Haridwar, April 27
As soon as the Congress’s organisational elections get over, the party will be focusing on the next assembly election in Uttarakhand. The party is upbeat after its clean sweep in the last parliamentary elections in 2009 in all five constituencies in the state and is now gearing up for the assembly elections.

The party is pinning its hopes on its branch organisations like the Sewa Dal and the Youth Congress to see that the party agenda and failure of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP)-led state government reaches every village and corner of the state.

According to Sewa Dal in charge for Uttarakhand Vijay Saraswat, the organisation has a pivotal role to play in this hill state where reaching out to each and every voter is not an easy job. So the Congress party is banking on the Sewa Dal to spread the developmental works being done by all five parliamentarians from Pauri Garhwal, Tehri Garhwal, Haridwar, Almora and Nainital as well as during the previous Congress-government led by Narain Dutt Tiwari.

Informing about this, Saraswat said in the whole state covering all 13 districts, the party would take out rallies and try to expose the frailties and anti-common man policies of the present BJP government.

“If we are able to present the real face of the BJP in front of the public and the development-oriented secular credentials of our party, we will win by a two-third majority as presently the bureaucracy and ruling politicians are drenched in corruption. Despite changing the face of the CM twice by the BJP, nothing has changed at all and people of Uttarakhand are living in poverty, facing unemployment and lacking basic facilities,” said Saraswat.

Elaborating on the Sewa Dal’s activities, Saraswat, who was also the in-charge for Haridwar parliamentary seat in 2009 election, said a five-day Sewa Dal orientation camp would be organised next month in Haridwar. This camp would be attended by several national-state leaders. 

Dehradun, April 27
Mayor Vinod Chamoli’s obstinate attitude in not acting on a letter of the MNA to hold due election of the Working Committee on May 3 has had members of the committee and councillors to grope for various possibilities in case the dilemma continues.

Dr Uday Singh Pundir, a committee member who met the Mayor with other members to plead him on the case, said: “The Mayor is withholding the recommendations to show his displeasure on the style of working of the MNA. We hope that he will mellow down and work upon the election. One option is to postpone the election for some time. But otherwise, as per the MC Act, according to which if two-thirds of the total members pass the resolution to hold the Working Committee election if it is not held on its due time, then the Mayor is bound to act on its recommendation”.

Pundir said never in the history of the DMC had such an impasse took place on the issue of the election of the committee, which in healthy precedents should be held before the power changed hands from old to new.

In the 12-member committee, six members leave their membership through a lottery system. The next year, the members who served for the maximum period also have to clear decks for the freshers. The elections are mandatory, as the tenure of members who served the most will automatically come to an end. Without the committee, the MC cannot take executive and financial decisions on any project.

Ganesh Dandwal, Congress councillor, said: “If 60 per cent committee members demand for the election, then the MNA can ask the state government for a presiding officer, who can hold the election of the committee”. Dandwal said Congress councillors were waiting for the deadlock between the Mayor and MNA to peter out on its own till the election date. If it did not happen, then they would urge the MNA to hold election by opting for alternatives.

Sachin Gupta, BJP councillor, expressed confidence in the Mayor saying that he would certainly be in knowledge of constitutional intricacies of the matter.

Dehradun, April 27
Senior Congress leader Suryakant Dhasmana today said the Congress would send a memorandum with signatures of as many as 10 lakh people to the President against the failures of the Uttarakhand government.

In a statement issued here, Dhasmana said the state BJP government had failed on all fronts and people were fed up with it. He said power cuts were imposed to an extent of 14 to 20 hours in hill districts of the state completely paralysing normal life there.

He said the potable water crisis was also affecting the state. “It is strange that rather than addressing the problems of people, Uttarakhand Chief Minister was seeking the Nobel Prize for his government for staging the Kumbh,” Dhasmana said.

Referring to the industrial package, the senior Congress leader said while Uttarakhand government was seeking package for industries, it had completely failed to provide electricity to the new industries.

