Dehradun, August 12
The solid waste management (SWM) programme launched under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) for the city completed one year this month. This highly-rated scheme has not brought much benefits to the people as was expected, thanks to the appalling inefficiency on the part of the Dehradun Municipal Corporation (DMC). The targets which this project were to achieve in one year have not been even half met.

The SWM project was aimed at accumulating garbage from all over the city and scientifically treating it at the scientific land fill (SLF) plant. The Delhi-based SPML Company, which had been given the SWM contract of Rs 24.60 crore for 15 years, has been able to cover merely 30 wards of the total 60 till now, whereas as per the agreement, it was to take over the rest of the 30 wards in March this year. The building of the SLF plant at Shishambara and transfer station (TS) on Haridwar Road was to be ready in the next two months this year. The reality is that the SLF plant is embroiled in a controversy over prolonged environment clearance procedure, and the TS in a legal wrangle with the owner of the land on Haridwar Road in the High Court for the last four months. These structures would take almost one year to become operational.

Chief Health Officer, DMC, Gurpal Singh assured of furthering the project in the next 15 wards by August 15 this year. He blamed shortage of manpower for the inordinate delay. Contrary to this, Chief Executive Officer, SPML, Sidharth Jain, said: "My company has spent Rs 10.5 cr on the project till date with returns of merely Rs 7 crore. The door-to-door collection charges and monthly payment of Rs 7 lakh from the DMC for disposing of 110 tonnes garbage every day go into paying the monthly salaries of 350 sanitation workers engaged in the task, " he added. Despite the financial crunch, he gave the commitment of taking up 15 wards where each ward costs an expenditure of Rs 10 lakh on purchase of vehicles, carts, bins and salaries.

He castigated the DMC for providing him with controversial land for the TS, where the garbage collected from the city was to be compressed and shifted into bigger vehicles to be further taken to the SLF plant. An amount of over Rs 1 cr had already spent over it. He lamented that officials had no knowledge that they had already lost out the case on this land in the lower court. His loss over construction material, manpower etc at the site was understandable.

The matter pertaining to the SLF plant where Rs 80 lakh had already been spent was equally disheartening. Members of the project implementation unit (PIU) of the SWM flayed the DMC for its short-sightedness. Pankaj Bhatt, environmentalist, PIU, said: " The SWM project was primarily aimed at the scientific treatment of the garbage. The SLF plant and the TS should have been readied before the work of collection of garbage was started in the city. Now the whole lot of garbage was being dumped into the trenching ground, as before."

He said the DMC officials took procedure of environment clearance very lightly. Even in the matter of tenders for hiring accredited counsel, enlisted in the panel of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF), officials wasted 8 long months in the process. Now the environment impact assessment report has been cleared. Subsequent public hearing by the State Pollution Control department, followed by clearance by an expert appraisal committee of MOEF is yet to take place. Only then the third instalment of Rs 6.15 cr will be released and work could be resumed at the SFL plant.

Dehradun, August 12
In the wake of the Supreme Court order to ban tourism in the core zone of tiger reserves in the country, state Wildlife authorities have finally decided to act and go for intervention application before the apex court in view of growing tourism in the state.

The recent Supreme Court order banning any tourism activity in the core zones of the tiger reserves had come as a big shock to the state, which heavily banks on eco tourism to provide livelihood opportunities to a large number of people. Shortly after the SC order, the Corbett Park authorities in the state had stopped tourism activity in the Jhirna range of the tiger reserve. The Jhirna range that falls in the core area of the Corbett Tiger Reserve is open to tourists round the year.

As per an estimate, the annual turnover of the Corbett Tiger Reserve and various large and small business enterprises in and around the Corbett sums up to more than Rs 100 crore with around 20,000 people earning their livelihood from the arrival of nearly two lakh tourists to the Corbett every year. This had certainly put the state forest authorities in a piquant situation as it will certainly not like conservation to be a direct reason behind people losing their jobs. Thus after much of thought, the department seems to have been forced to file an intervention application before the Supreme Court and point out the state’s viewpoint of a balance between conservation and tourism.

Certainly for a state like Uttarakhand, a blanket ban can have serious repercussion as majority of land mass in the state is of forests and any such ban would deprive the entire state of development.

State Chief Wildlife Warden SS Sharma said, “With all due regards to the Supreme Court order, Uttarakhand, which has large forest areas, can do little as the ban will completely wipe out eco-tourism linked activities in the state. He also pointed out that the state was already following the NTCA guidelines as desired by the court and added that they had finally decided to go for intervention application before the apex court.

Significantly, shortly after the Supreme Court order, Garhwal MLA Satpal Maharaj had expressed reservation over the ban on tourism in the core areas of Corbett Tiger Reserve and had suggested a prompt legal recourse.

Mussoorie, August 12
The "Queen of the Hills" reverberated with the chants of "Radhey Radhey" as the annual Krishna palanquin (Doli) was ferried around the town by Sanatan Dharma Mandir Sabha with fervour today.

