COAL SCAM
Manmohan’s silence puts question mark on his integrity, says Ramdev
Tribune News Service

Haridwar, August 28
Yoga guru Ramdev today made a scathing attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Central Government over the coal scam.

Speaking at the Divya Yog Mandir Trust, Kankhal, today, Ramdev described the Central Government as the worst and most corrupt government.

He alleged that the coal scam had shown the darker side of certain Central leaders, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

He said the Prime Minister's silence over numerous scams during the UPA-I and II tenures had put a question mark on the credibility and integrity of Manmohan Singh.

Ramdev said both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi had failed to give a satisfactory reply and explanation in Parliament regarding the coal scam.

On the notices served on him and his close aide Balkrishan, he said it was just to curb his spirit and anti-blackmoney campaign. He claimed that by such notices, his agitation had only gained mass support.

"We have to bring in honest politicians in Parliament. Otherwise be it the anti-blackmoney campaign or the Jan Lokpal Bill, all of them will be put aside by corrupt politicians," remarked yog guru Ramdev.

Aid for damaged farm land hiked
Rs 140 cr allocated for construction of medical colleges in Almora, Doon
Horticulture Dept merges with Agri Dept
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 28
The Uttarakhand Government today enhanced 10 times the compensation amount paid to those whose agriculture land was damaged due to natural calamity in both hilly and plain areas of the state.

The amount has been raised from Rs 240 per nalli to Rs 2,500 per nalli in hill areas and from Rs 12,000 per hectare to Rs 1.25 lakh per hectare in the plain areas.

Announcing the decision after the review meetings of Horticulture and Medical Education Departments, Chief Minister Bahuguna said the compensation amount had been hiked keeping with the rising costs.

Besides, the government allocated Rs 140 crore for the construction of medical colleges in Almora and Doon Medical College in Dehradun. He also asked officials to draft rules for contract farming.

The construction of colleges has been pending for a couple of years despite the different governments making allocations in the budget. Each medical college will now get Rs 75 crore for the construction of medical colleges. He also approved Rs 55 crore for the construction of nursing hostel building with a capacity of 200 persons in Srinagar Medical College.

Chief Minister Bahuguna also asked the officials to speed up the construction of nursing colleges at Pauri, Chamoli, Tehri, Almora and Pithoragarh. These projects were approved under the 13 Finance Commission during the BJP government’s tenure and are still pending.

It was also decided to bring the Horticulture Department under the Department of Agriculture. Approval was also given for creating a separate directorate for medical education.

To give better prices to farmers, it was decided to make the mandis hi-tech and also draft rules for contract farming.

Diploma engineers launch indefinite strike
Tribune News Service

Haridwar, August 28
After staging a symbolic agitation since August 21, the Uttarakhand Diploma Engineers' Mahasangh launched an indefinite boycott strike today.

As part of the statewide protest call, all employees boycott work today, affecting the working of the departments like the PWD, the Jal Nigam, the Power Corporation etc.

District secretary of the mahasangh Anup Bhandari said despite repeated assurances by the authorities concerned, nothing had been done to fulfil their long-pending demands, forcing them to boycott work.

Vinod Praksh Nautiyal, an assistant engineer, said their main demands included promotion, basic pay upgrading and transport allowance.

"We are feeling neglected. Diploma engineers play a pivotal role in various departments. If the government failed to fulfil their demands, they would go on a fast," said Nautiyal, while leading a protest at the PWD office, Mayapur, here.

Haridwar man arrested for ATM fraud
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 28
The police today arrested Pravesh, resident of Haridwar, for withdrawing Rs 15,000 each from the accounts of Gauri Ghildiyal and Deepam Kshetri by using their ATM cards. The accused duped both the victims yesterday at the ATM centre of PNB, near Clock Tower. By seeing the footage and collecting more information, the police located the accused.

Ghildiyal, resident of Raipur Road, said she was recently issued an ATM card and came to check the balance in her account at the ATM centre. It was there that the accused continued to stand behind her and extended help when she could not get her account statement from the machine. She allowed him to swipe her ATM card. Even when he used the card, the machine continued to hang. Meanwhile, Gauri went to another ATM centre in the vicinity to check whether it was working. It was during this

intervening period that the accused withdrew the money.

A similar incident happened in the case of Kshetri, resident of village Badowala. The machine stopped working and the accused came forward to help. Kshetri recollected that he had taken his ATM card back from the accused. But, according to the police, the accused remembered the code number printed on the ATM card and used the duplicate one to withdraw the money. He used some kind of liquid to render the keys of the ATM dysfunctional, and, hence, trapped the naïve victims by extending help to them.

