Dehradun, October 26
Congress legislators and MPs today started an indefinite dharna in front of the residence of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank here in protest against the non-fulfilment of their demands.

It was Congress MLA Manoj Tewari who had decided to sit on a hunger strike regarding the acute drinking water crisis at Almora town in the Kumaon region represented by him in the assembly. He got support from all party legislators and the party organisation.

Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment Harish Rawat also joined the dharna. Speaking on the occasion, he lambasted the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for ignoring democratic norms and discriminating with the works to be done in the assembly segments of Opposition legislators.

He charged that from the time the BJP government came to power in the state, the pace of development in Uttarakhand had come to a grinding halt.

“It was due to the short-sightedness that the Nano plant went from Pantnagar to Gujarat as the former BJP Chief Minister Major-Gen BC Khanduri (retd) failed to provide them land for the plant,” he said.

Rawat alleged that the BJP government lacked direction and was only trying to stem internal dissidence by giving positions of powers to its legislators and leaders.

Commenting on the accusations by the BJP government of discrimination by the central government, Rawat said the Union government had given whatever was demanded by the state government.

But he lamented that the state government had failed to utilise the funds given by the Centre for various schemes whether it was the Kumbh Mela or the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

He also accused the state government of implicating Congress workers in false police cases. “They should stop the politics of vendetta,” he said.

Leader of Opposition Harak Singh Rawat, Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress chief Yashpal Arya, party legislators Manoj Tewari, Pritam Singh, Kishore Upadhaya, Kunwar Parnav Singh ‘Champion’ and Tilak Raj Behad sat on the dharna.

Pardeep Tamta, Congress MP from Almora, said the long-pending demands of Almora for a medical college and drinking water had not been fulfilled by the present BJP government despite being in power for the past two-and-a-half years. He said people living in remote hilly areas were suffering due to shortage of doctors and health facilities.

Yashpal Arya, the state Congress chief, charged that the state BJP government had miserably failed on all fronts and even the announcements made by former Chief Minister Khanduri had not been met.

Tewari said Almora town had been facing an acute drinking water shortage since the town got only 7 MLD of drinking water as compared to the demand of 11 MLD of water every day.

“The demand shoots up during summer while the supply drops down to 4.5 MLD,” he added.

He said he had been raising the demand for start of the Almora-Saryu-Seraghat Pumping Scheme for the past three years, but without success. “Only this scheme and a barrage on the Kosi river can solve the drinking water problem of Almora town,” said Tewari.

He said the Almora-Saryu-Seraghat Pumping scheme was prepared by the Jal Nigam, but was not implemented on the ground. It had been hanging fire ever since.

Tewari said in a letter written to the Chief Minister a month ago, he had requested him to do something urgently to solve the problem or he would be forced to sit on a dharna outside his house from October 26.

Haridwar, October 26
After the much-hyped state BJP unit’s Mission 2012 Assembly election, Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has now gone beyond that vision with a new mantra - Mission 2020.

Unlike the 2012 mantra, which caters only to the party restoring the mandate in the then Assembly elections, Mission 2020 is to make Uttarakhand the number one state and is a personal milestone set up by Nishank.

He unveiled his vision in Haridwar today after attending various functions in the city. He was the chief guest at the Gurukul Kangri College function. Then he listened to complaints at the Janta Darshan programme, addressed BJP workers convention and briefed mediapersons later.

He said till now 2012 was the main aim, but if one had to make Uttarakhand the number one state, it had to be number one in all fields.

“If everyone joins hands and thinks positively for the state, this target is achievable. A major part of this can be accomplished through party workers who should work honestly and wholeheartedly,” he said.

Nishank lashed out at the Congress party, particularly at Union Minister of State and Haridwar MP Harish Rawat for wrongly projecting that the state government was not serious about Maha Kumbh works.

Nishank said while in the last Maha Kumbh in 1998, the total expenditure on the projects and works was a meagre Rs 34 crore, this time on permanent works alone more than Rs 200 crore had been spent.

Terming the Maha Kumbh not only the state government’s priority, he said it should also be the central government’s priority.

Pointing out at massive fundings of the Commonwealth Games and other sporting events, he indirectly said the central government was not serious about the Maha Kumbh.

