Equine influenza under control, claims dept
Dehradun, May 23
After working on a war footing for almost a fortnight, Uttarakhand Animal Husbandry Department yesterday claimed that the equine influenza that struck the horses and mules in Kedarnath area of the state was fully under control with no fresh case being reported from the region for past few days.

Next, it’s my turn Children of labourers at a brick kiln near Dehradun bathe in a tubewell. Tribune photo: Anil P Rawat

Dehradun, May 23
It is not the best of places to work in for a doctor, but duty at a post-mortem house is a part and parcel of life that he has to stoically perform once in 42 days. Post-mortem houses in the state, which are a relic of the British Raj, have bare minimum facilities. The Dehradun post-mortem house tops the list.

It is a common sight to find a doctor working in sweltering heat under a dimly lit lamp with no fan busy dissecting a body in the dead of the night.

The condition at the 18 post-mortem houses all across the state is no different. Housed in one room with broken doors and non-existent facilities, working here is an excruciating experience for doctors.

Crying for a face-lift, these PM houses have only now caught the attention of the state government which is planning to give a face-lift to the old and build some new ones.

The state Health Department is also rebuilding and sprucing up the post-mortem houses that had been built before 1947. These are located at Pauri, Chakrata, Narender Nagar, Roorkee, Haldwani, Kashipur, Rudrapur, Khatima, Bageshwar, Pitthoragarh, Lohaghat, Almora, Nainital, Gopeshwar, Uttarkashi, Tehri, Haridwar, Kotdwar and Dehradun.

Among the old PM houses, Rs 20 lakh for Dehradun, Rs 15.34 lakh for Chakrata and Rs 11.71 lakh for Pauri and Rs 14.04 for Tanakpur have been allocated.

“Earlier, the norms was to have a post-mortem house in each district. Now, it has been changed to extended to one in each tehsil,” said DG Health, Dr PL Joshi.

A post-mortem house consists of a dissection room, medical room, viscera room, record room and an extra room. While the administration is facing difficulty in acquiring a suitable place for a modern post-mortem house in Dehradun, the doctors on duty face a tough time conducting post-mortem examinations.

“Due to poor lighting arrangement, it is difficult to conduct the examination at night,” said Dr Anil Tevatia of Doon Hospital.

Interestingly, there are two assistants - both class IV employees - who assist the doctors in conducting the post-mortem examination. Mange Ram a class IV employee, picked up the nitty-gritties of the trade from his father who assisted British doctors while they conducted the examination at the same place.

The post-mortem house in Dehradun is in such a bad state that the decomposed viscera stored since pre-Independence days has now been infested with insects that can be seen crawling on the floor. Due to shortage of staff, cleanliness is a casualty.

Ideally, the preservation of the viscera is done in rectified spirit or hypertonic solution which keeps it intact for 30 years.

All doctors of the Coronation and Doon Hospitals are deputed to the post-mortem house for a period of 40 days. A doctor with an MBBS or an MD degree is usually given the duty.

According to sources, Rs 20 lakh have been sanctioned for the construction of the new post-mortem house. However, nobody wants to live in the vicinity of a building where dead bodies are brought and post-mortem conducted.

As per reports, the plan was proposed by the then District Magistrate, Dr Rakesh Kumar, for relocating the post-mortem house at Sahastradhara road, however, due to people’s opposition, it could not be taken up.

The administration is finding it increasingly difficult to earmark a place that is far away from the town and in the secluded area. As the town is expanding at a break-neck speed, it will be extremely difficult to find a secluded place.

Admitting that the post-mortem house was not in a great shape, the CMS, Doon Hospital, Dr RK Pant, said, “The administration has not zeroed down on the place to relocate the post-mortem house. We need a modern mortuary that is equipped with modern coolants.

“At present, we have one at Doon Hospital where the bodies are kept for few hours only. The present post-mortem house was built when the population of Doon was less, but now the area has become congested.”

According to the Director-General’s office, there are a total of 22 post-mortem houses in the state. In 2007-2008, the construction of seven post-mortem houses was sanctioned.

In 2008-2009, 11 new post-mortem houses have been sanctioned. These include two at Udham Singh Nagar (at Bajpur and Sitarganj), in Haridwar 3, (at Luxor, Narsan and Bhagwanpur), in Chamoli 1, (at Joshimath), 1 at Bageshwar, 1 at Ram Nagar (Nainital), 1 at Tyuni, 1 at Dharchula (Pithoragarh) and 1 at Pratap Nagar (Tehri).

A total of 18 new post-mortem houses have been sanctioned in the past four years on which work is underway.

The proposed support budget for the construction of post-mortem houses for 2008-2009 is Rs 1.27 crore for eight post-mortem houses located in town areas, while Rs 64.12 lakh has been sanctioned for construction of post-mortem houses falling under rural areas at Pratap Nagar, Tyuni and Dharchula.