Dhasmana said the signature campaign against the state BJP government would be inaugurated by President of the state unit of the party Yashpal Arya on May 1. 

Dehradun, April 27
As the summer is progressing and fight for water is aggravating, many are indulging in wrong practices to get extra water at the expense of inconvenience to the rest. Installing extra water connections with the connivance of private help is a prevalent practice here, but a defaulter in Dandipur Mohalla, Ramesh Kumar Mason, went a step further in attaching a big screw in the water pipe deep down the ground and drawing gushing supply, which made four families in the neighbourhood survive with disrupted water supply for four months at a stretch. Their pleas could move only Superintendent Engineer VK Sethi, who went with his team and found out the cause of the fault.

Sethi said, “I have snapped the water connection of two erring residents, including the mason. They will be served notices and after due checking, as to how long they had tampered with the connection, they will be charged water bills accordingly”.

He was startled to find out the technique used by the mason to draw water. “I have never come across such a case where somebody has fiddled with water pipes, but here the mason disrupted the water supply for the rest of the families in the neighbourhood with his mischief,” he said.

Ravi Prakash Jain, who suffered paucity of water for days together, said, “I could make out that the mason, who lives next door, had messed with the water supply as he always had a good flow of water, whereas we were collecting water in single drops. We kept complaining to officials in water-works, but none came here all these months. That shows their hand-in-glove liaison with the defaulter”.

Another victim Sanjay Bhola said they had to shell out Rs 10,000 to buy water from tankers when no one came to their rescue.

One discovery after another, Arun Gupta, a resident, said once the team reached the locality, they could find out many more such cases who were drawing extra water through illegal water connections.

Getting illegal water connections has become a sort of phenomenon in the city and is hard to tackle with. Sethi said, “Our department gives only one water connection, but people get multiple private connections on their own. Once caught, they are fined and their water connections are snapped for some time. The department is helpless in checking this illegal practice”.

Sethi also informed that the department was now digging up the entire road to lay a new water pipe in the area.

Pitthoragarh, April 27
The Bageshwar-Tanakpur Rail Marg Sangharsh Samiti, an organisation formed by people of Bageshwar to struggle for the construction of the Tanakpur-Bageshwar rail link announced on Sunday that the smaiti would soon launch an agitation to oppose the Pancheshwar Dam, which, according to it, would pose hurdle in the rail link project.

“On the one hand the Centre is releasing money to conduct a survey for the rail link from Tanakpur to Bageshwar, while on the other it is also announcing the construction of the Pancheshwar Dam,” Gusain Singh Dafauti, chairman of the samiti, said.

Dafauti said the Uttarakhand hills needed rail links rather than big dams. “If the Government of India gives green light to the construction of the Pancheshwar Dam, the rail link to Bageshwar can never be constructed,” said Dafauti.

The committee has prepared a memorandum on the issue to be sent to the Centre through the District Magistrate of Bageshwar. “If the Centre does not listen to this demand, then the final and long-term agitation will be launched because the backward district of Bageshwar neither has air link nor the railway one. The motor roads linking this district to Haldwani are not capable enough to give it commercial benefits,” said Dafauti. 

Dehradun, April 27
The Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), a scheme providing monetary help to poor pregnant women, continues to remain unattractive for women residing in remote areas of several districts of the state making government’s goal of increasing institutional deliveries in the state difficult.

The low-performing districts of Tehri, Uttarkashi and Bageshwar continue to be hamstrung by a lack of awareness and poor reach of health staff. Most of these districts have poor medical infrastructure.

However, the response to the programme continues to be good in districts of Dehradun, Haridwar, Nainital and Almora that have comparatively better medical infrastructure and greater accessibility. Equally in other districts, a large number of centres and hospitals do not provide the stipulated range of services due to a lack of access to blood storage facilities and a lack of specialist staff.

