Pithoragarh, February 10
As the Uttarakhand Congress gears its machinery in the Kumoan region for the forthcoming Assembly elections in the state, the divisions between its ranks have come to the fore.

While Uttarakhand Congress president Yashpal Arya concluded the first phase of his tour of Kumoan to meet Congress workers, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Harish Rawat organised his own Jan Aakrosh rally in the region.

Interestingly, the workers and leaders owing allegiance to Arya and Harish factions avoided each other. “The series of district-level workers meet began from Champawat on February 7 and after the meetings at Pithoragarh and Bageshwar, it concluded at Almora on February 9,” said spokesperson of the committee MD Joshi.

The Congress workers from interior areas of the region attended these meetings chaired by Arya. “In Pithoragarh, a large number of Congress workers, including the only Congress MLA in the district Mayukh Mahar, attended the meeting in Bageshwar. Senior leaders of the party Ram Prasad Tamta and Ummed Singh Majhila also attended the meeting.

“In Almora, two out of four Congress MLAs Karan Mahara and Manoj Tiwari attended the meeting,” said Joshi.

“I was not even invited in the workers meeting called by the state president,” said AICC member from Champawat district Nirmala Gahtori.

Like Gahtori, many other senior Congress workers in Pithoragarh and Champawat complained of not being invited to the meet. “Even in Almora, Congress MLAs Ranjit Rawat from Salt and Govind Singh Kunjwal from Jageswar did not attend the district level Congress workers meet,” said a senior Congress leader in Almora. Both these MLAs owe their allegiance to Rawat.

Similar was the case in the Jan Aakrosh rally organised by the Haridwar MP and Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing from Deghat in Almora to Ghoolaghat in Pithoragarh between February 2 to 5.

“This was not our official programme. Therefore, our workers did not attend it,” said president of Pithoragarh Congress Committee Mahendra Lunthi. He said Almora Congress MP Pradeep Tamta did not attend the meeting called by state Congress president Yashpal Arya. “We invited the MP in every meeting, but he did not turn up,” said Lunthi.

While the district-level Congress workers meet organised by Arya appealed to the workers to be ready for the forthcoming Assembly elections, the Jan Aakrosh rally was mainly focused to project Rawat as the Chief Minister of the state in case the Congress comes to power after 2012 elections.

“We have a solid programme to organise the Congress workers for the elections, but the rally organised by Harish Rawat was only to project him as the CM of the state,” said Lunthi.

Haridwar, February 10
In a first of its kind, election duty employees are being given training with the help of skits for a better understanding of the specifics of the election process.

So from ballot handling, sealing of ballots, counting to other details, the usage of theatrical presentation with the election material is quite effectively being utilized in the ongoing training of the election duty employees to ensure smooth, unhindered completion of the polling process.

Aided by power-point presentations, the election employees are being given full training so that at the time of duty, i.e. during the polling process, they don’t make mistakes or are found wanting in any technicality or specific procedure.

Informing about the innovative usage being adopted by the district election administration, Chief Election Officer R Meenakshi Sundaram told The Tribune that this had been conceptualised to make the training process more interesting and easy as it conveyed the message quite easily to the listeners.

He added that while election tools were being used in the scenes of the skits, election employees understood the process better than when it was conveyed orally or by one person.

Alongside, to ensure that prior to the election duty, employees were well trained, a series of sessions were conducted at the BHEL convention centre by district Vice-Election Officer BK Sant, election training in charge SK Rawat, along with zonal-sector magistrates. They dwelt on varied aspects solving the queries of the trainees in the process.

Notably, the first phase of the tri-level panchayat election in the district will be held on February 12 for which the polling parties have been dispatched at the three blocks of Bahadrabad, Roorkee and Khanpur.

Dehradun, February 10
The Samajwadi Party has once again targeted the successive state governments the Congress and the BJP for inflation and corruption.

Addressing the protestors at the Gandhi Park, president of the party Vinod Badhthwal said, it was strange whenever the Congress came into power, inflation had risen. “Scams too, were outdoing previous records and the Prime Minister was sitting mute and helpless in such a situation,” he added.

