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Kumbh city awake round the clock
Millions take holy dip on Baisakhi
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BJP stalwarts do Ganga snan
Sushma Swaraj offers Ganga water to the Sun God at the Ganga ghat in
Haridwar. Tribune photo: Rameshwar Gaur
Dehradun-bound trains not to reach city
Survey of India trounce Income Tax by 8 wickets
Foresters keep cool as forest fires rage
Farmers told to grow aromatic plants
A batsman gets ready to play a shot during the u-17 County Cup cricket tournament in Dehradun on Tuesday.
A Tribune photograph
RIMC cadets shine at Delhi Horse Show
Alva extends greetings on Baisakhi
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Kumbh city awake round the clock
Haridwar, April 13 According to mela administration’s data, till late this evening more than 40 lakh people had taken dip in various ghats of Haridwar and with April 14 Shahi Snan falling tomorrow, the figure will easily clear the one-crore mark. And if the sheer number of people who have already arrived in the Kumbh city and the traffic that is moving non-stop from all sides is taken into account, then tomorrow may be a record created of the most number of people present at a specific place in a single point of time. The assumption gains prominence with Mela DIG Alok Sharma pointing to the fact that while the pilgrims are coming in millions via trains, buses and private vehicles, the outgoing number is far less, which indicates that those coming for the Baisakhi festive bath will stay on for the Mesh Sankranti Shahi Snan too. Such is the situation in Haridwar that the city is awake round the clock and is constantly moving. Every road, street, lane and path is full of people and it seems that all roads are leading to Haridwar only. All hotels, dharamshalas, ashrams, rest houses and guest houses are already running full and such is the rush that the owners or managers just say “ask for anything, but not rooms till April 15”. Floor managers of the Ganges Riviera and Landmark hotels said their hotels had been running in booking for weeks and as this was the peak of the Maha Kumbh, their receptionists on just picking the call informed of the unavailability of the rooms. Though by paying exorbitant rates one can get a room, that is also not easy as customers are also in thousands to pay any price for single rooms. Specially at hotels and guest houses in the Har-ki-Pauri core mela zone, the situation is worse, forcing pilgrims to stay in the open. So is the case with ashrams and dharamshalas who are already full of saints and their followers. Outside pilgrims are either seen sleeping on ground or are roaming Har-ki-Pauri, exhibition centre, mela camps of Mahamandaleshwar and akhadas. Despite the mela administration already putting the prohibition and traffic restrictions, there is no major affect on pilgrims. Vehicular traffic is being stopped several kilometres away from the city. While heavy vehicles are totally barred from entering the city, light four-wheelers are also not being allowed to enter in the inner city zone. So pilgrims have to tread on foot 5-12 km to reach the city and Har-ki-Pauri. But the restrictions in the inner zone mean more time in reaching the ghats. Every lane has been blocked by the mela police and mela passes have become passe. Even media passes and special vehicle passes are not being entertained and when one shows it to the policemen they rudely argue with the pass-holders. Many police personnel were seen misguiding people, resulting in heated arguments. “I had to go to Devpura but this police officer at Bhagat Singh chowk sends me via Jwalapur crossing, where another police man sends me back which resulted me again coming back to the same point. Is the police playing with our sentiments or we are being fooled around by them in the name of security,” said a perturbed Rakesh Sharma. While a brisk business is being done by most of the traders, the traffic restrictions severely affected their business as most could not reach their work place. “Earlier before the start of the Kumbh, the mela police DIG had assured us that vehicle passes for traders will be issued but now police personnel are not even having a glance on our passes. They in rash words even say that bring the DIG here then only will we allow you passage,” said Akash Kumar Ohri, a computer shop owner at Ranipur Morh. This all is happening when the mela police DIG had stated that special behavioral programmes were being conducted to make the mela police more people friendly, but now with the last Shahi Snan just a day away, the result is the same and now it will be too late for the DIG himself to take action. To this, police personnel say they are doing their duty only and whatever directions are they being given from their superiors are being followed. Mela DSP Shweta Chaubey says the mela police personnel have been trained to behave cordially with pilgrims and also to take care of problems of local people, including media persons and traders. DIG Alok Sharma on this seeks help and coordination of locals. He said as pilgrims are coming in millions, there is bound to be problems and arrangements have to be reviewed causing problems. “Just two days more of problems but without your (locals) help the Maha Kumbh can’t be successfully organised. Take these problems in your stride as you will get religious benefits as you are doing it for Kumbh devotees only,” said Sharma. Paramilitary force personnel are being seen better equipped to handle the crowd pressure in comparison to khakhi cops and they were more patient and helpful.
