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Employees face taxing times
Dehradun, November 21 As part of the mother state Uttar Pradesh, the region that is now Uttarakhand, was contributing about Rs 160 crore as commercial tax, formerly called sales tax.But it goes to the credit of the department that it has now set a target of Rs 1,842 crore for the fiscal 2008-09. Of this, around 19 per cent more revenue has already been collected as compared to the corresponding period ending the second quarter of the financial year. It is all the more commendable in view of the handicaps faced by the department. Besides severe staff shortage, which persists till date, the department had to do with woefully inadequate infrastructure. "I congratulate the hard work put in by the staff of the department despite handicaps," acknowledged Chief Minister BC Khanduri while addressing the bi-annual convention of Vanijya Kar Sewa Sangh here on Thursday. Against 1,887 sanctioned posts, only 638 officers ,including the support staff, are on job as of now. To meet staff requirement, especially after expansion of the tax net with introduction of the value-added tax (VAT) scheme, induction of more staff is the need of the hour. The number of registered commercial tax assesses has increased to 82,000 from 42,000 since the inception of Uttarakhand. The induction of 91 new assistant commissioners and commercial tax officers (CTOs) who have recently been cleared by the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission may help a bit.The assurance by the CM to the Sangh on Thursday to take up the matter with the state finance department offers a ray of hope. But till something concrete comes up, the existing workforce will have to bear the brunt.The demand charter put up by the sangh reveals that working overtime to meet the progressively increased collection targets every year has taken a toll on the health of the staff members. A number of them are suffering from heart problems, diabetes and hypertension.The death of a CTO, SP Bahuguna, while on duty at the railway checkpost, Rishikesh, in July this year is attributed to extensive workload. As the CM has acknowledged that the government depends heavily on the department for more revenue collection to ease the state’s burden of huge financial liability, the department officials argue that for this to happen, the problem of manpower crunch needs to be addressed. It is under a debt of Rs 16,000 crore of which only interest is being paid. Moreover, the burden of paying revised salaries along with arrears on the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission stares in the government face. The government also faces the enormous challenge of mobilising funding worth 1,1000 crore for implementation of various projects under the new Dehradun Master Plan announced recently.
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Infrastructure woes
Dehradun, November 21 This helped minimise tax pilferage to a large extent. Besides, six railway checkposts were also established at Dehradun, Haridwar, Haldwani, Rishikesh, Kashipur and Rudarpur stations to curb the malpractice of bringing goods into the state without paying tax. Uttarakhand principal secretary, finance, Alok Kumar Jain, said a decision had been taken to provide proper facilities at all checkposts to ensure better productivity.These posts would have toilets, bathrooms and retiring rooms. This is in sharp contrast to the times when the staff operated from tents on roadsides. Chairs were a luxury then. “In the initial years, there was almost nothing in the name of infrastructure.The staff on duty had to brave harsh weather conditions, particularly in winters. Later, wooden huts were made available,” said officials of the department. To address the problem, the government sanctioned five new joint checkposts at Narsan, Assa Rori, Rudarpur, Suttaya and Chiryapur. Staff of the police, forests, transport, excise and commercial tax departments will be housed in these. Of these, construction of the post at Narsan has been completed while it is near completion at Rudarpur and Chiryapur. Besides, construction of office buildings at Haldwani, Kotdwar and Rishikesh is on.
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City cemetery to get facelift
Dehradun, November 21 Call it neglect or shortsightedness of the caretakers, the graves, an example of colonial architecture with Hindu and Muslim influences, are overrun by weeds, some have been dismantled, others vandalised. The main wing of the cemetery has been shabbily given a lime wash without taking up repair works. A similar exercise has been undertaken inside, so much so that the inscriptions on graves cannot be deciphered. Around 300-odd graves of Europeans, who were officers in the East India Company, can be identified, besides graves of war widows and Jews who died here. “ The Archaeological Survey of India is surveying the state for sites, monuments and cemeteries of historical importance for carrying restoration work. The state already has 42 protected heritage sites. “ My predecessor superintending archaeologist (now retired) Sayeed Jamal had already undertaken the survey of the cemetery in Doon. The final decision rests with the central government, but after improving the Roorkee Cemetery, we can do the same here,” informed Dr DV Sharma, superintending archaeologist, ASI (Dehradun Circle). If restored, the cemetery can become an important tourist destination. Several tourists from European countries travel to India to visit the graves of their ancestors who lay
buried here. “ If the cemetery, that was built around 1813, is improved, it will be of much interest to history students, who must know that founders of Cambrain Hall and Col Brown schools lie buried here,” said JP Singh, pastor of St John’s Church and chairman, Dehradun Cemetery Committee. During the British Raj, Europeans owing allegiance to the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church were buried here.This practice continued with the Indian Christians opting for a separate cemetery called the Hindustani Cemetery. However in the mid-eighties on the decision of the local cemetery committee, it was opened for all church members. Scarcity of space may force us to make do with the empty corners lying unused,” said Singh. Keen to see the cemetary restored, the pastor had approached different embassies for donations in New Delhi. Initially, the German Church Committee donated a meagre amount. That too stopped. “ A grant of Rs 3,000 by the British Embassy has also stopped,” the pastor said.
