Stipends for doctors during their period of study
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 9
After the Department of Health and Family Welfare refused to pay salaries for the period to government doctors undergoing postgraduation studies at Haldwani Medical College, the Department of Medical Education has now taken a decision to pay stipends to them during their period of study.

On the grounds that it did have a policy under which the non-sponsored government doctors could be paid the salaries during the period they opted for studies, the Department of Health and Family Welfare refused to pay salaries.

Instead of going for government sponsorship, around 4-5 doctors had taken the entrance examination for the postgraduate course and bagged the seats.

But the Department of Health and Family Welfare termed the step taken by the doctors against it policy and withheld the salaries.

It then asked the Department of Medical Education to pay the stipend to the government doctors after which the Department of Medical Education decided to pay the stipend from this financial year.

“As the from this financial year, we have decided to pay the stipend amount, which also is being paid to other postgraduate students,” said a senior official.

However, it is not certain if the decision would be implemented in retrospective effect.

With no monthly salary, the government doctors studying at the Haldwani Medical College found themselves left in the lurch by their own department and one of the doctors had even gone to court on the matter.

However, with the Department of Medical Education agreeing to pay stipend to the doctors, they can at least heave a sigh of relief.

“We will be paying stipend to the government doctors, which comes to around Rs 30,000-Rs 35,000 that would help them bear the course fee,” said a senior official in the Department of Medical Education. 

 GMVN to buy produce of apple, potato growers of disaster-hit areas
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 9
The Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN) has started the process to implement the market intervention scheme for potato and apple growers of the affected areas in the state.

The GMVN and the Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN) had been made nodal agencies to implement the scheme in their respective zones.

Managing Director of the GMVN Rajesh Kumar said, “The scheme is being implemented to check the wastage of potatoes and apples, as most of the roads in the areas where these are grown are blocked following the natural calamity. To prevent the apples and potatoes from getting rotten and wasted, the GMVN will directly buy the produce from the growers and there will be no middleman.”

The authorities have started identifying the apple and potato belts in the affected districts and would soon approach the growers.

GM (marketing), GMVN, Pratap Shah said: “Horticulture officers of the six affected districts of Uttarkashi, Chamoli, Pauri, Tehri, Rudraprayag and Chakrata (in Dehradun district), have been asked to provide lists of the areas, where apple and potatoes are grown."

He said teams comprising GMVN staff had been formed to facilitate the purchase, storage and sale of the products. Tourist rest houses, tourist information centre and GMVN-run gas agency offices would be used to store the collected yield.

He said, “Apples will be bought at a fixed MSP of Rs 20 per kg and potato at Rs 10 per kg. Potatoes will be sold at Rs 12.5 per kg for the midday meal scheme while apples will be given to the horticulture sector. The remaining produce will be sold in the open market at the prevailing rates.”

He said in this exercise, the GMVN would get 25 per cent of the total amount earned by selling the produce, which would make up for the expenses incurred on transportation and other miscellaneous works.

 Bahuguna meets Chidambaram in Delhi
Asks him to direct nationalised banks to bring in flexibility in norms for filing claims for the missing 

Dehradun, August 9
Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna met Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram at the latter’s office in New Delhi today.

During the meeting, Bahuguna told the Finance Minister that like the LIC, nationalised banks, too, could be asked to bring in flexibility in the norms for the filing of claims for those who had gone missing after the recent calamity.

He also thanked the Finance Minister for having instructed the LIC to relax the procedure for filing claims. Bahuguna said guidelines could be given to the nationalised banks to make it possible for the families of the missing persons to operate their bank accounts etc. He informed Chidambaram that the Uttarakhand Government had already started distributing monetary relief to the next of kin of the missing persons. However, the families needed further relief in the form of access to their bank accounts. He urged the Union Finance Minister to draw the attention of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority and the RBI towards the problem.

Bahuguna requested the minister to provide relief to the local tourism industry in service tax considering the circumstances prevailing after the disaster. He said for the convenience of the families of the missing, a certificate, along with relief money, would be issued that would help in settling various claims pending with the banks and insurance companies.

The Union Finance Ministry would soon a take a decision on whether the Uttarakhand Government or the government of the parent state of the missing persons would be issuing certificates.

He urged the FM to consider the release of additional money for the repair and reconstruction of various projects sanctioned by the planning commission, which had already been financed by the Union Government but got damaged in the calamity.—TNS

 Uttarakhand the challenge ahead
The Tribune series on what needs to be done to rebuild the state
Environmentalist demands check on constructions near Char Dham shrines
Jotirmay Thapliyal
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 9
Environmentalist, mountaineer and academician Harshvanti Bisht has expressed concern over large-scale constructions in the close proximity of Char Dham shrines of Uttarakhand.

