Girls’ hostels to be built in 10 backward blocks
Education dept gets Rs 8.1 cr under KGBV scheme
Neena Sharma
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, April 5
To provide equal opportunities for girls (6-14 years), a generous allocation of Rs 8.1 crore by the Central Government, under the special assistance plan (2012-13), has boosted the efforts of the Department of School Education to expand the programme under the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) scheme.

The allocation for the KGBV, a component of the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), will now help the government construct residential complexes in the backward blocks of 10 districts of the state which were earlier being run from rented buildings and in some places complete the pending construction work.

After the Central Government had drastically cut the aid under the SSA for the previous financial year. Officials in the Department of School Education had lost all hope.

“Officials in the Human Resource Development (HRD) Department were amenable to extending all help for promoting education of girls in the backward blocks of the state,” said PS Jangpangi, former project director, Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, who has now been promoted as Director General School, Education.

Now only eight KGBVs are being run from rented buildings. These include KGBV at Chinyalisaur (Uttarkashi), KGBV at Kharsari (Uttarkashi), KGBV in Naugaon (Uttarkashi), KGBV at Jaunpur (Tehri) and Ampata (Tehri), KGBV in Korba (Dehradun), Tyuni (Dehradun) and at Tripalisain (Pauri).

The Central Government-funded scheme is aimed at bringing girls belonging to the SC,the ST, the OBC, minorities and economically weaker sections back to school by providing them uninterrupted education from class VI-VIII by building residential premises that are located in the close proximity of the school in the backward blocks of the state.

Along with providing free education, the girls are also provided free lodging and medical care. The total intake of girls is around 50 in each KGBV.

While the scheme is fully funded by the Centre from Class VI to VIII, after the success of the programme, the state government at its own initiative had decided to provide education to the girls till Class XII for which it had urged the Central Government to provide the infrastructure while it would bear the expenses for the education of the girls to which the government had agreed.

“The allocation will help us tide over resource crunch as the construction costs have risen and in many places extra funds had to be spent for clearing the forest area or making the ground level,” said RK Kunwar, Additional Project Director, SSA. 

 DIG interacts with cyber café owners
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, April 5
DIG, Dehradun Range, Amit Sinha, held a brief interactive session with cyber café owners of the city before initiating the workshop on cyber crime at the Police Lines today. Police station officers and police personnel of lower ranks also attended this workshop. He said the project of forming a cyber café regulation agency was in the pipeline.

He suggested the café owners should instal software

developed by a Mumbai-based company called Ideacts Innovations, a cyber café security solutions company. He said the cost of the software was not an issue as it was being offered free of cost to all the cyber cafes. He said: ''At present cyber cafés have to use manual registers to note down each customer’s details. The software will render this process redundant. Also, with notebooks it is not possible for cafes to maintain other important records like user’s web history, which is of big importance to law enforcement agencies while investigating a crime. Under Information Technology Act, it is also mandatory for the café owners to keep complete records of their customers. This software will take care of all such issues.'' He further added user details could only be edited in the process of verification by cyber cafes. This would make tracking easier, be it of information or users. Zonal Manager of Ideacts Innovations Rahul Pandey addressed the workshop on cyber crime.

He said the police officers must also know about the number of cyber cafés operating under their areas and must see to it that these places were not used for wrong purposes. He tried to open up with café operators, telling them that the workshop was not meant to impose any kind of responsibility on them but merely to educate them about the intricacies of IT Act, cyber crimes and the ways and means to ensure safeguards against them. He said the way threatening calls were made in today’s times, no wonder these could change into threatening mails.

This transformation in the medium could put operators in great difficulty. He also harped on the need to secure wi-fi and Internet.

''There is always the possibility for criminal elements to misuse the wi-fi zone. Hence, it is important for the operators to know how they can make their wi-fi secure through various available methods.''

He said the logic behind the entire exercise is not to tamper with the privacy of customers in the cyber cafes but certainly to ensure that they did not indulge in criminal activities through Internet.

He said the cyber café operators must prepare a digital log of the customers coming into their cafés and ensure filtering of the contents surfed on the Net.

On this occasion, other officers, SP, Rural, Mamta Bohra, and CO, City, Jagdish Chander, were also present. 

 Shiv Sena activists stage rally in front of DM's office
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, April 5
Activists of the Shiv Sena led by state president Gaurav Kumar staged a demonstration before the DM's office in protest against alleged attempt of encroachment on a temple land by land mafia in ''connivance with the SDM, Vikasnagar.'' A large number of residents of Vikasnagar also came with the delegation.

Activists of the Shiv Sena protest in front of the DM’s office in Dehradun on Friday.

The DM has directed ADM Harak Singh Rawat to conduct an inquiry into the matter.

Gaurav Kumar said two bighas out of a total of four bighas of land of the temple in Vikasnagar had already been usurped by the residents and on rest two also, some land mafia had occupied the space.

Priest of the temple Swami Rajgiri said the SDM, Vikasnagar, also removed them from the temple.

This showed he had joined hands with the encroachers. He said the temple was very old and people of the area had been coming there to perform arti in the morning and evening every day.

The residents demanded removal of encroachers from the temple.

Harak Singh Rawat said he would submit the report to the DM within a week.

  DM convenes meeting on poll

Dehradun, April 5
District Magistrate BVRC Purushottom convened a meeting with regard to preparations for civic polls today where he said those departments which had not provided their list of employees for duty during elections must do so by April 6.

