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CM surveys relief work in Kedarnath
Cleaning of Kedarnath shrine begins
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NGO holds health camps in villages as aid pours into state
Rendered jobless, pony owners want disaster-hit status
MP seeks rehabilitation of victims in Terai
GMVN staff made to work in dingy basement
PNB plants trees
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CM surveys relief work in Kedarnath
Dehradun, July 22 It would be ensured that the memorial did not violate the aesthetics of the temple, he said. He also inspected the premises of the Kedarnath temple and participated in the cleaning operations under way. Meanwhile , the work to clean the temple premises is going on in full swing. The Chief Minister offered prayers as well his services in the cleaning of the temple. The temple committee employees are involved in getting the premises cleaned. The Chief Minister said that it was the first Monday of the Hindu calendar month of ‘Saawan’ and there used to be special prayers on the occasion in the Kedarnath premises. He said the conditions at the Kedarnath temple were very challenging and people were working in these difficult circumstances. He hoped that worship in Kedarnath temple would start soon. The CM expressed his commitment that the state would convert the disaster into a development oppurtunity. “Kedaranth is the centre of people’s faith all over India and the world. We shall make all efforts to maintain the dignity, sanctity and prestige of the temple. The splendour of the place will be brought back. It will again be full of disciples and devotees,” Bahuguna assured. During the survey, the Chief Minister was told that the sanctum sanctorum of the temple was secure but there was a lot of debris in the area. Bahuguna said that an alternativee route to the temple was being explored. “In the light of the current disaster, special focus will have to given on the roads leading to the pilgrimage sites,” he added. The Chief Minister assured that besides cleanliness, the re-construction of destroyed buildings and infrastructure would be done, keeping the environment in mind. He said advice would be taken from the Geological Survey of India (GSI) and Archeological Survey of India (ASI). In the Guptkashi area, a helicopter has been allotted to drop off temple necessities as well as labourers, drinking water and essential food items for Kedarnath. The Chief Minister said the state has been getting relief help from the central government as well as the entire nation and hoped that the state government would have adequate funds for re-construction. “The Centre is being kept updated on development and discussions are on with central government officials. Soon, talks will also be held with the Prime Minister on the work of redevelopment,” he added. Present on the occasion were president of the Kedarnath Temple Committee Ganesh Godiyal, Chief Secretary Subhash Kumar, District Magistrate of Rudraprayag Dilip Jawalkar and officials and workers of the temple. |
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Cleaning of Kedarnath shrine begins
Dehradun, July 22 Led by former Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, the priests under the aegis of the Kedarnath Teerath Purohit Samaj today met the Chief Minister and submitted a memorandum. The memorandum asserted that people of the Kedarnath valley and adjoining regions were directly dependent on the Char Dham yatra to earn a living and thus calamity had brought a big loss to them. They said the start of
worship at the Kedarnath shrine. |
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NGO holds health camps in villages as aid pours into state
Dehradun, July 22 He said these villages needed immediate medical assistance and that was the reason the SFID had been conducting a series of health camps there. “We have already held over 12 health camps. People have been suffering due to lack of medical facilities. We came across many victims who have been suffering due to lack of medical assistance,” Jaggi said. Dr SS Ansari, who examined the patients, said many villagers were ailing but were devoid of any medical facilities. Jaggi said: “He along with his team has already covered Guptkashi, Soneprayag and adjoining areas and distributed a large number of relief material among people. Besides food packets, we are laying stress on solar equipment and medicines, as these are much required in the affected areas.” SFID members visited Mayalee, Kund, Kakda, Ginwani, Bheeri, Sitapur, Rampur, Badasu, Kankra Gad, Bheeri and Syalsor villages and distributed relief materials among the needy. “We in person met the victims, who have lost their family members and assured all assistance on part of the NGO,” Jaggi said. He said the NGO would continue to serve the victims of the natural calamity for the entire year. He said the SFID was also stressing on providing solar lanterns, solar mobile charging facility and other solar gadgets to help villagers. Tents were also provided at a number of places. “We are now concentrating on far-off villages as these villages are in an urgent need of medical help and relief,” said Manoj Sharma, a member of the team. Christians join in relief efforts
