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Situation in Haridwar under control: Admn
Deploy Army if needed, says PM
Relief work continues in Kumaon
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Tehri dam reservoir at all-time high
Death toll due to rains 67
People in endangered villages being shifted: CM
Extended monsoon to hit crops
Rains wipe out 3,000 hectares fields in Thatyur
Trains limp back to normal
Back paper exam postponed
Varsity to check ‘cut and paste’ technique in PhDs
Workshop on animation begins
Close win for Deepak-Vishwajeet
U’khand referee for AFC cup
RIMC swimmers shine
Ayushi, Himanshi to vie for b’minton title
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Situation in Haridwar under control: Admn
A school boy succumbed to injuries he suffered when a school wall collapsed in Khadkhadi due to rains. Neeraj Bisht was a student of Class IV of Prem Chand Public School, Khadkhadi. He was first taken to the district hospital from where he was referred to the Doon Hospital. Residents have protested against school administration’s decision of opening the school despite the state government declaring three-day closure of schools owing to floods in Haridwar. As the water released from the Tehri Dam earlier in the day reached Haridwar in the evening, the level of the Ganga was further scaled. More areas got submerged. Meanwhile, administrative officials have requested residents not to worry about the Tehri reservoir water reaching Haridwar as it will don’t aggravate situation here. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank visited the flood-affected areas in Haridwar city, Lakshar and Roorkee. Nishank was quite perturbed seeing the massive destruction done by the floods and rains. Hilly terrains of Mata Mansa Devi and Shivalik regions are still witnessing intermittent mudslides, which have blocked the hilly bypass route as well as the routes to the Mata Mansa Devi temple. Inspecting the landslides on the bypass, Nishank directed the officials concerned to speed up the work and utilise every resource at their disposal. While talking to mediapersons at one of the affected sites, he sought instant relief to the state from the Central government for the large-scale disaster brought on the state by continuing rains. Accompanied by State Urban Development Minister Madan Kaushik, Nishank also carried out an aerial survey of the worst-affected regions of Lakshar and Roorkee. Meanwhile, the district administration has termed the situation in the district as under control, but still sensitive. National Disaster Response Force specialists having expertise in rescue, search, paramedics have reached Haridwar. They have been deployed in all sensitive areas where rescue operations are being carried out on a war footing. SP (City) Kiran Lal Shah said half a dozen people were rescued from the Shyampur region where mini islands had formed while hundreds of people had been shifted to safer places. Personnel from Roorkee are also aiding in rescue operations while paramilitary forces aided with life-saving boats have given a major thrust to these operations. Landslides and collapsing of buildings continued for the second consecutive day today. An ancient temple near Har-ki-Pauri, Panchmukhi Hanuman Mandir, having 22 rooms, collapsed after a landslide eroded its base. While the railway tunnel near the Bhimgoda Kali temple also got blocked leading to cancellation of traiins to Dehradun. All trains on this track were cancelled while work to clear the track was going on till evening. Passengers were seen stranded at the Haridwar railway station. Many trains got derailed. A huge rush was also seen at reservation counters to get the tickets cancelled as people are avoiding travel. Station Superintendent Samarendar Goswami said railway employees are clearing the debris that had blocked the track and in the meanwhile the Haridwar station was operating temporarily trains that were operated from Dehradun.
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Deploy Army if needed, says PM
Dehradun, September 20 In a statement released today, Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment Harish Rawat said at a high-level meeting the Prime Minister directed the Home Minister to deploy the Army wherever required for carrying out relief operations. Meanwhile, drawing inspiration from Governor Margaret Alva, all officers and employees of the Raj Bhawan have decided to contribute a day’s salary as assistance for the affected people of Uttarakhand.
