Dehradun, May 11
In a drive carried out recently, it has been found that drivers of city transport buses are hooked on drugs, putting the lives of passengers at risk.

Most of the drivers use drugs excessively, which is not even detected by the inhaler device. The police said it had also come to the fore that the owners of these transports were aware of the drivers’ activities, but were not bothered to address the issue, as they were only concerned about the money being earned by them.

City buses are famous as “killer buses” and Vikrams are often blamed for traffic woes and accidents on roads. Notwithstanding the involvement of these transports in various road accidents, the menace continues.

“These drivers consume drugs that may be in the form of inhaler, which is not detected by equipment. Sometimes despite knowing the fact that the drivers have consumed such substance, we fail to take action,” said Traffic Circle Officer (CO) Shweta Choubey.

Choubey said they had asked the owners to remove such drivers from job. “We had called a meeting of the owners of these public transport and asked them not to recruit such drivers otherwise action will be taken against them. But they continue to do so maintaining that there is a shortage of drivers in the city. However, we will take view of this problem,” Choubey added.

Dehradun, May 11
The Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, conducted a check of the office of the Regional Transport Officer (RTO) here today. Expressing displeasure over the upkeep of the office files, the Chief Minister warned Assistant Regional Transport Officer (Administration) Dinesh Chandra Pathoi to improve his working style.

The Chief Minister directed the Regional Transport Officer, Sunita Singh, to prohibit the entrance of the middlemen in the office and dispose of the applications of the public on the basis of a single-window system. During the inspection, the Chief Minister found that in a certain case of vehicle registration, fee was not deposited even after a lapse of one month after completion of all formalities. He directed Umakant Panwar, secretary, transport, to look into the matter. The Chief Minister directed that correct information should be provided to the people at every stage and public grievances should be disposed of in a single day.

The Chief Minister said that the work of the RTO office had became more important keeping in view the ongoing Char Dham Yatra. The Chief Minister also interacted with the general public visiting the office and listened to their grievances.

He directed the Transport Commissioner to make a regular inspection of the sections that issued vehicle fitness certificates and green cards.

Dehradun, May 11
The contractual employees of all the three power corporations today took out a march from Gandhi Park to Clock Tower with their shirts removed, and begged alms from the passers-by.

A representative of the joint association of the employees, Manoj Pant, said the state government had put the lives of thousands of unemployed youngsters at stake by serving their own purpose through contractual system. “For the past 16 days, the employees of the Power Department have been on fast, but neither the department nor the state government has taken any notice of their agitation. Even in the past two years, they had held talks with the authorities twice, but to no avail,” he said.

Former president of the Indian National Trade Union Congress Heera Singh Bisht extended his support to the contractual employees. Lalit Mohan Adhikari, Chander Shekhar Pant, Digumber Dutt and Gopal Dutt Joshi have been on fast for the past many days.

Dehradun, May 11
The Uttarakhand Government has introduced U-Health Cards for serving and retired employees. Optional cashless smart health cards, after initial hiccups, are on course with the distribution of 1,500 cards in the state.

An ATM-like scheme has taken load off the employees (serving and retired) and they no longer have to worry about bill reimbursement “We have distributed nearly 1,500 cards and the cashless scheme has put an end to the bill reimbursement and arduous billing procedure. A single card can provide access to treatment packages and procedures available at empanelled hospitals (both private and government) in the state as well outside the state. The entire treatment cost will be funded later by the government,” said Dr Saroj Naithani, Joint Director and state nodal officer for U-Health Card.

Out of the empanelled hospitals, 43 are in the state and 11 outside the state. The number of hospitals empanelled under the Uttarakhand Health Card Scheme in Dehradun is 22, Udham Singh Nagar (11), Nainital (8) and Haridwar (9).

“We have received a good response from Nainital district and the police and we hope to cover all employees in the state and achieve the target of providing cards to 2.5 lakh pensioners and employees, said Dr Naithani.

