Dehradun, April 1
The scratched and faded board, old-fashioned tarnished gate and no guard at the entrance depicts the pathetic condition of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), Uttarakhand.

The centre is in a state of losing its existence soon in the Doon valley if nothing is done to conserve it. The YWCA, which is a part of Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), is an age-old charitable institution formed by a handful of young British group to cater to the problems as well as issues of women all over the world.

The YWCA is also into education and providing vocational training at an affordable fee structure. Anees-Ur-Rehman, project development officer, said, “The YWCA centre is standing on the donated property of Ann Sarah to be used as elderly home for the poor and needy Anglo-Indian women who are disowned by their relatives. At that point of time, 20 women were staying at the centre, but the number has decreased after Sarah’s demise due to lack of funds that could not be raised.

Moreover, the YWCA is in a joint venture with HelpAge India, but receives no grants or financial assistance from their end. Ration has been cut short into one time mid-day meal now as the YWCA is not in a state of feeding the aged thrice a day. The institute is looking for genuine donors and charitable organisations, which can actually take initiatives in joining hands with the centre for a noble cause”.

The centre is located on about 1 acre of land with orchards of litchis and other flowers grown by elderly members of the home, but is in a deteriorating condition now. The institute is unable to raise funds to provide meals, proper care, security, rations, medical aids and pocket money through the production and sale of edibles like papad, pickle, namkeen and small production of edibles.

Chairperson of the YWCA project Victoria Gyan said, “The reason behind the deterioration of this renowned institution is the deficit funds and socio-economic background. Presently, we have 30 persons in the oldage home (22 women and eight men, all above 65 years of age) who come at 8 am, spend some time at the centre, work there, take their mid-day meal and go home in the evening. Another reason of the decline is that there is no officiating general secretary at the headquarters in Delhi for about four years that made the work more lethargic and laidback”.

“We are now ready with our proposals of renovation and reviving the institute. I shall meet officials in Delhi and try to give them a wake-up call for saving the existence of the institute in Uttarakhand. We are also looking forward to collaborate with the Lions Club, Rotary Club and Sikh Welfare Society that will set up a proper source of funds and compensatory aid during eye as well as health camps,” Victoria Gyan added.

Perhaps, the institution is planning to begin with cooking and spoken-English classes soon for women in their self-supporting programmes to empower women. The classes that are already being run at the YWCA are of computer, stitching and beauty parlour courses. The institute believes in providing training and technical assistance to women so that they are self-reliant.

Dehradun, April 1
Pressure is building up on the Irrigation Department to start the Jamrani Dam project in the state, which has come to a halt due to the intervention from the Forest Department. The employees association has demanded that the project be started soon.

The state, which has been constantly struggling with the paucity of electricity and water, will be able to generate 30 MW electricity, 160 MLD water supply, sufficient till year 2026 through this project, which has been budgeted to the tune of Rs 928 crore. The dam once built will also control flood in the area.

Throwing more light on the latest development in the project, AB Pathak, Head of the Irrigation Department, said, “The Ministry of Environment and Forest has held it up for clearance because the project is meant to be built in the forest area only. Though the expert committee of the Forest Department had approved it, now it has been stuck in the ministry”.

The ministry is said to have become further stringent on such projects, which are built in the forestland, after a lot of disconcerting noises were made in Parliament on the issue. This has further fanned the suspicion in the Irrigation Department about getting its last hurdle crossed on the way.

At present the ball lies in the court of Uttarakhand government as this ambitious project will be built with the collaboration of UP government. Pathak added, “Both UP and Uttarakhand will contribute 48 per cent and 52 per cent water stake. With this project, 60,600 hectare land will be irrigated which includes 49,000 of the UP government and 12,000 hectare of te Uttarakhand government”.

Besides this, he said the dam would also control the flood possibilities in the state with the release of controlled water. The rainwater which normally gets wasted will be stored in the project. For this purpose a barrage will also be built. A 130.6-ft-high barrage will be constructed at Kathgodam.

Dehradun, April 1
Resenting frequent power cuts across the state, members of the Mahanagar Congress Committee burnt an effigy of the state BJPgovernment today.

Led by committee president Harish Virmani, the Congress workers burnt the effigy of the state government at Ashley Hall Crossing.

Virmani alleged that while the Chief Minister was identifying Uttarakhand as a power state, the frequent power cuts were exposing the Chief Minister’s false claims.