The Krishna procession is held on the Sunday following immediately after the Krishna Janmashtami celebrations.

The journey of Krishna palanquin, ornamented with silver, started its 4-km journey at 2 pm after the initiation ceremony from the temple. The local MLA, Ganesh Joshi, MC president OP Uniyal, Pradesh Zila Panchayat Sangathan chief Jot Singh Bisht along with other public representatives joined in the procession.

The kirtan mandali followed the doli, singing and dancing in praise of Krishna. Adding colour to the procession were tableaux depicting the life of Krishna, especially his childhood. A brass band provided the musical element to the procession.

The Valmiki Samaj also presented their items on the road at different locations of the town. The most popular ones were the tableaux of Krishna stealing butter and Lord Shiva sprinkling water from his head.

The children dressed in the attire of various gods completely transformed The Mall Road into a fair.

The devotees in large numbers thronged the sides of the road to seek blessings and catch a glimpse of Krishna. The aarti was held at Picture Palace where the president, Nagar Palika, joined in to offer his prayers along with other devotees.

The tourists on holiday were astonished as for them it was a fortunate photo opportunity.

Rajvir Singh, tourist from Patiala, said: " Watching women from the villages around in traditional attire was an amazing sight and the government should publicise such festivals over the Internet so that more tourists can witness this religious phenomenon every year."

The Krishna doli procession has historical antecedents too. According to Anil Godiyal, a resident of the town, the Krishna procession began around 1870 during British rule. The present Radha Krishan Mandir was a small tin shed then. According to the elders, the Shiva and Krishna Temple were situated near Nag Mandir at Hathipaon. The Britishers had banned worship at this temple. One day when the Britishers had gone for Good Friday celebrations, the Hindu devotees discreetly established the Krishna idol at Radha Krishan Mandir. They brought it in a wooden doli in a procession. Since then it has become an annual feature.

The procession ended at Lakshmi Narayan Temple in Library Bazaar.

Haridwar, August 12
The police cracked a sensational double murder case and arrested a person, Prem of the Banjara community. The police claimed that the accused had admitted his hand in the murder.

The murder took place on July 19 this year at Shyampur in the district. The accused Prem had killed Khem Singh and Krishna Devi with a heavy stick.

The police had found their bodies in semi-naked condition.

The police started investigation but after two weeks, when it failed to get any clue, the investigating officer decided to deploy police personnel as fake banjaras in the village.

The police came to know about the illicit relations of the deceased Khem Singh with the wife of Prem. Khem Singh was known as the master of black magic.

Prem lived in the neighbourhood of Khem Singh and used to visit his house for the treatment of impotency with the help of black magic. Prem had told one of the villagers that he was impotent.

This led the police to interrogate Prem, who later admitted being behind the murder of his wife and Khem Singh.

The police said Prem regularly visited Khem Singh to gain power through black magic but later Khem Singh started taking undue advantage of the weakness of the accused. Khem Singh succeeded in compelling Prem to convince his wife Krishna to have sex with him.

After a few years, when Prem realised that he was not cured and Khem Singh had befooled him to have relations with his wife, he made up his mind to take revenge.

The other day when both Khem Singh and Krishna were having sex, Prem attacked both of them with a heavy stick, killing them on the spot.

Senior Superintendent of Police Arun Mohan Joshi said this was a rare case that led the police to resort to conventional methodology of investigation by mingling with the Banjara villagers as there was no clue on the murder site. He announced a cash award to the police team comprising SHO Shyampur Ritesh Shah, SI Deepak Kathait, Virendra Singh Negi, Dharmendra Rautela, Balbir Pawar, Ompal, Dharmendra and Mahendra Tomar.

“This is a case which speaks of illiteracy and mindset of some people, particularly in the Banjara community, resorting to black magic for every problem. We have recovered the stick used in the murder and blood-stained clothes of the culprit from his house” said SP City Dr Kiran Lal Shah.

Haridwar, August 12
Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Harish Rawat today called on young journalists to maintain balance between ethics and TRP pressure.

Rawat addressed mediapersons at the Press Club here today in memory of eminent littérateur and journalist Kishori Das Vajpayee.

Padma Shree Vijay Dutt Shreedhar dwelled on the structure of media relating the pre and post Independence era journalism with the TRP-oriented media coverage being done these days.

Shreedhar said just to gain TRP points, news channel today were losing respect and responsibility.

Haridwar Press Club secretary Amit Kumar said journalists needed to follow the ideals of journalism.

City-based journalists PS Chauhan and Sunil Dutt Pandey were also present on the occasion.

Dehradun, August 12
The 28 th Carbery Inter-School Sub-junior Football Tournament organised by Carman School concluded yesterday with Advait of Wynberg-Allen School school winning the award of the player of the tournament. He had scored 17 goals in the tournament.

Earlier, Oak Grove School Mussoorie defeated Wynberg- Allen School by one goal scored by Shubam. — TNS