He also took the BJP Government to task for its inability to rein in autocratic bureaucracy.

District president Gulfam Ali attacked the government for sitting comfortably over the increasing graph of crime in the state.

State president PM Malhotra favoured the JPC to probe the inflation in the country. Acting president Aarif Hussain slammed the Nishank Government for defacing the city by cutting trees arbitrarily in the name of development.

Others who were present on the occasion included Ravinder Negi, Rajesh Rawat, Naseem Ladakh, Arvind Sharma, Gyan Chand Yadav etc.

Dehradun, February 10
After the Forest Research Institute’s (FRI) objection to the demolition of a part of its Rangers College wall in downtown Dehradun by the Public Works Department (PWD) for paving way for the widening of Lansdowne Chowk, the Union Environment Ministry has issued a show-cause notice to the PWD, Dehradun, accusing it of violating the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, by encroaching upon the forest land. It has asked the PWD to respond to the notice within 15 days.

Chief Conservator of Forests Azam Zaidi in a notice served to Executive Engineer, PWD, Mulayam Singh held that they had come to know that the PWD had demolished the wall and encroached upon FRI’s Rangers College land on February 5, which had a status of deemed forest and was presently used for the forestry purpose.

It said any use of forestry land for non-forestry purposes would require the approval of the Central government under the Forest Conservation Act. It said as per the information, no approval had been taken in this case. “Such an act of encroachment upon forest land and demolition of the forestry boundary (Rangers’ College) would not only amount to violation of the Forest Conservation Act, but also contravention of the Supreme Court judgment. The apex court had, in its judgment in WP (C) 202/95 dated December 12, 1996, clarified that in any forest land, as per the dictionary meaning irrespective of its status and ownership, the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, would be applicable”.

Nainital, February 10
The township of Haldwani and its adjoining areas are once again witnessing a massive agitation on the issue of mining in the riverbed of Gaula. Those employed in mining and related activities are demanding an extension of the permission for mining in the riverbed. The number of such persons runs into several thousands, as besides the labour force involved in the mining operations, there are also those who earn their living by transporting the mined material.

Haldwani witnessed a massive protest on Wednesday when hundreds of agitators took to the streets airing their demand for extending the mining permission till May 30. Life was thrown out of gear as political parties have also jumped into the fray. Both the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have come out openly in support of the agitation. BSP workers even resorted to a traffic blockade on the Nainital road on Tuesday. They had also burnt an effigy of Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.

The Samajwadi Party has criticised both the Central and state governments for playing with the lives of thousands of people who are affected by the closure of mining in the Gaula riverbed on February 8.

The agitation is expected to snowball into a major political issue in the days to come. With the elections to the state Assembly expected to be held in almost a year’s time, the parties will do their best to gain the support of the agitators.

Talking to The Tribune, leader of the Gaula Khanan Sangharsh Samiti Arshad Ayub said, “We are just awaiting the government’s

response to our demand. If they do not agree to it, we will be compelled to intensify the agitation as thousands of people cannot see their livelihood being snatched in this manner”.

He disclosed that the Samiti planned to carry out a torchlight procession in the town on Thursday night.

On Tuesday, the agitators had again handed over a memorandum to the local administration that was addressed to state Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.

The agitators are accusing both the state and Central governments of ignoring the plight of lakhs of people involved in mining and related trades and causing grave economic insecurity amongst them.

The 10-year permission for mining in the Gaula riverbed had ended in June 2009. The permission was extended in February 2010 for a year with certain conditions after the region had seen massive protests for almost three months. With the permission ending on February 8, uncertainty is once again staring the people in the face.

Dehradun, February 10
The Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL) has held back the applications of 22 industries, which have sought permission from it to buy power from the state through the Open Access System (OAS) after its experiment with seven industries, which are already availing the benefit, has somewhat derailed. The Uttarakhand Electricity Regulatory Commission (UERC) is engaging in talks with the UPCL and industries these days to bring out foolproof parameters to bridge the gaps that have emerged during these three months.

