Pithoragarh, July 15
Heavy rain during the last 12 hours led to the death of a labourer, destruction of three houses and blockage of 15 internal roads in Pithoragarh district.

“Pithoragarh and Munsiyari areas of the district had heavy rain,” said RS Rana, District Disaster Management Officer.

According to the disaster management department, one labourer, working with the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), died near Jauljivi on the Pithoragarh-Dharchula road when a big boulder fell on him.

“One person in Riyansi village near Wadda town was admitted to district hospital after he became injured when his house collapsed. Another family narrowly escaped when their house collapsed in Hat village of Gangolihat subdivision,” said Rana.

According to information received from district administration officials, 15 link roads in the district were closed due to landslides following heavy rain since last night.

The most affected are the roads from Gangolihat to Seraghat which was closed at Simalta. A large number of population was cut off due to closure of these roads. Most of these roads were unlikely to be opened till the next week, according to the district administration officials.

A similar situation prevails in Munsiyari subdivision where due to landslides, a large chunk of population found it difficult to reach district headquaters.

“The only relief for the district is that the national highway or the main road, which connects Pithoragarh with the rest of the country is open despite landslides. The landslides on the National Highway No-9 was cleared by the BRO after a few hours on Thursday night,” said RS Rana.

Farmers in the Lohaghat area of Champawat district have been badly hit by unwanted rain as their cash crops of potato and seasonal vegetables were destroyed. “We have lost vegetable and potato worth Rs 14 lakh due to rain,” said Ram Datt Garkoti, a progressive farmer at Lohaghat.

Heavy rain in hilly areas also created a flood-like situation in the Sharda river in the Tanakpur plains in Champawat district where due to waterlogging, the residential areas of Thwalkhera, Gandakhali, Gyankhara in Tanakpur and Devipura, Meena Bazaar, Bhazanpur and Chandani in Banbasa town were submerged.

Dehradun, July 15
Uttarakhand today witnessed downpour in almost all parts of the state. While the Char Dham Yatra continued to be disrupted due to falling debris, rain inundated many areas in small and big towns of the state.

In line with the Meteorological Department’s predictions, rain that started last night in several parts of the city continued with more vigour today. While the border district of Pithoragarh experienced 27 mm of rain in the past twentyfour hours uptill 8.30 am this morning, Chamoli experienced 60 mm rains, Lansdowne 65 mm rain, Champawat 26 mm, Banbasa 27 mm, Pantnagar 122 mm, Karanprayag 22 mm, Vikasnagar 18 mm, Kotdwar 25 mm, Bageshwar 29 mm and Haridwar 11 mm rain. Significantly, the tourist resort of Mussoorie experienced 38 mm rain in past 24 hours.

Dr Anand Sharma, Executive Director, Meteorological Centre, Dehradun, said the impact of heavy rain would be felt till tomorrow morning while moderate rain would continue till evening hours.

On the other hand, major roads, including Char Dham routes, got disrupted due the falling debris.

While the routes to Badrinath and Kedarnath were disrupted due to blockages at Sirobagad, the road to Gangotri was blocked at Nalupani. The blockages were also reported from other connecting roads.

This resulted in large number of pilgrims getting stranded at various places on the yatra routes.

Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre officials here, however, said fortunately no major loss had been reported from anywhere in the state. 

Nainital, July 15
In a major setback to the Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank-led government in the state, the Uttarakhand High Court has ordered the cancellation of the allotments of 56 small hydroelectric projects to various companies and has asked the government to go in for a public auction regarding their allotment.

Technically speaking, the Nishank-led BJP government had cancelled the allotments some months ago in a pre-emptive step “fearing an adverse decision in the court”. Today, the High Court upheld the cancellation of the allotments and called for their reallocation through a public auction. The decision was given by a double bench comprising Chief Justice Barin Ghosh and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia.

The first public interest litigation (PIL) in this matter had been filed by Dilip Kumar Bisht of Almora in 2010. He had asked for the cancellation of the allotments and a probe by the CBI into the matter.

Talking to mediapersons, his lawyer Hari Mohan Bhatia said: “We had pointed out that there were major irregularities in the allotments of these projects. No detailed project report (DPR) had been prepared for any of these projects. One family had been allotted seven projects and none of the allotment norms had been followed”.