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‘We must now think of Blue Revolution’
Dehradun, November 21 He said environmental security is a process that effectively responds to changing environmental conditions that have the potential to reduce peace and stability in the world. Accomplishing national environmental security goals mandates planning and execution of programmes to prevent and mitigate anthropogenically (especially land use/land cover changes) induced adverse changes in the environment. Water, food, climate (managing climate variability) and energy security being major environmental security issues today, there is need for planning and promotion of environmental conservation. Dr Sharma said security of states in India was increasingly threatened by the growing range of environmental challenges from development patterns, that place communities at heightened risk of natural disasters; long-term impact of population growth and continuous change of land use. Dr Sharma said after a lot of study, he was of the view that current environmental threats included water scarcity, land degradation/soil erosion, pollution, deforestation, climate change, desertification, reclamation of wetlands, clearing of mangrove vegetation, human population growth, loss of biodiversity, transboundary pollution and food scarcity. Dr Sharma said the per capita fresh water availability was likely to decrease in the future. "Besides, industrialisation, urbanisation, climate variability and population explosion would require more food, “which means more water requirement for irrigation." There was no water stress as such but India may enter the stress zone by 2010. Dr Sharma said 80 per cent of the 14 perennial rivers were polluted. Conflict could occur in case one country threatened to cut off water supply to another country. "Also water access and availability is another import issue. There may be availability of water like mineral water but everyone can't purchase it. Likewise, access to safe drinking water is an issue that requires attention." Stating that the problem of water security could be solved provided the government made adequate investment and there was a strong political will to find a solution. "Blue revolution would mean irrigation efficiency (use of sprinklers/drip irrigation) and greater environmental awareness to prevent water wastage and leakages", he said. On food security, Dr Sharma said diversion of agricultural land to industry, biofuel, floriculture, urbanisation, food scarcity (grain deficit), population growth and several other factors had left us with a great challenge to deal with the situation. He said these challenges could be met by investing more in agriculture, growing more food, diversification (avoiding monoculture), population policy, techniques to prevent deliberate biocontamination of food and control of undesirable microbes in food stuff. In view of global ecological dependence (export of foodgrains, diversion of arable land to biofuel, flowers and contract farming), there was a need to design new forms of ecologically enlightened development, diplomacy and governance. Dr Sharma believes that energy security is more important than climate change and should be a national priority. Disclosing that India was near to peak fossil fuel extraction, he said energy needs would grow rapidly. On the option of nuclear energy, he pointed out that the initial cost of nuclear energy was very high and there were problems associated with dumping of nuclear waste and threat of terrorism. Dr Sharma suggested that some of the measures to increase energy security could be decentralised energy - by building electricity generating capacity close to the source of demand and reducing dependence on any one source of imported energy. Dr Sharma said climate variability would become an important issue as more and more people were moving into vulnerable areas. "Offseason crops, non-traditional food crops (paddy in Punjab), sugarcane in water deficient areas are issues of concern", he said. Contrary to general perception that intensity and frequency of cyclones was on the rise, Dr Sharma revealed that in India it was
decreasing. Dr Sharma argued that there would be more damage not because of extreme weather conditions, but increased construction activity in vulnerable areas. "Diseases will increase not because of climate change impacts but because of land use land cover change, poor civic sense, changed lifestyle and bioterrorism (biological warfare)", he observed. More attention was being paid to climate issue, whereas the priority should be energy, water, and food security, he concluded.
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Radial collector wells may be answer to polluted water
Roorkee, November 21 Groundwater is considered a clean and safe source of water supply, but in some geologic environments, the aquifer thickness may not be sufficient to supply the required volume of water to vertical wells, even though the aquifer is hydraulically connected to a nearby surface water body. Under such conditions, radial collector wells can help in fetching superior quality water. “A radial collector well system comprises a series of horizontal wells discharging water into a central large diameter well, known as caisson, which is about 4 metres in diameter and 25 to 40 metre deep," say NIH officials, adding that the soil between the riverbed and screen of the collectors act as a natural filter and remove most of the turbidity and bacteria “ viruses of the polluted river water. However, the total removal of bacteria viruses depends on the distance of the well from the riverbank,” say the officials. Scientists believe that since the quality of water obtained through radial collector wells is better that the quality of river water, the cost of water treatment is reduced to a large extent and so is the possibility of untreated water supply due to failure of treatment plants.
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