“Maha Kumbh is the biggest fair in the world and is more important than small sports events. The central government has allotted just Rs 400 crore for Maha Kumbh,” said Nishank.

Dehradun, October 26
Despite being the lone regional party in Uttarakhand, the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) has failed to emerge as a serious electoral contender to pose a challenge either to the Congress or the BJP.

A recent study on the recent Lok Sabha elections conducted by the Doon Library and Research Centre (DLRC) asserts, “The UKD, though claiming to be the main champion of the idea of a separate state of Uttarakhand, has been only a marginal player in both 2004 and 2009 general elections, as also in the elections of the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha prior to that when its tally never exceeded one seat”.

The study conducted by BK Joshi who is the Director of the DLRC and Amit Verma who is a research officer in the Finance Department of the state government, clearly states, “The UKD cannot lay claim to any significant electoral support in the state. Unlike the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) it is not in a position to have a serious effect on the electoral fortunes of any party or candidate or even play the role of a spoiler”.

The researchers have stated that in 2004, the party had contested four of the five parliamentary seats and its best performance had been in Almora where it managed only 5.4 per cent of the votes polled.

“In 2009 it contested all five seats. Despite its support to the BJP government in the state, where it also had one minister in the cabinet, it could not better its performance.

“Once again its best performance was in Almora, but its vote share slipped to 2.3 per cent this time. The overall vote share of the party in the state was only 1.6 per cent in 2004, which declined to 1.2 per cent in 2009,” the study says.

It has been pointed that the party can only hope to play a role in state politics by being a satellite of either the BJP (which it is at present) or the Congress, if it captures power in the state in a future election.

“Even this role it can hope to play only if the assembly election results throw up either a plurality, but not a clear majority, or a razor-thin majority for either party, and the UKD itself gets a sufficient number of seats to be in a position to provide some degree of stability to the government, as happened after the 2007 state assembly elections,” say Joshi and Verma.

Dehradun, October 26
Three years after the enactment of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the state has failed to appoint full-time protection officers in the 13 districts of the state. Instead Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) project officers have been entrusted with the additional responsibility.

At the monitoring meeting on the Act, held today by the Mahila Samakhya, the State Project Office, the attention of Minister for Women Empowerment and Child Welfare Vijay Bartwal, who presided over the meeting, was drawn towards the non-serious attitude of the government in the appointment of full-time protection officers and the absence of regular budgetary allocations for them, in full violation of the provisions of the Act.

The Act clearly states that committees have to be formed at the district level and a full-time protection officer, under whom the cases will be registered and filed in courts, should be appointed.

“But things have come to such a pass that women here are taking the service of lawyers to file cases, as the protection officers appointed by the government are not legally educated nor have any expertise to handle such cases in full violation of the Act,” said Geeta Gairola, project director, Mahila Samakhya, that has undertaken studies from time to time.

These committees are chaired by district magistrates and become functional only when the meetings are called. “In some districts where the protection officers are active, their work is hampered by non-existent facilities and budgetary allocation,” said Geeta.

Meanwhile, Dehradun district tops the list with 318 cases registered under the Act, followed by 22 cases in Pithoragarh and 16 cases in Udham Singh Nagar. So far, a total of 392 cases have been taken up and only 62 cases are pending in the state, as per the data provided by ICDS, Uttarakhand. 

Dehradun, October 26
In protest against the delay in the formulation of the state Panchayat Raj Act, pradhans of the Gram Sangathan, Uttarakhand, submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal calling for early drafting of the Act.

Vice-president of the organisation Umed Vohra said the state Act would go a long way in strengthening the panchayats. “The powers of the pradhans have been curtailed as the bureaucrats are dominating the day-to-day functioning of the panchayats,” he said.

An order passed by the Secretary, School Education, has relegated the Nirman Samiti that was constituted by the Gram Panchayat under the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan has been transferred which is against the spirit of the Panchayat Raj Acts 32 and 32 (4).

“The Section 32 of the Panchayat Raj Act states that for every gram panchayat a gram nidhi (village fund) would be created which would be jointly handled by the pradhan of the panchayat and secretary. As such the arbitrary decision by the bureaucrats without taking the pradhan into confidence has violated the spirit of the Act,” said Vohra.