State Congress general secretary Vijay Chauhan alleged that the state government was involved in a big scam linked to hydro projects and on other hand people were suffering due to acute power crisis. He also accused the government of doing little to end the electricity woes of the people.

Deep Vohra, Sanjay Sharma, Rajesh Sharma, Sanjay Bharti, Babu Singh and Prem Batta were prominent party workers who took part in the protest. 

Dehradun, April 1
Reacting swiftly on the complaints of BJP councillors, who registered a protest against the arbitrariness of three ration depot owners of the area, along with residents of Drone Puri of Ward No. 49 by shouting slogans, Mahender Singh, District Supplies Officer, ordered the immediate suspension of the depot owners.

Sachin Gupta, a BJP councillor, said the depot owners were opening shops only for an hour and not distributing adequate rations to the needy people of the locality. The complaints against them were piling up each day.

Babu Ram, another BJP councillor, said these depot owners were throwing their weight around by citing their associations with different political parties.

Their nuisance had become unbearable of late and it had become necessary to remove them.

Submitting to the collective pressure, Mahender Singh suspended them saying that, “If so many people are complaining against them, they must certainly be wrong, hence, deserve suspension. I will listen to them also”. He denied getting any complaints against them in the past.

The councillors also demanded that a system should be put in place where these shops should be checked to see if they were functioning as per rules. They also asked for the renewal of ration cards and addition of new shops in the area.

Haridwar, April 1
Jagad Guru Shankaracharya Swami Nischalanand of Govardhan Peethadheeshwar termed the relations between India and Nepal as ancient with both having two different identities as separate nations but are one in soul.

Presiding over the international convention of Vishwa Hindu Mahasangh (VHM), Shankaracharya shed light on the upheaval in Nepal’s political circle and emphasised on the need of having a stable Nepal as well as once again making it a Hindu state. He said politics in Nepal had strayed from right path and it was mainly due to lack of vision by current politicians.

While Member of Parliament and international president of the VHM Aditya Nath Yogi said the upheaval in Nepal began since the fall of the royal empire and had been further blotted by the Maoists rising. He also warned that a blow had been made on Hinduism in Nepal by some anti-India forces by making void Nepal’s status as officially a Hindu state.

Several delegates from Nepal also attended the convention, who put forth their views and problems they face in their country. Nepali delegates Col Hem Bahadur Karki (retd) and Nepal Army General Bharat Keshar Singh (retd) said despite political crisis, they hoped that the situation would improve in their country and also laid stress on declaring the status of Nepal once again to a Hindu state, which was once only country in the world an officially Hindu one.

Swami Chinmayaand Saraswati remarked that Nepal was of utmost importance to India and as Nepal had been a Hindu nation for centuries it was a serious concern for India.

Indian and foreign delegates were welcomed by coordinator of the convention Kalika Peetadheeshwar Mahant Surendra Nath Avdhoot

Dehradun, April 1
Declaring the stretch from St Joseph, Ghanta Ghar, Budha Chowk, Darshan Lal Chowk, Tehsil Chowk to Astely Hall as a zero-hoarding zone, around 22 hoardings were removed in a drive carried out by Mukhya Nagar Adhikari NK Joshi early this morning. A bus stop was also dismantled near the Congress Bhawan on the Rajpur Road. The drive was completed before the shops opened on the stretch. The drive also targeted those hoardings that were erected in the radius of 25 metre around roundabouts.

Later in the day, a group, led by Rajiv Mehrani, president of the Doon Advertising Association, met Mayor Vinod Chamoli and asked him to demarcate the illegal hoardings, which, they said they would remove in a month’s time. Reducing the time limit to one week, the Mayor said a DMC team would not remove those hoardings for a week and rather demarcate the illegal hoardings with a red sign. Thereafter, if defaulters did not remove those hoardings, they would be liable to pay a fine of Rs 25,000 per hoarding and an FIR would also be registered against them. He also talked about releasing a public notice in newspapers in a couple of days cautioning the defaulters.

Chamoli said today: “Soon I will get illegal hoardings removed from shops and houses as well. I don’t want to harm any body’s property so I have given sufficient time to every one to remove the illegal hoardings themselves or face action”.