The Christian community has joined in relief efforts in Uttarakhand. In the wake of the recent natural devastation in Uttarakhand, the Diocese of Delhi, Church of North India (CNI), has managed four trucks full of relief materials that have been dispatched for the victims. The flag-off ceremony was held on 18 Church Lane situated at Delhi Diocese office by Bishop Sunil Singh in the presence of Prabhakar Mallan and office-bearers of the CNI. Besides this, coordinators Alick Lal and Anubhav Prakash are reaching Uttarakhand and will be there for setting up relief camp and distributing the material. The relief material included clothes, medicines, quilts, bedsheets and
mattresses. |
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Rendered jobless, pony owners want disaster-hit status
Pithoragarh, July 22 “There are over 1,000 pony and mule owners in the Vyans valley alone who are registered with the Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN). They used to get jobs every year during the Kailash Mansarovar yatra season. But as the yatra batches have been cancelled, these people have been rendered jobless,” said Kunwar Singh, a pony owner at the Mangti camp. He said the same number of porters had fallen jobless in that valley as the Kailash pilgrimage was not commencing nor was trade happening in full volume. “Over 50 to 60 porters and pony owners used to go to Gunji with each yatra batch in all 16 batches, which provided our families a living for the whole year. We do not have other means of living in this area,” said Kumwar singh. However, despite this problem, these porters and pony owners have not been taken into notice by the government. Their families are on the verge of starvation due to joblessness. “We want to be given jobs of carrying ration to the disaster-affected villages in the valleys of Darma, Johar, Byans and Chaundans from the stores and godowns maintained by the government so that we could earn some money to sustain our families," said Kunwar Singh. |
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MP seeks rehabilitation of victims in Terai
Pithoragarh, July 22 In a letter to the UPA chairperson, Tamta has written about the destruction in the villages he had visited after the disaster struck the state on June 17 last month. He said while the villages of Sobla, New Sobla, Kancholti, Tawaghat, Gothi Naya Basti, Jauljibi Ghattabagar and Madkot in Dharchula and Munsiyari sub-division had been vanished fully while Jhoolaghat town in Pithoragarh sub-division and Kunwari village of Kapkot subdivision of Bageswar have been badly shattered by the rain fury. Tamta has thanked Sonia for showing deep concern and kind support to the state at the time of the natural calamity. Tamta has mentioned in the letter that besides the human settlements, road infrastructure has also been shattered posing a crisis of link with the posts of the Army and paramilitary forces at the India-Nepal and India-China border. “The state government should be asked to formulate a detailed policy in line with the rehabilitation and reconstruction of these 280 villages, including 47 villages, devastated in this year’s rain fury,” said the MP. Tamta has said as most of the affected persons fall in the categories of Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes, the policy formulated to rehabilitate them in safe Tarai region, will get benefits for the party in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. “The affected residents from these villages be provided land in the Tarai region on the lines of the facilities given to freedom fighters, refugees from Pakistan and Bangladesh and Army personnel," he added. |
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Khanduri visits disaster-hit Thatyur
Mussoorie, July 22 The former CM visited Parodi, Sirwa and many other villages to assess the damage along with former disaster management minister Khajan Das, MLA Dhanaulti Mahavir Singh Rangad and senior BJP leader Munna Singh Chauhan. They met the affected villagers and assured them of the support of the party in this hour of calamity. BC Khanduri alleged that the administration had failed to assess the damage incurred in the area even after more than a month, thus raising the question on the distribution of compensation to the affected villagers. Khanduri said the people had lost their houses, livestock and irrigated land with standing crops, and without any assessment, it would become difficult to distribute the relief in near future. Residents of Parodi village demanded the relocation of the village as it had become dangerous to live there due to the fear of more sludge entering the village. Khanduri said that if they had land elsewhere in the area, he would assist them in the relocation of the village as it has become imperative after witnessing the scale of destruction there. Later, speaking to the media, BC Khanduri said the state had a long stretch of border with China. The government should have been prepared for any such eventuality. For that purpose, only roads to Badrinath,Kedarnath and Gangotri were termed as national highways. “The disaster could have been mitigated if the government had provided adequate funds for the construction and maintenance of the national highways as demanded by the Border Road Organisation (BRO) two years back. But the BRO had received Rs 20 crore only this year, added Khanduri. The major task of the government should have been to provide food, ration and shelter to the affected villagers, but it has failed on that front too, said Khanduri. Khanduri also met BJP workers and said that they should work towards providing relief in this need of hour to the disaster-affected villagers. |
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UPP chief slams govt for ‘poor’ relief work