— TNS
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Relief work continues in Kumaon
Nainital, September 20 The administration has managed to get the Nainital-Bhimtal-Haldwani road opened which has made the supply of essentials, including newspapers possible. However, there appear no chances of getting the Nainital-Jyolikote-Haldwani, Nainital-Kaladhungi and Bhawal-Khairna-Almora roads opened for days to come. Talking to The Tribune, Kunal Sharma, Commissioner, Kumaon Division, said that the administration has deployed a large number of excavators on the alternative route to Almora from Bhawali that goes via Ramgarh. He expected the road to be through by the evening. Sharma was present in Mukteshwar overseeing the operations along with the Inspector General of Police (Kumaon Range) RS Meena. He said 100 houses in Almora had been completely damaged in the cloudburst and rain in the past two days. More than 200 houses had been partially damaged. The administration had made arrangements to shift the residents. The worst-affected area on Monday was the Shakti Farm area of Udham Singh Nagar district that was lashed by flash floods over the past two days. Sharma said, “More than 3,000 persons have been shifted to safer locations in the area”. Modes of transport have been badly hit in the region. Till Monday, afternoon buses were only plying to Bareilly and Khatima from Haldwani. Services on all other inter-state and inter-district routes stood suspended with a large number of people being stranded. These persons were a harried lot as there was no one to give them updates on the plying of buses and they ran from one office to another. Dissemination of information from the government end has been a big casualty as there have been few updates coming through the Information Department leaving the journalists to call up the top officials constantly. The railway infrastructure at Haldwani has been badly hit as a major portion of the station was washed away by the Gaula river leaving the tracks hanging in the air. This has led to suspension of some train services. The districts of Pitthoragarh, Bageshwar and Champawat continue to face scarcity of essential commodities as the sole link to them has been the Bhawali-Almora road which stands disrupted and the alternative route is yet to be opened. The Kumaon Commissioner said essentials were being sent to these areas by the trans-shipment method which envisaged transportation of goods to a particular point by vehicles and then on foot to some distance in the areas experiencing blockages followed by vehicular transportation again. A heavy loss of cattle heads has also been reported in the region.
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Tehri dam reservoir at all-time high
Dehradun, September 20 Uttarakhand today woke up to another day of hectic activity as the heavy rain that had lashed the state in the past 48 hours resulted in almost all rivers of the state getting swollen. The filling up of the Tehri Dam reservoir created anxiety among both Tehri Hydro Development Corporation Limited (THDC) and the Tehri district authorities. As an immediate
precaution, the district administration evacuated Koteshwar colony downstream and started preparations to shift 25 villages that included 412 families. District Magistrate Tehri Radhika Jha, who said there was no need to panic, did admit that the water level at the Tehri reservoir was a matter of concern. “The rise of 11m of water at Tehri within a month is a matter of serious concern. But there is no need of panic and the situation was completely under control,” Radhika Jha, Tehri District Magistrate, said. THDC GM Projects AL Shah, however, ruled out any threat to the dam. He said the dam was very safe and there was no need to spread any panic. Meanwhile, there were reports of the Tehri Dam authorities planning to release some more water from the reservoir late night. Uttarakhand Disaster Management and Mitigation Centre’s Executive Director Piyush Rautela said the disaster management authorities were constantly monitoring the situation across the state. Almora, Tehri, Rudraprayag, Pithoragarh, Nainital and Haridwar continued to be most affected districts due to the rain. Many interconnecting roads in these districts had been washed away. A total of 150 persons have died in rain-linked incidents in Uttarakhand this monsoon.
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Death toll due to rains 67
Dehradun, September 20 Among bodies recovered included one each at Chinyalisaur in Tehri and Deoli in ALmora. A student died in Haridwar in a school wall collapse while a woman died in Rudprayag. The road to the shrine of Badrinath was blocked at a number of places. As many as 800 pilgrims were stranded as road connecting Uttarakashi to Yamuntori was blocked. A total of three bridges were washed away in the rains in Dhanolti. Even in Pauri district, more than 500 main and link roads in the district have been damaged by rains.
