Dehradun, October 15
Close on the heels of visit by Vishwa Hindu Prishad (VHP) international president Ashok Singhal and saints from Akhara Parishad to Uttarkashi, the Congress has also come out with a demand to ban the entry of Singhal in the state.

Senior state Congress leader and former spokesperson of the state unit Suryakant Dhasmana in Uttarkashi today demanded that the entry of Singhal should be banned in the state in the wake of his demand to stop work on hydro-electric projects on the Bhagirathi river.

Dhasmana said the people of Uttarkashi were all for the construction of these projects and were perturbed at the stoppage of the three projects following pressure from the Sangh Parivar. “These projects without affecting the flow of the Ganga will bring prosperity in the state,” he said.

He also blamed the ruling BJP leaders of indulging in double talk on the crucial issue. “On the one hand, Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank is talking about starting the projects while former Chief Minister Khanduri is saying that his decision to stop the projects was right. While the Chief Minister asks the Centre to start the projects, on the other hand he is hand in glove with Sangh Parivar leaders,” Dhasmana charged.

He said the Congress was for building of these projects as well as flow of the Ganga. He further alleged that the Sangh Parivar leaders, who earlier tried to exploit Ram Mandir issues at Ayodhaya, now wanted to exploit the issue of the Ganga. “They should give account of the money collected in the name of the Ram temple throughout the country,” he demanded.

Earlier, on last Sunday, Singhal and various saints from Akhara Parishad visited the Loharinag Pala power project built by the National Thermal Power corporation (NTPC) near Uttarkashi and demanded immediate ban on the projects.

Talking to mediapersons, Singhal, along with sant Gyan Dass of Akhara Parishad and Janata Party president Subramaniyam Swami, demanded a complete ban on all hydro-electric projects on the Bhagirathi river.

The VHP delegation visited various hydro-electric projects on the Bhagirathi. Singhal said building of hydro-electric projects would mean death of the Ganga that was considered a mother by the Hindus.

Asked about the demand by locals of starting the project on the ground that thousands of families would be affected by it’s closure, Singhal replied that no employment was worth by destroying mother Ganga.

Already the Loharinag Pala project by the NTPC and two projects of the state government, namely Pala Maneri and Bhairon Ghati on the Bhagirathi river, have been put on hold following objections from Hindu saints and scholars.

Subramaniyam Swami called for focusing on small hydel projects instead of big ones.

Dehradun, October 15
Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank administered the oath of office and secrecy to seven BJP legislators as parliamentary secretaries at a function in the Secretariat here today.

Those who were sworn in as parliamentary secretaries were Asha Nautiyal, Prem Chand Aggarwal, Arvind Pandey, Govind Lal Shah, Gopal Singh Rawat, Chandan Ramdass and Diwan Singh Bisht.

The Chief Minister, speaking on the occasion, said his government was committed to the welfare of the common masses and the appointment of the parliamentary secretaries was another step in that direction.

He further said the parliamentary secretaries would be aligned with different ministers to help them do their parliamentary work.

The move by the Chief Minister was to win over the party legislators who had been waiting for long for plum positions after the BJP came to power in the 2007 Assembly elections.

The party legislators revolted against former Chief Minister BC Khanduri as he had failed to give them any position.

Interestingly, Khanduri, along with senior BJP leaders, was present on the occasion.

Speaker Harbansk Kapoor, ministers and senior officials were also present.

Dehradun, October 15
The Uttarakhand police today inked an agreement with the Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) for improving coordination between the control room and the emergency response centre-108.

IG (Garhwal Range) MA Ganapathy said the mutually beneficial relationship would help in increasing the over-all working of the police. “In an emergency situation, the police is the first responder, but our responses may be inadequate during disasters for a lack of training. The understanding reached at today would help us enhance our skills while tackling disasters like earthquakes and landslides,” said Ganapathy.

He said the EMRI was providing first-aid training to the police. “Though the number of road accidents remained the same this year, the casualties have considerably reduced,” stressed Ganapathy.

On the other hand, Principal Secretary Keshav Desi Raju said the casualties had been less this year due to active cooperation between the police and EMRI-108 ambulance service.

“Now, the administration has to gear up for the upcoming Kumbh mela. It will be a challenge for us to manage such a huge congregation, but we have to ensure that everything passes off smoothly,” said Raju.

While Anoop Nautiyal, CEO of GVK EMRI-108, said since the launch of the emergency services, the police had been actively supporting them.

Besides, the agreement covers three major areas of coordination between the Uttarakhand police and the EMRI-108 to share information and data that can be used for improving their overall services and several mutually beneficial training programmes. It has already begun a training programme for police personnel for preparations of the Maha Kumbh slated for January.