The UERC had given its go ahead for the OAS in November last year, under which the power could be purchased from any power distribution company outside the state. With the industrial output being affected from 10-14 hours per day, some industries had approached the UERC to allow them to buy power other than the UPCL. The industries that are connected to the UPCL distribution system of 11 KVA and above have begun availing this benefit.

Discussing the problems faced by the UPCL, Chairman Jagmohan Lal said, “The OAS option was made available to the industries to enable them to buy power during the peak hours when the power cuts were imposed for long hours. But instead they were buying power from outside sources during the morning hours at the cheapest rate by bypassing the UPCL services, which also distributes power at that time. This is denting our revenue heavily”. Lal also averred that since the UERC did not add the penalty clause in the tariff list released last year, the corporation was not able to charge penalty from the defaulters as well. The industries had turned tables on both the UPCL and the UERC.

Vice-president, KVS Group, Kashipur, Puneet Mahindra said, “The UPCL is supposed to publish the timings of the scheduled cuts in local newspapers so that the industries are able to arrange for power purchase from outside well in time. But they are only making emergency cuts and as per the UERC guidelines, the embedded category that wants to avail the power at any time can do so by shelling out certain additional charges, which we are ready to pay. But the UERC needs to make its guidelines clear for that”.

UERC acting chairperson Anand Kumar, too, admitted the glaring loopholes that were needed to be plugged urgently. “We will need to see that the UPCL do not incur losses due to OAS and have to make certain amendment in the regulations, like additional surcharge for buying the power during specific hours such as the night hours or morning hours, when the industries prefer to buy power from outside at the cheaper rate than the UPCL,” he said.

Kumar also signalled toward the billing system in OAS, which leaves much to be desired. He said, “In other states, there is a special software and electronic meters for billing under the OAS, but in Uttarakhand, we have none of these. Going by the electro-magnetic meters, which are already in use, we will have to note down the meter reading from our own end and at the consumer’s end and deduct the difference to find out the power purchase done from outside and prepare the billing this way. How much successful this experiment turns out will be seen by mid of this month, when the billing will be done for the first time under OAS”.

Industries, too, are apprehensive about the billing as Assistant General Manager, JP Associate Limited, Naushad Ali said, “There is little clarity on terms and conditions related to the OAS. Similar is the case with the billing. We are yet to see which surcharges they are going to levy on us under different clauses. Since the OAS is in its infancy, it is only after the first billing we will be able to gain some clarity on the whole issue”.

Nainital, February 10
A contingent of the Naval Police from the Naval headquarters in New Delhi is on a three-day expedition to Kumaon to establish liaison with the administration and the police of the region. During the visit, more than 12 officials of the Naval Police will be interacting with their counterparts and administrative officials at Haldwani, Nainital and Ranikhet.

A spokesperson of the visiting contingent said: “The main purpose of the visit is to make the Naval presence felt in the area since a large number of Navy men are from this region. We also intend to take issues of some retired sailors of the Indian Navy with the local administration”.

“Another purpose of the visit is to establish a good rapport with the local police with a view to checking desertion in the force.” It was disclosed that some Navy personnel have been deserting the force and it is the duty of the Naval Police to get them back before the Naval authorities so that appropriate action can be taken against them. The help of the local police is required in tracing the deserters.

Dehradun, February 10
The Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) protested against the rising inflation and corruption in the country at the Gandhi Park here yesterday. They demanded action against hoarders of food products and rollback of the price rise of petrol. They stressed the need to strengthen the Public Distribution System and provide profitable deals to farmers.

Surender Singh Sajwan, District Secretary, CPM, suggested ways to control the spiraling inflation saying that the hoarders should be reined in and surplus foodgrains in FCI godowns must be distributed at BPL rates. Moreover, the farmers should be given a good price for their crops and subsidy benefits to increase productivity of their produce.

Also, the government must take back the control of petroleum products and tax on petroleum products should also be made judicious.