Dehradun, September 14
Underlying the importance of water, Chief Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank today said water was life and the time may not be far when wars would be fought on water and its ownership.

He said availability of water in the state was at a comfortable level, but efforts had to be made for its conservation on a priority basis.

“The effort of Sachidananda who performed a marathon feat at Pauri by creating a water sanctuary has to be repeated elsewhere”.

The Chief Minister was speaking today at the inaugural session of the Indo-German Workshop on Source Treatment and Distribution of Drinking Water organised by the Uttarakhand State Council for Science and Technology (UCOST), Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan and University of Applied Sciences Dresden, Germany.

He said that along with conservation of water, the state faces a challenge in the form of equitable distribution of water for all.

In his address, Prof Thomas Grischek of University of Applied Sciences said to provide safe drinking water to a growing population is a huge challenge but it can be made possible through the use of technology.

“Ready access to low-cost technology for water supply and treatment can solve most of our problems,” he said.

Indu Kumar Pande, Chief Secretary, Uttarakhand, said that the sustainability of a drinking water supply system depends on consumption levels and any form of belligerence can disturb the water regime.”

The Minister of Drinking Water Supply and Planning Prakash Pant said water was important for economic growth.

He said 15,545 revenue villages in the state had drinking water supply, but a huge amount of water is wasted through leakages and theft.

“For sustainable water supply, stress should be on water-harvesting,” Pant said.

Dehradun, September 14
As part of its special campaign to cleanse the Ganga, 500 cadets of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) converged at Doodiyaghat in Haridwar to clean the river. The cadets used several boats of the Naval NCC unit for the purpose.

The current campaign had commenced with a trekking expedition along the routes of the origin of the Ganga. The cadets staged street shows, plays, rallies and talked to local habitants to involve them in cleaning river banks at various places.

Major-Gen Ashok Sinha, Additional Director-General (B), DGNCC, while addressing the cadets, said: “It’s the beginning of the campaign. We have NCC units spread across the entire length of the Ganga, which are going to undertake the task of making the river pollution free. The campaign, Save Ganga, is scheduled to be conducted during this month at Fatehgarh, Allahabad, Kanpur and Varanasi by NCC’s Uttar Pradesh Directorate and at Buxar, Chapra, Patna and Munger by Bihar and Jharkhand directorates”. This is a holistic environment preservation programme launched by the largest uniformed youth organisation in India.

General Sinha, while stating that the NCC has remained in the forefront of social services, revealed it had launched a well-coordinated campaign to created awareness on need to rid the revered rivers, that are the lifeline of the country, of pollution.

Brig PPS Pahwa, Deputy Director-General of the Uttarakhand NCC Directorate, congratulated the cadets for their assiduous efforts. He said all NCC units of the state would undertake the cleaning of the Ganga once every month. Listing the details of the present exercise, Brigadier Pahwa said 500 cadets, hailing from different states, commenced the campaign on September 3 after an orientation training in Dehradun. The trekking destinations included Shri Hemkunt Sahib, Valley of Flowers, Rudrayprayag, Karanprayag and Badrinath.

The cadets organised rallies, lectures, cultural programmes, street plays and physical cleaning of the river banks at Srinagar, Chamoli, Joshimath and Rishikesh. 

Dehradun, September 14
Nagar Nigam and Vijay Cantt teams played a draw at the ongoing Dehradun Football League at pavilion grounds here today. In another match, Eleven Star beat Khukri by 2-0. Despite dominating the match, Vijay Cantt failed to register a win in the match. It was due to some poor finishing by its forward line that forced them to draw the match against the Nagar Nigam.

Vijay Cantt began the match on an aggressive note. They came close on scoring a goal in the 15th minute of the first half. But, a fumble by its forward wasted the opportunity. In the 20th minute, Vijay Cantt was on the attack. It was yet again the fault of its forward who misdirected the shot to miss out on scoring again.

In the second half, Vijay Cantt finally scored a goal in the first minute of the half through Prashant. But, Nagar Nigam scored the equaliser in the 51st minute through Sagar.

Meanwhile, in the second match Eleven Star defeated Khukri. Eleven Star scored the first goal in the 22nd minute of the match through Nitin to have a upper hand in the match. Second goal came soon for the team in the 35th minute, this time through team forward Dharam.

Khukri made repeated attempts to reduce the lead, but their efforts failed to fetch a goal and the match ended 2-0 in Khukri’s favour.

Dehradun, September 14
Raja Ram Mohan Rai and St Joseph Academy (SJA) won their matches at the ongoing Council School Football Tournament here today.

The SJA team continued its winning spree in the tournament defeating Summer Valley School 3-0.

SJA scored their first goal in the 10th minute of the match.

It was SJA forward Aryan who scored off a powerful kick from the top of the striking circle. Eight minutes later, Janvijay scored the second goal for SJA. He dodged two defenders before beating Summer Valley goalkeeper all quarters.

The third goal for SJA came in the 22nd minute through Abhay.

After conceding the third goal, Summer Valley looked demoralised.

In the second half, Summer Valley did well to stop SJA from scoring any more goals. But they failed to reduce the lead.