The scheme is being administered through the third party, MD India, and was launched last year. “All employees are given a guide book that includes a list of empanelled hospitals inside and outside the state, along with a list of treatments being offered,” said Dr Naithaini.

However, the scheme was not without glitches, as there were problems with the software and to this day, the Health Department is receiving raw data from various departments that has to be fed manually into computer.

The government has entered into an agreement with Pune-based MD India Health Care Services (TPA) Private Limited at a contract price of Rs 1.4 crore.

Dehradun, May 11
The protest of Irrigation Department Employees Union (IDEU) against the illegal occupation of eight rooms of the guest house of the department by acquaintances of politicians of the ruling party of the state has started bearing fruit as the department locked one of the guest rooms on Wednesday which was allegedly occupied by Praveen Danu for the last one year.

On condition of anonymity, a senior official confirmed of the control of the state department over the room. He accepted the pressure exerted by the politicians on the officers, a reason they were not able to get the rest of rooms till now.

Ajay Verma, head of the residence committee, who is overseeing the matter, said his team was still working on preparing a report on the matter. He could not clear the confusion over the time limit fixed for the task.

Head of the department BK Tamta said the department was evaluating all pending dues as these occupants had been staying free of cost all these years. “Either they will be evicted after the collection of dues or allowed to stay on the condition of regular payment of dues,” he said.

The employees association is not ready to let the intruders stay. General secretary Ramesh Ramola said, “We thwarted the conspiracy of the department to allocate seven more rooms to the kith and kin of these politicians especially the State Irrigation Minister, Matbar Singh Kandari, by opposing it when the matter was being discussed at the meeting held on April 19.”

He further added, “We had been opposing the illegal stay of these people for the last four years but to no avail. The employees of the Irrigation Department who come from different cities of the state for departmental work or court cases have to stay in hotels outside for which the department has to pay their bills. This way, the department is losing revenue on both sides.”

There are seven more rooms, which are still occupied.

The Irrigation Minister straightway denied charges of misusing his position in facilitating accommodation to his own people in the department guest house saying, “None of my acquaintance is staying in the Irrigation Department’s guest house. I have rather given directionn to the HOD to collect the pending rent, electricity and water tariffs and other dues from them and then evict them.” 

Dehradun, May 11
The semifinalists have been finalised in both the boys and girls’ categories in the Aspen Crew Uttarakhand State Junior (under-18 yrs) Basketball Championship under way at Welham Boys’ School.

Dehradun will play against Mussoorie and Haridwar will face Haldwani in the girls’ semifinals tomorrow. In the boys’ section, Dehradun will vie against Haridwar City and Mussoorie will meet Haridwar.

Today, Mussoorie beat Pithoragarh 21-17 in the girls’ quarterfinals. Sneha scored 11 points for the winning team while Sneha of Pithoragarh scored nine points. Haldwani also defeated Roorkee 22-10. Deepika

scored six points for Haldwani and Aditi chipped in with four points for the losing side.

In the boys’ quarterfinals, Mussoorie surpassed Almora 38-18. Nishant

(12 points) and Deepak (eight points) scored for the winning and the

losing teams, respectively.

Haridwar City beat Udham Singh Nagar 28-25. Sumit (18 points) and Sagar (15 points) scored for USN and Haridwar City, respectively.

Dehradun, May 11
Wildlife Institute defeated Indian Military Academy (IMA) by 29 runs to become the last semifinalists in the Government Employees’ Welfare Committee Cricket Tournament held the Survey Cricket Stadium here on Wednesday.

Wildlife Institute decided to bat first after it won the toss. The team set a target of 146 runs in 20 overs. Madan Uniyal (73) was the mainstay of the batting side.

Chasing the target, the IMA got all out for 117 runs in 18.4 overs.

Some of batsmen of the IMA got a good start but couldn’t build up on it and lost the match by 29 runs to make their exit from the tournament.

Meanwhile, in the first semifinals, Survey of India will take on Wildlife Institute on May 13 and Ordnance Factory, Dehradun, will lock horns with Instruments Research Design Establishment on May 16. The winning teams will be in the final on May 18.