CM meets BJP workers
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, September 13
Chief Minister BC Khanduri today visited the BJP’s office and exhorted party workers to ensure the party’s victory in the coming Assembly elections.

Addressing party workers, the Chief Minister said if they worked wholeheartedly for the welfare of the people, they would surely reward them by voting them to power. On his arrival at the party office, the Chief Minister was greeted by party chief Bishan Singh Chufal and other office-bearers.

Khanduri allocates portfolios
Suraaj, Bhrashtachar Unmulan Avem Jan Sewa Dept created to fight corruption
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, September 13
Making cosmetic changes, the Chief Minster, Major-Gen BC Khanduri (retd), today allocated portfolios to his Council of Ministers while keeping the charge of the departments of personnel, home and vigilance, energy, public works, finance, civil aviation, forests, wildlife and environment, higher education, medical education with him.

To tackle corruption, a new department by the name of Suraaj, Bhrashtachar Unmulan Avem Jan Sewa has been created that too would be under the Chief Minister.

Matbar Singh Singh Kandari has been entrusted with the portfolios of irrigation (small and major), flood control and school education.

Banshidhar Bhagat has been allocated the portfolio of transport, health and family welfare, Ayush and Ayush education.

Prakash Pant has been entrusted with the responsibility of parliamentary affairs, law, protocol, election, excise, water and planning.

Diwakar Bhatt has been entrusted with the responsibility of revenue, food and civil supplies, adult education and khadi while Madan Kaushik has been given the responsibility of sugar industry and sugar cane, urban development and tourism. Trivender Singh Rawat retains most of the ministries, including horticulture, agriculture and disaster management.

Rajinder Singh Bhandari has been entrusted with the responsibility of Panchayati Raj, alternative energy sources, population, home guards and jail administration.

Vijaya Barthwal has been entrusted with the departments of rural development, women empowerment and child development, culture and religion. Khazan Das will hold the responsibility of sports, youth welfare and housing while Balwant Singh Bhoriyal will be responsible for administration (secretariat), IT, cooperative, social welfare and welfare of the physically challenged.

Amarmani Tripathi shifted to Haridwar jail
Tribune News Service

Haridwar September 13
After the shocking brutal murder of Roorkee prison deputy jailer Narendra Singh Thapa, which has exposed the loopholes in the district prison setup, former Uttar Pradesh minister Amarmani Tripathi, convicted in the murder of poetess Madhumita Shukla, was shifted to the Haridwar-based Roshanabad district prison cell amid tight security from the Varanasi Central jail last evening.

A special police team, led by an SHO and four constables, brought the MLA from Maharaganj Assembly to the Roshanabad prison, 15 kms from Haridwar city. In view of the prison already having hardcore criminals, security has been beefed up and specific precautionary measures are being taken by the police administration.

Haridwar SSP Kewal Khurana said as already some hardcore criminals were in the prison, precautionary measures had been taken with specific vigil of the cell where Amarmani had been put up along with other criminals.

High-profile prisoner Amarmani was recently in the news again as he was staying in different hospitals in Varanasi citing medical treatment without seeking proper permission from the jail and district administration.

A specialised doctors’ team had examined Amarmani who complained of acute pain due to spondylitis but was found fit and thus was allowed to be shifted to Haridwar.

A probe is being on by the Varanasi police with suspension of five cops accompanying Tripathi during his hospital stay. Notably on the insistence of Madhumita’s sister Nidhi Shukla, the Supreme Court had transferred the murder case to Uttarakhand to ensure a free and fair trial and now he had again been shifted to the state, though this time as a life imprisonment convict. 

Deputy Jailer’s Murder
Cops interrogate jail inmates
Sandeep Rawat
Tribune News Service

Haridwar, September 13
While the police is still clueless about the assailants who killed Roorkee Deputy Jailer Narendra Singh Thapa yesterday, the last rites of the deceased were performed at the Khadkhadi cremation ghat in Haridwar this morning.

Despite the formation of several special police teams to nab the assailants, the police got no success in cracking the case and the police officials just repeated their statement of solving the case soon. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Haridwar, Kewal Khurana said intense interrogation of all the prisoners lodged at the Roorkee and Roshanabad prisons was being done.

He said a combing operation was carried out in western Uttar Pradesh too as it had come to their notice that Thapa was threatened with dire consequences by a hardcore criminal a few years ago while a so-called politician, who was arrested by him for landing in a private helicopter without permission and then mishandling with police personnel, is also on the investigating team’s radar.

Notably, in the Roshanabad prison, hardcore criminals Sunil Rathi, Mintu Chaudhari and Kushal Singh have been lodged while in the Roorkee subprison Akash Tyagi, Samar Alam and Chinu Pandit, who have been charged in multiple murder cases, have been put up.