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People in endangered villages being shifted: CM
Nainital, September 20 This was stated by Chief Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank during his visit to Kumaon in the afternoon today. He called upon all political and social forces to join hands in the hour of distress and work together to mitigate the problems being experienced by the people. Nishank said more than 200 persons had died across Uttarakhand since the Sumgadh tragedy in Bageshwar on August 18 in which 22 children had been buried alive in a school building due to a landslide caused by a flash flood resulting from a cloudburst. He said more than 70 persons had been killed across the state over the past two days. Nishank said communication and other links to villages on the international borders with China and Nepal had collapsed and more than 90 per cent of the road network in the state had been damaged. He once again called for financial assistance from the Centre for rehabilitation of people and rebuilding of infrastructure. “We had asked for Rs 5,000 crore in the first phase which should be released to us immediately. Otherwise, it will take no less than three to four years to rebuild the infrastructure,” he said. He said that Rs 75 crore had been released by him on Sunday and the state government was doing everything to meet the challenges that Uttarakhand is facing. Nishank said that he was awaiting a word from the Prime Minister’s Office after the matter had been taken up with the PM by senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party like Sushma Swaraj and Lal Krishna Advani besides himself. He pointed that the state has also sought help from the Army, Indian Air Force (IAF) and the paramilitary forces like the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB). He praised the police for saving the lives of nine persons in Almora after the recent cloudburst. He also pointed that as a preventive measure, schools across the state have been closed for three days and leaves of government employees have been cancelled. He claimed that a proper plan is being put in place for rehabilitation of residents of endangered villages and the government has identified 100 such villages till now. Till their rehabilitation, the villagers are being shifted to safer locations. He was, however, evasive on the issue of why preventive actions had not been taken by officials across the region despite villagers pointing towards the possibilities of devastation taking place at certain places on several occasions. He visited the Sukhatal area of Nainital which has been marooned. Ironically, this has been a flood-prone area (a taal: lake to be precise) in which residential colonies have come up right under the nose of the administration over the past decade.
Rs 1 lakh relief to next of kin
Pitthoragarh, September 20 “The CM visited Bari, Balta and Develi villages near Almora town where a massive landslide on Saturday killed more than 20 persons. As many as 19 bodies have been recovered so far,” said Suvardhan, District Magistrate, Almora. “A total of 37 persons have been killed in Almora in the landslide and is said to be the first in the 400-year history of Almora town,” said the District Magistrate. He added that columns of the ITBP and regular police were searching for bodies at Develi and Balta villages. Many localities of old Almora town have been cited as sensitive as landslides have been reported from there during the past three days after heavy rain. “The localities of Dubalkhola, Maal, Khatyari, Sarso, Falseema, Sarkaar Ki Aali, Karnataka Khola, Pandey Khola and Devli localities of Almora town are showing symptoms of landslides. Keeping this in mind, some localities like Dubalkhola have been evacuated temporarily,” Suvardhan said. According to residents of Almora, the town has never shown any symptoms of landslides even during heavy rain in the past centuries, but due to unscientific construction of new localities and mass-scale mining, the town is sliding gradually. “Almora town needs a geological survey of a high scale and in totality to establish which area of the town should be used for construction of houses and which area should be left alone,” said Samsher Singh Bisht, president of the Uttarakhand Lok Vahini and a leading social activist.
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Extended monsoon to hit crops
Dehradun, September 20 Experts say early reports indicate that in the plain where water logging is being reported in fields around standing crops of rice there are already stem borer attack and pathogenic infestation on pulses. “The problem can turn serious where ever there is water logging and farmers had failed to take preventive measures of pest management. In the hills, however, there is good drainage so this problem will not be encountered in the rice crop there but yellowing of leaves due to excessive water cannot be avoided. There is also danger of pest infestation in pulses and oil seeds like urad, moong, masoor and soybean and the local varieties of pulses like bhatt (soybean) and local pulse gehat,” said Madan Lal, Director, Agriculture. The paddy crop is grown on 280,000 hectare in Uttarakhand with Udham Singh Nagar district having maximum area under rice and is also a leading producer. This year the Agriculture Department had fixed a target of bringing 10,000 hectares under the rice production. Besides, early assessment indicates that around 50 per cent of crops on 8,047 hectares in Udham Singh Nagar, Pauri, Nainital, Haridwar, Dehradun, Bageshwar, Pitthoragarh and Nainital have been destroyed while around 25 per cent crops on 25279 hectares in Champawat, Tehri, Rudraprayag, Almora, Chamoli have been destroyed or affected by two-three days of rainfall. The Uttarakhand government also offers compensation to farmers for their crop damage due to calamities. “In rain-fed areas Rs 2,000 per hectare and Rs 4,000 per hectare is offered as compensation to farmers whose crops get destroyed,” said Madan Lal. Excessive water too is posing problems to farmers both growing vegetables like ginger, tomato and chilies. “Excessive water leads to rotting and the farmers would be forced to take the ginger crop early to the market. Similarly, the tomato and chilly crops too turn yellow,” said Dr SK Singh, District Horticulture Officer.
