Dehradun, November 9
With an eye on elections on the 11th anniversary of the state foundation day, Chief Minister BC Khanduri made a host of announcements aimed at all sections of the society.

In view of the Haridwar stampede, the state foundation day celebrations were a low key affair with the Chief Minister making all these announcements at a simple function held at the Cantt road.

He also released Vikas Pustika titled “Badhta-Sanwarta Uttarakhand”, published by the Information and Public Relations Department of Uttarakhand.

In a move aimed at pleasing the student community, the state has decided to give a 5 per cent interest subsidy for a maximum of 5 years on education loan of up to Rs 10 lakh for pursuing higher education in engineering, medical, law, professional and other higher technical education by children, whose parents are permanent residents of the state and whose annual income is not more than Rs 3 lakh.

The Khanduri government announced providing free travel facility to all girl students in the buses of transport corporation in the state on the basis of their college identity card.

The state government has decided to institute an award of Rs 50,000 to students who are permanent residents of the state and are selected for IIT, IIM, NIT, NDA, IMA, medical and other reputed professional and technical institutes prescribed by the government.

The government also decided to double the amount of scholarships at present being given to students of families of ex-soldiers for higher education.

The ‘Bhojan matas’ employed under the mid-day meals in all primary schools will now receive an honorarium of Rs 1,500 per month instead of Rs 1,000.

It has been decided by the government to give incentive of Rs 5000 per year to 11,000 Asha workers carrying several health programes in the state. This amount will be given in two half-yearly instalments.

Other announcemnets include creation of a Hill Seed Corporation, enchancing the grant amount under the Vir Chandra Singh Garhwali Paryatan Swarozgar Yojana being operationalised by the Tourism Department from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.

Two disaster management units will be established by the Police Department on 5 hectares of land, one each in the Sariapani area in Almora district and the Siror area in the Uttarkashi district.

Besides godowns of 500 metric tonnes capacity will be constructed for foodgrains storage in all 670 nyaya panchayats of the state.

There is 100 per cent VAT exemption on purchase of two-wheelers from CSD canteen and this exemption is permissible only on the purchase of the first 
750 vehicles.

The restriction on the number of vehicles will now be withdrawn. Similarly, the 100 percent VAT exemption on purchase of four wheeler vehicles from CSD canteen is permissible only on the purchase of the first 150 vehicles regarding which it has been decided to extend the permissibility to 500 vehicles. 

Dehradun, November 9
Uttarakhand Governor Margaret Alva said here today that the achievements of brave police personnel of the state were very inspiring and admirable.

Speaking on the occasion of the Foundation Day of Uttarakhand at the ceremonial parade at the Police Lines, the Governor said the state faced several challenges, 11 years after its creation.

She awarded 20 police officials and jawans with President’s Police Medals for their valour and distinguished services.

The Governor said while there had been an eight per cent increase in the literacy rate in the past one decade in the state, the decreasing number of girl children in the state was a cause for concern.

She said, “Involving women in the development process is important. Schemes for their welfare and for the welfare of children in the state need to be implemented properly.

Alva said the state should make policies that would increase the agricultural produce. “In the hill areas, cottage industries need to be set up on a wide-scale to stop people from migrating to the plains.”

On tourism, she said it could accelerate the state’s economic development if more stress was laid on improving infrastructure. She welcomed the move to set up a rail line between Rishikesh and Karnaprayag.

She also welcomed the Lokayukta Bill, Special Court Bill and the Right to Public Service Act.

Chief Minister BC Khanduri, Vidhan Sabha Speaker Harbans Kapoor, Agriculture minister TS Rawat, former Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Lokayukta MM Ghildiyal, Chief Sectary Subash Kumar and many other peoples’ representatives and officials were present on the occasion.

Anil Raturi, GS Martolia and Jaswant Singh received the President’s Police Medal.

The Governor’s medals for distinguished service were given to SS Samant (police station in charge of Satpuli) and SB Negi (police station in charge of Sahaspur).

Nainital, November 9
he statehood day celebrations across Kumaon turned out to be a low key affair. The celebrations were curtailed at the last moment following the tragic death of 20 persons in a stampede in Haridwar on Tuesday.

The scheduled programmes were held at various places but cultural and sports events were cancelled.

In Nainital, the main function was held at the Flats Grounds where a book brought out on the development of the state by the Information Department was released in the presence of Kumaon Comissioner Kunal Sharma, District Magistrate Nidhimani Tripathi, Chief Development Officer (CDO) Dhiraj Garbyal and the local legislator Kharak Singh Bora. There were no speeches and the programme ended 
with the singing of the national anthem.

