Doon Civic Blues: Ward No. 45
Perforated water pipelines pose problem for residents
Dehradun, January 1
Absence of sewerage line and perforated water pipeline describes the state of affairs of the Niranjanpur area (Ward no. 45). Almost every resident of the area has made his/her own arrangement. New sewerage lines have been laid down, but the roads have been badly dug up and are yet to be carpeted. The heap of garbage is something that can always be seen here.

DEHRADUN Diary
Scramble for ticket in Congress, BJP
Since the announcement of January 30, 2012, as the date for the state Assembly elections by the Election Commission, there has been a scramble among the prospective candidates of both the ruling BJP and the main Opposition Congress to get party nominations.

Mussoorie, January 1
Being the first Sunday of 2012, most of the revellers from Mussoorie and Dehradun, who chose to spend quite time amidst nature at the Malsi Deer Park on the Mussoorie-Dehradun highway, could not hide their disappointment due to the plight of the park.

The park witnessed unprecedented rush as the families from Dehradun and Mussoorie preferred to visit nature in comparison to the other destinations in the vicinity today.

According to the caretaker of the park, around 1,000 people had visited the park till noon and many more were still lining up outside.

Rajiv, who work at a computer centre in Dehradun, said: “Abstaining from liquor was in my resolution this year and to keep away from it I thought of spending the first day of 2012 in the lap of nature, but am disappointed after seeing the plight of the park.”

Some tourists also complained about the overpricing of the entry ticket. Ramesh Singh, a visitor, said the park managers were also charging exorbitantly as parking fee.

The plight of the in-house wild animals was also questionable as they looked poorly fed and were seen pacing back and forth due to stress. In addition to that the visitors could be seen provoking the animals, feeding them through the gaps in the cages, even trying to poke at them with sticks.

The lack of civil sense among the visitors was also evident as most of the visitors after having eatables littered the whole park with plastic wrappers and leftovers, making a mess out of the place. The forest officials were also not visible at the site to control the activities in the park befitting to its stature. A sizable population of visitors after gauzing the environment chose to leave in haste for some other quite destination.

Meanwhile, Member Secretary, People for Animals (PFA), Uttarakhand, Gauri Maulekhi said a team of the PFA, Uttarakhand, visited the park on Wednesday,and in its observation found several anomalies such as, the park was grossly understaffed, the enclosures were without standoff barriers (compulsory according to the law) to prevent the visitors from getting too near, there were very few sign boards enough where people could be instructed to refrain from disturbing/annoying/provoking the animals, no biologist/education officer was on duty to prevent such occurrences, as has been provisioned by the Recognition of Zoo Rules 2009.

Peacock and a wild cock had been kept in a single enclosure whereas another peacock had been kept in another solitary confinement for over three years. According to the law, an animal cannot be kept without a mate for a period of over one year. Similarly, the male and the female leopard at the park were not compatible, as informed. Two rescued owls, of unknown/rare species, were found caged in small parrot cages (similar to the ones used in households).

She said according to the Recognition of Zoo Rules 2009, sick, injured or infirm animals are not to be displayed but a black eagle and an owl of unknown species, both visibly injured were kept on display at the park. Apart from this the park had no crisis management plan nor any mock drills were being conducted to cope in the event of a natural disaster, animal escapes, disease outbreaks, strike by staff, etc.

According to the guidelines provided by the Central Zoo Authority, such a strategy has to be made, practised and reviewed regularly. Gauri Maulekhi further said the park authorities were not bothered to engage even a full-time veterinarian even though it houses a total of 156 animals. A vet who visits the park once a week is not trained in handling or treating wildlife.

Commenting on the apathy shown by the forest department, Gauri Maulekhi said despite writing several letters with suggestive measures to the highest official of the Forest Department no action has been initiated so far.

Meenakshi Joshi, DFO, Dehradun, could not be contacted after repeated attempts.

