Dehradun, May 12
Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said today that the Uttarakhand Government was examining the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order quashing the promotion of Chief Secretary Subhash Kumar and two other officers and would shortly decide its course of action.

“The CAT order is being examined. We will shortly decide our next move,” said Nishank.

In view of the CAT’s verdict, observers say that the state government has two options, to either remove Kumar from the post or challenge the order in the high court.

The tribunal had quashed the promotion of three officers, including Kumar, in the Chief Secretary scale on May 9 and directed the state government to appoint a fresh Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) for promotions within two months’ time.

Hearing the petition of Ajay Kumar Joshi, Chairman of the CAT, Justice VK Bali and Vice-Chairman of the tribunal Justice LK Joshi quashed the promotions on the ground that the state government had promoted the three officials to the rank of Chief Secretary against the vacancy of only one post.

Uttarakhand has only two posts in the scale of Chief Secretary. When the state promoted Subhash Kumar, Joshi and SK Mattoo, all IAS officers of the 1977 batch to the scale of Chief Secretary in May 2010, NS Napalchyal was already holding the post of Chief Secretary and only one post was vacant at that time, the tribunal had observed.

Napalchyal retired in September last year and the government appointed Kumar the new Chief Secretary of the state. While Joshi was made Director-General of the Administrative Training Institute at Nainital, Mattoo was appointed Chief Resident Commissioner.

Joshi claimed that he was the senior-most officer of the 1977 batch as he stood the second in the all-India rank of the 1977 batch of the IAS. While Kumar was 156th in a batch of 160, Mattoo was listed at 130. — PTI

Dehradun, May 12
On International Nurses Day today, Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank claimed that the government had taken various steps to meet the shortage of medical and health manpower in the state.

Speaking at the stone laying ceremony of the second phase of the construction of the State Nursing School/College of Nursing today, the CM said that the government was committed to strengthening the health infrastructure in the state.

“We will be shortly setting up nursing colleges in five places and the session will begin this year. The colleges will be opened in Pauri, Almora, Tehri and Pithoragarh districts,” he said.

He said soon, the first batch of MBBS doctors from Chander Singh Garhwali Medical College, Srinagar would pass out.

He said the government would chalk out long and short plans for strengthening medical and health infrastructure in the state. “We are in dire need of trained manpower. Our focus is on setting up medical colleges, nursing schools and making new appointments (medical manpower) in remote areas. Recently, we have appointed 2,000 swasthya sahayaks in remote areas of Uttarakhand,” he said.

At another function organised by the Uttarakhand Nurses Association, Chief Minister said that state would constitute awards at the district and state levels to be given to nurses for exceptional work.

The CM said the state government had upgraded the pay scales of nurses and all their problems were being looked into.

Later, Sister Anjana Bhowmick gave a presentation on, “Closing the gap, increase the access and equity. Sister Laxmi Punetha, Sister Dalbir Mishra and Sister Manju were present on the occasion.

Dehradun, May 12
The Uttarakhand Vigilance Department has submitted a charge sheet against former Chairman of Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (UJVNL) Yogendra Prasad and project manager of KAVEAT International Sandeep Agarwal, who have been booked on the charges of corruption, to a district court today.

Superintendent of Police (SP) Brijendra Juyal said the charge sheet comprised about 900 pages with all related documents of the case.

Juyal said the third accused in the case, Sridhar Tripathi, was at large. The vigilance raided several places in his search, but in vain. The SP said the vigilance would start attaching his property after procuring warrants for the same if he didn’t surrender in the court.

It took the vigilance eight and a half months time to file the charge sheet in the case, which was investigated by Inspector Pankaj Upreti. Prasad was sent to judicial remand on May 2 and Agarwal on May 3.

According to the vigilance, Yogendra Prasad is accused of bending norms to provide benefits of crores to KAVEAT International, which also paid him in return. The company allegedly used to deposit Rs 50,000 in his daughter’s bank account every month on the pretext that their staff members were staying in her house on rent in Faridabad.

However, Prasad has already denied all these “allegations”, saying that he was being made a scapegoat as he didn’t sign on several small hydroelectric projects proposed to him by the state government.

