Haridwar, October 13
With many parts of the city still reeling under the stench of garbage and filth post-floods, inviting contagious diseases, the Sewadal of the Congress has demanded immediate cleaning of these areas besides carrying out fogging operations.

Despite many cases of diseases like dengue and malaria having been reported in those areas, the municipality and the Health Department are still not concerned, said city chief of the Sewadal cell Mukesh Ahuja.

It is a pity that despite the district being the constituency of state Urban Development Minister Madan Kaushik, its residents have to take an agitational route to bring such health hazards to the notice of the authorities concerned in the district.

At a meeting held here today, Sewadal members said the municipality had failed to address the situation post-floods as every colony was filled with garbage and leftovers. “Despite relief funds pouring in from the Centre, the municipality is least concerned to clean the city and taking adequate steps to control the spread of diseases. Fogging is not being done in the affected areas. Even municipality Chairman’s ward, Jwalapur, is reeling under unhygienic conditions,” he added.

Demanding the suspension of Executive Officer BL Arya, secretary of the Sewadal Nanda Kishore said apart from locals, pilgrims and tourists coming to the city in large numbers were also getting afflicted by diseases, which was giving a very bad impression of the city.

He said if the things remained so then the Sewadal activists would take to streets, as it was the common man who was the most affected in such unhygieninc conditions.

At the meeting, homage was also paid to martyr Jagdish Singh who laid his life while fighting with terrorists in Jammu Kashmir. Present among others were Vashu Sharma, Ashish Sharma, Ajay Joshi and Satyanarayan Sharma.

Meanwhile, Arya said fogging was being done in the whole city regularly as a precautionary step while despite shortage of sanitation workers cleaning of city was being done properly. With more than a dozen cases of diseases having been reported in the city, CMO BK Gairola has formed a rapid response team to oversee the dengue crisis in the city.

“We carrying out operations to spray insecticides as per the situation and people are being given information about the deadly dengue virus and the symptoms of the disease,” said Dr Gairola, explaining the situation. 

Dehradun, October 13
The Nainital High Court has admitted the writ filed by the Personnel Below Officers Rank (PBOR) Association against the circular released on July 7 whereby the canteen facilities for lower ranks in the Army have been reduced, citing reasons of preventing its misuse by lower ranks and, along with that people of the rank of Hony Capt have been brought down to JCOs and Hony Nayak Subedar to Havildar.

Informing about this development, president of the PBOR PTR Shamsher Singh Bisht said, “This circular corroborates the Army officers’ mentality to undermine the prestige of people of honorary ranks, who are always treated with a bias. This honour is bestowed upon by the President of the country, who is the supreme body over all defence forces, in recognition of the exceptional bravery and loyalty of the few lucky soldiers at the time of their retirement which also means that all facilities and rights which come with this exalted level. Now, defying this recognition means directly defying the President’s position”.

Incensed over the content of the circular, Hony Capt SS Rana said, “I had been officers’ trainer for eight years where I also got the opportunity to train the present Army Chief as well. Unfortunately, these officers who learn everything from us, work to demean our status when they become officers”.

Hony Capt Ramesh Rawat said after having served the Army for 36 years and fought four wars, this was the least he expected from the Army. He castigated the term “lower ranks” used to describe the people of honorary levels in the circular. He also emphasised that this new shift would demoralise the soldiers who were already serving in the Army.

Hony Capt Sujan Singh elucidated that when it came to giving facilities to the PBOR, they were treated as people of lower ranks and when it came to extracting money from them, they were put at officer’s pedestal. “Since the issue of the Sixth Pay Commission has been sorted out up to the JCO level, so we have been put on wait keeping us in league of officers’ ranks. Similarly, we are asked to pay the same amount of money for hospital and other facilities just like officers. But shockingly be it canteen facilities, entry in DSOI, using the window meant for officers in queues, we are denied the privilege of officer ranks. This is appallingly insulting to us”.

Reposing their faith in the judicial system, Bisht said they would abide by the court’s verdict in this context. He also informed that their association had sent a letter each to Ministry of Defence, Chief of the Army Staff, Deputy General Canteen Service QMG Branch, Delhi, and Sub Area Commandant and in charge CSD Canteen, Garhi Cantt, asking for an explanation within four weeks for bringing about such a circular.

Haridwar, October 13
Retaining walls will be constructed at the Motichur tunnel to permanently solve the problem of rail service disturbances on the Haridwar-Dehradun line due to landslide at tunnel ends.

The Haridwar railway authorities has sent a proposal to the divisional headquarters at Moradabad for the construction of the retaining walls at the tunnel ends. A proposal of Rs 50 lakh has been forwarded to the divisional headquarters which, as per railway sources, will be cleared soon and by the end of this year the work will get started.

Notably, last month the tunnel was blocked several times due to massive mudslides. From September 19, for full three consecutive days the rail movement beyond this tunnel was hampered towards the Motichur-Dehradun side.