In the second match, Raja Ram Mohan Rai Academy outplayed North Point School by a solitary goal. Raja Ram Mohan Rai struck early through Ankit in the third minute of the match.

Dehradun, September 14
The police and the college authorities strictly implementing the instructions they had given to student organisations after Saturday’s violence at DAV (PG) College, it was a peaceful canvassing at the college today.

In order to stop the entry of outsiders in the college, no student was allowed to enter the college without showing his identity card. There was also ample police force at the college to control any untoward incident. Wherever any big group of students gathered, the police instantly reached and dispersed them.

The entry of the outsiders was banned after the alleged inclusion of non-college students in the campaign rally, which later turned into a clash leaving several injured. The college staff and the police kept glued to the entry gate till about 1 pm.

The college wore almost a deserted look today compared to previous days. Only the students who had to get their identity cards stamped to be able for casting vote on September 16 or had to deposit their college fee were seen standing in queues at college counters. However, student organisations’ members didn’t leave any chance to approach those who came to the college, albeit silently.

Election officer Davinder Tyagi said everything passed off peacefully. There was not even a minor incident of non-social activity. He added the same strict restrictions would be implemented tomorrow as well.

Jagat Ram Joshi, City SP, said outsiders were not allowed to enter the college and around 250 police personnel were deployed to manage the college elections. Two companies of Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and one of the woman PAC were deployed at the college, he added.

Dehradun, September 14
The victory of the ruling BJP candidate from the Vikasnagar Assembly byelection has come as a shot in the arm for new Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank. On the other hand it reflects badly on the management of the election by the Congress.

The victory not only gives the BJP a majority in the state Assembly, but personally it is a big morale booster for Chief Minister Nishank, who took over the reins of the state from Maj-Gen BC Khanduri (retd) in June.

He spearheaded the election campaign and working at the grassroots level proved that he has the necessary political acumen to steer the party to victory in a difficult election.

Nishank played his cards well and was able to not only motivate his own partymen, who were demoralised by the crushing Lok Sabha defeat, to work tirelessly, but also managed to win over the disgruntled local Congress leaders, who were feeling humiliated by the attitude of senior party leaders, including the party candidate for the seat.

Nav Prabhat, son of former Union Minister Brahmdutt, had won the first Assembly elections, held in 2002, by a razor-thin margin of 58 votes to became a Minister of Urban Development and Forest in the Narain Datt Tiwari ministry. Munna Singh Chauhan had stood second.

In 2007 Assembly elections, Nav Prabhat was defeated by Munna Singh Chauhan, who contested as the BJP candidate by a margin of more than 3,000 votes. Munna resigned from the BJP as well as from the legislature necessitating the bypoll.

The Congress campaign was disjointed. Party candidate Nav Prabhat was confident of his victory and arrogantly complacent. Instead of winning friends, he targeted his partymen and forced them to quit the party on the eve of elections. Raghunath Singh Negi, a young party leader, who had contested the 2007 Assembly election as a NCP candidate securing more than 3,000 votes, was forced to quit the party.

Negi and his team of young workers were immediately lapped by the Chief Minister, who got them into the BJP honourably.

Most of the senior party leaders were either not interested or disheartened by the attitude of the party candidate to campaign vigorously. Only two party leaders, namely state party chief Yashpal Arya and Tehri Garhwal MP Vijay Bahuguna, did token campaigning. “The party candidate was not interested in inviting any senior leader,” confided a senior Congress leader. On the other hand, three former Chief Ministers of the BJP campaigned for the party candidate.

Moreover, a senior Congress leader from the Jaunsar area of the segment was also working against the party. 

Dehradun, September 14
The formulation of a tourism policy based on partnership between the industry and the state government with well-defined framework will go a long way in the development of the state. This was stated by Madan Kaushik, Tourism Minister, at an interactive session organised by the CII Uttarakhand State Council here today.

Kaushik welcomed specific ideas from stakeholders while emphasising that an active and a vibrant partnership among private players and the government was the key to leveraging tourism potential of the state. He shared some of the key initiatives being proposed by the state government for the development of the tourism sector.

Additional Secretary, Tourism, Rajeev Bhartari said for the new projects being envisaged, the role of the government was more towards providing basic infrastructure.

Chairman, CII State Council, Rakesh Oberai, while presenting a growth road map for tourism in Uttarakhand said the potential of the sector was tremendous, but still it remained largely untapped. He added this sector had the potential to be the single most important driver of the state’s economy by generating significant revenues for the government. The two-tier model presented by him emphasised on provisions for a single-window system for tourism projects, a grievance redressal system as well as the critical issue of land availability for tourism projects.

Regarding another key issue of multiplicity of taxes and a narrow tax base, the roadmap suggested a comprehensive review of taxes, for simplification, rationalisation and also broadening of the tax base by exploring tax models based on “bed user charges”.

The CII recommended a separate policy on the lines of the Rajasthan’s Tourism Unit policy, which covers all accommodation providers and not just the classified hotels.

Other key recommendations included an improved interstate connectivity, implementation of the industry status to the tourism sector, accreditation of tour operators and other service providers, better urban infrastructure at tourism destinations, including transport services, comprehensive updated website with linkages to accredited service providers, academy for rafting and allied sports and the promotion of handicrafts and souvenir industry.