Till January, 2010, 59,450 beneficiaries have been covered under the scheme while last year the number of beneficiaries was 71,285. The maximum number of beneficiaries are in Dehradun and a total of Rs 2.32 crore has been disbursed among 10,902 beneficiaries this year. In 2008-09, the total number of beneficiaries in Tehri was 2,573, in Uttarkashi 3,935 and in Bageshwar 2,286.

A centrally sponsored scheme of the National Rural Health Mission, it financially rewards women for undergoing institutional pregnancies. The scheme was introduced after modifying the existing National Maternity Benefit Scheme (NMBS).

To increase institutional deliveries among poor families, all pregnant women falling under the BPL category and of 19 years and above and up to two live births are beneficiaries of the scheme. They are eligible for a cash assistance of Rs 1,400 in rural areas and Rs 1,000 in urban areas. The pregnant women also benefit from better diet during the checkups while women with low blood count are given iron tablets.

“As Uttarakhand figures among 10 low-performing states, it was selected for the scheme. The centrally sponsored scheme brought in to reduce overall maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate,” said Dr Asha Mathur, Additional Director, Reproductive Child and Health.

Another thing in focus is devising as well as ensuring a transparent and timely disbursement of cash assistance to the mother and the incentive to the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA). In rural areas, the assistance package for ASHA worker is Rs 600 and in urban areas they are given Rs 200.

Dehradun, April 27
In its campaign to motivate shopkeepers not to give free plastic carry bags to customers, an NGO, Citizens For Green Doon, today held a function to felicitate three shopkeepers at Jakhan who have stopped using such carry bags. A “green certificate” was given to them by Agriculture Minister Trivender Singh Rawat.

Dr Nitin Pandey, a member of the NGO, said; “It is time for all of us to give up the bad habit of expecting free plastic carry bags from shopkeepers because these pollute the world and affect our own health. To identify and encourage such shopkeepers who no longer use plastic carry bags, we will give them such certificates, which they can prominently display outside their shops. Along with this, we will also appeal to people to look out for such shops for making purchases to encourage these shopkeepers”.

The three shopkeepers who were facilitated were Virender Singh Pundir, stationery shop owner, Rafik Rana, general store merchant, and Dhiraj Nandwani, chemist, all from the Jakhan area.

Nainital, April 27
Working out the murder of 22-year-old Shehzad, who was found dead near the Raza Club yesterday morning, the Nainital police has arrested two youths from the town.

According to the police, Nazir and his accomplice Ankul had killed Shehzad on late Sunday night following a minor tiff over putting up stalls in the Fields area.

Shehzad used to earn a living through an air-rifle-shooting stall. Nazir also had a stall in the area where Ankul used to help him.

SSP, Nainital, MS Bangyal said the two suspects had entered into an altercation with the victim on Sunday night and killed him around 11.30 pm by shooting him in the chest and on the temple with country-made pistols. The pistols are said to belong to Nazir.

Nazir also told the police that there was a third accomplice named Nitin Jatav. However, Jatav’s family members claim that there was animosity between Nazir and Jatav.

They claim that Nazir had threatened Jatav about which they had complained to the police and now Nazir was trying to frame him in the case.

The case was worked out by a team led by Circle Officer PC Arya. The other members of the team comprised Inspector Lalit Mohan Upreti, Inspector Jagdish Singh Deuba, Senior Sub-Inspector Saluddin, Head Constable Jayanand Pandey and Constable Sukhpal Singh.

Cash prizes have been announced for them by Inspector General Jeevan Chandra Pande and the SSP.

Replying to a query on the presence of illegal arms with residents of Nainital, Bangyal said a drive would be undertaken to find out the source of such arms in a small place and a tourist destination like Nainital.

He also said police presence would be increased in areas, like the spot where the crime had taken place, which had earned the reputation of being notorious.

The case was worked out after sustained interrogation of the accused named by the brother of the deceased in the First Information Report (FIR).

Shehzad was found by local passers-by lying in a pool of blood early Monday morning. On reaching the spot, the police had found that he had been shot twice - in the chest and at the temple. While one of his eyeballs had come out, several pellets had got entrenched in his chest because of the impact of the shot.