Sunil Rathi had last month tried to kill a fellow prisoner and when the jail authorities tried to stop him he attacked them too. He had then alleged that there was a conspiracy by the prison staff and the police to kill him. Since then he has been put in a secluded cell under round-the-clock monitoring.

Superintendent of Police, Haridwar City, Yogendra Singh Rawat told The Tribune that in the past few months a couple of incidents had come to light in which prisoners were involved in minor brawls with the Deputy Jailer and the police was looking into this aspect too.

Meanwhile, all the top officials of the district administration, police and both the prisons of Roorkee and Roshanabad were present to pay tributes to Thapa.

Haridwar Jailer Mahendra Singh Gwal, who is a relative of Thapa, along with other prison employees, has warned the police officials that if they failed to solve the case by tomorrow, then they will resort to boycott of work.

No CCTV cameras at Roorkee jail

Despite Inspector-General (Prisons) Bhaskaranand’s claims of hi-tech arrangements having been put in place in all the prisons of the state, it has come to light that no CCTV cameras have been installed in the Roorkee prison.

Also the prison faces a shortage of staff. At present just 30-odd employees are posted in the prison against a total of 53 posts, a fact which had been highlighted by Thapa during his tenure too but the higher authorities didn’t pay heed to the issue. The number of prisoners put up in the prison is way above the sanctioned capacity. At present, the number of prisoners lodged in the jail is 275.

Thapa had also brought to the notice of the authorities the inadequate height of the boundary wall of the prison which is just four feet hight and the requirement of additional security personnel both inside the jail and outside at the main gate, just a few metres of which the incident occurred. 

Justice Dhyani sworn in as HC Judge
Tribune News Service

Nainital, September 13
Justice Umesh Chandra Dhyani was sworn in as Judge of the Uttarakhand High Court this morning.

He was administered the oath of the office by Chief Justice Barin Ghosh in the presence of other judges, members of the legal fraternity and administrative officials.

He had been working as the Registrar General, Uttarakhand High Court, till recently before being appointed the High Court Judge.

Born on February 14, 1956, in Parknandai village of Dhumakot tehsil, Pauri Garhwal, he did LLB and another postgraduate degree courses from Lucknow University. He entered service as a Munsif, now known as Civil Judge, on November 5, 1979.

Prior to the formation of Uttarakhand, he was posted at Nainital, Kashipur, Bareilley, Lucknow, Rae Bareilley, Agra, Barabanki and Lucknow. In Lucknow, his posting had been at the Judicial Training and Research Institute. Since the creation of Uttarakhand, he worked as the Additional Secretary from 2000 to 2004 and was then appointed the Law Secretary, the office he held till 2006.

He also worked as the legal adviser to the office of the Governor during these six years. Thereafter, he was appointed the District Judge, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital districts, a post he held till 2008.

He had been working as the Registrar General from September 20 last year.

‘Act fast on Lokayukta’s recommendations’
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, September 13
Keeping in view the directions given by Uttarakhand Chief Minister BC Khanduri to strengthen the office of the Lokayukta, Chief Secretary Subhash Kumar today convened a meeting of various departments and asked officials to act on the recommendations of the Lokayukta regarding cases in their respective departments.

Interestingly, since 2006, the action taken report (ATR) on the recommendations of the Lokayukta in the state had not been placed in the state Assembly.

Khanduri after joining the office on Sunday admitted the mistake and asked the officials to speed up the work in this regard.

Subhash Kumar directed the departments to do the needful by September 16 so that the action taken report on the recommendations should be presented at the next Cabinet meeting and later placed before the state Assembly. He warned that strict action would be taken against the defaulters.

UPP floats U’khand Chhatra Sangathan

Nainital, September 13
The youngest political force in the state, Uttarakhand Parivartan Party (UPP), has made a foray into the world of student politics by launching its own student wing by the name of Uttarakhand Chhatra Sangathan (UCS). The UCS was launched from the Lake City on Sunday with a convening committee being declared in the presence of a large number of participants.

The day-long deliberations of the UCS ended with Navin Suneja of Ramnagar being made the president for the Kumaon division. Devendra Joshi and Madhuri Aagri of Almora were made the vice-presidents while Dev Kumar of Rudrapur was made the secretary and Puja Negi of Chaukhutiya the joint secretary.

The appointments were made unanimously in the presence of president of the UPP PC Tewari. The members of the UCS have decided to launch a movement against the commercialisation of education and for payment of unemployment allowance to the youth in the state. The members of the organisation would be holding dharnas and demonstrations in various parts of the state on October 8.

The participants for the Sunday’s convention had come from all parts of Kumaon. They sang songs penned by Balli Singh Cheema and moved on to carry out a procession in Nainital after the conclusion of the convention.