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Rains wipe out 3,000 hectares fields in Thatyur
Mussoorie, September 20 Flash floods have damaged several homes, including Guru Ram Rai School at Dhana village. Villager Indramani, narrating the incident, said a cloudburst occurred at the village and water rushed downstream at a great speed sweeping away more than 15 watermills and fields with standing crops. Rainwater damaged the furniture and goods in his house completely. At Papra village, the situation remains critical. According to Murari Lal, rainwater accumulated deep inside the earth near the village yesterday. Today as the rain stopped, it gushed out from a single point just below the village washing away anything on its way. The Thatyur-Bangsil-Devalsari road has been blocked. Now, the village is also facing a danger of a major landslide. “We are sitting on a time-bomb,” adds Murali Lal. The villagers are angry at the fact that no one from the administration has reached the site to assess the situation as yet. The District Magistrate said she was aware of the situation and had directed the SDM, Dhanolty, to visit the spot. Senior Congress leader Devi Singh Chauhan alleged that none from the administration had visited the affected families. Chauhan also said the farmers who grew cash crops like potatoes, capsicum, apples had been affected the most. The farmers earned more than Rs 1 crore per season from the cash crops that were transported to Azadpur Mandi in Delhi, but due to road blocks their crops are rotting on the trucks. State Congress vice-president Jot Singh Bisht, who was on a visit to the affected areas, said the government had failed miserably in providing relief to the hapless farmers. The region was under the grip of natural disasters, but the Cabinet Disaster Minister and MLA from the constituency Khajan Das was busy accepting greetings, accolades and consuming sweets in the capital. Bisht also said faulty disaster management policies had led to more damage that could have been avoided. He said the installation of nets on the muddy sidewalls without any technical knowhow had been the main cause for such disasters. Several crores had been spent on the nets, but they had failed to stop the mudslides. Villagers at Bilaundi were living in fear as an important bridge connecting the village with the main road could collapse at any given moment. The relief had also not reached the victims affected by last week’s mudslide.
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Trains limp back to normal
Dehradun, September 20 Train services from Dehradun to other destinations via Haridwar were disrupted for more than 24 hours as result of incessant rain. The overflowing debris and water logging due to mudslide on railway tracks at Haridwar had caused much inconvenience to passengers. The services of nine trains, which had been cancelled yesterday, were restored. The Haridwar station was packed to capacity last night as passengers destined for Dehradun had to spend a night there. Many were forced to sleep on the platforms. The railway staff and vendors at the Haridwar junction were seen helping the stuck passengers. As the bus services via Haridwar and Saharanpur were also cut off yesterday, it added to the people’s woes. Vendors at the Dehradun railway station kept their shops closed today. The enquiry counter saw heavy rush of people. The Kathgodam-Dehradun Express, Dehradun-Nizamudin AC Special and Varanasi-Dehradun Express were flagged off from Dehradun railway station today. According to the officials of Dehradun railway station, it has been confirmed by the Senior Divisional Commercial Manager (Sr DCM), Moradabad, that the route near Haridwar has been cleared 99 per cent. All trains are likely to undertake their journey from tomorrow. The trains that had been cancelled are Saharanpur-Dehradun Passenger and Chennai-Dehradun Express. The services of Shatabdi, Amritsar-Dehradun Lahori Express, Allahabad-Dehradun Link Express, Howrah-Dehradun Express, Delhi-Dehradun Mussoorie Express, Bandra-Dehradun Expres and Kochuveli Express have been suspended for now.
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Back paper exam postponed
Dehradun, September 20 A large number of students in colleges had not even submitted forms for the back paper. More than 180 constitutional colleges are under HNB Garhwal University, including those in mountainous regions, Roorkee and
Haridwar. — TNS
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Varsity to check ‘cut and paste’ technique in PhDs
Nainital, September 20 Speaking at the conclusion of a two-day seminar on “Research Methods in Forestry and Climate Change” held at the Hermitage Building of the university here on Saturday, Dr Arora hit out at the large-scale churning out of PhDs across the country. He said: “We should be ashamed that a majority of the findings are confined only to guides and students. This should not be the criteria now”. A renowned academician in the field of agricultural sciences, Dr Arora asserted that PhD students must contribute to the knowledge and in this context the role of the guides becomes very important. He pointed out: “In the times to come, contribution of scientists will not be measured in terms of the papers submitted by them, but by the fact that how many lives they have saved. These can be human, plant or animal lives”. He said the guides must motivate thesis students to contribute towards the existing knowledge and hence only relevant titles and thesis should be there. Talking about forestry, he said it did not only deal with plants to save the environment but must provide social and economic solutions. “Why have people got disassociated from saving jungles from fire? It is because we have made changes without educating the people and the Forest Act has not been implemented in an ideal manner,” he said. It is time that people get benefits from the forests and their livelihood is linked to them. It is only then that the people will care for the forests and their conservation. Calling upon the need to increase the forest cover in the country by at least 10 per cent, Dr Arora said the quality of trees should be relevant to the area, altitude and environment. He asked the youth to draw lessons from the Chipko Movement and dedicate themselves towards saving the forests. Referring to the issue of climate change, he said immediate action is required to address the problem. He asked the scientists to indulge in quality research so that they could become precise in prediction and mitigation. He pointed out that the scientific community had now the onus to deliver on this front and it must work with sincerity and honesty to save life on the planet.