While trembling out of fear, Pravesh continued to reiterate that nobody should allow others to watch the code number printed on their ATM cards. He also kept saying that his family members who did not know about the dark side of his life would now kill him.

His father died long ago and he lives with his wife, children, brother's family and mother.

He has a small poultry business, which was not doing well. He said he learnt the technique of making duplicate ATMs from one of his friends, who had died.

68 forest service probationers pass out
Tribune News Service

Vikram Kesharee Pradhan

Dehradun, August 28
Additional Director General of the Union Environment and Forests Ministry AK Bansal today asked the passing-out Indian Forest Service (IFS) probationers to think globally and act locally, stating that it was the need of the hour.

Addressing the probationers at the Forest Research Institute’s today, Bansal said the forest services had seen a major change with focus getting shifted to the basic needs of the people keeping conservation in mind. “On one hand, basic needs of local communities have to be taken adequate care of, there is also a challenge of mounting pressure on natural resources,” he said.

The passing-out Indian Forest Service probationers in Dehradun on Tuesday; and (right) Additional Director General, Union Environment and Forests Ministry, AK Bansal, gives away the diploma and a memento to a probationer. Tribune photos: Vinod Pundir

Forest service topper gets Rajasthan cadre

Dehradun, August 28
The topper of the 2010-12 IFS training course Vikram Kesharee Pradhan has been allotted the Rajasthan cadre.

Son of a sports teacher in Orissa, Vikram credits his parents and teachers for his success. "I got encouragement from my parents and teachers, which helped me move from one milestone to another", he said.

Vikram has been given his maiden posting at Jodhpur.

"I consider water scarcity and the welfare of forest dependent communities in Jodhpur as some of my initial major challenges", Vikram pointed out, who was given the all-round outstanding performance award at the convocation ceremony.

Divya Prabhu, who was allotted the Karnataka cadre, bagged 6 awards. She topped in core forestry subjects. She also won the P Srinivas Memorial Prize, the Sanjay Singh Memorial Prize, the KN Mathur Prize, the KM Tiwari Memorial Prize and the EP Gee Prize.

Tshering Zam of Bhutan won the VS Rao Prize for the best foreign trainee. — TNS

Open zero balance bank accounts for SC, ST people: Hridayesh
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 28
Uttarakhand Finance Minister Indira Hridayesh today said the state government was serious about making payments through bank accounts to members of the Scheduled Castes (SC), the Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) under various schemes. She advocated opening zero balance bank accounts of the beneficiaries so that they get their dues without hassles or inconvenience.

She was addressing the 42nd Bankers Committee meeting here. She said banks had always played a crucial role in the economical development of the nation. They had been instrumental in not only uplifting people financially and socially but also enabling unemployed youths to go for self-employment.

The Finance Minister asked the banks to give priority to funding women from the minorities for self-employment so that their economical condition could improve.

Hridayesh said the banks ought to make arrangements of depositing electricity bills like was done in Uttar Pradesh so that they were benefited financially. This system would also provide relief to the consumers.

She observed that the present changing condition demanded connecting farmers to e-banking services so that they could reap the maximum benefit of various schemes launched by the government.

She stressed on providing credit cards to all farmers. For this, the banks had to maintain a direct contact with the farmers, she said.

The Finance Minister said the banks should also achieve 100 per cent target of their Annual Credit Plan. The banks should approach people with attractive schemes so that the distance between them could decrease. She said unemployed people were approaching banks for self-employment financing and the youth ought to be trained in various professions. The banks should take concrete steps in this direction. She assured the bankers of providing land for establishing training centres at Haldwani and Champawat.

Chief General Manager, State Bank of India, B Sriram said in the Annual Credit Plan 2012-13 all banks had achieved Rs 2,132 crore as against the target of Rs 8,955 crore till June, which was 24 per cent of the target. He added the Credit Deposit Ratio (CDR) till March end was 53.47 per cent which increased to 54.13 per cent in June.

Sriram said as per the standard of the RBI, the CDR at Chamoli, Rudraprayag, Champawat, Pauri and Almora was very less and the efforts were on to improve it.

So far loan of Rs 315 crore had been given to 26,578 farmers as against the target of 2 lakh in the state. Besides, the banks had issued credit cards to 74,361 farmers.

The meeting was attended by Secretary, Finance, Radha Raturi, Secretary, Minority Welfare, MH Khan, General Manager, RBI, RL Das, CGM, NABARD, S Selvaraj, GM, SBI, Sunil Srivastava and senior officers of lead banks and other banks.