The UPP was formed on the eve of the last parliamentary poll. The erstwhile Uttarakhand Parivartan Abhiyaan (UPA or Campaign for Change in Uttarakhand) after making “some effective political interventions even as a drive to synergise the process of socio-political change in the state has been going on” got converted into the UPP. The party has been claiming to have a pro-people and green ideology with the purpose of intervening not only politically but also at the socio-cultural level. — TNS

National parties ignoring local people’s aspirations: UKD (P)
Our Correspondent

Pithoragarh, September 13
Announcing that the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (Panwar) will contest all the seats in the coming Assembly elections in the state, the leaders of the party today vowed to bring about changes in the polity of the state to realise the dreams of the statehood agitators.

“The national parties are using the state to achieve their political goals ignoring the local aspirations for which the state has been envisioned,” said Kashi Singh Airi, a senior leader of the party.

Airy was addressing the delegates who had assembled for a rural conclave of the party in the Chaumail area of Lohaghat subdivision of Champawat district. “the UKD (Panwar) is a party which for the first time felt the need of a separate state for the uplift of the people of the hilly areas but the vision behind the statehood agitation spearheaded by the party has been ignored by the mainstream political parties,” said Airy. The UKD leaders of the village and block levels had assembled in this remote area near the India-Nepal border to draw a strategy for the next Assembly elections in the state. “These political parties have nothing to do with the sensitive issues of the region and the situation on border areas but only to make the state their fighting ground,” said Airy. “Owing to the apathetic attitude of the respective state governments after the creation of the state, the people have started migrating from their ancestral villages in remote areas as the respective governments have failed to develop these areas,” he added.

The UKD (Panwar) leader said before selecting candidates for the elections, the party will start a state-level membership campaign to regain its old members. “Most of our party members have become neutral and shifted to their respective villages as they can not join other political parties due to their acute pro-hill attitude,” said Airy. 

Cong forms monitoring, coordination panels
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, September 13
Uttarakhand Congress in charge Birendra Singh today announced the formation of two key committees, monitoring and coordination panels, of the Congress for the coming Assembly elections in the state. Birendra Singh said both women and Scheduled Castes had been given adequate representation in the committees.

Yashpal Arya will be heading the monitoring committee which will have KC Singh Baba, Pradeep Tamta, Dr Mahendra Pal Singh, Amrita Rawat, Dr Shailendra Mohan Singhal, Narendra Singh Bhandari, Sundar Lal Muyal, Govind Singh Kunjwal and Santosh Chauhan as its members.

Similarly, Chowdhary Birendra Singh will be heading the coordination committee in the capacity of chairman.

Arya will be the president of this committee whereas Harak Singh Rawat, Tilak Raj Behad, Harish Rawat, Satpal Maharaj, Indira Hridyesh, Hira Singh Bisht, Mahendra Singh Mahra, Kishore Updhayaya and Manorama Dobriyal Sharma will be members of this committee. 

Border villages’ roads to be linked with highways
Our correspondent

Pithoragarh, September 13
Roads being constructed under the Border Area Development Projects in border villages of the district will be linked with the highways being constructed by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO).

“This arrangement is being done to link the various villages at the high Himalayan border area with these main roads so that the villages could be benefited of the infrastructure being laid on the border and the migration from these villages can be stopped”, said MC Joshi, District Magistrate, Pithoragarh.

According to the District Magistrate, officials, working to complete the roads under the BADP in the district, had been instructed to prepare a plan to link all these villages to the main roads, especially on the Indo-China border.

“On receiving a complaint, we have also ordered the construction of a bridge at Nabhi village on the Kailas Mansarowar route to link Rongkong village with the main road,” said the DM.

A separate detailed project report is also being prepared to construct a road to link two more villages of Sobla and Tijam on the Indo-China border falling in this district.

”We have also requested BRO officers constructing the 75-km long Ghatia Bagar-Lipulekh road, not to dump the debris of the road in the fields of farmers as the complaints have been received by the district administration in this regard. The farmers have complained that due to dumping of debris by the BRO, not only agriculture land but also the drinking water sources and link roads to the villages are being destroyed,” said the DM. 

Management, staff trade charges
Tribune News Service

Nainital, September 13
The stand-off between the employees and the management of the Surya Roshini facility at Kashipur continues with both sides levelling charges against each other.

While the employees have been agitating for almost one month against the management for sacking some of the workers, the latter has alleged misconduct on the part of the agitating workers.

The workers have also approached the office of the Chief Minister, Major-Gen BC Khanduri (retd), charging that after doing away with the employees, the management is now getting their accommodation vacated.

On the other hand, the Associate Vice-President of the company, PK Shukla, has stated in a statement that the agitating workers are misguiding society and the administration. He has alleged that the workers had misbehaved with certain officials after getting drunk. He has claimed that the company has taken every step in compliance with the law.