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Hoardings: Chamoli has his way
Cong councillors urge Mayor to hold Board meeting soon
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MDDA keeps tourists in dark
No respite from rain fury in Haridwar
3 students climb on water tank
Orientation week kicks off at Doon varsity
Education fair helps students take career decisions
U’khand Police district league champs
Haridwar MC to conduct household survey in slums
MRI services at Doon Hospital make slow progress
Dr Nautiyal gets Panchkarm Guru title
Akranta pip Sarvodaya 3-0
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Hoardings: Chamoli has his way
Dehradun, July 27 Chamoli said: “The state government has made it clear that it is only through a tender process the hoarding rights will be given to advertisers. And tenders are not possible for the rooftops of residences which in itself defeats the purpose of installing hoardings on rooftops.” Chamoli has been against installing hoarding on rooftops, which in his view, spoils the picturesque view of mountainous surroundings of the city. Miffed at Mayor’s highhandedness on sticking to his ground by bringing in his own bylaws in the hoarding policy without taking the state government in confidence, which affected the interests of a couple of those who are considered to be quite influential in political circles, the matter was almost taken up by state government, clipping the wings of the Mayor by replacing former MNA with Indu Dhar Bodai. The point appeared to have drummed up quite well to the Mayor to take along the party and its people if not to get alienated in the process on this issue. The committee of officers of the secretary level from various departments formed to carve out a hoarding policy has made it clear that henceforth the hoarding rights would only be allocated through a tendering process. “With the initiation of the tender process, the initial method of giving advertisement rights to selected few in an arbitrarily manner will come to an end,” Chamoli averred. New registrations are pending since March 31 as the stalemate continued over the issue. There are 216 hoardings on the rooftops of 135 houses which will be removed under the drive. The drive will start from Dila Ram Chowk and the CMI Hospital where the hoardings within 25-30 metre area of the roundabouts will also be removed. The Mayor said in the absence of a hoarding policy, the DMC made a profit of only 50 lakh in all these years which could have shot up to Rs 150 crore if a hoarding policy had been enforced in the very beginning.
MDDA seals 2 complexes for violating norms Dehradun, July 27 Among the buildings sealed was a commercial complex on the Gandhi Road near the Prince Chowk for constructions other than approved in the map and another at the Rajpur Road for land use infringements. The MDDA has embarked upon a campaign against commercial establishments in Dehradun for quite some time. These have been for violations ranging from flouting building by-laws or constructions other than approved in the maps. A notice has been served to Doon Plaza situated along the Gandhi Road near the Prince Chowk by the MDDA some time back. The MDDA authorities allege that the builders had not constructed the Doon Plaza according to the map approved earlier by the MDDA. Similarly, the Parshwanath commercial complex on the Rajpur Road was also sealed today by the MDDA officials for land use linked violations. The MDDA sources said the campaign against commercial ventures, who were flouting MDDA norms would continue in the days to come. There have been reports of large-scale construction violations linked to commercial complexes in the Dehradun city. Seldom are arrangements for parking available in the commercial complexes and even if these are there, they are used for purposes other than parking. Further, security arrangements like for exigencies like fire are also missing in most of these complexes. Time and again the MDDA officials are accused of going soft on these commercial constructions.
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Cong councillors urge Mayor to hold Board meeting soon
Dehradun, July 27 Verma said it was obligatory in the MC Act for the Opposition to call upon the Mayor to hold a Board meeting which was held six months ago, and the Mayor was supposed to act on it within 15 days. Verma also asked Chamoli to create a joint team of the DMC with the MDDA, PWD and Irrigation. At this, the Mayor said many a time he had asked the state government regarding this, but nothing was done. “Therefore, we have to depend on our own resources for our work,” he added. The intervention of the District Magistrate to take charge of garbage maintenance in the city did not signal well for the DMC’s own capability, Verma said, though he thanked the DM for his initiative in extending a helping hand. He also pointed toward the indications whereby the state government seemed to be holding sway over the Solid Waste Management Policy which should have been under the DMC control. To pacify Opposition’s misgivings, Chamoli said since the state government was partaking in funding the Solid Waste Management project, therefore, it was justifiable for it to monitor its progress and make sure that money was spent rightly. The work would ultimately be done by the DMC, he said. The Mayor was also questioned by councillor Dr Vijaynder Pal Singh for his much-publicised promise of removing encroachments from the front gate of th Gandhi Park. To this the Mayor asked for time to get police force to do the job. The councillor did not find the answer satisfactory.