Various stalls had been put up by various government departments that saw a lot of people coming there.

In Almora a call was given for providing focus to the ongoing process of development while giving a transparent administration by Chairman of the Zila Panchayat Mohan Ram Arya. He said the development projects needed to be completed in a time-bound manner.

In Champawat, schoolchildren took out a procession in a sober manner from the Goral Chaud ground to the GIC chowk. The Health Department organised a free medical camp. The main function was held in the auditorium of the Collectorate where Zila Panchayat Chairman Prema Pande released the booklet, “Badhta Sanwarta Uttarakhand”. A sadbhavna cricket match was also held to mark the occasion.

In Udham Singh Nagar, the celebrations saw District Magistrate PS Jangpangi giving tricycles to four disabled persons and disbursing old-age pension cheques among 98 beneficiaries. He said while the state had witnessed unprecedented development in the past 11 years of its existence, a lot more needed to be done to take the fruits of development to the last man. 

Nainital, November 9
The statehood day was observed as Vishwasghat Divas by the cadres and supporters of the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party (UPP). Members of the party went on to burn an effigy of all those political forces who had ‘plundered’ the state during the last 11 years of its existence.

In Nainital, the party workers organised a ‘Dhikkar’ sabha in which the speakers attacked the mainstream political parties the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD), for having betrayed the trust of the people.

Party leader Mahesh Chandra Kandpal criticised the successive governments in the state for having given away rich tracts of agricultural land for non agricultural purposes. He charged that the rich natural resources, including the forest wealth and the water resources, had been plundered and the lopsided development policies with regards to hydropower projects, creation of national parks and wild life sanctuaries had made the lives of ordinary people miserable.

Dehradun, November 9
The much-awaited foundation stone of the Rishikesh-Karanprayag railway line was laid by Union Minister of Defence AK Antony and Union Railways Minister Dinesh Trivedi in the absence of UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi at Gauchar, Chamoli district, today. Union Minister of State for Railways H. Muniyappa and Bharat Solani were also present on the occasion.

More than 15,000 persons who gathered at Gauchar to watch the historic occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of the railway line from the foothills of Rishikesh to the lofty Himalayan mountains in Garhwal Himalayas were disappointed as Sonia Gandhi could not make to the function due to indisposition.

It was Union Defence Minister AK Antony who along with Union Railways Minister Dinesh Trivedi laid the foundation stone of the railway line that will bring socio-economic development to the backward region besides giving a tremendous boost to the tourism.

Addressing a rally organised by the state Congress, Antony said the railway line would be strategically important and extended till Badrinath near the China border.

Trivedi also announced the survey work of the railway line beyond Karanprayag up to Chamoli. He said work on the Tanakpur-Bageshwar railway line would also be taken up soon.

Earlier, talking about the criticism of Chief Minister BC Khanduri for not being invited to the function, Trivedi said there was no question of any controversy as he had personally invited Khanduri and talked to him twice yesterday.

The function had become a bone of contention between the ruling BJP and the Congress in the state. With the Assembly elections nearing, both political parties did not want to miss any opportunity to take credit of any such development.

Congress leaders wanted to use the stone-laying functio to launch their election campaign in the backyard of the Chief Minister who belong to Garhwal. Senior state Congress leaders, party president Yashpal Arya, Union Minister of State for Agriculture, Food Processing and Parliamentary Affairs Harish Rawat, all party MPs from the state, Vijay Bahuguna, Satpal Maharaj, Padeep Tamta and KC Singh Baba and party general secretary Birender Singh were also present.

Vijay Bahuguna, MP from Tehri Garhwal, read out the speech of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Dehradun, November 9
With the laying of the foundation stone of the Rishikesh-Karanprayag railway line at Gauchar in Chamoli district today, dream of Darban Singh Negi, the first Victoria Cross winner from Garhwal became a reality. He won the award for bravery in France during the First World War.

Getting his Victoria Cross from King George IV in 1923, Negi, who had to walk miles to reach his village, Kafartir, in Kaddakot Patti in Chamoli district, requested the King for a railway link up to Chamoli. The then British government had agreed to his request and ordered the then United Province Government to allocate funds for the project.

The first survey of the Rishikesh-Chamoli railway link was done in 1927. Earlier, train had reached Dehradun, the foothills of Garhwal in 1901. However, the train could not reach the hill station of Mussoorie and Chamoli even after several efforts.

In early 1900s, the four main shrines of Uttarakhand - Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri, collectively known as the Char Dhams of the Garhwal Himalayas, could be reached only by foot.