Talking to The Tribune here, Arjuna awardee Harshvanti Bisht said rampant constructions, most of them in the form of encroachments, have hidden the Char Dham temples that earlier stood solo and were visible from far-off distances. ''It is just human greed that has led to these encroachments that have now become cause of death and destruction,'' she said referring to Kedarnath disaster, where a large number of people got buried in the debris of devastated hotels encircling Kedarnath shrine.

She said even other constructions now being done in the hills were little in consent with the region's geographical and climatic conditions. ''Our elders knew that it was intelligent to construct houses on hill tops but that practice is no more followed and all constructions were being done from commercial point of view,'' she said. She reminded that pilgrimage in Uttarakhand was once ''Chatti-''based tourism, but today this has been replaced with five star hotel culture and spirit of pilgrimage is fast missing. ''Chattis'' were makeshift stopovers for pilgrims on way to Badrinath and Kedarnath shrines.

In the aftermath of the rain disaster, Bisht said it should be foremost priority of the authorities to ensure connectivity in the disaster-torn villages. ''Large parts of key roads have been damaged in the rain disaster and many inter-connecting roads have been completely washed away. Under such circumstances it is very important to repair these roads and ensure connectivity at the earliest,'' she pointed out.

She said it was strange that while the state government year after year gave long statistics about the number of pilgrims coming to Char Dhams but now it is expressing its inability to give the correct figure of the number of pilgrims at Kedarnath on the day of disaster. ''It shows that there was no mechanism in place to ascertain the number of pilgrims coming on Char Dham pilgrimage to Uttarakhand. There should be compulsory registration of pilgrims coming to Uttarakhand. This would keep the state well informed about the details of people, who all are coming to the state,'' Bisht said.

Asserting that Uttarakhand needs to do lot a more as far as disaster preparedness is concerned, she said while disaster management and mitigation authorities had in the past several years provided training to a large number of people as part of disaster preparedness exercise but the lack of equipment with these trained people proves to be a big handicap as this is found to be of little usage at the time of disaster as was seen in the recent rain disaster.

She also said Himalayas were young mountains and, thus, carrying the capacity of shrines in Uttarakhand was limited. ''You can't allow any number of people to these shrines and carrying capacity of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri should be fixed,'' she said.

Bisht said there should be a sensible way for the construction of roads in hills. ''While undertaking construction of roads, slopes should be stabilised and debris properly disposed of and not thrown into the river as being done presently,'' she asserted. She also stressed to look into the causes that led to the Kedarnath deluge. This is important to stop any repeat of such catastrophe.

Arjuna awardee Harshvanti Bisht is a renowned mountaineer and conservationist, who belongs to Uttarkashi. She has been doing Birch (Bhojpatra) plantation work since 1992 in the fragile Gangotri region. She has very successfully nurtured a Birch nursery at Chirbasa and planted as many as 12,500 Birch saplings at Bhojbasa. Harshvanti is presently a faculty member in Doiwala's Government Postgraduate Degree College.

  Chipko activist for autonomous Himalayan commission

Dehradun, August 9
Chipko activist Ramraj Badoni today demanded the formation of an autonomous commission to maintain the fragile ecology of the Himalayas. In a memorandum faxed to President Pranab Mukherjee, Badoni said the recent calamity in Uttarakhand should serve as a wake-up call to people in power at the Centre. He said an autonomous Himalayan commission should be set up without further delay to address environmental issues unique to the Himalayas like the melting of glaciers.

He demanded that the June disaster in Uttarakhand be declared a national calamity considering a large-scale damage caused to life and property. "The calamity has shaken the entire nation with thousands of people from different parts of the country feared killed. The Centre's refusal to declare it a national calamity is strange," he said.

He said considering the fragile ecology of the Himalayas, the border areas of the state's hill districts like Uttarkashi, Tehri, Rudraprayag, Chamoli, Pithoragarh and Bageshwar, which bore the brunt of the natural calamity, should be declared eco-sensitive zones. — PTI

 Central assistance to state schools
Neena Sharma
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 9
The Central Government has extended a helping hand to the rain-ravaged state by approving an additional outlay for providing counselling to the traumatised children, and construction of new primary and upper primary schools that were damaged in the mid-June natural calamity.

The assistance of Rs 1253.26 lakh would be utilised for construction of 57 primary and upper primary schools in the nine districts affected by floods.

''The additional outlay for 2013-2014 was approved due to the natural calamity at the recent Project Approval Board meeting . The assistance will help us cover the cost of construction of new schools and provide major repairs to the partially damaged schools,'' said RK Kunwar, Additional Project Director, Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).

Further, the Central Government has also approved an outlay of Rs 10 lakh for providing counseling to the traumatised children who are yet to come to terms with the loss of their homes, schools and loved ones in the mid-June calamity.