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Workshop on animation begins
Dehradun, September 20 Paresh Parekh, Creative Director of the institute from Mumbai, has come to educate students on the finesse of animation and visual effects at Frameboxx. Paresh said the students would shoot and edit their own visuals, thus learning to develop and inculcate modern technology for their career ahead.
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Close win for Deepak-Vishwajeet
Dehradun, September 20 The pair of Deepak Kumar and Vishwajeet Rawat in a close contest beat Praveen and Swaraj 29-27. In the second league doubles game, Neeraj Chawala paired with Sulender Rana to defeat the duo of Suresh Joshi and Vinod Negi 29-22. The match saw good competition, but Neeraj and Sulender dominated the later part of the match to register a win. The organisers said that singles and lucky doubles matches will be played tomorrow.
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U’khand referee for AFC cup
Dehradun, September 20 Dordoi from Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar's Yadanarbon, FC Vakhsh from Tajikistan and Turkmenistan's ITTU will feature in the President’s Cup. Commenting on the tournament, Patwal said, “The AFC President’s Cup will have two additional assistant referees for the first time.” The technical sub-committee of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) recently approved AFC’s request to implement the experiment with two additional assistant referees in the four-team finals. Patwal was the centre referee at the India versus Thailand and India versus Namibia friendly matches played this month in New Delhi. He was also the centre referee at the Santosh Trophy final last month.
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Goalless draws on Day 1
Dehradun, September 20 The first match was played between DMK and Akranta and the second between Deckiling Sports Club and Nagaland Christian Fellowship (NCF). Three matches were scheduled for today, but only two could be played. Now, four matches have been fixed for Tuesday. Twelve teams are participating in the tournament. These have been divided into three pools. The tournament will be played on a league-cum-knock out basis.
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RIMC swimmers shine
Dehradun, September 20 100m Freestyle: Gold-Cdt Karan Raj Sohi; and Silver-Cdt Aaditya Udupa, 100m Backstroke: Silver-Cdt Aaditya Udupa; and Bronze-Cdt Saurabh Thorve, 100m Breaststroke: Silver-Cdt Karan Raj Sohi, 4.50 m Butterfly: Silver-Cdt Aaditya Udupa; and Bronze-Cdt Saurabh Thorve, 5.4X50 Freestyle relay: Gold-Cdt Aaditya Udupa, Saurabh Thorve, Karan Raj Sohi and Aditya Kalsotra, 6.4X25 Medley Relay: Gold-Cdt Aaditya Udupa, Saurabh Thorve, Karan Raj Sohi and Myang Hang Rai. The cadets were accompanied by Hav Satish Patil. The Officiating Commandant, Lieut-Col Rajesh Nathawat, congratulated the cadets for the excellent performance.
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Ayushi, Himanshi to vie for b’minton title
Dehradun, September 20 In another girls’ open singles semifinals, Himanshi defeated Katyayni 21-19, 22-20. In under-19 girls singles, Ira Singh got the better of Sambhavi 21-14, 21-18. Sivangi and Stuti were defeated by Ayushi and Himanshi 21-17, 21-15 in u-19 in girls doubles. The pair of Deepti and Katyayani beat Savri and Radhika 21-5, 21-7 in another match of u-19 doubles. Also, Anmol and Megha defeated Anustha and Sivangi 22-20, 21-17.
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Dehradun, September 20
Nainital, September 20
Mussoorie, September 20
Dehradun, September 20
Haridwar, September 20