In a span of 17 months, the Uttarakhand police and the EMRI-108 have jointly dealt with over 17,000 medico-legal emergencies and more than 14,000 road traffic accidents. 

Haridwar, October 15
With Maha Kumbh barely a few months away, the Kumbh administration is clearing the Bairagi camp area, which forms a major part in putting up tents.

With the administration likely to remove the illegal colony shelters soon, the colony people have made a unique demand from the state government saying that if it can’t provide land to them, they should be allotted space on the moon!

In a memorandum to the state government under the Jhuggi-Jhopdi Sangarsh Samiti, members of the Bairagi camp said despite assurances from the state government and respective political parties of shifting them to another place, nothing had been done.

“With Kumbh now on the threshold, once again our shelters will be destroyed.

Where will we go, that’s the question we ask from the overnment,” said Rajendra Garib Das of the samiti.

On the delay in the allotment of space to them, Garib Das said if the government was finding land availability tough in Haridwar then it’s better it sees land on moon for us.

The samiti members had met Urban Development Minister Madan Kaushik who had assured them that without proper rehabilitation they will not be removed.

A few months back too the administration had started an anti-encroachment drive, which due to political pressure had to be stopped midway.

People residing here have ration cards, electric and water bills and play a pivotal role during elections.

Haridwar, October 15
After Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Mela Officer Anand Vardhan coming down heavily on the sluggish and inferior quality of Kumbh works, now District Magistrate (DM) of Haridwar R Meenakshi Sundaram has taken a strong cognizance of the sorry state of affairs regarding sanitation and cleanliness in the city.

With the city to host the Maha Kumbh in less than three months, the sewage, dirt and garbage spread out in the city doesn’t give any indication that such a big event is going to be held. And the DM has taken the issue quite seriously.

On a personal inspection of the cleanliness in various parts of the city, Sundaram took a strong exception to the laxity of municipal committee workers. Late in the evening he suspended two workers on finding them neglecting their duty.

The DM has warned that strict action will be taken if drains remain choked and garbage is not taken away on a daily basis.

With the municipal committee embroiled in a political chaos and sanitation workers on strike every now and then, besides there being a shortage of staff, the state of cleanliness in the city only worsens.

Notably with lakhs of tourists visiting the city, apart from the garbage created by the resident population too burdens the city with plastic and garbage.

However, under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission the city has got a Compost plant under the Solid Waste Management Project which is being constructed at Jwalapur.

Dehradun, October 15
In the recently concluded bidding round of the National Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP)-VIII, for which offers closed on October 12, the ONGC has bagged maximum bids.

The ONGC, in partnership with certain consortia, submitted bids for 25 oil and gas exploration blocks, of which it won 17 blocks.

In respect of deep-water blocks, the ONGC had submitted seven bids and has won all of them. Of these seven blocks, one block is located in the KG offshore and the rest in the Andaman offshore. The ONGC is the operator in six blocks and a consortium partner in one block in the KG offshore, where M/s British Gas is the operator.

In another block, the ONGC is a joint operator with M/s Oil India Ltd. “Our consortia partners in these blocks are M/s British Gas (BG), Oil India Ltd (OIL), Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Ltd (GSPC), Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL), National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd (NTPC) and Andhra Pradesh Gas Infrastructure Corporation (APGIC),” RS Sharma, CMD, ONGC, said.

In the shallow waters, the ONGC submitted seven bids and won six out of them. These blocks are in the offshore areas of Kutch, Cauvery and Krishna-Godavari. M/s OIL is the operator for the Cauvery Block, while in the other five blocks the ONGC is the operator.

For the on-land blocks, the ONGC had submitted bids for 11 blocks and won four of these, three as operator and one as consortia member, where M/s OIL is the operator. Our consortia partners are M/s OIL and GSPC.

The ONGC had also submitted bids for three coal bed methane (CBM) blocks offered under the CBM-IV round, but none of the blocks was awarded to it.

Commenting on the outcome of this bid round, Sharma said the overall response to the bid round had been on expected lines. Primarily, a lack of investors’ interest for exploration across the world had been the reason for a lower number of bids. Also, a lack of clarity on the likely gas price implementation and the taxation regime could have contributed to a below-par response to the bidding round.

As regards the results relating to the blocks won by the ONGC, Sharma expressed satisfaction. “Strategically, we had targeted to win high-risk-high-return blocks and also the virgin areas in the exploration frontiers, especially in deep waters,” Sharma commented.

“The results are in absolute conformity to our bidding strategy”.

In the earlier seven rounds, the ONGC had won almost 50 per cent of the awarded blocks. Keeping with the trend, in the NELP-VIII bidding round also, the ONGC has won 17 out of the 36 blocks for which results have been provisionally declared on October 12.