Dehradun, July 22 Tiwari had convened a two-day meeting of political committee of the party which concluded today. He said:'' We have decided to begin a statewide campaign against respective state governments for their role in leading to this natural disaster. In order to pull attention of people across the nation, we will also hold a one-day dharna at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on July 28. For this, we have also appealed to the organisations associated with the Himalayan cause to participate in it.'' He said the disaster was the cumulative result of unplanned and unrestrained development and plunder of natural resources in the hill terrains of the state, for which state governments led by the BJP and Congress had been equally responsible. He demanded dismissal of the present Congress government and legal cases against the bureaucratic network for chalking out anti-environment policies. While alluding to rehabilitation programmes, post flash flood disaster, he said:''As it has been seen in previous natural calamities, misuse of relief amount at the broad level has not let help reach the affected people. These state governments have completely lost public faith . State government led by Vijay Bahuguna does not have an effective system in place to distribute the large relief supply sent by people across the country to the deserving. Hence, it is necessary to set up monitoring committees consisting of social, political and environment experts to supervise the relief and rehabilitation process at every level.'' He was of the opinion that the state government should not allow outsiders to purchase land in the state. ''Hundreds of villages have already been identified by the state government for relocation, even before this calamity struck. But the government evaded this by complaining of lack of land to rehabilitate them. The state government must retrieve land sold out to industrialists, bureaucrats etc at cheap rates and rehabilitate the affected people. |
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Uttarakhand the challenge ahead
Dehradun, July 22 KK Kapila is the first non-European to be the Chairman of the International Road Federation (IRF), a Geneva-based not-for-profit global organisation with a mission to encourage and promote development and maintenance of better, safer and more sustainable roads networks world wide. He said that in the recent rains and landslides in Uttarakhand, roads took the maximum hit as lakhs of pilgrims and locals remained stranded for weeks due to destruction of roads for miles. ''The vehicles are still stranded and it has become difficult to provide relief due to almost no roads in the entire hill state. Due to breakdown of the basic means of road communication, the lifeline of the hills has been hit. This leaves us to think, contemplate, and retrospect the engineering of the hill roads, their safety and sustainability,'' he said. Road construction in hills
Kapila said that the hill roads or ghat roads present great difficulty in their alignment, design, construction and maintenance as curves, sharp bends, sleep gradients and limited width of roadways make hill roads more liable to accidents. Also the effects of heavy rainfall on the construction and maintenance of a hill road are serious. At many locations on the hill roads, the landslides and slips may occur during heavy rainfall. ''Therefore, much care is needed during their layout and construction so as to provide a stable and safe road. Moreover, a large number of streams cross the road and hence a suitable facility for cross drainage is needed,'' he added. Safety in hill roads
Kapila said that the safety on hill roads, like in plains, depends on the factors of driver, vehicle, road and environmental conditions. However, because of the predominance of the environmental conditions, hill roads require special attention in planning, design, construction and maintenance. Measures to enhance safety on hill roads follow the usual pattern of engineering, enforcement and education measures. '' India is enriched with the experience of constructing hill roads since long. We are lucky to have seismic hazard maps and specifications, particularly for the design, construction and maintenance of hill roads,'' he said. Precautionary measures
KK Kapila said that during the alignment of new roads, some precautionary measures, such as avoidance of geologically unstable terrain having deep blankets of loose soil and boulders and fissured areas susceptible to landslide and erosion, seepage and saturation, selection of mild slopes in preference to steep slopes, causing minimal disturbance to natural drainage courses, forestlands, should be duly considered. Design should account for balanced cut and fill to the extent possible, with adequate provisions of retaining walls, toe walls, breast walls, wire crated areas or check walls in place of reinforced concrete or masonry structures, reinforced soil and soil nailing techniques, suitable erosion control measures as part of an environment-friendly and safe solution. '' During construction, it would be ideal to proceed with earthwork in tandem with the drainage arrangement, cross drainage, road surface drainage and sub-surface drainage. The side drains should be large enough to effectively withstand large discharges, yet not deep enough for vehicle or pedestrians to wander into. Cross fall should be on hill side so as to control runoff on to the valley side. Retaining walls, wherever required, should be constructed before excavation of the hill slopes so as to use the excavated material as backfill,'' he said. Dealing with
disturbed slopes