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Millions take holy dip on Baisakhi
Haridwar, April 13 This Baisakhi festival bath was the 10th bath falling during the Maha Kumbh tenure from January 1 this year. Till late evening devotees were still lining up to take a holy dip. Specially at Braham Kund in the Har-ki-Pauri ara and adjacent ghats, lakhs had taken a dip before sun rays pierced through and descended on the Kumbh city. As the Baisakhi snan precedes the biggest of the Shahi Snans of the Maha Kumbh 2010 in Haridwar, the mela administration took the festive bath as a ladder to successfully host tomorrow’s royal bath. So, more than 12,000 mela police personnel were guarding the pilgrim city. At every nook and corner of the mela zone, police personnel were deployed and they were donning the twin role of traffic police too as these days the traffic pressure is enormous in Haridwar. For the Baisakhi festival, the whole mela area was divided into 32 sectors which were manned by 202 mela zone magistrates. During the Baisakhi bath, 435-odd buses were plied by the Uttarakhand Transport Corporation, 652 from Uttar Pradesh, 58 from Haryana, 30 from Himachal Pradesh, 10 from Punjab, 12 from Chandigarh Transport Undertaking, four from the Delhi Transport Corporation, eight from Madhya Pradesh, six from Jammu Kashmir and 77 from Rajasthan ferried pilgrims. Bus service was aided by nine special trains which were jam-packed apart from normal trains running full coaches for the past two
days.
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BJP stalwarts do Ganga snan
Haridwar, April 13 Today, it was BJP national president Nitin Gadkari and former Union Cabinet Minister and at present Vice-President of the BJP Sushma Swaraj taking a holy dip and sinking in the religious atmosphere of the Maha Kumbh. Both party leaders visited the city separately, leading to speculations of factionalism in the party. While Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank accompanied Gadkari, it was state Urban Development Minister Madan Kaushik who was with Sushma Swaraj throughout her visit. Bishan Singh Chufal, party’s state chief, also came to welcome the party national chief and had a brief chat with him on political issues too. Terming their visits as personal and religious, both Gadkari and Sushma refrained from talking about sensitive issues such as party factionlism, which led to the ouster of Rajnath Singh and appointment of Gadkari as the youngest president of the three-decade-old party. Gadkari termed the ongoing Maha Kumbh as a unique platform of diversity and centuries-old culture of our civilisation. On the holy Ganga and the hydel projects proposed to be built on the river, Gadkari emphasised the need of maintaining sanctity of the holy river, which was given the status of mother in the Hindu religion. He said the sanctity and natural flow of the river should not be disturbed, and also advocated for a need of a midway approach for development. Gadkari, former Maharashtra state cabinet minister, was all praise for Nishank for ensuring mega facilities for pilgrims in Haridwar for the ongoing Maha Kumbh. Gadkari said the Nishank government had done a commendable job in hosting the century’s first Maha Kumbh in Uttarakhand. While Sushma was as effervescent and precise and was more curious in knowing about the Kumbh, Haridwar, rituals and facilities for people during her visit. She spent more time while taking bath in the Ganga ghat and performed rituals. Both BJP leaders reached Haridwar in the morning and attended rituals after taking the holy dip. They took a dip at a VIP ghat and as soon as news came out, party workers and pilgrims associated with the BJP and common people rushed towards the ghat to have a glimpse of the two
leaders.
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Dehradun-bound trains not to reach city
Dehradun, April 13 The Maha Kumbh last Shahi Snan falling tomorrow is attracting devotees and tourists in large numbers due to which the most of the passengers are not getting reservations on time, and changing the terminal point of the trains is making things further complicated for them. “We have come here for the admission of our son to a school and reached here after facing many difficulties. We could not get the confirmed tickets and had to travel in RAC till Haridwar. From there we thought of taking another train to Dehradun, but the timings of that train were also not fixed. Then we took a roadways bus and reached here after five hours from Haridwar,” complained Dr SR Verma, who hails from Varanasi. On the contrary, the roadways bus service is the next option that commuters are left with. The limited seats, heavy rush at the bus stands and traffic snarls have bothered travellers a lot. Reservation counters of the bus tickets are also witnessing long serpentine queues of people. “The railway board has taken the decision of changing the terminal point of the trains to facilitate the incoming of a larger number of people to bathe in the holy river. We have launched short-distanced Mela Express for the passengers, who want to come to Dehradun,” said SD Dobhal, Station Superintendent, Dehradun Railway Station. Moreover, no arrangements have been made so far to facilitate the tourists heading towards the Doon valley. No special trains have been started or new coaches have been added to the existing trains. “Starting special trains for tourists cannot be planned yet because of the Kumbh Mela. Once the grand event is over, Railways can only devise some plan to begin it. Till then, we have tried to add one or two coaches only to the long-distance trains but nothing lucrative for the tourists is yet to be planned,” said Dobhal.