Dehradun, May 12
While the Uttarakhand Police Department has cancelled the appointments of 135 under-training police constables of two districts for filling application forms from more than one district for appearing in the recruitment examination held in January this year, strangely no inquiry has been ordered against constables of the remaining 11 districts.

Now, questions are being raised about the cancellation of appointments of 135 police constables hailing from Dehradun and Haridwar. It is being discussed whether the Police Department gave the benefit of the doubt to the other candidates. So far the application forms of candidates who had appeared for the examination from the remaining 11 districts have not been scrutinised. The department said the action had been initiated against the constables of Dehradun and Haridwar as it had received complaints against them only and not against the others.

According to the department, recruitment of 135 newly recruited constables, who underwent training at Narendernagar-situated Police Training College, were cancelled.

Of the constables whose recruitment has been cancelled, 101 are from Haridwar while 34 are from Dehradun. For the 1450 posts of constable, a total of 30,000 candidates had appeared for the examination in January. Out of them, 10,000 made it to the written examination after the physical test.

On the issue, Director-General of Police (DGP) Jyoti Swaroop Pandey said: “We had received complaints against candidates of the two districts. We cannot initiate inquiry in all districts as the number of defaulters could be very high.”

The affected constables had moved the Nainital High Court, which had rejected their plea as the directions in the recruitment test clearly state that no candidate can appear from more than one district, Pandey added.

Meanwhile, in view of such a large number of defaulters in the recruitment of constables, certain SPs and SSPs have favoured a change in the system of recruitment. An SSP of a district opined that such a practice can be put to rest if the physical test is held on the same day in all districts. However, he said, it was not practical.

Dehradun, May 12
The state is facing an acute shortage of nurses as a result of which most of the time hospitals are compelled to rely on untrained staff for assistance.

Notwithstanding the demand, no effort has been made to bridge the gap between the existing and required number of nurses in the state. Against the total requirement of 5,000 nurses, the state has only 970, forcing the hospital authorities concerned to go in for stopgap arrangements.

“It is a dangerous practice.Rather than providing quality nursing to patients, we are risking their lives by relying on staff who have no knowledge of nursing duties,” said Anjana Bhowmick, general secretary, Uttarakhand Nurses Association.

At the Doon District Hospital, where the bed capacity is 300, 52 staff nurses are left to do the super human task of looking after the patients and performing duties in three shifts while 23 sisters do the duties of supervisor and also assist at the operating theatre and the ICU.

Their long battle with the state government has resulted in the acceptance of their demand for pay parity with central government staff.“The pay parity has boosted the morale of the nurses, ensuring a jump of Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000 at all levels,” said Bhowmick.

So far as strengthening of the cadre goes, the state government has failed to create a separate Nursing Directorate. No separate posts at the higher level to be manned by nurses have been created. The association has been demanding the creation of the post of chief nursing officer at the directorate.

Besides, the government has also failed to create post of Deputy Director, Nursing (Garhwal and Kumaon). “All these posts are being filled by doctors. The nursing profession is different. How can they be expected to understand our problems? It also reflects the attitude of the government, and in their scheme of things, we have been accorded the lowest priority,” said SK Singh, president of the Uttarakhand Nurses Association.

Further, there is a demand for setting up training institutions that should also conduct skill upgrading courses for working nurses and train them at the entry level. “We are setting up nursing schools in several districts.Skill upgrading, too, will be included as more and more speciality hospitals are come up in the state,” said Dr Asha Mathur, DG, Health, Uttarakhand. 

Dehradun, May 12
Dehradun won the titles in the boys and girls’ sections comfortably in the Aspen Crew Uttarakhand State Junior (under-18) Basketball Championship that concluded today at Welham Boys’ School.

In the girls’ final, Dehradun defeated Haldwani 34-10. The four quarters result 23-2, 4-2, 2-4, 8-2 remained in favour of Doon.

Sunena Das of the winning team played the chief role in the win, scoring 10 points, while Preeti chipped in with four points for Haldwani.

Dehradun also defeated Haridwar District 70-41 to claim the top position. Doon won the quarters 11-10, 16-12, 26-8, 17-11. Abhiraj performed brilliantly scoring 22 points for the host team. Rahul of Haridwar scored 12 points.

Harinder Singh Maan, Director of Doon International School, gave away the prizes. International basketball players Suresh, Dinesh Kumar, Anup and Murli were also present on the occasion.

