The Congress-led Union Government has asked the State Disaster Management department to file the details of rescued pilgrims, who were stuck after cloudburst on June 16-June 17 in Kedar valley and other parts.
With this letter, the department officials are busy in collecting information about the air-lifted people. As per the estimate, around 36,000 pilgrims were rescued by air but they don’t have micro details of them. It has also raised question mark over the the State Civil Aviation Department’s paper work.
Sources said that civil helicopters, which were plying to Badrinath and Kedarnath, were hired by the State Government on hourly basis. Most of the helicopters were used by the politicians so they don’t have details about how many pilgrims were rescued with this. Due to this, the Civil Aviation department officials are busy in preparing details of the reply.
As per the official figure, 10,041 pilgrims were lifted by the civil helicopter while more than 21,000 pilgrims were rescued by the Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter; 2,898 pilgrims were lifted by Army helicopter and 1,957 pilgrims were rescued by the different State Governments.
According to data, 5,226 stranded pilgrims were rescued by the civil helicopter in between June 18-21 while IAF had started their rescue operation on June 18 but, they started lifting more than 1,800 per day from June 22 and rescued around 3,800 pilgrims on June 23.
Sources said that IAF and Army officials had maintained their data bank after every rescue but the State Government Civil Aviation department does not have micro details of the rescued person. Sources further said that the department was busy in providing helicopter to the politician who was seen busy in disaster tourism. Even stranded pilgrims relatives were seen having verbal fight with politician when they saw that same politician, who had gone in morning and returning with empty hand, alighting from helicopter.
Talking to The Pioneer, State Government officials said that we had rescued 10,041 stranded pilgrims from Kedar valley but he could not answer about details of the rescued person except data about more than 36,000 pilgrims were rescued from all sources.
With this dilly-dallying approach the officer has given enough hints that there is some ambiguity in it. Meanwhile, the officer tried to shrug off the responsibility by saying that we had focused on lifting of pilgrims so we could not maintain our paper work. Sources said that official were busy in appeasing the Minister and politician by giving them separate helicopter so they could not maintain micro details of the pilgrims.
Although 1957 pilgrims including 232 by Haryana, 354 by Chhattisgarh, 150 by Pawan Hans and 1,221 by the Punjab Government were rescued. It would be pertinent to mention here that IAF rescue operation continued till July 20 while State and Army rescue operation closed by July 11, 2013.