''The Central Government has sanctioned a total of Rs 10 lakh for providing counselling to about 200 children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders in the four worst affected districts of the state, which include Rudraprayag, Uttarakashi, Chamoli and Pithoragarh,'' added Kunwar.

Besides, the Department of School Education faces a tough challenge of fulfilling right to education norms in the four worst affected districts of the state as habitats have been either relocated or have do not exist. As such new neighbourhood schools have to be provided for.

''The new schools would be constructed in safe areas. The Geological Survey of the area would carry out a survey before constructing the schools. Even the partially damaged 302 primary schools and 73 upper primary schools need to be properly surveyed,'' said Kunwar.

Meanwhile, the Department of School Education has tied up with Srinagar Medical College for training teachers in general counselling so that these teachers could further counsel the traumatised children. The problems arising due to displacement of families has given rise to deep insecurity among children.

Few non-government organisations are already engaged in helping these children come out of this traumatic phase by engaging them in different activities at the relief camps. 

  Missing Almora SDM's family declares reward of Rs 2 lakh

Rudrapur, August 9
With the state government's efforts to trace Almora SDM Ajay Arora, who fell into the Mandakini river on July 31, drawing a blank, his family has announced a reward of Rs 2 lakh for anyone who finds him.

"We have been forced to announce the reward as the state government has failed to trace him," said the missing SDM's father, Krishan Lal said.

Arora had slipped off a makeshift log bridge over the Mandakini while returning from the Kedarnath shrine to Garuruchatti base camp in Rudraprayag on July 31.

A 14-member team of trained PAC divers has been scouring the river at Gaurikund and the Rambada and Phata areas in search of him ever since the mishap occurred but to no avail.

His wife Mona alleged that her husband was sent to Kedarnath despite the fact that he was unwell and had been advised two weeks' rest by doctors in Dehradun.

"Doctors at City Heart Centre, Dehradun, had advised him two week's rest and he had also approached his superiors asking for a leave. But still he was sent to oversee clean-up operations at the high-altitude shrine," said a disconsolate Mona.

A 1998-batch PCS officer, the Almora SDM was engaged in clean-up operations under way at the Himalayan shrine which bore the brunt of the June calamity in the state.— PTI

 DMC prepares to take on MDDA on trenching ground issue
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 9
Dehradun Municipal Corporation (DMC) is all set to turn tables on Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA) for putting the department in big trouble over the issue of trenching ground.

The High Court has asked the DMC to furnish its reply on the court's order to shift the trenching ground to some other location.

A PIL was filed by the residents who live in the vicinity of the trenching ground. DMC is going to hold MDDA responsible for escalating this problem in its reply before the High Court.

Mukhya Nagar Adhikari, DMC, Ashok Kumar, said: ''As per the guidelines of MOEF, there should not be any construction for residential and commercial purposes within the 500 metre radius of the trenching ground. However, MDDA has sanctioned maps of not only residences but of buildings having multiple flats around the walls of the trenching ground.

Now people have begun to demand the relocation of the trenching ground, which is not feasible.

The garbage of the entire city has been deposited here for the last 10 years. There is no place as big as the trenching ground to contain the entire garbage. Moreover, during the process of replacing the mountain of garbage, poisonous gases would emit, which could prove fatal to people living in the area. MDDA officials have washed their hands off this tricky situation which has arisen before DMC.

Secretary, MDDA, Bashidhar Tiwari, said the MDDA acted as per its own bylaws, and according to these, there was no mention of any construction prohibited within the 500 metre radius of the trenching ground.

He said the trenching ground was not even notified.

  Discussion on alternative routes to Kedarnath

Dehradun, August 9
Kedarnath Valley Relief Commissioner BVRC Purushottam held a detailed discussion with Uttarakhand Space Application Centre (USAC) Director MM Kimothi on three alternative routes to Kedarnath proposed by the USAC. Purushottam looked at the satellite imageries of the USAC’s proposed routes. He also had a look at the satellite images of glaciers around Kedarnath.

The USAC had recently proposed three alternative routes to Kedarnath other than the traditional Gaurikund-Kedarnath route that was damaged in the recent disaster. — TNS

 Dev Sanskriti University inks pact with South Korean varsity
Tribune News Service

Haridwar, August 9
Dev Sanskriti University, Haridwar, has signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korean Dongguk University to collaborate in subjects of spirituality and religion. The memorandum was signed in the presence of the visiting Chancellor of Dongguk University Dr Chongsik Kim and Indian University counterpart Dr Chinmay Pandey, here today at the Dev Sanskriti University. 

As per the memorandum, both the universities will collaborate in religion and spiritualism and try to bring younger generation closer to these two aspects. Both the educational institutions will also hold seminars and carry out various research based programs for the students. Dr Chinmay Pandya said with this agreement, the principles and ideas of Shantikunj founder Pt Shri Ram Sharma Acharya will propagate in Korea as foreign countries are now understanding that the physical prosperity is one thing and intellectual-spiritual prosperity is more important.