Under-16 squad announced for youth nationals The Uttarakhand girls and boys’ teams for the Youth National Championship to be held at Nagpur from May 25 to June 6 have been declared.

The squads will get 10-day training in Dehradun before the championship. The teams are likely to leave for the competition on May 23.

Dehradun, May 12
Demanding financial aid for ailing environmentalist Babu Ram Tanvi, alias ‘junglee’, for his treatment at Doon Hospital, members of the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) submitted a memorandum to the Uttarakhand Forest Department here today.

Known for mimicking animals and birds, he is suffering from lung failure from quite some time and is under treatment at Doon Hospital, However, he has not enough money for the treatment.

Anshul Chawla, a member of the ABVP, and president of the DAV PG College Student Council said: “Babu Ram is among the veteran environmentalist of Dehradun, who loves animals and birds so much that he spent most of his life in forest,” adding that: “We appeal to the Forest Department to at least grant some amount for his treatment,” he added.

Dehradun, May 12
President of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (Panwar faction) Trivender Singh Panwar has demanded a relaxation in the age limit from 35 to 40 for Class IV jobs in the state government.Party workers held a demonstration in support of their demands at the office of the District Magistrate here today.

The other demands regarding the same category included cost reduction of application forms from Rs 500 to Rs 120, removal of unnecessary parameters such as expertise in cycling, horse-riding and long jumps for the post of rural development officer, removing the compulsion of domicile certificate for natives of the state and preference for those who are conversant with local dialects.

Panwar had a dig at the announcement made by the Chief Minister to give 25,000 jobs under the C category by June, saying, “Even in the past 10 years, the government has not been able to achieve this feat. I wonder how the CM will provide 25,000 jobs in a short period of two months.”

Dehradun, May 12
The scorching heat and the ensuing summer vacations in Dehradun schools have filled in excitement among students as they are looking forward to enrol themselves in summer camps.

“My both kids are excited about their swimming classes during their summer vacations. They have even bought swimsuits and goggles,” said Manmeet Khurana.

A majority of elementary schools in Doon Valley are organising summer camps from the mid of May till June-end.

“I have already enrolled my daughter in a dance class as she loves to dance. Last year, she had joined cookery classes. I feel that such camps not only enhance the mental ability of the child, but also boost up their confidence making them independent,” said Radhika Mishra.

Wonder Years, a preparatory school in Dalanwala, will be conducting its summer camp from May 30 to June 26 with the trained faculty for dance, music, aerobics, art and craft, swimming and personality development. According to Shweta Kumar, Principal of the school: “The camp will cater to the interests of the children in the age group of 3-8 years. The fee is quite nominal ranging between Rs 500 and Rs 800.”

Interestingly, some of the summer camps are also inviting parents to participate along with their kids to develop a healthy relation between them. “Like every year, we are organising our theme-based summer camp from May 23 to June 18 categorised into three groups. The camp is open for all in the age group of two and a half years to nine years,” said Harender Juneja, Director (Maple Bear).

“We are basically trying to involve parents for enhancing the skills of children during the summer camp. We will offer students a creative knowledge along with learning experience. They will be taught mask making, painting, clay modelling, dramatics, science experiments, craft work, journal writing, public speaking, yoga and community service along with regular stuff like dancing, singing and drawing,” he added.

Those interested in other sports activities and desires to hone their skills in dance, painting, art, culinary, yoga, horse riding, swimming, classical music and many more, may register with Yati skating, the Etlantis Club and the Olympus Club.

Arvind Gupta, an international sports coach, who is organising the “Olympus” summer camp for 10 years, has introduced activities such as roller-skating, swimming, lawn tennis and karate to help students develop their skills under expert guidance.

“We have a huge skating rink where amateurs can learn various activities from professionals in indoor as well as outdoor activities. The camp is for the children in the age group of 9 to 16 years at a nominal fee. Our motive is to give them atmosphere for conducive learning under the guidance of experts, ” said Gupta.

Dehradun, May 12
The Ninth Inter-School Tae kwon do Championship got off to a rousing start today at Guru Nanak Public Inter College, Chukhuwala.

As many as 15 schools of Dehradun are taking part in the competition. A large number of students of almost all age groups are taking part in the championship.