Dehradun February 2
Demanding regularisation of their jobs, members of the Contractual Employees

Association of the three corporations of the Power Department, Uttrakhand Urja Mitr Karamchari Sangathan, staged a one-day dharna at the Gandhi Park here today. They threatened to observe hunger strike unto death if their demand was not fulfilled in time.

The employees in their memorandum said their disappointment had reached its limit, and they were ready to go to any extent if they were not regularised.

They also decided to hold another dharna in Garhwal and Kumaon on February 10 and at Urja Bhavan, Kanwali Road, on February 21. This would turn into a hunger strike if the state government did not redress their grievances.

Those who participated in the dharna included Yogender, Vikram, Manoj Pant, Kailash Upadhyay and Tarun Haldar. 

Dehradun, February 2
Following the directions of the Supreme Court of India, the Health Department in Dehradun will be issuing birth and death certificates in a new format.

These certificates, which were so far given on a plain paper with only the signature of the Municipal Corporation Health Officer, will from now onwards carry the national symbol, government’s hologram, including the logo of the corporation, to authenticate their originality.

There are many cases where people face problems when they go to submit these certificates at any required place. The officials ask many questions about the originality of these certificates, and they come under scanner as the stamp of the officer is effortlessly available in the market and anyone can copy the signature.

There were many people who faced the difficulty while getting their children admitted in the schools and colleges here as well as abroad. Following this a non-government organisation (NGO) approached the Supreme Court. Reacting on this, the court passed the order to apply the stamp of the national symbol so that it could be accepted as a national document. The certificate would now be issued in both English and Hindi languages. The size of the certificate would also be increased.

The MC is also planning to start online facilities under e-governance so that the certificates can be issued immediately.

The certificate is used as the authenticity of a person as it is required everywhere be it the admission in a school or other places where the date of birth is required.

Health Officer Dr Kailash Joshi said, “We have received the order from the Health Department and the same will start very soon. But we need to check the technical system before that. The Registrar of the department will be sending the design soon”.

Dehradun, February 2
Dehradun Municipal Corporation (DMC) Health Officer Kailash Joshi today issued orders to dairy owners and asked them to maintain hygiene in their surroundings. They have been told that anyone found throwing cow dung into the river would be challaned.

The health officer has also called upon a meeting with bigger dairy owners on February 7 to discuss how much waste they could collect in a day.

The corporation is planning to take all the waste from the owners and transfer it into fertilizer. This way there would be no filth in the area and the fertilizer could be used for various gardens of the nigam. 

Haridwar, February 2
With both major parties of the state, the Congress and the BJP, embroiled in corruption scams, one at the Central level and the other at the state level, both the parties are not leaving any stone unturned to have a dig at each other in the ongoing panchayat elections.

Local issues relating to the basic facilities, employment and the panchayat funds seem to have been put on the backburner by the previous winners to avoid the public wrath during the twin phase elections for the three-tier panchayat elections in the district.

The face of the Congress in Haridwar, local parliamentarian Harish Rawat, who has been recently given the important portfolio of Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing, told The Tribune that corruption issue was related to the public and people of Uttarakhand knew very well the working of the corrupt BJP state ministers. In these panchayat elections the corruption is one of the major issues as the development fund allocated for the rural region is not reaching the beneficiaries and instead is being gulped by the BJP ministers.

According to Bahadrabad Block Congress Committee president Arun Chauhan, the party workers are taking the issue of corruption in the BJP-led state government as the core poll issue and they are getting immense response from the public.

“The state ministers are misusing the state exchequer. Even Chief Minister has been allegedly found involved in favouring a real estate company so we are taking to streets the issue of corruption, which has hit development in Haridwar district,” said Chauhan.

On the other hand, the BJP is highlighting the recent scams involving the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre as well as the Congress leaders across the nation. State and district leaders of the BJP, seen at campaign rallies, are lashing out at the Congress leaders for their involvement in corruption cases.

At an election rally of the BJP held at Jagjeetpur village on the Haridwar-Laksar road, state minister Prakash Pant condemned the Congress for its failure to provide corruption-free governance. Pant pointed out that be it 2-G telecom scam, the Adarsh Housing Society scam, the Commonwealth Games scam or the discrepancies in the appointment of various bureaucrats at the top level, all these reveal the deep-rooted corruption in the Congress.