Since the time limit for old hoardings came to an end on March 31 and fresh bids are yet to take place, the DMC did not face any opposition as such in the removal drive. Moreover, it also outsmarted the hoarding owners by removing hoardings before the city could wake up to this new change.

Many BJP and Congress leaders whose kith and kin have stake in hoarding advertising in the city were seen lobbying at the Mayor’s office to put pressure. Chamoli said the pressure was being exerted on him to evade action against defaulters through influential people, but in vain. “It is a fight which I am fighting from all fronts for the past three months. But, I am determined not to throw up hands in disgust and carry this task to its rightful conclusion,” he said. The city has only 266 registered hoardings out of a total of 1,000.

On the matter of dismantling of a bus stop, he expressed ignorance saying that bus stops did not come under his agenda. “But, since the structure will be obstructing the view of the shops situated at the prime locality on the Rajpur Road, thus diminishing their value, will have been the reason for its removal,” he added.

Rajesh Naithani, Superintendent, DMC, said: “The Assistant Superintendent of Police has ordered the removal of the said bus stop since it was hampering a smooth flow of traffic in the area because of its odd location”.

People though were found cribbing about the removal of the bus stop as they had to stand in the sun to wait for local buses.

Dehradun, April 1
Providing affordable, accountable, effective and reliable health care facilities under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) remains a pipe dream in Uttarakhand.

A performance audit report of the implementation of the programme in the third year of the mission period (2005-2012) has found several gaps that have not been covered for the programme that ends in 2012.

The government health sector is facing a problem of plenty while there is no paucity of funds. The understaffed and poorly equipped health wings are unable to utilise them. “On an average, out of every Rs 100 received by the state, Rs 38 has remained unspent at the state and district levels in the past three years. In the absence of proper accounting records and controls, the annual financial statements do not present a true and fair picture of the affairs,” says the CAG report.

The state has also failed to implement the Maternal Health programme in totality given the high incidence of anaemia among women and young girls and a poor maternal track record. “Many pregnant women die in labour in the state. In the three sampled districts, the stock of IFA tablets was able to cover only 3.4 per cent of registered pregnant women,” says the report.

Finding flaws in the implementation of the Maternal Health programme, the report says the government has failed to implement it in entirety, covering all essential areas like registration reporting and tracking of pregnancies, IFA administration, antenatal and postnatal care. Visits by health workers to the villages were not being undertaken at the prescribed intervals due to excess workload and topographical conditions of the areas and a large population.

One of the aims of the NRHM is capacity building of human resources through skill upgrading of the medical and support personnel by imparting periodic training to them. The targets set for training remained largely under-achieved during 2005-08 .

There is an overall shortfall of 79 per cent in providing training to medical personnel/ support staff. The target for providing training was reduced in 2007-08 in spite of increasing health demands and an increase of Rs 81.83 lakh in budgetary provision for “training” in 2007-08 compared to 2006-07.

“With institutional or assisted deliveries forming a small proportion of deliveries in the state, training of birth attendants was critical. The targets in this area were low, yet the achievement was only 15 per cent,” says the CAG report. 

Mussoorie, April 1
Beat Box cops stationed at the Gandhi Chowk are hesitant in using the police check post due to the fear of electrical current running all over inside the “ghumti” here.

While on duty yesterday, police personnel at the check post were shocked at receiving continuous electric current inside the “ghumti”. Apart from this, the door of the check post is also damaged and has fallen out of the hinges leaving the policemen fighting the strong wind and rain hindering their work.

The loose wiring and the tubelights fixed on the “ghumti” in a haphazard manner are the main reason for the electric current flowing inside the cubicle and police personnel are forced to work under such a risk to their lives.

According to police officials in Mussoorie, the “ghumti” has been installed by an advertisement company, which has been informed about the issue.

Nainital, April 1
Complaining of power cuts that are over and above the announced cuts, a delegation of businessmen in Haldwani went on to gherao an Executive Engineer (XEN) of the Power Department here yesterday. The agitators were peeved over the fact that they were facing unannounced power cuts on an account of frequent faults at the local level which were over and above the roaster of cuts announced for the town by the government. They pointed out that besides students preparing for the ongoing examinations facing problems in their studies, small businessmen and traders were having a tough time on account of these cuts.

They warned the officials of resorting to locking up offices and a full-fledged agitation if their concerns were not addressed at the earliest.

The officials are learnt to have promised them that their problems would be looked into.