The list would be given to the in charge official, Pratap Shah. He also directed the ADM, Finance, that FIR must be lodged against officials of those departments who failed to stick by the deadline. He said he would not tolerate carelessness in the elections. — TNS

 Villagers give up farming as wild boars destroy crops
BD Kasniyal

Pithoragarh, April 5
Villagers in Champawat district are compelled to give up agriculture as wild boars are continuously damaging their crops. The menace of wild boars has affected more than 24 villages in the Goli, Mudiyani, Talli Chauki and Kimtoli areas of the district.

“The wild boars are not only digging up the recently sown potato seeds but also damaging the ripening wheat crop,” said Radhika Mahar, gram pradhan of Mudiyani.

She said the farmers were so scared of the wild boars that they were compelled to leave farming and go to nearby towns to earn a livelihood. “When we sow potato seeds, wild boars dig up and destroy these the following night,” said Radhika.

According to the Forest Department, the district had over 1,835 wild boars in 2008 when the wildlife counting took place. “The number of wild boars seem to have increased as the incidents of damage to crops in villages near forests have risen manifold,” said Bhagwan Singh, former gram pradhan of Goli.

Meanwhile, the Forest Department has shifted the responsibility of tackling the situation on the villagers by permitting them to kill these animals. “Nine persons in various forest ranges of the district have been given permission to kill the wild boars, but they have not killed even one boar since 2009,” said MM Bhatt, forest range officer.

The villagers have again requested the department to take the responsibility of killing wild boars as they are not trained enough for the job. “If the department does not start a project to keep away these wild boars, which have increased manifold in number in the last five years, the villagers will have to leave sowing cash crops like potato, which fetches a good price to them,” said Mahar. 

MDDA-Hudco hold talks on construction of flats
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, April 5
Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority officials yesterday discussed the project of construction of 800 flats near ISBT with representatives of Housing Urban Development Corporation (Hudco). The task of construction has been entrusted to it. Hudco has been given the deadline of April 20 to submit a detailed project report (DPR) of the project.

Vice-Chairman, MDDA, RM Sundaram, said they would get sufficient time to review the DPR, including the design and cost factor and make alterations before April 28. After that they could rapidly move to the next stage of tender process for the selection of contractors for this project.

Hudco has already cleared a loan of Rs 64 crore. The project is estimated to take around two years to complete. Under this scheme, flats of different categories such as HIG, MIG, LIG and mini LIG, as well as those for weaker sections would also be constructed.

 Lawyers’ memo to Guv against GO
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, April 5
Lawyers led by former vice-president of the Dehradun Bar Association Alok Ghildiyal yesterday submitted a memorandum to Governor Aziz Qureshi expressing resentment against the recent government order regarding the cut-off date for caste certificates to the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Castes.

Alok said the government was acting against the Constitution and was hurting the interests of Uttarakhand people. Asserting that the state government GO was full of errors, he said it was not in the Uttarakhand government's jurisdiction to decide on the cut-off date regarding the caste certificates. He also pointed out that even Centre guidelines clearly stated that the SC and the ST can got reservation only in the state to which they belong and thus UP castes could not be taken into consideration in Uttarakhand.

The memorandum also held that the Uttarakhand government’s decision was also one-sided as the Uttar Pradesh government had not come up with any official order on Uttarakhandis residing in Uttar Pradesh. 

 Golden Infocon to invest Rs 150 cr in SIDCUL phase II at Sitarganj
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, April 5
The state government and Golden Infocon Private Limited signed a memorandum of understanding in the presence of Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna at the Secretariat here today. The company will invest Rs 150 crore in SIDCUL phase 2 at Sitarganj.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said all efforts were being made to accelerate the pace of industrial development in the state. Bahuguna said with the implementation of the mega industrial policy, projects of more than Rs 75 crore were being encouraged in the state. Fifty per cent relaxation on stamp duty and one per cent relaxation on Central trade tax would be given to such projects.

Principal Secretary (Industrial Development) Rakesh Sharma, who signed the MoU on behalf of the government, said this would give a new impetus to SIDCUL phase 2. He said the project would give indirect employment to 1,000 people. SIDCUL has already received a cheque for Rs 8 crore for this project.

Director, Golden Infocon, Gaurav Mittal, who signed the MoU, said food processing and other industrial units would be set up to create employment opportunities for the local people.

Rakesh Sharma, SIDCUL finance controller, BC Tiwari, GM, SIDCUL, SK Sharma and company secretary Rajiv Jha were present.

 Ganga yatra faces UKM’s opposition
Tribune News Service

Haridwar, April 5
The Ganga Aviralta Chintan Yatra, being organised by Ganga activists and the Matra Sadan ashram, Haridwar, commenced here today with an aim to spreading awareness about conserving the Ganga. However, some activists of the Uttarakhand Kranti Manch (UKM) opposed the yatra.

This drive will also highlight report of the Inter-Ministerial Group which aims to commercially exploit the Ganga.

Swami Shivanand, chief of the Matra Sadan ashram, said the Ganga activists need to regroup and generate awareness among masses about conserving the river, which is considered as the mother in India.

Noted environmentalist and now saint Prof GD Aggarwal also opposed hydropower projects being sanctioned on the Ganga, particularly in the sensitive belt from Gaumukh, Gangotri till Uttarkashi.

The yatra will pass through Tehri, Koteshwar, Srinagar, Dhari Devi, Rudraprayag, Agustmuni, Joshimath, Vishnuprayag and finally culminate at Dehradun on April 7.

JP Pandey, chief of the UKM, said opposing hydropower projects was not feasible as Uttarakhand owing to a hill state had limited resources at its disposal.