While campaigning in villages of Gadh, Kubutpur, Meerpur, Aurgangabad and Teera, general secretary of the Pradesh Congress Committee Santosh Chauhan raised the issue of corruption in the state government. He was campaigning for Rao Juber, the Congress-supported candidate from the Gadh Mirpur seat.

“You (voters) have an opportunity to convey a message to the BJP Government in the state that their involvement in corruption is not for which they had posed faith in them in the last Assembly elections and now it’s the time (panchayat elections) that the BJP will face the consequence of dipping the state governance and administrative machinery into corruption,” he said while addressing a rally.

Dehradun, February 2
Angry over the renaming of Uttarakhand Technical University (UTU) after former RSS chief Rajinder Singh (Raju Bhaiya), Hira Singh Bisht, Vice-President of the State Congress Committee and former Uttarakhand minister, today submitted a memorandum to Governor Magaret Alva here.

Earlier, he, along with members of the Congress, gathered at the Gandhi Park here and protested against the action of the state government.

They said it really annoyed them when they came to know that the Chief Minister had renamed the university after Rajinder Singh, despite knowing that it would hurt the feelings of locals.

Bisht further stated that Rajinder Singh could be associated with the National Sewak Sangh, but had nothing to do with the development of the state. He didn’t even have any historical or scientific achievement, nor had he sacrificed anything for its development. The state government had insulted the martyrs of the state.

He said other than freedom fighters, there were people like Gabbar Singh, Dev Suman, Nagender Saklani, Bholi Bhardari, Madho Singh Bhandari, Veer Chander Singh Gharwali and Govind Ballab Pant who were felicitated by Victoria Kans, along with HN Bahuguna, former minister late Bhagat Darshan Singh and many martyrs who had died fighting for the country. Leaving these important people aside, the state government was trying to play with the feelings of the people and the Congress would never let it happen.

Bisht asked the Governor to intervene in the matter and stop the process of renaming the university immediately. 

Dehradun, February 2
Exercising caution on absorbing new faces in the party, the Diwakar Bhatt faction of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) on Monday clarified that from now on they would select new members only after serious deliberations in the coordination committee. Chief spokesperson Satish Semwal said their wrong selection of Trivender Singh Panwar as president of the UKD was the chief reason for making them decide so.

Semwal also said they would review the progress of those issues on which they had extended support to the BJP state government and had also written to the Chief Minister and state president of the BJP in this regard. He urged party members to maintain distance from opportunist and politically immature leaders.

Capt Luxman Singh Chufal, former acting president DN Todriya, treasurer Shivanand Chamoli, senior leader Ved Uniyal and MLA Om Gopal Rawat were also present in the meeting.

Nainital, February 2
The 27th anniversary of the Nasha Nahin Rozgar Do agitation, which was launched in the ’80s, was marked by social activists and political workers pledging to fight against the “mafia culture” prevalent in the state and work for its destruction.

It was on February 2, 1984, that the movement had started from a small village of Basbhida in the Chaukhutiya area of Kumaon.

The Uttarakhand Parivartan Party (UPP), which has several of the activists of the agitation within its fold, is leading the renewed movement against the ‘mafia culture’ that has become rampant in the new state of Uttarakhand.

President of the party PC Tewari said: “We have started a statewide campaign. The activists have been gathering in Basbhida on the anniversary for the 27 years past to discuss the prevailing socio-political scenario and have always tried to find solutions to the emerging problems. It is through this process that we have come to understand that the forces facilitating the growth of mafia are enshrined in our anti-people political and administrative setup. The need today is to unmask the faces of the members of this mafia”.

Hitting out at the establishment, Tewari stated: “The people of Uttarakhand and the entire country today understand why liquor traders are amongst the prominent guests at the investiture ceremony of a Chief Minister who talks of removing anarchy caused by liquor in the society. They also know why liquor is supplied through mobile vans to villages where residents are demanding a complete abolition of the sale of liquor and whom the government is trying to favour by not making prohibition laws stricter”.

He has charged that the political forces are always talking of the close relation between liquor and revenue but have failed to explain why social peace is less important than revenue.

The UPP has appealed to the people to observe the 27th anniversary of the agitation by coming forward to establish a democratic society based on the principle of equality and to expose the nexus between the politicians and the mafia.

The party has come out with pamphlets and other material to be distributed among people across the state in the days to come. The pamphlets state that despite India being a major democratic and a welfare state on paper, many people are leading miserable lives.