Garbage lying on a vacant plot in Ward No. 45 of the Dehradun Municipal Corporation. A Tribune photograph

Dehradun, January 1
Absence of sewerage line and perforated water pipeline describes the state of affairs of the Niranjanpur area (Ward no. 45). Almost every resident of the area has made his/her own arrangement. New sewerage lines have been laid down, but the roads have been badly dug up and are yet to be carpeted. The heap of garbage is something that can always be seen here.

JC Joshi, a resident, said, “Since we do not get water from the drinking-water pipeline, we have dug up our own bore wells to extract underground water through tube-wells. The number of such houses has multiplied over the years and the water at the ground-level has begun depleting as well.”

PP Dhyani, another resident, said the water problem turned acute in the summer when many a time there was no water all day and people had to depend on resources like water tanks to meet their water requirements. It was only during the rainy season that they got relief, as the ground-level got replenished with water.

He met with officials of Jan Sansthan many times in a bid to get water connection for his house but to no avail.

In a desperate attempt to get more water from the underground table, the residents have been digging deeper which has deepened the crisis.

Councillor Neeraj Sethi is hopeful of getting this problem resolved this year. He said, “Being a member of the state Planning Committee, I have been able to pass the resolution regarding getting drinking water lines laid for my ward. I got Rs 20 lakh sanctioned for it this year.”

He said he also got sewerage pipelines for the entire ward except for Kashmiri Colony, where he lives. “MLA of the area Dinesh Aggarwal, who is from the Congress, wants to show me in poor light and has deliberately made the Asian Development Bank agency, which has undertaken the sewerage-line project to postpone the work at my locality till April. I have assured people that the sewerage lines would be laid down by April.”

Suman Chaudhary showed the sewerage holes which few people have left open in the area, leading to bad odor and danger to the human life.

These problems will be sorted only after the sewerage lines were laid in the area.

Renu Sood complained of garbage heaps lying in vacant plots. “The neighbours throw away garbage from their homes in the vacant lots but no one takes responsibility to clear the garbage from here. It has also led to many altercations among residents as well.”

Since the announcement of January 30, 2012, as the date for the state Assembly elections by the Election Commission, there has been a scramble among the prospective candidates of both the ruling BJP and the main Opposition Congress to get party nominations. The political parties of the state were caught off guard with the announcement as they expected the elections to be held in the second or third week of February, 2012, like in the previous two Assembly elections held in 2002 and 2007. Both the BJP as well as the Congress have not yet finalised the names of the candidates for the 70 Assembly segments.

The ruling BJP state election committee met on December 30 with senior leaders at a five star hotel at Mussoorie to finalise the panel of names of the candidates for each Assembly segment in the state. Chief Minister BC Khanduri left for New Delhi on December 31 to attend the meeting of the Central Election Committee to discuss the names of the candidates. It was expected that the names of the party candidates would be finalised by the Central Parliamentary Board of the party in the next few days. There is lot of speculation on the panel of names and the secret surveys being done at the behest of national party President Nitin Gadkari. There is even talk of denial of party nominations to some of the sitting legislators who would be facing anti-incumbency factor.

On the other hand, there has been a lot of activity in the Opposition Congress camp with almost all the prospective candidates rushing to New Delhi where the Central screening committee led by Union Minister Anan Sharma was to meet to finalise the panel of candidates. Most of the ticket seekers rushed to their political god fathers in the national capital to lobby for the party tickets. Many of the candidates were looking for Haryana connections to influence the Congress general secretary in charge of Uttarakhand party affairs Birender Singh who hails from Haryana. It has been reliably learnt that after long parleys, the screening committee finalised the panel of candidates and sent to central paliamentary board. A meeting of the screening committee members was held with party president Sonia Gandhi where names of 47 candidates were finalised. The official list is still awaited but speculation about the final names created a stir among the state Congress leaders.

