Dehradun, January 30
Acting on the appeals made by its officers sacked across the country in the wake of recent strike by oil sector public sector undertakings, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has reinstated them barring two top leaders whose cases are still under consideration.

The management of the leading oil company had sacked 64 officers working at 19 ONGC work centres. “The services of 62 officers have been restored. But six of them have been placed under suspension while cases of two officers have been deferred,” said ONGC chairman and managing director RS Sharma today over phone from Mumbai. The decision was taken during a meeting of ONGC board of directors held on January 28.

However, Sharma declined to comment on what grounds cases of two officers were deferred as well as the reasons behind placing their six colleagues under suspension. Among the two, Amit Kumar is the national president of ONGC’s Association of Scientific and Technical Officers (ASTO) while Rajan Pillai is the general secretary. The former is also the president of Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA), which had spearheaded the strike.

Of all the sacked officers, five were posted at the company’s head office here. But only three of them have been reinstated. All were office bearers of the Dehradun unit of the association.

Two suspended officers are its president and secretary while four are from Rajamundri, Mumbai, Shivsagar and Ahmedabad centres.

All the sacked officers had submitted individual written appeals to the management for their reinstatement. They had said that it was wrong to single them out as the decision to go on strike was taken collectively. No one was coerced to participate in it. Earlier, thousands of ONGC employees were agitated over the management’s action.

Dehradun, January 30
Paving the way for unhindered movement of public and private transport vehicles in Uttarakhand and Punjab, both the states have finalised an agreement to be signed by the respective transport authorities soon.

“The agreement would be the first of its kind between both the states since Uttarakhand came into being,” said additional secretary, transport, Vinod Sharma, who represented Uttarakhand during the meeting held for the purpose at Chandigarh on January 29.

The agreement would ensure hassle-free movement for the huge monthly volume of as many as three lakh passengers, mostly pilgrims and tourists, between the two states. It would also eliminate additional entry tax levied on them.

Besides the famous Hindu pilgrim centres of Haridwar and Char Dhams, Uttarakhand is home to sacred Sikh pilgrim destinations of Hemkunt Sahib and Nanak Matta. Important hill stations like Mussoorie and Nainital also attracts a huge rush of tourists from Punjab.

Similarly, a large number of Sikhs from the state visit Amritsar and other religious places in Punjab.

In view of this, both states have agreed to reciprocal transport operations under which Uttarakhand would be allowed to ply buses on 39 routes in Punjab while the latter would have access to 91 routes.

The arrangement has been arrived at on the basis of trips and mileage of their respective vehicles. Both sides have also agreed on free movement of goods under which any permit issued by Punjab will be valid for entire Uttarakhand and vice-versa, said Sharma.

A similar consensus was made in the case of private vehicles and maxi cabs, but with a rider that these vehicles would not be used for picking and dropping passengers at any place between two points lying exclusively within territories of both states.

A provision has been made to issue them temporary permits, which would be valid for seven days for a single trip.

However, special permits having 30 days validity for tours could also be issued, Sharma added.

Dehradun, January 30
The Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) would soon make a final announcement about the party’s decision to contest the ensuing Lok Sabha elections.

With the BJP announcing its candidates for all the parliamentary constituencies of Uttarakhand yesterday, the possibility of any pre-poll alliance between the BJP and UKD, partners in the state government, seems unlikely now.

Although the Dal leaders still maintain that talks regarding seat-sharing are on with the BJP, party insiders said since the BJP had named its candidates yesterday chances of a tie-up are remote.

After 2007 assembly elections, UKD had supported the ruling BJP in the state assembly. Now, the Dal leaders are demanding two seats - Tehri and Nainital - from the BJP. The Dal leaders had already announced that in case talks with BJP fail they would contest the election alone.

Significantly, a major chunk of the party activists are in favour of pulling out of the government.

“A meeting of the top brass of the UKD will be held in a couple of days to discuss the situation and a final decision will be taken then,” said UKD state spokesman Virinder Mohan Uttarakhandi.

Although Dal leaders are hesitant to comment further on the issue, the decision taken by the president Dr Narain Singh Jantwal to appoint observers for assessing the probable candidates for the polls makes it amply clear that the Dal has decided to take on the BJP.

However, as far as withdrawal of support from the BJP is concerned, the Dal seems to be divided. Sources said a majority of party leaders are in favour of withdrawing support, whereas some of them are opposing the move.

“A committee of Dal leaders would be assessing the implementation of the charter of demands given by our party to the BJP.

“The decision to pull out of the government would depend upon their report,” said Uttarakhandi.

Haridwar, January 30
The ashes of former President of India, Ramaswami Venkataraman were immersed in holy Ganga today in Haridwar. The ashes of late president were immersed at VIP Ghat with full state honour.

The rituals were performed by the family priest in accordance with south Indian traditions. Pandit Sundar Raghav Sharma did the rites and performed the puja.

R Venkataraman had died on January 28 at the age of 98 due to multiple organ failure. Venkatraman has left behind wife Janaki and three daughters.

Ramaswami Venkataraman was born on December 4, 1910 at Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. A economics graduate and also a lawyer Venkataraman holded several ministerial posts earlier in Tamil Nadu and later in the Central cabinet. He was elected for first provisional parliament and then won the general elections in 1952. He was also a finance minister of Tamil Nadu and later held this coveted post in the Centre too. He was elected as a Member of Parliament thrice and apart being from being Finance Minister he also worked as Defence Minister and Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission. He was appointed Vice-President of India from 1984. Later he was elevated to the coveted first person of the country being sworn in as the eighth President of India from 1987. During his tenure Venkataraman worked with four prime ministers namely Rajiv Gandhi, VishwaNath Pratap Singh, Chandra Sekhar and PV Narasimha Rao. It was during his tenure, India saw the emergence of coalition politics, Sri Lankan crisis, Bofors scam and Rajiv Gandhi assassination, which late Venkataraman handled adeptly.

On behalf of the state government, Cabinet minister Madan Kaushik laid flowers on the ashes of the later president. Brig Neeraj Verma, Col SA Khara, Col Sharma, Maj Rathore, Subedhar Jasvinder Singh, all from Raiwala Cantonment, were present at the ceremony. District Magistrate Shailesh Bagholi, SSP Sanjay Gunjiyal, SP City Asim Srivastava, ASP Sweety Aggarwal, CO Navneet Singh and other administrative officials also attended the ceremony apart from other eminent citizens.

Dehradun, January 30
OLF lifted the Uttarakhand State Civil Services Volleyball Tournament that concluded at National Hydrographic office, here today.

In the finals OLF defeated Postal Department team in a closely contested match that lasted five set. The score line at the end of the match read (20-25, 25-17, 13-25, 25-21, 15-13).

In the first semifinal, Postal team beat IIP team (25-13, 25-20, 25-19) to advance into the finals. In the second semifinal, OLF defeat Deal (25-20, 25-23, 25-19) to move into the finals.

Dehradun, January 30
Udham Singh Nagar defeated Chamoli by a huge margin of 204 runs at the u-16 Inter District State Cricket Championship being organised at Abhimanyu Stadium, here today. Udham Singh Nagar’s Harendra Kumar paved the way for his team’s victory as he scored 76 runs of 99 balls.

Batting first, Udham Singh Nagar went on to score 256 runs in allotted 40 overs.

The teamlost its opener Lakshy Joshi for a duck. It was P Bharowaj and Rohit who stabilised Udham Singh Nagar’s inning making 23 and 25 runs respectively. Harendra Kumar gave an important contribution as he scored 76 runs. Tajendra Pal scored 38 of 38 balls. For Chamoli team, Pankaj picked up three wickets.