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MDDA keeps tourists in dark
Mussoorie, July 27 Tourists and residents alike are finding it difficult to use the state-of-the-art public utilities constructed by the MDDA due to lack of proper maintenance and absence of electricity forcing tourists to use the services either in the dark or with the help of a candle which is not The lavatory just below the Jawahar Aquarium remains busy with a large amount of tourists visiting the site, but the lavatory is found wanting in providing services the tourists deserve. The absence of the electricity for the past few days leaves tourists searching for other avenues or buying a candle for the given moment. Executive Engineer SM Sharma informed that the lavatories run by them had been doled out to other parties for maintenance free of cost and they had received several complaints regarding their services on a frequent basis. He said a notice was being served and plans were to remove the present caretakers of the services in the town, including the one at Jawahar Aquarium.
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No respite from rain fury in Haridwar
Haridwar, July 27 Silt has accumulated in streets and houses of the area, once again proving the vulnerability of the city which has now become prone to water logging because of a lack of planning, proper civic infrastructure and disaster management programmes. Such was the situation in the area that inhabitants didn’t sleep the whole night as they worked round the clock to flush out silt and water from their establishments. Residents complained that even before the onset of monsoon they had written to the authorities concerned to make a protection wall at the same place from where the deluge entered their colony. “My whole family, comprising five members, has not slept since 2 am as muddy water continued to enter our house for hours. It was only when the rain slowed down that we finally were able to stop the deluge entering our house, but not before it damaged the inner rooms of the house,” said Anil Kumar, a resident of the colony. Meanwhile, municipality employees too pitched in to remove the silt that had entered the houses. While in the wake of last week rain havoc in New Haridwar encroachments on the nullahs and sewer lines were removed, in the Brahmpuri area many houses and shops have been built on the nullahs and on sloppy terrains. But due to the commercial value of the area, as it is in the midst of many prominent temples and near Har-ki-Pauri, the encroachers have been flaunting the rules. Administrative sources say as the Kanwar mela is going on nothing much can be done, but it is certainly on its priority list to remove the encroachments in this area.
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Book on ‘Pahari’ Wilson hits stands in Mussoorie
Mussoorie, July 27 According to Cambridge Book Depot owner Sunil Arora, the book has been well received by readers on its opening day and further inquiries have started pouring in on the nature of the book. The 288-page hardbound book with rare pictures and illustrations of the Wilson family tree is in the form of romanticised fiction and a result of substantial amount of time spent by the author in the foothills of the Himalayas, trying to piece together the life of Frederick "Pahari" Wilson, who was first introduced to him by environmentalist Sunder Lal Bahuguna. Immaculately researched, the book is a sincere effort to understand the sort of man Wilson was, depicting love and affection for that character. The book tells the story of Wilson, a 19th-century adventurer who, in the words of Rudyard Kipling, "lived a life that would have been the envy of kings”. Wilson was the first white man to permanently settle in the Bhagirathi valley. Virtually penniless when he arrived, possessing little more than two rifles, a bedroll and the clothes on his back, fortune smiled on this legendary figure of the British Raj when two decades later he was reckoned to be the richest man in the northern India. From the town of Wakefield in Yorkshire, Wilson was 17 when he disembarked in Calcutta in 1836. India was the only country he really ever knew, a country he would fight, spy and live for, and the great Himalayan mountains of the country he would plunder for their game and timber. His earliest years were spent in the Army, stationed at Meerut, not brilliant years by any means, in fact unhappy ones. And then he left the Army, under a cloud it seems, at the time of the First Afghan War. He arrived in the hill station of Mussoorie at the end of 1841, some say a deserter, others that he was on the run, having killed a man in Meerut. His plan was to follow the Ganges to its source above Gangotri. Was this flight to the northern limits of the princely state of Tehri-Garhwal motivated by necessity to avoid arrest and possibly a firing squad? Neither history nor local lore provides a precise answer. But the book attempts effectively to clear the cobwebs of time by providing a number of facts. Wilson first settled at Harsil, one of the last permanently inhabited villages on the Bhagirathi, married there and raised a family. If outlaw he was, at some point thereafter the authorities must have pardoned him, possibly as a reward for services rendered, the covert kind of services that few are capable of providing and fewer still willing to undertake. Once freed from the burden of being a fugitive, he made a fine reputation as a backcountry guide and the most successful trophy hunter of his day. The “Raja of Harsil” chronicles Wilson's existence along the northern frontier. It describes his plundering of the Bhagirathi valley for its trees, slaughtering of wildlife for plumes and pelts, and his introducing to the region the apple seed, potato and green bean. The legacy he left was a denuded forest and apple orchards aplenty, the apple having since become the region's biggest cash crop. The hill people called him 'Hulseyn Sahib'. Initially they regarded him with respect and admiration, but slowly their attitudes changed. Admittedly, he brought prosperity to Upper Tangnore, as the remotest stretch of the Bhagirathi valley was known in those days, but he was not loved for that. He introduced a cash economy to a region where previously only barter existed; he diversified the hill people's food sources, making them less exposed to hunger and malnutrition, but he was not thanked for that either. He kept their larders full with meat, the excess of his hunting, and introduced new tools and skills that improved their living standards. But in spite of all that the priests of Mukhba and Gangotri remained skeptical, not to say hostile. Wilson’s timbering operations were so successful that he soon outstripped the ability of the East India Company to deliver sufficient coin to the northern provinces for him to meet his payroll on a punctual basis. This caused him to mint his own coin, the Harsil Rupee, a brass token with a hole in the centre. Unknown to him, minting coin was considered a royal prerogative, a fact that prompted local folk to call him the Raja of Harsil, and indeed he lived as might a feudal baron whose authority rivaled that of Sudarshan Shah, the then incumbent Raja of Tehri-Garhwal. Wilson and his wife were consecrated in 1829 at the cemetery on the Camel’s Back Road, Mussoorie, where the grave still exists. The book succeeds in its endeavour to immortalise Frederick Wilson and reaches out to readers of all generations. The book will be formally launched soon either at Mussoorie or Delhi.