The rumours about finalisation of names of 47 candidates made the round in the state capital on the eve of New Year. Even vernacular newspapers published a list of the probable candidates that led to a lot of heartburn and even anger. Supporters of some of the candidates whose names were not there in the list of candidates even went to the Congress central office in New Delhi and created a ruckus.

There were allegations that Vijay Bahuguna, Congress MP from Tehri Garhwal has been trying to help his cousin Chief Minister BC Khanduri by putting up weak candidates. The central party leaders were stunned as many of the supporters of such candidates even took to task their respective party MPs. Later, it was learnt that although the party bigwigs have agreed on names for 47 Assembly segments, the final list would be announced after consultation with party president Sonia Gandhi.

Interestingly, all the senior Congress leaders and hundreds of prospective candidates have been asked to return to Uttarakhand to work hard for the success of the proposed party rally at Rudrapur in the Kumaon region on January 5, 2012. After the successful rally of party general secretary Rahul Gandhi on December 23, 2011, in Dehradun, the Congress has planned the first election rally to be addressed by party President Sonia Gandhi. Congress leadership knew very well that the announcement of names of the candidates would lead to an intense infighting that could also have bearing on the number of people to be mobilised for the Sonia rally. They also knew that those who would not be accommodated in the list of candidates would surely not help in bring crowds for the rally.

Dehradun, January 1
Former top hockey players Satnam Kaur and Rahul Singh, who came all the way from Mumbai, yesterday gave useful tips to the hockey (girls) players who train at the State Coaching Center at the MKP PG College by District Sports Office.

Satnam Kaur, who is a coach with the Western Railway Hockey team and played for India between 1992-96 both at the senior and junior level, seeing the enthusiasm shown by the girls, said, “In order to promote hockey as a game, a hockey turf should be set up in the capital and a separate hostel for the girls should also be set up so that the girls hailing from different districts of the state could be accommodated.” On the other hand, Rahul Singh, who is the hockey coach with the Customs Team in Mumbai and represented India in the Atlanta Olympics in 1992 and also participated in the Champions Trophy in 1996, said, “Coaching centres should hold camps with senior players so that girls begin to hone their skills in the very beginning of their careers,” said Rahul.

Both the husband and wife mingled with the teammates and also shared their experiences.

Haridwar, January 1
For a record 10th time, the Haridwar-Ranipur team reached the final of the coveted All-India BHEL Inter Unit Volleyball Championship played in BHEL Sector-IV volleyball sport complex here today.

In the first semifinal match, a lopsided contest was witnessed between the teams of Haridwar and RC Puram. Haridwar players never allowed their opponents to have a lead in all three sets, winning the important match by a margin of 25-12, 25-13 and 25-12.

In second semifinal match, the Bhopal team made it to the final after beating the Tiruchi team in a closely contested match. The Tiruchi players won the second set after losing the first but in the deciding set, the Bhopal players maintained their supremacy winding up the match with the score line of 25-11, 30-28 and 25-13.

Earlier in the quarterfinal matches, Tiruchi defeated Jagdeeshpur 25-13, 25-15 while Bhopal won against Bangalore 25-16, 25-11.

Referee for the today’s matches were former Indian national team coach Vidya Sagar, while coordinators of the semi final matches were Arun Kumar, KS Rana, Subash Chand, Dinesh Nautiyal and Inder Mohan Barthwal.

Dehradun, January 1
As part of the third and the final phase of the demolition drive on the Chakrata road, the PWD and the Dehradun Municipal Corporation has razed 77 residential, 76 commercial and eight other properties.

Owing to the demolition work, the road was closed to traffic. The drive went off peacefully today. However, it will take some time to demolish RWM Plaza as cellphone towers had also been installed on the building.

According to sources, the allotment of all shops on the first and second floors of the new shopping complex would be completed by January 8.

The registration of all freehold shops will be completed by January 20. ‘Nazul’ land owners could get the registration work done by January 25 after depositing 25 per cent of the total sum to acquire freehold status.

The registration of ‘nazul’ property will be completed by February 10.