BJP names 10 candidates for Tehri LS seat
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 28
The Bharatiya Janata Party's state election committee on Tuesday approved the list of 10 probable candidates for the Tehri parliamentary seat vacated by Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna. The final selection of the candidates would be announced after the meeting of BJP parliamentary board to be held in New Delhi in the coming days.

The names of the candidates are former Chief Minister BC Khanduri, Rani Raj Laxmi Shah, Vinod Chamoli, Vinod Uniyal, Matbar Singh Kandari, Lakhi Ram Joshi, Jyoti Prasad Gairola, Surat Ram Nautiyal, Gyan Singh Negi and Matbar Singh Rana.

The meeting was chaired by BJP president BS Chufal and was attended by former Chief Minister BC Khanduri, former Chief Minister Nitya Nand Swami, BJP organisation secretary Sanjay Kumar, state general secretary Dhan Singh Rawat and others.

Former Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal was not present at the meeting as he had to leave for New Delhi with his ailing wife.

Jal Sansthan, Peyjal Nigam staff join stir
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 28
The employees of the Jal Sansthan and Peyjal Nigam today joined the stir launched by the Uttarakhand Diploma Engineers' Federation. The strike that entered the eighth day today had been launched by the Uttarakhand Diploma Engineers in support of the 12-point charter of demands.

Participating in the sit-in at the Yamuna Colony office, the employees of Jal Sansthan and Peyjal Nigam boycotted work.

President of the Uttarakhand Diploma Engineers' Federation Naveen Kandpal said they would intensify their stir if the government failed to fulfil their genuine demands.

Guv greetings on Onam
Tribune News service

Dehradun, August 28
Uttarakhand Governor Dr Aziz Qureshi has wished people on the auspicious occasion of Onam, a major festival of South India.

In his message on the eve of the festival of prosperity, peace, plenty and joy, the Governor said the festival heralded the Malyali New Year and was symbolic of the diversity of Indian culture.

4 displaced shopkeepers seek relief
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 28
Four more shopkeepers met District Magistrate, Dehradun, Ravinath Raman today and demanded compensation in lieu of their displacement from Tehsil Chowk 18 months ago.

Raman expressed ignorance about their cases and said the district administration had completed the settlement of 14 shopkeepers.

The four cases for settlement were put up before him yesterday but he had no information about them when the concerned shopkeepers met him today. He said the MDDA or the Dehradun MC must deal with such issues to ensure that all affected shopkeepers got compensation.

Ashok Kumar, a shopkeeper, said his shop was demolished and he had nowhere to go. The District Magistrate directed the SDM to look into the issue.

Woman ends life in Tehri
Our Correspondent

Mussoorie, August 28
A woman from Lalotna village in Jaunpur block of Tehri Garhwal was reported to have committed suicide by consuming poison today.

She was brought to Community Hospital in Mussoorie by family members but he was declared brought dead by doctors here.

According to the Mussoorie police, Suko Devi (50), wife of Satya Singh, consumed a bottle of "Nuvam" early morning today for committing suicide. The family members brought the woman to the hospital in Mussoorie but the medical staff declared her brought dead.

According to the police, the specific reason of her death could not be ascertained as there was no dispute in the family. However, the police is investigating the matter.

Garhwali film album released
Our Correspondent

Chief guest Mukesh Lal (centre) releases a Garhwali film CD “Tension Free” in Mussoorie on Tuesday.

Mussoorie, August 28
A Garhwali film titled ‘Tension Free’, a satire on the social taboos, was released at a hotel here today. The film is directed by Trilok Singh Chauhan.

Chief guest on the occasion, Principal of Mussoorie Public School released the film CD and said such films were needed raise awareness among people.

Chauhan, while addressing the gathering, said people were forgetting the human values in the race to development, therefore such films was a step forward in reminding people of true values, culture and traditions of the region.

The programme was coordinated by Anil Godiyal and eminent Gharwali folk singer Jeetender Panwar.

UJVNL staff submit memo to MD
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 28
The Employees' Union of Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (UJVNL) submitted a memorandum to the Managing Director, UJVNL, GD Patel, today with regard to their demands. General Secretary of the union JS Arora said their demands, which were sent to the state government for approval, had been pending since then and, the officials were least bothered about them. He demanded that officials should resume talks with the state government on the issue. While issuing the ultimatum, he said if the management did nothing on their demands by September 27, then they would begin an agitation.