On the question of disturbed slopes due to road activity, he said that such disturbed slopes should be vegetated and protected till full growth. ''To minimise the use of natural resources, cold mix asphalt technology with emulsions should be resorted to in the construction and rehabilitation of the hill roads. Being cold mix, energy consumption is reduced to the minimum; the CO2 equivalent GHG emissions reportedly reduce by 50 % to 85 % by consuming much less bitumen; less dust is generated, thus preserving the aesthetics, flora and fauna of the hilly region that makes us feel proud,'' he added. He maintained that safety of road users with the provision of a self-explaining road by way of adequate safety features like parapet / guide wall, barriers, appropriate signages at critical locations, road markings, delineators, etc. should be ensured to minimise accidents and boost driver's confidence. Maintenance of roads
Kapila believed that a well trained task force with highly maintained equipment such as rock-saws, trenchers, backhoes, loaders, dozers, rollers, and laydown machines should be set up for regular maintenance of roads and to deal with natural disasters. This task force should have a unit at every 100 km of hill road. ''In-service maintenance of the roads for regular cleansing of the surface drainage system, sealing of cracks and crevices, performance of erosion control measures, protection of catchments, including forests, wetlands and local water bodies that can act as a cushion during heavy rainfall, traffic safety furniture, etc. are equally important for a durable life,'' he said . Respect ecology
Finally, Kapila said that since the enormous work of road connectivity has started in Uttarakhand, the ecology of the Himalayas should be respected. ''Absence in planning of the essential concomitants to any developmental activity for excavating hillsides, deforestation along alignment, unsustainable mining of river beds for construction materials have created an ecological imbalance. It is time that we look for eco-friendly sustainable solutions for building our hill road infrastructure. Tunnels, though expensive, provide minimally-invasive connectivity, besides reducing the travel length and save our depleting resources of road construction materials and decrease road user costs. Tunnels have low operations and maintenance costs, provide all-weather capability for transportation and reduce the need for cutting slopes for construction or widening of hill roads. Well-planned state-of-the-art controlled blasting techniques with pre-warning system to the public and site workers can avoid accidents and should be used,'' he suggested. Comprehensive database needed
To check natural disasters, Kapila said that preparation of comprehensive database on areas prone to the calamities of earthquake, landslides, flash floods, road accidents, etc. using remote sensing, GIS and GPS techniques, and integrating real time Met data, will prove to be extremely useful in the planning of new alignments and maintenance of existing ones. ''It is important to have in-place an alternative route as part of disaster evacuation plan when developing the road alignments and for the existing ones. Enforcement of vehicle and traffic discipline and education of the road users and the locals adjoining the hill roads should be an added advantage,'' he said. ''Any compromise on the laid-down procedures, standards and specifications for the development of hill roads for economic or other considerations giving way to mitigation measures at the cost of life and asset in the wake of disaster should be condemned,'' he concluded. WHAT TO DO
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Uttarakhand the challenge ahead
Pithoragarh, July 22 Bisht said the entire policy of development after the creation of Uttarakhand as a new state in 2000 was flawed. The state was billed as a “power state” and the development policy had shown dreams that power projects would bring prosperity. “If benefits were worth Rs 1 billion, losses to the region crossed Rs 10 billion mark after the policy was adopted,” said Bisht. He said unless the state adopted a policy of building smaller hydropower projects of one megawatt and sold power by linking it to the grid, the real aim of making Uttarakhand a ‘power state’ could not be achieved nor the hill ecology could be saved. “A policy to harness power through smaller projects will bring stability and prosperity,” said Bisht. He was of the opinion that there was a need to change the entire concept of construction in the hill state and it should be in consonance with the nature of the Himalayas. He said after the creation of Uttarakhand the successive state governments failed to prevent people from settling on riverbanks while the old Himalayan wisdom was to make houses on river ridges and have agricultural fields on the slopes. “Earlier when continuous rains for a week used to generate water springs from hill slopes. But nowadays instead of springs rains lead to landslides and damage to hill slopes,” said Bisht. “These are indications of the weakening Himalayas which successive planners of the hill state have ignored,” he added. Bisht said after the China war in 1962 the pace of construction of roads increased manifold in the region. This caused a heavy damage to hill slopes as thousands of tonnes of dynamites were used in the construction of roads. “Every year landslides occur on the Dharchula to Tawaghat road as dynamite blasts have made hills hollow in these parts,” he said. Bhatt said even tourism, which is being publicised as the biggest bread earner of the hill people, had been excessive and beyond