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Survey of India trounce Income Tax by 8 wickets
Dehradun, April 13 The losing side opted to bat first, but couldn’t muster enough runs in the allotted 25 overs. Avneesh was the mainstay of the innings who played a knock of 50 runs in 47 balls. His innings comprised six boundaries. He was going strong but got stumped off the bowling of LK Dobhal. Amit (20) was the only other batsman to score some respectable amount of runs for his side. IT was bowled out in 22.1 overs for 134 runs. LK Dobhal and V Malik were the most successful bowlers for SOI claiming three wickets each. Ashok Rana and Devender Sharma pocketed two and one wicket respectively. The SOI batsmen stood strong and didn’t face much resistance from their rivals. Opening batsmen SS Rawat (71) and Sanjay (29) sculpted victory of SOI. Devender Bisht chipped in with 21 runs. They easily scored 138 runs in 13.1 overs losing two wickets. For IT, Balbir Singh and Mayank got one wicket each.
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Foresters keep cool as forest fires rage
Pitthoragarh, April 13 “The absence of winter rain spell and the rising temperatures have so far led to 176 forest fire cases in the state out of these 84 cases have been reported from
Garhwal, 49 from Kumaon and 43 from wildlife sanctuaries,” said KS
Samant, Chief Conservator of Forests, Kumaon region, based at Haldwani. In the Terai region of
Kumaon, more than 500 hectares in Kosi, west Terai and Belparaw ranges have come under forest fire where the forest personnel and crew members are fighting it. “In Champawat district, the forest of
Ladhia, Kranteswar, Maneswar and east Devidhura valley are burning and more than 400 hectares have burnt so far, but forest workers have controlled the fire in reserved forest where only 6 hectares have burnt. “The panchayat forests in the region keep burning as the Van Panchayats are not taking interest in putting off the fire,” said SP Singh,
DFO, Champawat, adding that unusual high temperatures in the month of April have resulted in more fires than last year in the corresponding period. According to Kumaon Chief Conservator of Forests KS
Samant, who is also in charge of anti-forest fire operation, in Uttarakhand out of a total 34,650 square hectares of forest area, 24,323 sq hectares fall under reserved forest. “Due to continuous rising of temperatures this year, fires have caused a total loss of forest cover on 377.67 hectares, 263 hectare being in reserved forest,” said
Samant. The Garhwal region has reported more forest fires wherein in 84 cases, 147 hectares had already burnt. “We have also taken a strict action against those who intentionally start the fire. A man in the Chirkot compartment under the Kedarnath wild life sanctuary has been caught firing the forest and taken into 14 days’ judicial custody and another has been fined in the Daniya region of Almora district after being caught setting the forest on fire,” said
Samant. In Bageshwar district, the forest of Bageshwar range on the
Bageshwar- Pitthoragarh road is burning and forest property worth lakhs of rupees has burnt so far in the Kafalkhet area of this range. A forest worker was injured when he tried to put off the fire which broke out suddenly. In Garur block of Bageshwar district, the forests at Bagotia and Tilsari range have been burning for past five days. “This is causing the spread of smoke, leading to less humidity,” said Ramesh
Panday, a voluntary forest worker in Bageshwar district. In hills, the Terai region of Kumaon has witnessed uncontrolled fires at the beginning of this years’ fire season. In the
Tanakpur, Khatima and Sitargang areas, the fires have also burnt wheat and sugarcane crops besides a cluster of temporary hutments of forest workers. In Pitthoragarh district, the forest fire is also maximum in panchayat
forests whereas the partial damage has also been done to reserved forest in
the district. “So far we have lost more than 15 hectares of forest this years. Fire gets out of control due to a lack of workers as our crew station is supported by only three members,” said Nishant
Verma, DFO, Pitthoragarh. He has decided to recruit more than 150 workers to fight the possible forest fire in reserved forest, he added. The Uttarakhand Forest Department has charted out a long-term strategy to minimise forest fires by collecting the pine leaves through villagers of local areas. “We have received 27 bids from various organisations involved in the collection of pine leaves. Some
of these organisations will pack the pine leaves and send them to outstations while o1thers have
proposed to use them in making bricks paper and extracting pine oil and generating electricity,”
said Samant.