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3 students climb on water tank
Dehradun, July 27 The students were demanding BA, BCom and MA classes be started and threatened that they wouldn’t come down the water tanker unless their demand was met. The police and the college authorities remained on their toes. They exhorted the students to climb down, but the latter didn’t agree. It was only when the representatives of the Education Directorate reached there and assured the students of the fulfilment of their demand that the students came down at about 1 pm. The Station House Officer of the Doiwala police station confirmed that the students had climbed down from the water tank after assurances of the Education Directorate officials. Meanwhile, in view of an increase in such incidents, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) GS Martoliya said the police was sending legal notices to all mobile tower owners asking them to ensure security at their respective premises otherwise legal action would be initiated against them if any one climbed on the towers.
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Orientation week kicks off at Doon varsity
Dehradun, July 27 A total of 40 students, who have taken admission in five-year integrated language courses participated in the orientation. As many as 50 students from different streams such as communication, environment science and resource management also participated. At the start of the programme, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof Girijesh Pant, welcomed the students and gave a talk on the academic culture and tradition of the university. He said in order to provide jobs to students, the university would be coming up with more and more job-oriented courses in the future. Officials from Spanish and Argentinean embassies in New Delhi were present to deal with the queries of the students of language courses. Professors from School of Languages, Jawaharlal University, answered queries of Chinese language students. On the occasion, TC Nautiyal, Registrar of the university, Finance Controller RC Agarwal, Deputy Registrar Sunit Naithani, Prof Jyoti Kumar Sharma, Pro Pradeep Chakravorty and Prof Sadhna Naithani were present.
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Education fair helps students take career decisions
Dehradun, July 27 The international education fair was conducted with an aim to give opportunities to interested students and make decisions for their future in management studies, IT and hotel management. A large number of students had gathered to seek detailed and indepth information through presentation from 11 am to 12:30 pm followed by one-on-one interactive session with the representatives of international universities till 5 in the evening. Students learnt about the various courses and universities overseas with unique feature suiting to their preferences. The presentation was based on the comparative analysis of different study destination helping students to make a best-suited decision. Experts from SIEC and other representing universities also delivered information under one roof about scholarship, part-time jobs, placement after the course is over and different career options in different countries of the world.
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AISF holds awareness rally
Dehradun, July 27 The federation, which is on a drive to make students aware about their rights and liberties, had reached Dehradun today from Mussoorie. A large number of students from DAV PG College attended the demonstration. The demonstration is an awareness programme for youth regarding their educational privileges. While addressing the gathering, Vinod Joshi, state secretary of the federation, said, “Students have several issues and problems regarding the privatisation and commercialisation of education, influx of international universities and other constitutional rights. The federation aims at catering to the troubles faced by students across the country”. Apart from Vinod Joshi, Naresh Dhyundi, Rajnikant, Siddhu Khalwal, Vikram Mehar, Bhupendra Kandari, Mukesh Rawat, Rajendra and many others were present at the demonstration.
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U’khand Police district league champs
Dehradun, July 27 This was police team’s Sher Singh who stole the show. He struck in the extra time in 72nd minute to get his team the top spot. Both the teams had entered the final of the league on the basis of their points during the league. With this win Uttarkhand Police amassed 24 points and the XI Star became the runners-up with 21 points. Willis Youth Club stood third with 15 points in the league.