the sanctity of mountains. The successive state governments tried to develop tourism on the lines of that in Thailand. “The Thailand model of tourism in Uttarakhand has led to loss of more lives in the Kedarnath tragedy. Had the governments not promoted religious tourism with an aim to attract more tourists the casualty in the natural calamity would have been less as then only religious people would have visited the Char Dhams,” said Bisht. He added sensitivity towards the environment of the region had decreased after the creation of Uttarakhand. “The number of contractors and petty contractors supported by politicians has swelled after the creation of the state than was in Uttar Pradesh. Politicians and the contractors in order to make big money got several roads sanctioned under various state and central schemes. While the state government should have developed track routes in the hills, it instead used dynamites to make roads,” he said. Bisht said people living in the border area of the state were being compelled to migrate from their traditional homes as the state government had failed to provide them basic facilities. WHAT TO DO
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GMVN staff made to work in dingy basement
Dehradun July 22 The waste furniture and other material of the entire building have been thrown in the dingy and dark basement. Many rooms which were lying unopened for the past several years also emitted foul smell. The sacks of office documents including old audit files were stalked on the shelves covered with dust. The department has still not learnt a lesson from the death of an employee of the audit section, TC Balodi. Badoli's wife said her husband worked for the audit section in the basement here. He later developed serious respiratory complications, which ultimately led to his death. "I got my husband's job after his death. The audit section was then shifted to the third floor, but it has again been relocated to the basement on May 31. Since then I am going through same respiratory problem. I fear death like my husband and worry about my family," she added. Another employee, Ramesh Panwar, was recently admitted in the hospital for severe coughing. An employee said they had to sit among the sacks of old files in the third floor as well, but as the place had proper ventilation and sun light, they never faced any problem. Employee Sobhan Singh Negi said the new Managing Director visited them when he joined the office and left expressing concern for them. The previous MD who released orders to shift them in the basement never came to meet them and left them working in the despicable condition. "Officials are solely driven by the objective of earning revenue only and least bothered about the well-being of their employees," he added. When The Tribune asked GMVN General Manager HD Pandey, he passed directions to install two exhaust fans and room freshener spray in the basement. |
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First batch of traders enters Tibet
Pithoragarh, July 22 "The six-member trade team, including one woman, led by Jewan Singh Ronkali, Vinod Garbyal and Kharak Singh Budiyal, has entered Tibet, opening, the Indo-Tibet border trade," said Kedar Singh Rawat, ITBP commandant based at Mirthi Didihat in the district He said the ITBP has opened its office for checking inner line permits of traders who are taking part in this trade and have trade passes, at Nabhidhank and Kalapani camps as the route to Chiyalekh office, where the ckecking office used to be situated till last year, has gone out of reach since June 19, when the rains lashed the routes. The trade office in Dharchula said another batch of 12 members was waiting to enter Tibet. These traders were taken there by helicopters last week "The traders wanted to collect their goods at Gunji from the stores. They were lifted by helicopters to Gunji to collect their goods there," said Pramod Kumar, SDM of Dharchula and trade officer designated for this year's Indo-China border trade. The traders moved into Tibet with their 39 mules. The Indo-China border trade was resumed in 1991, after remaining suspended for over 30 years, after the border conflict between two countries in 1962. It begins on June 1 every year. It could not take off this year due to heavy rains on June 17, which broke all contacts en route to Gunji from the base trade office at Dharchula. "The volume of trade, it seems, would be limited this year due to washing away of roads en route," said the trade officer at
Dharchula. |
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Resenting commercialisation, students force closure of DAV (PG) College
Dehradun, July 22 The students alleged that evening courses started at the college were purely aimed to make financial gains and had nothing to do to benefit the students. The Students also launched a signature campaign resenting start of evening courses. The students also raised slogans against the DAV (PG) College management. Lekraj, Shobit Kumar, Rajendra Singh, Deepak Kumar, Surendra Singh and Rajveer Rawat were prominent who participated in the protest. |
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PNB plants trees
Dehradun, July 22 Kamath said environment can only be protected by tree plantation. He exhorted all staff members to make this campaign successful.
M.K. Pangty, Field General Manager, Meerut said the environmental protection campaign launched by the bank is a good initiative and urged all staff members to plant at least one tree in this season. |
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