Following the death of nine people in the road accident in district Chamoli, Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) has demanded that State Government conduct an internal enquiry in the departments concerned in this matter.
Citing the earlier example of at least seven deaths of children going to school in Tehri district, UKD Mahanagar president Sunil Dhyani said the Government has just made promises about investigation, but proper actions were never taken against the officers responsible.
Dhyani said, “The problem is that the State Government and administration seem to work mainly in three districts — Dehradun, Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar. They don’t have proper plans or vision for the development of other ten districts. The law and order system in the mountainous regions of Uttarakhand is absolutely null and void.
They might be talking about strict enforcement of Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act 2019 here in the provisional State capital, but in the mountains of Uttarakhand there are several vehicles operating without proper paperwork. Most of the drivers there do not even have the driving licence, but the district administration, police department, revenue department and local elected representatives together are deceiving public under the pretext of safety and security.”
He said, “The problem is that no department is ready to take responsibility. Most of these road accidents happen in the areas that are under the jurisdiction of revenue department, but they neither have the resources nor is checking vehicles their priority.
The police are more suited for this work but they already have less force for their own police stations. There is also discrimination while releasing relief fund. Victims from Tehri will be given less but the same victim from Pauri will be given twice the amount, as our Chief Minister hails from the region. This is all part of an elaborate scheme. The State was made for the development of our mountains and our culture, but presently just the privileged sections of our society are developing.”
He also said in the recent accident also, the vehicle was carrying twice the number of passengers than its capacity. If only there was active policing the incident could have been prevented.