Pitthoragarh, May 23
Due to a massive landslide at Tawaghat in Pitthoragarh district that damaged the motorable road, pilgrims to Kailash Mansarovar this year will have to spend two extra days on their pilgrimage.

This year, the yatra will be of 28 days instead of 26 days as one extra camp at Pangla has been made. This is in addition to five traditional camps at Gala, Bundhi, Gunji, Kalapani and Nabhidhang on the 76-km-long trek to Lipulekh pass before crossing into Chinese Tibet to Mansarovar.

Ashok Joshi, general manager, Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN), a state government undertaking that supervises the annual pilgrimage, said that the Kailash Mansarovar yatra for 2009 will begin on June 1 from New Delhi and culminate on September 26 when the last batch of pilgrims reaches New Delhi. This year, the yatra will have 16 batches.

“As the pilgrims will have to travel 8 km from Chetalkot to Tawaghat due to the debris of landslides at Chetalkot, we have arranged the first camp at Pangla keeping in view the comforts of the pilgrims,” said Ashok Joshi.

The landslide in Chetalkot that occurred on February 6 has not been cleared so far. Due to this debris, the vehicle of the pilgrims will travel up to Chetalkot from base camp Dharchula.

Then the pilgrims will have to cover a distance of 8 km on foot via a bypass up to Tawaghat and reach Pangla by local jeeps hired by the KMVN.

The pilgrims then have to walk on foot all along Kali river that forms the border between India and Nepal on one of the most treacherous treks up to Lipulekh Pass on the Indo-China border.

From Lipulekh pass, pilgrims will be taken by the Chinese authorities in buses up to Kailash Mansarovar.

The traditional Kailash Mansarovar yatra was terminated after the India-China war in 1962 and was resumed in 1981. The yatra begins on June 1 every year and concludes on September 24 when the last batch of pilgrims returns to New Delhi after 26 days (this year: 28 days) that includes 12 days spent in the Chinese territory of Tibet.

(The writer is a freelance journalist from Pitthoragarh)

Dehradun, May 23
The Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) is finding itself in troubled waters for assuming a rude and negligent attitude over the issue of providing affiliation to Uttarakhand cricket associations for the many years. The BCCI has been issued a notice to give its reply on June 1.

The board had received an application from a journalist based in Dehradun under the Right to Information Act on March 30 seeking information over the amount of time needed by the BCCI to grant affiliation to the state along with some other queries.

But even after one month, the BCCI failed to answer the query. This forced Raju Gusain, a local journalist to forward an application to Dr Suresh Vinayakrao Joshi, State Information Commissioner, Mumbai, under the Right to Information Act.

The BCCI now has to appear in Maharashtra Suchana Ayog giving reasons for the delay in providing answers and the reason for showing an apathetic attitude towards granting affiliation to the state.

The matter of Uttarakhand’s affiliation is pending in BCCI for a long time now. The BCCI working committee in September last year decided to grant affiliation in to Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh state associations while Uttarakhand was denied affiliation.

It was claimed in the working committee meeting that four cricket associations of Uttarakhand has applied for affiliation. Therefore, the BCCI needed time to know about their credentials.

Even after, eight months since the working committee meeting took place in September, no BCCI team has paid a visit to the state to obtain information about the genuineness of any particular association.

Neither has the Board specified any particular date when the matter will be addressed.

The move may have come at the right time with the BCCI about to call its working committee meeting in the first week of June.

The associations in Dehradun are tight-lipped over the whole affair saying that the move could bear positive or negative fruit. They were not willing to make a statement over the issue just to stay away from any kind of tangle.

Dehradun, May 23
After working on a war footing for almost a fortnight, Uttarakhand Animal Husbandry Department yesterday claimed that the equine influenza that struck the horses and mules in Kedarnath area of the state was fully under control with no fresh case being reported from the region for past few days.

“The influenza is completely under control and situation at Gaurikund is fast limping back to normalcy,” said Dr VP Singh, additional director, Animal Husbandry Department.

He said the affected horses and mules were fast on the way to recovery.

Meanwhile, district authorities at Rudraprayag have appealed to charitable and other voluntary organisations to come forward with assistance to ensure adequate feed to horses and mules.

Uttarakhand Animal Husbandry was taken in for surprise this year as mules and horses that form a key means of transport to reach the shrine of Kedarnath as part of Char Dham Yatra suffered an influenza attack.

About 40 horses and mules died due to the influenza.

Horses, mules and donkeys are very important means of transportation in the hill areas of the state and other farm uses.

According to rough estimates there are more than 25,000 horses in the state.

Mules and horses have been used extensively for ferrying pilgrims from Gaurikund to Kedarnath, a prominent trek route leading to shrine of Kedarnath.