Haridwar, July 21
The long-pending issue of removing of encroachments from city roads seems to be seeing the light of day with the administration going on a war footing to remove these encroachments.

An encroachment being pulled down

And the credit goes to the rain havoc that the city witnessed in the past few days. Now, the administration is not facing any political pressure, but is even getting support of residents in the drive against encroachments.

The city municipality has earmarked the encroachments that are hindering the drainage, the chief cause of the flood-like condition in the city for the past few days.

While in earlier encroachment drives the administration bowed either to political pressure or lacked the support of common citizens, an overwhelming support is coming from all sections of society now.

A woman, whose house was demolished in the drive, protests in Haridwar on Wednesday.

Led by Additional District Magistrate Harish Chandra Kandpal and Circle Officer Pankaj Bhatt, the anti-encroachment drive team comprised half a dozen earth movers and bull dozers. The drive started from the Rishikul main road and covered aeas through Devpura towards the railway station.

Such was the intensity of the drive that in no time encroachments were pulled down amid heavy deployment of police personnel. With senior police officers at the helm of affairs, no resistance or approach hampered the process.

Anything that encroached upon the drainage system was removed with even city’s oldest church and temples at Bharat Rishi Ashram being pulled down. The message from the administration is loud and clear: no compromise this time as the drive continues tomorrow too.

Such is the fear among the encroachers, specially business establishments, that they now themselves are breaking away their structures and cleansing the nullahs.

People argue with administration officials during an anti-encroachment drive in Haridwar on Wednesday.

At Chandra Charya Chowk, famously known as Ranipur Mod, where the rain wrought havoc on Sunday night, commercial establishment and shop owners even forcefully removed the vendors and hawkers stationed outside their establishments in fear of inviting the administration’s attention.

Chairman of the Municipality Kamal Johra termed the drive as imperative though a bit late. Despite limited resources, the municipality had been carrying out rescue work round the clock.

Executive Officer BL Arya said in a day or two the city would be fully cleaned of the silt that had accumulated owing to the heavy rain. He also informed residents that to avoid the spread of contagious diseases, pesticides would be sprayed.

Residents too seemed quite happy over the way the administration and municipality had been working after the rain fury. “This is the way the city encrochers should be dealt with. Being a world-renowned city having the Kumbh fair every six years, the way the city got flooded in just a few hours rain is nothing but a blot on it. But, now administration hierarchy seems to have learnt a lesson, evenas localites too have now realised the negatives of encroachments,” said Gagan Matta, a social activist.

Dehradun, July 21
To boost tourism potential in the state, the Tourism Department has begun participating in tourism fairs held in various parts of the country and abroad. It also takes along various hoteliers and travel agents from the state. The step has proved beneficial for the health of tourism sector in the state.

Elaborating more about it, Akshat Gupta, Assistant Secretary, Uttarakhand Tourism, said, “The season of Char Dham has reached its peak and got stabilised. Now, we are aiming to tap adventure and rural tourism. In adventure tourism, rafting season will again pick up from September onwards and we are also eyeing the South-Asian Federation winter games. We want to capture the high-end tourists who are ready to shell big money for quality facilities. For this, we have started participating in these domestic and international fairs to exchange ideas and raise the tourism business in the state”.

The department is also participating in Navratri fairs to be held in Bangalore and Gujarat in September. In the next three months, it will participate in fairs to be held at Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Delhi.

Fourteen private hotels/travel agencies accompanied the Tourism Department in the Grand Indian Tourism Fair at Jaipur held in March where competitors and clients from some 25 countries came to attend it on invitation. Beside that, the group also attended Indian Trade and Management in Bangalore, Travel Mart in Ahmedabad and Travel Fair in Dubai.

The fairs are certainly making a breakthrough for the tourism sector in Uttrakhand. Major SK Yadav, Managing Director, Delhi-based Wanderlust Travels Pvt Ltd, who went to attend some of these fairs commented, “Besides domestic, I went to attend overseas fairs in London (World Travel Mart Fair), America and Japan with the Tourism Department. Here too in India, at the Jaipur fair, a lot of clients came from many European countries. In my view, we must focus more on international tourism, where Uttrakhand has not made much inroads. Instead of participating in a couple of international fairs, we need to be noticed in almost all the international fairs like Goa and Kerala”.

In his view, international tourists have a good spending power. They enjoy going out for adventure tourism, religious tourism and yoga-cum-spirituality activities, which Uttarakhand has in abundance.

RK Sighal, Director of Shiva Continental, Mussoorie, too acknowledged the fact that such fairs gave a good exposure and facilitated brand display of the participants. He said, “We have everything from good locations to good infrastructure. It is in marketing skills we are lagging behind. We don’t know how to sell our destinations to tourists. With these fairs, we get an opportunity to market our tourism potential. And if also work on tax reduction to some extent, it will do us wonders”.

Virender Bhan, Assistant Manager of Sales, applauded the concept of fairs and said, “Travel fairs have become an excellent podium to make contacts, exchange views and forge partnerships. It is not fair to expect an immediate boost in the business as it is a long-term process which is built on with the time. The state is bound to benefit immensely in the days to come”.

Haridwar, July 21
Though Dev Sanskriti University is renowned worldwide for modern education imbibed with morality and yoga, yet it was not compulsory for either students or department-related scholars to practise yoga. But now from this session onwards, yoga education has been made compulsory for all departmental students of the university.

Giving this information, Chancellor of the university, Dr Pranav Pandya said this had been done in view of the immense benefits of yoga in one’s life. If students at a young age inculcated this healthy art, their life would be happier, adding to their educational performance too.

