(Left) People wade through sewage in the Vishnu Ghat area and (right) untreated sewage flows into the holy Ganga in Haridwar on Thursday. Tribune photos: Rameshwar Gaur

Haridwar, March 31
Life in the city is getting severely affected due to the strike by employees of the Ganga Pollution Control Unit of the Uttarakhand Water Corporation, as the pumping stations and treatment plants have been shut down, resulting in the sewer water getting into the city. Moreover, filthy water is directly getting into the holy Ganga.

The agitating employees are opposing the recent notification of the Uttarakhand Government regarding the handing out of the projects related with the unit to the Jal Sansthan. The protesters are terming this as biased and uncalled for.

Several colonies like Vishnu Ghat and Bhimgoda are severely affected due to the strike as the stink, filth and sewage overflow have made the area semi-submerged in the sewage water. Residents complained to the higher authorities, but to no avail.

Besides, the untreated sewage water is directly merging into the Ganga, putting questions on the state government’s much-touted Clean Ganga project.

To put forth their demands, including adjustment of unit employees with the Jal Sansthan, various unions, including the pay roll and temporary employees, have formed a joint forum.

Joint forum chief Chaudhari Nareshpal said transfer of projects of the units to the Jal Sansthan would not be tolerated and till their demand was met, the sewerage system would be out of order in Haridwar and Rishikesh.

The agitating employees, lashing out at the decision of the state government, took out a huge two-wheeler rally in the city. Taking cognisance of the issue, Haridwar MP Harish Rawat has discussed this issue with State Drinking Water Minister Prakash Pant and secretary concerned for having an all-party solution to this issue.

Meanwhile, the indefinite strike affected the state of sewer lines at Rishikesh, too, as the employees abstained from work, making the city roads and the Ganga inundated with filth and sewer.

In a meeting held at Mayakund sewage pumping station, the agitators alleged that with the state government was issuing notification and discrimination was being done with them without taking them into confidence.

Children flash victory signs at Mussoorie and (right) wave the Tricolour in Haridwar. Tribune photographs

Mussoorie, March 31
The World Cup cricket fever has also gripped Mussoorie, as the interest reached its crescendo with India booking its berth for the final to be held in Mumbai.

Residents are geared up for the final battle for the coveted cup between two Asian cricketing giants Sri Lanka and India. Teenagers, who have already finished their exams or preliminary tests, are planning to see the World Cup match on television at their friend’s house.

“Witnessing the match with friends is a completely different experience,” said Nitin, a student of Ghananand School. The group of Class VII students, showing victory signs and dressed in the Indian team attire, said, “We are praying for the Indian team”.

Some residents are planning to shut down their shops and gather at a common place to watch the clash between the titans of the cricket. Many feel that the match with Sri Lanka will not be a cakewalk for India and it should strengthen its fielding and bowling if it wants to lift the cup.

Dehradun, March 31
Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker Harbans Kapoor has expressed remorse over the Kishore Upadhyaya episode during the recently concluded Budget Session.

Briefing mediapersons about the details of the Budget Session, Kapoor said Upadhyaya and some MLAs had to be suspended for a while to maintain discipline inside the House. However, the Speaker said following appeals from the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the House, the suspension was revoked. Kapoor said at times hard decisions had to be taken when it became almost a necessity for ensuring a smooth conduct of House proceedings.

The Speaker pointed out that the total time of the Budget Session proceedings was 53 hours and 10 minutes, which was the highest in any single session of the Uttarakhand Assembly. He said a staggering 19 Bills were passed during the session. He disclosed that a total of 751 questions, including 102 short-notice questions and 649 starred and un-starred questions, were put up during the session.

He said the session also saw the constitution of two committees. “A committee to select a site for the new Vidhan Sabha building and another committee to find ways to simplify the process of obtaining caste certificates have been constituted. While MLA Dinesh Agarwal is heading the first committee, Madan Kaushik is heading the second committee and both the committees will submit their reports within two and three months respectively,” he pointed out.

Kapoor also lauded the Vidhan Sabha officials for their logistics support towards the conduct of the session.

Dehradun, March 31
Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Diwakar Bhatt today said a special category of APL would be created to streamline the Public Distribution System (PDS) that would not fall under the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category and its income would not be taxable.

The minister said the PDS system would be streamlined to ensure that only the needy were the beneficiaries of the government’s ration scheme.

“While we are targeting the needy. In case we start getting extra allocation, the special category, too, will get benefits under the PDS system. For this, we will examine the Gujarat Government scheme,” said Bhatt, while addressing a press conference.

He also rebuffed the charge made by the Opposition that the Uttarakhand Government was not lifting the full quota of food grains allocated by the Centre for the Above Poverty Line (APL) category from the Food Corporation of India godown.

“It is proving to be costly for the state government. It will cost us around Rs 56 lakh per month if we were to distribute the same through the PDS. It almost equals the cost of the grain available in the open market,” he said.

He said the state was also getting less quota for distributing foodgrains to the APL category. The requirement of foodgrains for those falling under the APL category was around 17,000 metric tonne.

The minister said the government was not facing any problem while distributing the foodgrains to the cardholders under the BPL category.

