dharchula on Indo-Nepal border here tomorrow.

Maharaj said any Parliamentary committee had a right to cancel its report by majority vote as a democratic practice. “We have only changed the report of the committee within democratic procedure, but not the chairman; Dr Murli Manohar Joshi is still the chairman of the committee,” said Maharaj.

He also announced that a sum Rs 4,300 crore had been sanctioned for the construction of a railway line between Rishikesh and Karnprayag in Garhwal region of the state. “The project is likely to be complete in 5 years , as all the four stations on this line have been identified through satellite, and the work on it will start from both sides as it happened on the Baramula rail line of Kashmir,” said Maharaj.

He added, “At present the government has no money to construct other proposed railway lines in the hilly region of the state, but in future, all the lines will be constructed,” he said.

Maharaj hoped that the Garhwali and Kumaoni dialects would soon get a place in the VIIIth Schedule of the Constitution. “We have submitted the entire grammar of both the languages to the Prime Minister,” said Maharaj.

When asked to comment on the allegation of the BJP in the state that all 5 Congress MPs from Uttarakhand were not doing anything to raise the issues pertaining to the state before the Centre, Satpal Maharaj said the BJP government had failed to even spend the amount released by the Central Government for various Centre-sponsored schemes. “Two Rajya Sabha MPs in the Parliament from the state are from the ruling BJP, and what have they done for the state?” Maharaj asked. 

Dehradun, May 1
The members of the agitating Pradhan Sangthan were roughed up, arrested at Hathikala barricading and later released from Race course police post, when they marched towards the Chief Minister’s house to apprise him about their demand regarding implementation of the Panchayati Raj Act in the hilly region. No one got injured in the process.

Speaking on the occasion, Surat Singh Negi said it was wrong to say that the Panchayat had been handed over the control of 14 subjects. In reality, not a single department was working under the Panchayat. He blamed legislators and bureaucrats for this well-calculated move where the subjects of education, child development, minor irrigations etc had been separated from Panchayat.

Negi said, “By not handing over the financial and administrative power to Panchayat, Legislatures have adopted an autocratic attitude toward them and divested poor people from development in these villages. We had for long been tolerant, but if we are not attended anymore, we would be constrained to come on roads.”

Their main demands were the 29 subjects under 11th list of the Constitution related to financial and administrative rights to be given to a Panchayat; the representatives of elected Panchayat to be given salary, pension and other facilities like MLAs, a continengency fund to be set up and no work which falls under the purview of Gram Panchayat should be done without taking approval from the Gram Sabha. 

Dehradun, May 1“Beginning”, a charitable trust, stirred a thinking process by holding a seminar on “Humanity” where the speakers largely deliberated on human values and social responsibilities.

The founder of the organisation, Hamant Kumar Sethi said: “The chasm between the privileged and the unprivileged was getting wider and wider. The motive of our efforts is to make people aware of this ever-expanding rift and propel them to narrow it down with mutual cooperation.” Sethi also emphasised the act of philanthropy saying that everyone should contribute 1 per cent of their income to the cause of the destitute.

Sunil Kotnala, an engineering student, lamented the depletion of human values. “Be it during communal violence or street violence, people as spectators keep watching silently. They needed to play their roles to curb violence by actively resisting such acts in society,” he said.

Another speaker, Sanjay Rana highlighted the menace of corruption imploring the public to understand their social responsibility in this context and expose those who seek or indulge in corruption.

The others present on occasion were Sayyed Iktedar Ali, Sunil Anand, Dharam Veer and Diksha Sharma.

Haridwar, May 1
While both the Central and Uttarakhand governments are spending billions on conserving and cleaning the holy Ganga, in Haridwar, where the holy river descends on the plain region from the hilly regions of Garhwal, the very riverbed is being exploited in the name of quarrying which raises the question whether revenue is important or the faith of billions of Indians attached with the holy Ganga.

The issue is the quarrying being done on a large scale at the Bhagirathi point in the Bhimgoda area, near Har-ki-Pauri. A private firm, involved in the broadening of the national highway leading to Haridwar, has been carrying out quarrying at the point on a large scale for the past couple of days.