He added: “The court has upheld the earlier cancellation of the project allotments. It was not satisfied with the government’s defence in the matter. It has pointed out that the government had ignored the cascading impact of these proposed projects, there had been no inspections and the impact on the environment had been ignored. The court has not only called for fresh allotments through a public auction but also for a detailed environmental study before the projects are allocated and executed”.

On the issue of the court having not accepted the plea for a CBI probe into the matter, the lawyer said: “The court upheld most of our contentions. On this issue we would consult our client and move the Supreme Court”.

The government was forced to scrap the allotments of as many as 56 hydroelectric projects after the detection of major irregularities in the bidding process. In 2008, the Uttarakhand government had invited bids for the construction of more than 56 hydroelectric projects. Almost all the Opposition parties have been demanding a CBI probe into these irregularities.

According to reports quoting experts, the scrapping of 56 hydroelectric project will mean a loss of investment worth Rs 6,700 crore to the state. These projects were likely to be completed in three or four years following which Uttarakhand could have become a power surplus state.

Haridwar, July 15
Amid rain on the pious occasion of Guru Poornima, the auspicious Shravan Maas Kanwar Yatra commenced today with the pilgrim city of Haridwar witnessing a great rush of Kanwariyas. Thousands entered the town while many already left with holy Ganga water.

Kanwariyas from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan are also participating in the yatra. With beautiful kanwars full of holy Ganga water in their hands, they were moving in a line. On the security front, elaborate arrangements have been put in place with the whole Kanwar Mela was divided into sectors. Amidst the threat of terror attack post-Mumbai serial blast, the district police is taking special precautionary measures to thwart any such incident. The Kanwar police force cell in charge SP Dr Kiran Lal Shaw is inspecting the stretch as well as sensitive points as in the coming days, the rush of the Kanwariyas will be more.

Other government departments have also made claims of gearing themselves up for the mela, be it the Health Department, the Transport Department, the PWD, the Power board, the Water Department, the Railways or the Food and Supply Department. But neither water supply, nor street light facility has been properly put on the Kanwar stretch which posed inconvenience to the Kanwariyas on the very first day.

Disaster management officials too are claiming that they have adequate resources at their disposal to meet any exigency. Meanwhile, today district administration officials organised a press conference in Haridwar where police chief Kewal Khurana and in charge district magistrate Harish Chandra Semwal briefed about the preparations from the administration side.

SSP Khurana also urged the public, the media,traders, NGOs and social organisations to cooperate with the administration to make sure the Kanwar fair is held peacefully.

Pithoragarh, July 15
A student died while 40 others were taken ill after drinking contaminated water in the hostel of a government school in Munisiyari subdivision, Pithoragarh, today.

The administration has asked officials to collect the sample of the water being used by the students of Government Ashram Padhayati Vidyalaya, Munsiyari.

The deceased has been identified as Gokaran Ram (13). Earlier, he was referred to Pithoragarh District Hospital along with other students where he died.

“According to the post-mortem examination, Gokaran Ram died due to the consumption of contaminated water,” said PC Pant, Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Pithoragarh.

The CMO further said: “A team, led by the Deputy CMO, Dr BMS Martolia, and Dr Prakash Brizwal, visited the school and found that drinking water and food being cooked for students was unhygienic. Moreover, students were drinking water from an open source due to the absence of the potable water in the hostel.”

The Munsiyari SDM, JS Rathore, who along with the Tehsildar visited the school, said: “We have taken the samples of food and water being used by the students. The conditions in which the students are being forced to live in the name of a free hostel will be inquired into.”

Pithoragarh, July 15
The Champawat district administration will take steps to ensure that no animal is sacrificed at the Barahi Devi temple at Devi Dhura during the Bagwal fair, which will be held from August 9 to 21.

“We have successfully persuaded people against the animal sacrifice during the Purnagiri fair. No animal sacrifice took place during the three-month fair this year. We will try to repeat the same success story during the Bagwal fair,” said Dr Pankaj Kumar Pandey, Champawat District Magistrate.

According to a decision taken by the Barahi Dham Mela Committee, the fair, which is famous for its stone-throwing rituals, will begin on August 9 and concluded on Janmashtmi on August 21.

“The fair this year will be made a forum to get people of this backward area benefits provided under government welfare schemes like old-age and disability pensions,” said BS Firmal, Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of the area.