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Farmers told to grow aromatic plants
Dehradun, April 13 Prof SC Varshney, Chairman and MD, Shiv Essential Oil and Chemicals (Uttar Pradesh), said agriculture was going through a crisis. The water situation continues to be grim and for economic viability in agriculture farmers need to adapt themselves to changing conditions. “The farmers in both highlands and plains can raise lemon grass along with traditional crops,” said Varshney. Agriculture Minister Trivender Singh Rawat, who presided over the function, said the government was keen to promote cultivation of lemon grass in hilly areas as well. In 2003, a programme was started by the CAP in Rajawala. In the initial stage, 28 farmers were convinced to grow lemon grass and the planting material was provided to them free of cost. Now, 60,000 farmers are producing 80 quintal of oil per year. “Those days it was difficult to motivate farmers but once they were brought in there was no looking back. We have also increased the support price from Rs 400 to Rs 425,” said Nirpendra Chauhan, scientist and in charge, CAP. The government is giving 50 per cent subsidy on cultivation cost of 26 selected species, 100 per cent subsidy for establishing field distillation unit by farmer groups in aromatic crop clusters. Sharing his experiences, Dr Vivek Bharti, a farmer from Dehradun, said in the coming days yield from lemon grass would rival that of sugarcane. “A time may come when farmers will be able to put pressure on the government to increase support price of lemon grass,” said Bharti. Besides extraction of oil, the stem of lemon grass is used for making nutritious soups, and the tip for lemon tea. Over 500 farmers from Lakshmipur, Rajawala, Sahaspur and Rani Pokhri participated in the meet.
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UCA beat Rapid XI
Dehradun, April 13 The winning side decided to bat first after the toss went in its favour. They scored 170 runs for eight in the allotted 20 overs. Pritam (47) was the mainstay of the side. Ajay (15) also contributed in setting a decent target of his team. Sahil and Dhruv captured three wickets each for Rapid XI. Batting second, Rapid XI got all out in 19.3 overs at the score of 133 runs. Nirmit (43) and Sahil (21) were the principal scorers for their team. This was the combined bowling and fielding effort of UCA that hampered the batting lineup of Rapid XI. All bowlers, including Ajay, Girish and Rahul took a wicket each. Several batsmen also fell victim to little understanding while running between the wickets as they got run out. Western Boys, Jhoodi Tigers win
Western Boys, Prem Nagar defeated Sardar Bhagwan Singh Medical College with a big margin of 80 runs in the Day-Night Softball Cricket Tournament held on PRD ground on Tapovan Road, last evening. Batting first, the winning side scored 200 runs for seven in 15 overs. Kaku (40) Ishu (35), Channi (41) and Gautam (50*) mainly scored for the team. In reply, Medical College was bowled all out 120 for eight. Jhoodi Tigers also registered a win today beating Sikhandar XI by two wickets. The latter set a target of 117 runs at the loss of nine wickets. Wasim Tyagi (32) and Ajay Tyagi (35) were the principal scorers for the team. Batting second, Jhoodi Tigers achieved the target in 13.2 overs losing eight wickets. Suraj (26*) and Lorence (28) scored big in the win. Suraj was adjudged Man of the Match as he also got two wickets while bowling.
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RIMC cadets shine at Delhi Horse Show
Dehradun, April 13 Ten cadets of the Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC) took part in this event. Three cadets took part in the children’s category and the remaining seven in the juniors. Cadets of the junior category participated in Cadet Jumping, which was inclusive of all cadets. Cadet Navneet Suman brought back gold and cadet Sonu Kumar brought silver. The junior Jumping Normal was held and the RIMC ‘B’ team comprising cadet Nitish Jha, Sonu Kumar and Ram Krishan Sharma got the silver medal. In the same event cadet Nitish Jha won an individual bronze. The same evening the RIMC team also won the medal in the Senior Young Junior Rescue Relay. The team comprised cadet Ram Krishan and Navneet Suman of RIMC. Cadet Ram Krishan won a bronze medal in the Junior Jumping Accumulator. Other participants were cadet Raushan, Aman, Lalit, Shivam Lakhera, Abhinav Anand. The chief guest on the final day was General VK Singh, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, Chief of the Army Staff who decorated all medalists. Col H Dharmarajan, SM, Commandant, RIMC, congratulated all the cadets for a wonderful performance in the horse show and motivated them to work even harder in the future. Riding has always been given much importance in RIMC. Not only in the country, the cadets have done extremely well even outside the country. Recently, cadet Piyush Deshmukh went to Australia for training-cum-competition.
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Alva extends greetings on Baisakhi
Dehradun, April 13 In her message, Alva said: “May this harvest festival herald peace, happiness and prosperity for our people. At a time when food security and farm distress are in focus, we have to thank our farmers for their hard work and rejoice with them at the bounty of the harvest”. She also recalled the contribution of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar, on his 119th birth anniversary. She said, "He strove to give Dalits, backward classes and minorities their rightful place in the nation and framed the Constitution based on a just social order that guaranteed equality to all citizens. We must all move towards the creation of a just and casteless society as propounded by the makers of our Constitution".
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Five trains coming to Dehradun will not be able to reach the platforms of city’s railway station, the terminal point of the trains, till April 18 due to the the Maha
Kumbh. These trains will run only up to Haridwar. Similarly, train services to Rishikesh will also be hampered. The temporary termination of the major trains till Dehradun has put the passengers in a quandary.
Dehradun, April 13