In this context, Chief Engineer (Planning), Moradabad Division, SL Verma took samples of the mud, stones near the tunnel. Station Superintendent Samarendra Goswami said the retaining wall seemed to be the best permanent solution to the problem of the tunnel getting blocked due to mudslides in heavy rain.

Pitthoragarh, October 13
Demanding salaries for September, Uttarakhand Roadways employees of the Pitthoragarh and Tanakpur depots today threatened to start an indefinite agitation in front of the depot offices. “Despite the natural calamity that struck the state last month, the employees worked hard to earn a sum of Rs 1.5 crore in the Pitthoragarh and Tanakpur depots whereas the amount in the head of salaries for the employees is only Rs 1.15 crore,” said Manohar Singh Jethi, officer-bearer of the employees union.

The employees of the Tanakpur depot submitted a memorandum to the Regional Manager demanding salaries for September otherwise they would be compelled to start an indefinite agitation. “The roadways buses plying from Tanakpur did not face much disturbances in the past month despite the nature calamity, which was mainly hit the hilly area. The Tanakpur depot runs most of its buses on the routes in plains,” said Jaikishan Kalauni, regional president of the Roadways Employees Union.

But, officers are keeping their fingers at the losses to both depots of the region, saying that the nature calamity last month disturbed their routine. “Out of a loss of Rs 21 crore to the roadways in the Kumaon region in the past month’s rains, our region lost more than 1.6 crore, which disturbed our routine,” said Lekhraj Pangti, Regional Manager, Tanakpur Region.

Succumbing to the pressure of the employees, the Pitthoragarh region, despite incurring a loss of Rs 80 lakh due to the calamity, has now decided to pay the salaries of the employees within this week. “I have arranged for the salaries of the employees from our emergency fund and handed over it to the Regional Manager,” said Bhupendra Kumar, Assistant Regional Managaer (ARM), Pitthoragarh Depot, adding that after his depot has recovered three office buses trapped at Chamaria on the Haldwani-Almora road two days before and all long-route buses of the depot are now plying properly. There will be no crisis of payment of salaries from the next month.

Haridwar, October 13
With emphasis on the need for environment conservation and its benefits to the human life, a tree plantation drive was organised at BHEL where various saplings were planted. The drive was organised by the Women in Public Sector organisation at the Herbal Park situated in sector 3 of the BHEL complex.

Addressing the gathering, Vandana Modi highlighted the immense importance of trees in our lives. She urged people to plant as many trees as they could, while conserving the existing ones. This way we could save the environment and negate the ill-effects of global warming, which was fast engulfing the whole world.

At the plantation drive, saplings having medicinal benefits, like amla and neem, were planted. The reason behind planting medicinal saplings was given by president of the organisation Geeta Bhatnagar, who said those medicinal plants purified the environment more than other ordinary species and they were more beneficial.

Lauding the efforts of the women wing, MD, Human Resources, Vimal Kumar said by holding such events, the social cause of BHEL gained momentum and if all employees participating in this programme made sure that the planted trees were also due taken good care of then surely the motive of this drive would be achieved.

Others who coordinated the event were Rajeev Bhatnagar, Yashodhra Bhatt, Chaya Nasa, Neelam Sodhi, Poonam Singh, Neelam Shrivastava and Neelu Garg. 

Dehradun, October 13
The Max India Foundation, the social initiative of the Max India group, organised a free health and immunisation camp for inmates of the Raphael Ryder Cheshire International Centre here today. Over 300 children and adults are expected to benefit from the camp, which is being organised, with the assistance Raphael Residential Clinic doctors.

“The month of October is being celebrated as a partnership month between the Max India Foundation and the Centre. The foundation will cover all expenses at the centre,” said Air Marshal BD Jayal (retd.), Chairman, Raphael centre.

As a part of the camp 200 children will be administered hepatitis B vaccines. Volunteers from Dehradun Max New York Life Insurance assisted in the camp. “A team of two dental surgeons and two eye specialists are here from Delhi,” said Mohini Daljeet Singh, Head of the foundation.

After visiting Raphael, Analjit Singh, Chairman and Chief Patron, Max India, decided to take up health programme at Raphael.

“We are conducting regular paediatric, cardiac and congenital heart camps for children from Afghanistan,” Mohini added.

Nainital, October 13
The Nainital police has started investigations against certain court officials for tampering with documents pertaining to a case. The First Information Report (FIR) in the matter has been lodged by the high court through the Registrar following orders from Chief Justice Barin Ghosh.

According to information, certain papers pertaining to a case, Biru Singh versus State Government of Uttarakhand, had been allegedly tampered with by some officials of the court. Certain data related to the case that was stored in the court computers has also been deleted.

Sources said the case had been with the erstwhile Uttar Pradesh High Court since 1991 and transferred to the Uttarakahand High Court in 2001. The matter pertaining to tampering with the papers in the case had come to light on September 8 this year.

The police has been asked to zero in on the officials who were responsible for the deletion of the data and the tampering of the papers.