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Haridwar MC to conduct household survey in slums
Haridwar, July 27 The survey being done by the Municipality Committee (MC) has earmarked 23 such slum colonies having an approximate population of about 30,000. These will be surveyed under the Uttarakhand Urban Sector Slum Devlopment Programme in coordination with the Urban Developmnet Department, Government of India and Himalayan Institute of Environment and Ecology, Dehradun. A private agency has been hired by the Municipality Committee to carry out the survey in a stipulated time of one month. The said agency has also been given the contract to carry out such survey in more than 60 odd municipalities and panchayats in various districts of Uttarakhand. Chairman of the Municipal Committee Kamal Johra has sought cooperation as well as suggestions from the ward councillor regarding the survey so that the agency activists carry out the survey in a better and precise manner. Ward councillor Karuna Sharma said the agency people had apprised them about the whole concept, scheme and the way the survey would be carried out, apart from the developmental works that would be carried out as per the survey reports. The funding of this scheme was being done by the Asian Development Band (ADB), while developmental works would be as per the parameters set by the government of India. The survey would be done within one month, while after compilation and other related works, the developmental works would get start probably by the end of this year.
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MRI services at Doon Hospital make slow progress
Dehradun, July 27 An experiment in PPP and being run by Mahajan Imaging Pvt Ltd, so far between July 2009- June 2010 a total of 3,928 patients had undertaken MRI scans. Of them, 1,347 patients belonged to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category. Maximum number of patients require MRI scans of spine and brain. “Between July 2009-June 2010, a total of 3,928 patients had undertaken MRI scans. Of them 1,347 patients were the BPL category,” said Sandeep Garg, representative of Mahajan Imaging Pvt Ltd. Sources say that a below-average response to the services can be attributed to lack of awareness and doctors suggesting other clinics for undertaking MRI scans. Though it is early days yet to count the successes of the centre, by carrying out scans from 8 am to 8 pm the centre was able to convey the message of its availability beyond the OPD hours, ie after 2 pm. However, the centre is now facing problems on Sundays, with thin attendance despite remaining open on a holiday. “For the past two months there have been negligible patients on Sundays,” said Garg. The hospital authorities have tied up with Mahajan Imaging Centre till July 2014 and the charges fixed by the hospital managing committee is Rs 3,500 per body part, less than what is being charged at private hospitals. It is a big draw for Above Poverty Line (APL) patients, who prefer the government hospital to private clinics. The MRI scan is undertaken for hips, thighs, brain, etc. According to the memorandum of agreement between the government and the private party, the patients with BPL cards will get free treatment, while APL patients will have to pay Rs 3,500 per case, charges similar to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Further, as per the terms of the agreement, the company will be able to pocket the
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Dr Nautiyal gets Panchkarm Guru title
Dehradun, July 27 Dr JN Nautiyal, panchkarma specialist at Doon Hospital, Dehradun, was felicitated at a programme here today. With over two decades of experience, Dr Nautiyal, who had initial training at Kerala, described panchkarma as a successful field to attract high value tourists into the state. He said panchkarma was proving to be a lucrative career option for the youth as many panchakarma trained persons from the Doon Hospital had got placements at the Panchkarma Centre of Ananda Spa Narendra Nagar. Dr Nautiyal said panchkarma was also a healthy way to life and called upon people to take it up in a big way even in their individual life. He was also bestowed the Panchkarm Guru title at the function, which was attended of Dr D Moni, Dr Sapna Dimri, Dr Sohan Khanduri and Dr Seema Bansal.
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Akranta pip Sarvodaya 3-0
Dehradun, July 27 While Riyaz of Sarvodaya was sent off after being shown the yellow cards in the 54th and 74th miuntes. Tomorrow, City Young will meet Gorkha United. Shastradhara beat SGRR team 4-0
Shastradhara blanked the SGRR Raja Road team 4-0 in the SGRR Sahodaya Inter-School Tournament here today. Rahul Rawat (10th), Abhishek Pundir (22nd) and Anurag (29th and 34th) scored to help the side post a one-sided win. The SGRR Balawala also scored a facile win over SGRR Bombay Bagh 5-1. Ankit Rawat (first), Vishal (5th), Amit Negi (28th) and Ankit Bisht (40th and 50th) shone for the winning team. While Pankaj (12th) chipped in with a lone goal for the rival team.
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The issue of hoarding policy is again heating up, thanks to the tender process which is to be started for the new registrations.
The Spirit of International Education and Careers (SIEC) held its bi-annual Education and Careers Fair here today. Institutions and universities from several international destinations such as New Zealand, Australia, the UK, the USA, Singapore and Canada participated in the event to render information on international education concepts.
XI Star become runners-up with 21 points and the Willis Youth Club stand third with 15 points in the league