Their main demands include a new transfer policy, time-bound promotion and pay scale, facility of pension and Provident Fund, revision of medical allowance, appointment on pending vacancies and adequate compensation to the employees of the department who got affected in the natural calamity of Uttarakashi.

IMA notices to 5 villagers: SDM to conduct enquiry
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 28
The District Magistrate has directed Subdivisional Magistrate Girish Chander to conduct an enquiry into the matter in which the Indian Military Academy (IMA) has issued notices to five residents of Mithibedi village to vacate possession of Army land in the area. Chander said only 25 people were given land in 1994 for getting vasectomy operations done under the Family Planning Scheme, whereas around 75 to 80 residents of the village claimed to be possessing land for the same reason.

It is now getting clear that the rest of the villagers encroached upon the land which also included the land owned by the IMA as well. A day before, a delegation of the villagers came with MLA, Mussoorie, Ganesh Joshi, to meet the DM where they said that the IMA had served notices to them to vacate the land which was given to them by the state government under the Family Planning Scheme.

Guv meets docs from Pakistan
Tribune News Service

A delegation of homoeopathic doctors from Pakistan with Uttarakhand Governor Aziz Qureshi at Raj Bhawan in Dehradun on Tuesday.

Dehradun, August 28
Governor Aziz Qureshi today met a delegation of doctors from Pakistan at Raj Bhawan here.

He said both the countries ought to demolish the wall of differences and jointly take up battle against poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and diseases for the peace and prosperity of both the countries.

Qureshi welcomed the delegation of more than 50 doctors and said only doctors, poets, writers and artists could now bridge the gap of hatred through love and brotherhood. He said both the countries should try to come closer through trade, industry and religious tourism and utilise the money spent on weapons in curtailing poverty and unemployment. This would end the era of bloodshed and lead the countries to the new horizon of benevolence, peace and prosperity, said Qureshi.

The homeopathic specialists from Pakistan participated in two-day Asian Homoeopathic Medical League (Indian Chapter) Conference in Mussoorie along with doctors of other Asian countries.

The conference was inaugurated by the Governor. He had then invited the participants to Raj Bhawan. Qureshi also presented mementoes to the visitors. Much impressed by the hospitality of the state, the delegation assured the Governor of taking his message to their country.

Almora MLA Manoj Tiwari calls off fast
BD Kasniyal

Pithoragarh, August 28
Congress MLA from Almora Manoj Tiwari called off his indefinite fast today with Health Minister Surendra Singh Negi offering juice to him.

The MLA had been on fast for the past three days in front of the Almora District Magistrate’s office, demanding the appointment of doctors.

The minister said, “We have ordered two doctors to join Almora hospitals immediately and cancelled the transfer of five doctors from various hospitals of the district. A physician appointed at Almora Base Hospital will take charge on Wednesday.”

The State Youth Congress President and son of Union minister Harish Rawat, Anand Singh Rawat, also staged a dharna along with Tiwari yesterday.

Prashant Bhaisora, a senior Youth Congress leader, said besides Anand Singh Rawat, NSUI district president Sandip Jangpangi and other prominent youth leaders of Almora also staged a dharna along with Tiwari today.

Leader of the Gorkha Samaj SB Rana, UKD state vice- president Mahesh Parihar, PC Tiwari from the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party and members from other social groups also extended support to the movement.

Meanwhile, the minister has assured that the hill areas of the state would be given priority in allocating doctors’ quota by the Director-General (Health) in the coming days.

‘Underground water keeps non-glacial rivers ever flowing’
BD Kasniyal

Pithoragarh, August 28
Geologists have found out that how underground water reserves keep the non-glacial rivers in the Kumaon region ever flowing and despite a harsh and dry season and long absence of rain these rivers keep feeding various drinking projects.

“The underground water of these rivers is deposited under two layers, whereas the crust mild granite stone system absorbs rainwater speedily. The crust quartzite rocks preserve water deep in the ground, which thereafter flows into the rivers round the year,” said Prof JS Rawat, head of National Resource Data at Shobhan Singh Jeena Campus College, Almora.

Rawat said the Ramganga (western) Saryu, Panar, Ladhiya and Gaula rivers flowed round the year due to this system of water deposit.

“The rivers in Kumaon, which are full of ground water deposition of this natural system, need more treatment from our side as sufficient ground water is not percolating into these depositions due to human disturbance,” added Prof Rawat.

Rawat said most of these water reserves were in the Syahi Devi hill near Almora which had 32 natural water sources at present. “The secret of ever flowing river lies in these water deposits which are found deep under ground,” he added.