Notably, the Bhagirathi point holds tremendous religious significance and the water from the main Neeldhara river moving towards the Ganga canal gets diverted from this point too. But, due to last year’s tremendous monsoonal rains that brought the nearby areas of Bhagirathi point under semi-flood conditions, this point got shrinked resulting into drying up of the nearby ghats like the Sarwanand ghat and the Khadkhadi ghat which serve as cremation sites.

The local people, particularly the saint community, had demanded continuous flow of water from the Bhagirathi point. Taking cognisance of their demand, the district administration had suggested quarrying as the best option to maintain unhindered flow of the holy river. The Bhagirathi point is just a few metres in width.

With the saint community agreeing to the suggestion earlier this month, District Magistrate of Haridwar R Meenakshi Sundaram had written to the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam about lifting the material from the Bhagirathi point till Har-ki-Pauri.

But, without adhering to the rule manuals, a private firm, named Era Infrastructure, was allotted the quarrying work. In just a few days span the company has pitched in more than 24 earth movers, which are working day and night.

When contacted, GMVN coordinator MD Dhaundiyal refuted the quarrying by the company as a violation of norms. He termed it being done in total adherence to the laid-down rules and tried to defend the contract being given to the private firm. It was only done after the District Magistrate of Haridwar had given a verbal consent to Era Infrastructure, he added.

While in a statement from the District Magistrate office it’s stated that the DM had given directions to the Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department to give the GMVN contract for carrying out quarrying only and administration has no say regarding the work being further allotted to any other party or company.

Strong resentment has been shown by several organisations and local people over the large-scale quarrying being done at Har-ki-Pauri. The All-India Rajiv Gandhi Progressive Forum has even accused local legislator and Uttarakhand Urban Development Minister Madan Kaushik of being behind the scene in this quarrying matter.

Meanwhile, the Teerth Maryada Samiti has demanded a high-level probe into this matter. The members of the samiti said the administration for sake of just a few million rupees that it would get from the private firm for quarrying as revenue was losing not only double than that as the company had far exceeded the quarrying limit but also trust of the people who are hurt by the attitude of the administration and the state government.

Mussoorie, May 1
Congress legislator Jot Singh Gunsola flayed the Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank of deceiving the innocent people of Thauldar Block of Tehri Garhwal during his visit to the Block today.

Jot Singh Bisht said the motor roads inaugurated by Chief Minister Nishank were already sanctioned four years ago in 2006, and construction of these roads was completed in 2007.

Bisht further alleged that the announcement of formation of Tehsil at Thatyur Block in Tehri Garhwal district was made in 2008 by former Chief Minister BC Khanduri, but today Nishank had again made the announcement misleading the people. — OC

Dehradun, May 1
To curb the menace of corruption, commercialisation of education in Uttarakhand and to frame the party’s work schedule, members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) held a day-long convention at DAV PG College, Dehradun, here today.

Eminent guests and speakers from all over the state gathered to deliver lectures on the occasion and highlighted the reasons behind corruption in the country. They appealed to all party workers to put in their efforts to eradicate corruption from the country from the grassroots level.

Present on the occasion were Lieutenant Colonel OP Kaushik (retd), former Vice-Chancellor, Sanskrit University, Haridwar, Prof Arun Bahuguna, HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar, Neeraj Pandey, social worker, and Surendra Singh Chauhan. 

Nainital, May 1
Underlining that the priority of the Congress high command is to put the party’s house in order in the state, the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Anees Ahmed has stated that he will be seeking an explanation from the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Harak Singh Rawat and party legislator Kishore Upadhyay over their names figuring in controversies.

During Ahmed’s visit to the Lake City, when it was pointed out to him by The Tribune that over the past several months, the Congress had failed to act as a responsible opposition and its leaders were more busy defending their stakes and themselves in various controversies, while ignoring the issues related to the common people, he said, ”I will look into the matter. I will ask them to reply on the issue and make things clear to me.” Ahmed has been entrusted with the responsibility of looking after the Uttarakhand affairs as his party prepares to go into an electoral battle.

