With a view to expediting restoration work of Kedarnath shrine, which bore the brunt of the Uttarakhand natural calamity due to the recent cloudburst, the State Government has held a meeting with the representatives of Engineering Projects India limited (EPIl).
Sources said if things went according to plan, puja (prayer) could be resumed at the shrine by October 1. Otherwise, the Government would not be able to conduct it before upcoming general election, which is due in May 2014, as the shrine closes at the advent of winter and reopens on the occasion of Akshya Tritiya.
Sources further said UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is closely monitoring the development. She has categorically asked the Chief Minister to do everything to restore the puja in Kedarnath temple at the earliest. The State Government is planning to re-open the three shrines — Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri by September 30. During the meeting in the State Secretariat, EPIl Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) SPS Bakshi and Chief Secretary Subhash Kumar had long discussion about the restoration works.
Forest and Rural Development Commissioner (FRDC) BP Pande, DGP Satyavrat, Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDC) Chairman Rakesh Sharma, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister SS Sandhu, Secretary Rural Development Vinod Fonia, Secretary Tourism Umakant Panwar, Secretary to the CM SS Rawat, Geological Survey of India (GSI) scientist and Air force officers were present in the meeting. During the meeting, they prepared an elaborate plan to retrieve bodies stuck under debris on 14-km-long stretch between Kedarnath temple and Gaurikund.
Chief Secretary Kumar said that EPIl has expertise in such work and has a team of around 500 scientists. Geological Survey of India (GSI) and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) ASI experts will also be involved during this operation, added Kumar. State Government officials and police officers will also assist the experts in removing the debris. The EPIl CMD said that necessary heavy equipments have been dispatched for Delhi from West Bengal. The State Government has decided to rope in MI-26 aircraft to transport heavy equipment to the Himalayan shrine to help take up debris removal exercise on a war footing.
These heavy equipment will be dismantled before being loaded in the aircraft and will be assembled once they reach the shrine, he said. Meanwhile, a delegation of EPIl experts along with GSI and ASI scientists will conduct various studies of the area. EPIl has categorically assured that they will do the work in scientific way under the supervision of senior officials of the Government. Recently a delegation of ASI had visited to the place and claimed that there is no threat to the structural stability of the temple. The temple is safe although some stones have been dislodged. But these will be replaced once the restoration and conservation work, which is hampered due to bad weather, starts. It is too early to predict about the possible timeframe for conservation work as of now.