Haridwar, March 31
The Sanskriti Yatra Rabindra Bhawan Express couldn’t evince much interest in the local people with only 204 visitors turning up at the Haridwar railway station platform where the museum express had been stationed for the past three days.

Blame it on a lack of interest among the local people to know more about Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore or scantily advertisement done by the authorities concerned, on the first day, the museum express was visited by a meagre 54 persons followed by 70 persons on the second day and a slightly better 80 persons on the last day.

Feeling sad at the poor response from the people of the city, Train Manager KN Bala said the train had got a huge response in dozens other cities. Though he expressed satisfaction that 100-odd visitors, particularly schoolchildren among them, were quite curious to know about the Nobel laureate and his achievements.

Uttarakhand’s leading English novelist Mona Verma said if the museum express had been widely publicised or inaugurated by a celebrity or minister, people would have thronged the platform in large numbers. “The museum express on a literati figure of Tagore’s stature surely deserves visitors in large numbers, but sadly the glorious literature culture of the city people seems to be on downside,” said Mona, who had sought Ruskin Bond’s presence on the maiden launch of her fiction book.

Bengali people residing in the city and tourists showed interest in the museum express, as Rabindranath Tagore was born in Bengal and he established Santiniketan there.

In the past six months, the museum express was the third such train dedicated to a person or subject. The previous ones were the Commonwealth Express-2010 and Red Ribbon Express. While the former saw a good number of visitors coming to see the coaches of the train, the latter was sent back a day before it was to be inaugurated due to a opposition by religious groups.

Meanwhile, the Sanskriti Yatra Rabindra Bhawan Express moved on to Rishikesh, 26 km from Haridwar.

Dehradun, March 31
To give impetus to organic farming in the state, farmers, under the aegis of the Bhoomi Adhikar Manch, today presented a set of suggestions to the Agriculture Minister for inclusion in the agriculture policy being drafted by the government.

The suggestions emerged after the end of a state-level conference on the agricultural policy and tribal rights organised in association with the Find Your Feet Organisation and the Department for International Development (DFID) here today.

Speaking on the occasion, Vijay Jardari said, “The government’s policies are not organic despite declaring the state an organic state. The budget allocated for organic farming is miniscule and giving around 80 per cent subsidy on chemical, while it is 20 per cent for those taking up the organic farming”.

Participating in the discussions, Vinita Shah of the organic board said, “For creating organic basmati dhan market, areas in Khatima and Sitarganj have been selected for sowing rice, which will then be sold through federations. We will offer help in creation of market for farmers”.

Vice-chairman of SC, ST Commission (Uttarakhand) Suresh Rathore said the commission would offer assistance on land rights to the farmers belonging to the SC and ST communities.

On the other hand, Jaya Mishra of the Bhoomi Adhikar Manch said they would organise a baseline survey soon to ascertain the number of landless farmers belonging to the SC and ST communities in Udham Singh Nagar, Khatima, Sitarganj and Gadarpur.

Farmers from Sitarganj, Khatima, Gadarpur and Pitthoragarh also participated in the consultation.

Dehradun, March 31
Expressing anguish for not holding the board meeting on March 30, aimed at discussing the future course of action on some of the important decisions, especially regularisation of 375 employees, the employees association of the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN) called an urgent meeting and decided to give the management two weeks’ time to convene the next board meeting, otherwise they would go on strike.

Informing about the meeting, vice-president of the association SP Pant said, “The behaviour of the management of the GMVN was found unfortunate. All the members were convinced about the insincerity of the high officials in taking action on all those mega announcements that they made on March 5”.

He expressed apprehension that the higher-ups had started hoodwinking and were now buying time by giving an excuse or the other on these issues.

“It is after 25 years of working that I became hopeful of getting regularised. Now that hope, too, seems to be diminishing. We have reached a situation of do or die. If we are not regularised as the promise made to us, we will not hesitate in going on a mass hunger strike,” said Ramesh Kumar, a contractual employee.

The employees also seemed incensed over the promotions given to a few employees out of turn and demanded the cancellation of the promotions in the fresh round of the board meeting.

“We will no longer tolerate the injustice where undeserving candidates are given promotions out of the way on the basis of their high-profile contacts and under-the-table financial dealings. We have enough proof to expose them and the favouritism shown by the management to them. The directors will have to cancel their appointment in the next meeting, as we are going to raise the issue with greater force,” said member of the association Purshottam.

Meanwhile, no high-level officer was found on the GMVN premises to attend the grievances of the employees.

Dehradun, March 31
The Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA) received 380 applications for 58 out of 124 plots for the Phase II project on 37,230.11 sq m land at Transport Nagar by March 30.

Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank distributed 58 plots of various categories under the project to the applicants through the lottery system. Vice-chairman RK Sudhanshu and secretary Vinod Suman were present on the occasion.

Vinod Suman said they videographed the whole sequence of lottery to maintain transparency. For the remaining 66 plots meant for commercial purposes such as kiosks, night shelters, type shops, dhabas, motel/guest houses and high-rise commercial units, the MDDA would carry out the auction soon and provide control design, he said.

As per the government order, the department has also been considering the provision of reservation quota. The work on infrastructure facilities would be completed by April end.