Dehradun, February 2
Members of the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party (UPP) today protested and submitted a memorandum to the Dehradun District Magistrate directed to the Uttarakhand Chief Minister.

They requested him to mark and kick out the various mafias, including land, liquor, forest, mining and many others, who were working in the state.

Jai Prakash, center president of the party, said they all would fight against those who were working against the benefit of the state.

The members who had gathered at Shaheed Sthal in the Collectorate premises kept on shouting “Mafia Bhagao - Uttarakhand Bachao”.

Pithoragarh, February 2
Six public representatives of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, including two Congress MPs from Uttarakhand, have prayed to the petition committee of the Rajya Sabha (RS) that the Himalayan states of the country Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Sikkim be linked to the national railway network and this project should be considered as a national project keeping the security of the nation in mind.

The petition, which has been signed by Uttarakhand MPs Vijay Bahuguna and KC Singh Baba, along with MLAs Kedar Singh Fonia, Chandan Ram Dass, Khazan Dass, Gopal Singh Rawat and Himachal Pradesh MLA Laxman Singh Patwal, states despite being the guardian of the country and conservator of the country’s environment, the Himalayan states have been neglected when it comes to expanding the railway network in the country. “Whereas China has completed 3,900-km Beijing-Lhasa rail link and is pushing ahead with seven other rail and road projects in areas adjoining our northern borders, the Indian Railways have not taken any other project in the Himalayan states after connecting Sevoke in West Bangal with Rangpo in Sikkim and laying the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramula rail link,” said Kedar Singh Fonia, an MLA from Uttarakhand and one of the petitioners.

Emphasising the need to link the Himalayan states with the national railway network, the petition has prayed to the Rajya Sabha as the rail lines to be built by China in its territory near the North India border, at Xigaze, Vatung, a trading centre near Nathu La, and at Nyingchi in the north of Arunachal Pradesh, the need to link Itanagar with Hiramati and Parasu Ram Kund with Rupai in Arunachal Pradesh should be taken seriously from the defence point of view. “The other railway links we have proposed are Jammu-Rajauri-Poonch Jammu and Kashmir; Mirik-Gangtok and extension of Sivoke-Rangpo line up to Gangtok in Sikkim; Banupalli-Bilaspur-Beri, Ghanauli-Baddi, Nangal-Talwara and the Bilashpur-Leh via Manali in Himachal Pradesh and Rishikesh-Karnprayag, Tanakpur-Bageswar via Ghat, Dehradun-Kalsi, Ramnagar-Chaukaotia, Haridwar- Kathgodam via Kotdwar and Ramnagar and Rishikesh Dehradun in Uttarakhand,” said Fonia.

Chairman of the committee Bhagat Singh Koshiyari said he had visited the Konkan rail network and several places of Sikkim, Jammu and Kashmir and the rail lines laid by the British on hill terrains and felt that it was essential to connect the Himalayan states with the railway network for the defence needs of the country.

Dehradun, February 2
The Dehradun police is yet to solve the mystery of the missing pistol owned by Prakash Rao, alias Pappu Kaalia. He had allegedly been shot dead by Jaideep with it on Sunday night in a running Scorpio car near the ISBT here.

The police had arrested Jaideep and his accomplice Ashish, alias Sunny, from the spot as the two had got injured when the car overturned after Prakash, who was driving, was shot dead from behind.

Though as per Jaideep’s statement to the police, Pankaj, who was following them in another car that night, had fled with the pistol with which Prakash was murdered, Ashish could not confirm the same to the police.

The Station House Officer of Patelnagar police station said, “Jaideep told us that Pankaj had fled with the pistol after he shot dead Prakash. But his accomplice Ashish, who was travelling in the same car, said he didn’t know about it and had not seen anyone going away with the pistol”.

The police here, though not sure of Pankaj’s involvement, has started looking for him.

Circle Officer (CO) Matikant Mishra told The Tribune that Jaideep was a very clever criminal and, hence, could not be trusted. “However, we have started our search to trace Pankaj and the pistol,” the CO added.

Meanwhile, the murder of Naresh is being seen as an attempt of Jitender, alias Jiti, who allegedly had plotted the killing of Babbal, to terrorise and influence witnesses in the case. Jiti is at present behind bars in the Babbal murder case. Jaideep, who is now a government witness, and Pankaj are members of Jiti’s gang. However, the police has maintained that illicit relations is the reason behind the killing of Prakash.