The District Magistrate said in order to check the practice of animal sacrifice during the fair, the SDM would be in touch with the priests of the temple as well as the heads of all the four traditional clans of the area which manage the fair. “Besides the cooperation of these bodies of the Devidhura fair, the police and the district administration will remain active to check the practice of animal sacrifice during the fair,” said Dr Pandey.

Nainital, July 15
The Champawat district administration has made a start of sorts by ordering the identification of below poverty line (BPL) families at open panchayat meetings.

The orders in this regard have been given by the District Magistrate, Dr Pankaj Kumar Pandey, to the officials of the District Food and Civil Supplies office. This has been done to identify the beneficiaries of various government programmes for the BPL families at the earliest.

Sources say this is a move of the BJP government in the state to make its Atal Khadyann Yojana a success. The yojana, which is a flagship programme of Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank-led government, has been a nonstarter till now.

In Champawat, the administration has ordered a survey of the BPL families and new ration cards would be issued to those enrolled in this category.

At a meeting of the officials implementing various programmes for the BPL families, Dr Pandey said the ration cards found to be given to ineligible persons would be cancelled. He pointed out that it would take at least a month to determine the exact number of the BPL families in the district.

The proposed survey of the BPL families is to be carried out by the officials in consultation with the public representatives at the local level in the urban areas and in the villages this is to be done by the block-level officials at the panchayat meetings.

It was disclosed at the meeting that at present there were 22,963 families that are getting ration under the Atal Khadyann Yojana. The issuance of new ration cards and the identification of the BPL families have been contentious issues in the hilly regions of the state. There has also been a consistent demand from the people that the government should do away with the system of categorising them into the BPL and Above Poverty Line (APL) categories as there are a very large number of people who are considered to be APL but are actually on the bordering line of the BPL category.

Nainital, July 15
The state Education Department has come up with a plan to improve the performance of students studying in schools situated in the remote areas of the Garhwal and Kumaon regions.

Education Minister Gobind Singh Bisht said the government had approved the setting up of English and mathematics laboratories in 300 state schools.

Speaking on the sidelines of a science exhibition by students from Almora, Bageshwar and Nainital districts at Government Inter College, Tallital, the minister said: “It has been observed that students shy away from talking in English, hence their spoken skills remain weak even if they are good at writing the language. The schools selected for the project will have computers and will be provided with specialised softwares of spoken English so that they can pick up the oratory skills along with the proper pronunciation.”

The minister further said: “Mathematics is another subject that students fear from. The purpose of the setting up of mathematical laboratories will be to explain the fundamentals of the subject through practical examples. The students always retain what they see.”

The minister said the state government was in the process of evaluating the performance of the teachers and principals of government schools across the two regions.

The minister said teachers would also be deployed at schools where posts were vacant.

Dehradun, July 15
To make the youngsters of Uttarakhand independent, Ernst and Young has proposed the Chief Minister to start a vocational and job-oriented training in rural areas of the state.

While appreciating the proposal of the organisation, CM Nishank said, “With the help of the initiative, we can together eradicate unemployment in the state. These vocational training will provide them better career prospects while discontinuing the migration of the youngsters from Uttarakhand.” — TNS

Nainital, July 15
Progressive farmers interested in organic farming now have another choice of an aromatic rice variety for growing in organic conditions.

Scientists at the Gobind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology have evolved a new variety of paddy named Pant Sugandh Dhan-21, whose cultivation through the organic mode is expected to be more beneficial.

According to scientists involved in the development of the variety, this is the first type of aromatic rice in Uttarakhand which is suitable for organic conditions of cultivation.

According to a spokesperson of the university,” The process of evolution of this variety started a decade ago under the project ‘Breeding for organic farming situation of basmati rice varieties and hybrids’ sponsored by the state government and the university. After 10 years of efforts the scientists were able to develop this variety.The state varietal release committee in Dehradun released the variety recently. It has been released for the plains of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.”

The grains of Pant Sugandh Dhan-21 are “awned to tip-awned”. The plant height is about 106 cm. This variety is resistant to bacterial leaf and sheath blight besides being medium resistant to steam borer and leaf folder insects. The productivity is 35 quintals per hectare in organic conditions.

The spokesperson added,“Rice of this variety is scented and becomes almost double in length on cooking. Cooked rice is shining white and soft to eat. Keeping in view the high price of organic products in the national and international markets, farmers may get more profit by growing this variety. The seed of the variety is expected to be available from next year.”