Motorable roads came into existence in the first half of the 20th century. The credit goes to the British. The roads were opened for pilgrims in 1934, making Rishikesh the gateway to the lofty mountains of the Garhwal Himalayas.

The proposed Rishikesh-Karanprayag rail line will traverse through the districts of Dehradun (Rishikesh), Tehri, Rudraprayag and Chamoli.

It was only in 1996 that Satpal Maharaj, then Union Minister of State for Railways, who was a Lok Sabha member from Pauri Garhwal, that again a survey was done on the railway line. However, it was only after 15 years that the foundation stone of the railway link was laid today.

The Railway Ministry has allocated Rs 40 crore in the year 2010-11 out of the estimated project cost of Rs 4,295.30 crore for the new rail line connecting Rishikesh in the foothills of the Himalayas to Karanprayag in Chamoli district of the state. The proposed railway line will run parallel to the flow of Ganga. In the second phase, the proposed line will extend up to Mana (height 3,150 metres approx), beyond Badrinath near the China border.

The rail route will run along the Rishikesh-Karanparyag National Highway (NH-58), running parallel to the Ganga river. Thereafter, it crosses over to the south bank of the Ganga in order to connect Srinagar and other important towns of the Garhwal region.

The 125-km long rail line will have 12 stations, 81 tunnels, longest being 4.46 km. There will be more than 100 bridges on the Ganga, the Bhagirathi and the Alaknanada rivers. The highest bridge will be 65-metre high.

The rail starting from Rishikesh, 372 metres above the sea level, will reach Karanprayag, 1451 meters above the sea level. The train will take four hours to cover the distance of 125 km that normally takes seven to eight hours on road.

The project is likely to reach its completion by 2019. 

Haridwar, November 9
The Gayatri family celebrations marking the 100th birth anniversary of Shantikunj founder Pt Shri Ram Sharma Acharya concluded on a silent note amid yajna rituals for the peace to the souls of the victims of yesterday’s stampede today. The venue was shifted to Gyan Manch at Rodibelwala.

Around 50,000 devotees participated in the yajna rituals that saw lighting of ‘diyas’. Shantikunj head Pranav Pandya announced the end of the four-day celebrations, a day before their scheduled culmination.

Seemed dejected, Dr Pandya termed the incident as unfortunate and prayed for the peace to the departed souls as well as timely recovery of the injured.

Meanwhile, the entire temporary infrastructure set up for the celebrations at the Kumbh mela venue was dismantled. The whole mela area, which had been filled with lakhs of people for the past two days, bore a deserted look today.

Thousands still arrived here for the celebrations today too, but were told by the Shantikunj organisers to return immediately. Many of them took the ashes from “yajnashala” and holy Ganga water along with them.

Additional trains and buses were plied to cope the massive rush of devotees. 

Dehradun, November 9
With the Assembly elections nearing, an exercise for the formation of third front in the state has begun on a serious note.

A meeting presided over by TPS Rawat, president of the Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha, and convened by Trivender Singh Panwar, president of Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (Panwar), yesterday, saw political parties such as the CPI, the CPI (ML), the CPM, the Janata Dal (S) and the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party agreeing to be part of the new regional front to give a befitting challenge to both BJP and Congress in the election.

The members are yet to select the president and other office bearers of the front and to decide on the issues of the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) and the sensitive matter of seat distribution among themselves. They unanimously consented to name the front as the “Regional United Front of Uttarakhand”.

Samar Bhandari, state secretary, CPI, said the matter of third front had been in offing for long. He stressed the fact that the front would be based on policies not on persons. It would take lessons from the last Assembly election when the third front collapsed for being individual centric, he stated.

He said though the final draft of the CMP was being prepared, the members agreed on the issues of anti-corruption, a separate policy to establish industries and creating jobs for the people of border villages and a profitable agrarian policy. He said the topographical compulsion and requirement of hill residents would always be kept in consideration while formulating the CMP.

On the allocation of seats, he said, “My party will seek seats where it had vociferously been carrying out its programmes such as zila panchayat, blocks etc. There can be a few seats which other members would also vie for. In that case, the constituent parties can fight on those seats separately, but the coalition should not crumble at any cost,” he said.

TPS Rawat said the front would fight over all 70 seats, but while allocating seats, the performance of the candidates would be seen. He said they would soon form a core group and committee of the members to solve these issues.

Trivender Singh Panwar called the creation of third front as the fruition of their efforts of several months. “Independently we could not fight out the Congress and the BJP, but together we wouldcertainly emerge as a force,” he said.

Rajiv Kumar, spokesperson of the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party, said the front had been floated for a longer haul not as an opportunistic propaganda before or during the Assembly elections.