Contrary to the common perception that only yoga-related departments and those having self interest in yoga, practise in the university, but as the university was becoming a synonymous name in moral-yoga education worldwide, the university administrators felt it better to make the education compulsory for all students, irrespective of their department.

So, from now on, from journalism to regular course-pursuing students, everyone will also be well versed in yoga. This step has been welcomed by the other department students too who don’t have direct connection with yoga. “We don’t feel forced as yoga is our ancient art. Besides, we too will benefit like our yoga course counterpart students do,” said students of the Astrology Department.

Dehradun, July 21
Sports Hostel and Uttarakhand Police won their respective matches in the Dehradun Football League on the Police Lines Ground here today. In the first match, the Sports Hostel team defeated the Yankees Club 1-0 in an evenly fought match. Both team played well but the young energetic boys of the Sports Hostel team got a chance on a clever move by the forwards and Rahul scored a brilliant field goal.

In the second match, Uttarakhand Police defeated Vijay Cantt by 4-0. The Uttarakhand Police team completely dominated the whole game from the word go in the match.

It was in the ninth minute that Narender of Uttarakhand Police scored the first goal followed by Ashok in the 27th minute. Himanshu scored the third goal for his side in the 43rd minute. Ashok finished the game by scoring his second goal of the match in the 52nd minute to seal the fate of the Vijan cantt team.

Garhwal Sportings will meet the Cantt Blue team, while the Eleven Star Football Club will take on Willis Young Football Club in tomorrows match on the Police Lines Ground.

Dehradun, July 21
Minister of State for Food and Supplies Diwakar Bhatt, who is also a senior leader of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD), felicitated two young skaters, duo of brother and sister of Dehradun who crossed the Khardungla Pass in Ladhak on skates recently.

The minister went to the house of Shrey and Nishta Painuly, who had recently crossed one of the highest roads in India on skates. He appreciated the determination and courage of the young skaters. He said the state government would give them some award, as Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank would also like to encourage such talented skaters.

Both young skaters crossed the Khardungla Pass road situated at the height of 18,382 feet on inner-line skates on July 1. They skated for 22 km on the road in Jammu and Kashmir to achieve the feat.

Dehradun, July 21
The Sarvodya Football Club defeated the Gorkha United Football Club by a solitary goal in a keenly contested super league match of the Nemi Dass Memorial Football League played on the Pavilion Grounds here today.

Both teams played attacking match, but except for raiding their rivals could not score. It was Tensing of the Sarvodya Club who on a brilliant pass scored a goal in the 39th minute of the game to give his team lead in the match.

In the second half of the match, Gorkha United mounted several attacks to level the scores, but could not succeeded. It was in the dying minutes of the game that Sarvodya defenders manhandled the Gorkha strikers and a penalty was given in the last minute of the game.

Gorkha striker Samir took the shot but agile Makhan, goalkeeper of the Sarvodya Club, saved the penalty hit to won the match.

Dehradun, July 21
The first phase of counselling for 180 seats for MBBS course and 90 seats for BDS course for general category seats under the government quota got over today.

There are eight government medical and nursing colleges, where MBBS, BDS and nursing training is held. Uttarakhand Technical University had conducted premedical tests for four medical colleges with 270 seats, for three dental colleges with 130 seats and for one nursing college with 60 seats.

Out of 85 seats, 66 have been filled at State Medical College, Haldwani, 57 seats out of 85 at State Medical College, Srinagar, and at Sri Guru Ram 
Rai Medical College out of 10 seats seven have been filled.

“All seats of the BDS course are now full, at Seema Dental College, Rishikesh, out of 50 seats three seats and at Uttaranachal Dental College, Dehradun, out of the 40 seats three seats have been filled for general category candidates who had undertaken premedical test,” said Dr Bharat Kishore, Additional Director, Medical Education.

The counselling was held for 180 MBBS seats in three colleges and in two BDS colleges offering 90 seats.

The reduced list concerning the number of colleges advertised during the premedical test and counselling undertaken was mainly due to the affiliation that was not granted to one dental college by the dental council, while the matter pertaining to 50 seats in MBBS is in court, in these seats, too, counselling could not be held, while a private college managed to allocate 10 out of 50 seats under the government quota.

Essentially, the counselling was conducted for 270 seats, while at the time of entrance examination it was stated that there are 460 seats.

Now second phase of counselling for the SC/ST and OBC seats will take place.

Dehradun, July 21
Property tax assessment will soon go high-tech in Dehradun, Haridwar and Nainital with the use of the Geographic Information System (GIS).

Funded by the Asian Development Bank, the technology-aided assessment is expected to increase the earnings of urban local bodies bringing in more area under the purview of the tax assessment.

“As a pilot project, the systems mapping of properties for tax assessment was undertaken in ward No. 4 (Salawala), Rajpur Road, last year and the results were as per our expectations. The system if adopted will increase property tax collection from the current rate of 20 per cent to 50 per cent as the unit area is bound to go up,” said Nidhi Mani Tripathi, Additional Secretary, Urban Development.

Property enumeration and mapping will not only help new property enumeration, but also help in true assessment of the existing properties that may have expanded over a period of time.

The assessment registers are the only official property tax records and any changes in the taxation should have reference to them as such procedure entails matching khasra with the digital maps. “While undertaking the pilot project, even though the register were disorganised and had not been updated for some years, they contained, at least, partial records of most of the urban property database. For several properties there were no records and only ledger data was given by owners. For the creation of a new registration system it will have to be linked to the existing entry ledgers to modern usable computer files. At the end of the exercise, what we can get is a critical property assessment register,” said PK Sharma, Deputy Team Leader of the Investment Programme Management Consultant.