The members of the association said similar arbitrary decisions had been taken in the past without taking the pradhans into confidence. As such the need for a state Act was all the more needed, they said.

Dehradun, October 26
Uttarakhand nurses will be back on full duty in government hospitals after the state Health Department released a circular accepting their long-pending demands.

There was jubilation and joy as the beaming nurses announced the resumption of full duty from today onwards.

“The government has accepted all our demands by increasing nursing, boarding, uniform and washing allowances as demanded by us,” said Anjana Bhowmik secretary, Uttarakhand Nurses Service Association.

Staff nurses had been reporting for one shift only for the past six days protesting against the non-fulfilment of their pending demands.

The three state hospitals began buzzing with activity as the nurses resumed their duties in the evening.

What sealed matters was a communiqué issued by the Principal Secretary, Health, KD Raju that announced revised allowances for the nurses.

The nurses have been demanding upgradation of grade pay scale so that their salaries reach parity with that of Central government nurses, timely promotion and enhancement of uniform, nursing and washing allowances.

“The government has raised our allowances under nursing allowances from Rs 115 to Rs 1,150 per month and uniform allowance from Rs 1,437.50 (per five years) to Rs 500 per month, washing allowance rate from Rs 50 per month to Rs 300 per month, said state president of the association SK Singh. 

Dehradun, October 26
The Friends of the Doon Society with the help of SNK Sammarak organised a 10-day poultry farm training on kuroiler in Pant Nagar for the youth of Rasulpur village. This was part of the efforts being made to provide a source of income to people of the village as well as nutritional security.

Kuroiler is a variety of multi-coloured chicken, scientifically developed and has all attributes of the village chicken in terms of colour, hardiness and ability to thrive in scavenging conditions without any major change in traditional husbandry practices. At the same time, it has the advantage of high yields and egg production capacity.

Kuroiler males attain 1 kg bodyweight in about 60 days compared to 1 kg bodyweight in 240 days by the non-descriptive village chicken. Egg-laying capacity is 180 to 200 eggs compared to the 40 eggs produced by traditional village chicken in one year laying period.

The training programme is to the benefit of these youth from Rasulpur village, situated on the southern side of Rajaji National Park, a home of wild elephants. As the village is adjacent to the park and almost cut off from the nearby city, villagers do not have a proper source of earning and are heavily dependent on the forest, which is shrinking and increasing the conflict between men and wild elephants.

According to project leader Arijit Bannerji, providing the training to the village youth is another endeavour of the Friends to reduce this dependency on forests.

The Friends, with the help of the Elephant Family Multi Fund and United Nations Development Programme, has worked over the past three years in setting up this village as a model village and help the poor villagers find alternative sources of income, as well as save the forests and the wildlife inhabiting there.

Dehradun, October 26
A bank manager was today apprehended red-handed while accepting a bribe for sanctioning of a loan.

In a well-planned manner, Vikas Nagar police officials nabbed Uttaranchal Gramin Vikas Bank, Selaqui, manager Sudama Prasad Jaiswal while he was taking Rs 2,000 from Lal Singh, a resident of Sherpur Vikas Nagar.

Lal Singh had sought a loan of Rs 1.50 lakh from Uttaranchal Gramin Vikas Bank, Selaqui, following which Jaiswal had asked for a bribe of Rs 5,000 for sanctioning his loan.

The manager sought this amount in two instalments.

Lal Singh brought the matter to the knowledge of the police.

Led by SP Brijesh Juyal, the police laid a trap and caught the manager, along with the bribe of Rs 2,000 in his office today.

The police has registered a case against the bank manager.

Neighbours crush youth to death

A youth was killed today by his neighbours who crushed his head after they had an altercation with him in the Patelnagar area.

Victim Raj Bahadur, 27, who worked as a labourer, had an altercation with Surender and Tony, when the latter came to his house in an inebriated state last night.

During the course of heated verbal exchanges, Raj slapped Surender.

Today early morning when Raj was watering the fields, Surender and Tony killed him by crushing his head and subsequently threw his body into a drain.

The Patelnagar police, immediately swung into action and sent a team to Bihar to arrested the two, who are absconding.