Rawat is facing a case pertaining to an alleged land grab and fraudulent land transfer in Dehradun district. He has been stating that the Dr Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank-led BJP government has been trying to malign his image by falsely implicating his name in the alleged land deal. He claimed that he had legally bought land, but the administration, after an inquiry, has registered cases against two of the close aides of Rawat, who sold land to him. Upadhyay has also been in the eye of the storm, more recently on the issue of three officials of the Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA) being allegedly held captive by his brother, Sachin

Upadhyaya, when they had gone to photograph the premises of a club belonging to the latter on Rajpur Road in Dehradun. The officials of the Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA), two days ago, sealed the club.

Fingers are also being pointed at Kishore Upadhyay for not having vacated the bungalow allotted to him when he was a minister in the Narayan Dutt Tewari-led government in the state. Voices in the Congress, the BJP and even in the bureaucracy point out that how is it that he retains his accommodation even after he quit as a minister in the Tewari government and even when the Congress government was replaced.

On Sunday, when it was pointed to Ahmed that the Congress had failed to corner the Nishank government on the charge of misutilisation of Rs 600 crore given by the Centre in the wake of the rain-related disaster in the state last year, he said,”We should have put in more effort.”

On being questioned about the large-scale infighting in the party and there being too many contenders for the post of the Chief Minister in the state, Ahmed tried to divert the issue by saying that it was a ‘healthy competition’ within the party. At the same time he said, “We will balance things and bring up the party.”

Pithoragarh, May 1
The unorganised labourers, who come from Bihar and the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh to work in these hills, today took out a procession on the occasion of May Day and demanded that the Uttarakhand Government should give permit to each labourer to get minimum of five litres of kerosene every month. “If this day has any meaning than our basic problems should be sorted out. We are bound to purchase kerosene at a rate of Rs 35 per litre,” said Ram Bharose, a labourer from Balia district in Uttar Pradesh.

Chanchal Ram, president of the Uttarakhand Parvatiya Majdoor Kalyan Samiti, who led the procession, said the unorganised labourers are being exploited by the contractors who, taking advantage of their political clout, some times even beat up the labourers when they demand their wages according to norms. “We have received many complaints of abuse of the labourers but when we go to the police it refuses to lodge complaints and takes side with the contractors,” said Chanchal Ram.

“We also demand free medical care and accommodation, these labourers are not in position to save money if they rent rooms,” argued Chanchal Ram.

More than 3,000 labourers took part in the procession. They later submitted a memorandum to Pithoragarh District Magistrate to be forwarded to Governor Margaret Alva. They have demanded an increase in the wages of the labourers and insurance cover for them.

Dehradun, May 1
With the grant of canteen facilities to retired Assam Rifles personnel, they can now avail of the facilities in the state. A directive to this effect has been sent to all canteens of the state. Station Headquarters have also been directed to take necessary action in this regard.

Meanwhile, former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Maj-Gen BC Khanduri(retd), has welcomed the extension of canteen facilities to the retired personnel of Assam Rifles. Khanduri conveyed his greetings to Capt Amar Singh Gusain (retd), president of Assam Rifles Ex-servicemen Association.

Maj-Gen Khanduri had earlier taken a keen interest in pursuing the long-standing demand of Assam Rifles ex-servicemen for canteen facilities.

He had even taken up the matter with the Centre on several occasions.

Dehradun, May 1
After 30 years of teaching, Dev Lahiri, Principal of Welham Boys’ School, Dehradun, retired here today.

He served the institute for eight years and feels that he had played a good innings during his tenure.

Lahiri started his career in teaching from Doon School, Dehradun, while he had also served as the Principal at the Heritage School, Kolkata, and the Lawrence School, Ooty.

The International Association of Career Counselling has awarded him with ‘Service to Career Counselling’.

Mahesh Kandpal will be the officiating principal of the Welham Boys’ school for the time being.