While Dr Kimsaid their University will translate some of the works of Pt Shri Ram Sharma Acharya in Korean language soon, so that the Koreans have an easy access to the vast spiritual knowledge of the Shantikunj founder.

Initially, the works related with youth and women empowerment will be translated in the Korean language and later on Vedic scriptures would also be translated.

The Korean delegation also inspected the Dev Sanskriti University and met the students. They also praised the discipline, social work and working of the university.

Dr Kim told TNS that Dongguk University is a prestigious University of South Korea. It has campuses in Seoul, Gyeongju City, Gyeongsang and Los Angeles, USA.

Accompanied by a 18 member delegation from South Korea, Dr Kim also observed meditation at the university mediation centre ‘Devatma Himalaya’, where replicas of Shri Badri Nath, Shri Kedar Nath, Gangotri and Yamunotri have been put up. Korean delegation also met Shantikunj spiritual head Shail Jiji and had talks on various spiritual-religious aspects.

 Cheeranjivi announces relief package of Rs 100 crore 
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, August 9
The Union Tourism Minister, K Cheeranjivi, has announced a relief package of Rs 100 crore for the re-construction of damaged properties in response to assessment of damage to tourism-related infrastructure to the tune of Rs 102 crore. 

While answering questions raised in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, he said:'' In a survey conducted by PHD Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Uttarakhand , it has been estimated that the state has incurred a loss of Rs 12, 000 crore in the flash floods disaster. While the tourism infrastructure bore the damage to the tune of Rs 102 crore inresponse to that, a relief package of Rs 100 crore has been released.

However, the damage to the tourism infrastructure in those areas is yet to be taken note of, which continues to be inaccessible. An amount of Rs 95 crore has already been released for the tourism plans approved in the existing financial year. The state Tourism Department is prioritising the projects costing above Rs 58 crore.'' He said a package was being prepared in the wake of rehabilitation and revival of tourism in the state.

This would include significant rebate in tax, devising ways of livelihood, development of new tourist rest houses and other related accommodations, media campaign, medium and long-term reconstruction plans, disaster-proof new constructions, relief and rescue measures for future. 

 Disaster due to human negligence, feel intellectuals
Our Correspondent

Pithoragarh, August 9
Intellectuals and activists interested in the topics related to Uttarakhand have opined that had the state government taken care of Weather Department precautions of rains on June 12, the death toll would have been reduced at Kedarnath. “The havoc of unprecedented rains was converted into the worst natural disaster of the century due to human negligence,'' said Rajendra Singh, a Magsaysay award winner of water preservation techniques better known as Jal Purush.

The meeting of the intellectuals, gathered from all corners of the country, was organised by Nainital Samachar, the forthrightly newspaper published from Nainital.

According to Rajive Lochan Shah, organiser of the meeting, the intellectuals and activists were gathered to discuss reconstruction of the state after the disaster. “The intellectuals felt that construction of roads at river beds, neglecting geological norms and promoting habitation of human settlements, besides uncontrolled pilgrimage and hydropower schemes resolted in the disaster,'' said Shah.

The speakers said that government policy was promoting migration from the hill region to make place for big constructions like hydropower projects, hotels and resorts in the hills. The worst damage in Srinagar, Garhwal, in this disaster was due to dumping of debris by hydropower projects, neglecting environmental rules. This neglect helped in flooding rivers during rains, said Ravi Chopra, a scientist related with Ganga river valley authority.

Speaking on the occasion Manoj Tyagi, member of Aazadi Bachao Aandolan, said that had the state government sent the relief money direct to gram panchayats. It would have worked better to renovate the damaged infrastructure at the villages as villagers were better aware about their priorities. “The the government still doesn’t know what the priorities are for the common villagers in the hill region,” said Manoj Tyagi.

Giving details of his travels to disaster-hit areas after the incident, Samir Raturi of Himalaya Bachao Andolan said that for hiding its failure, the government is not permitting any one to visit areas beyond Sonprayag in Garhwal, while several vehicles are still trapped inside the tunnels made by hydroelectric projects on Mandakini river there. “Before giving priority to begin puja at Kedarnath, it is comparatively essential that restoring natural pace of life in that area be given priority,” said Samir Raturi.

The meeting was also addressed by Kamal Negi of Matri and Uma Bhatt, Aryan Ranjan Daya, Krishan Kandpal and Mahesh Joshi.

Shekhar Pathak, a retired professor of history, chaired the meet and said in his address that as this year's disaster had broken records of floods in the Alaknanda, we will have to keep a watch on these trends as due to changing weather and global warming conditions, such incidents may be repeated in the future as well.