With torrential downpour having battered several districts, blocking roads following landslides and sending rivers in State of spate, the Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat visited the control room of the Disaster Management Department in Dehradun on Thursday to take stock of things. He asked the District Magistrates about the status of the disaster in their respective districts while instructing them to equip the flood posts with all kinds of disaster management equipment and to keep round the clock tab of the rising water levels of the rivers. DMs were asked to have enough quantity of food grains stored for the remotest areas of the state for the next six months to enable the administrations to tide over the possible food scarcity. CM asked the DMs to be fully alive to their duty towards the rain-affected people and clear compensation within 24 hours of the death of any person.
He sounded displeased over the mobile company not installing their towers in the hills as expected. He asked the DMs not to allow them to lay cable lines in the plain unless they complete their works in the hills. He reiterated his Government’s pledge to ensure connectivity even in remote areas of the state.
CM asked the DMs to ensure that the people living in the flood prone areas are shifted to safer places.
The meeting convened to take stock of the rain-related turned into a review meeting with the CM asking the DMs to do plantation under Harela programme. He said that this being the season of the cultural festivals, more and more people should be roped in in the plantation campaign. He stressed that the DMs must ensure that the saplings to be planted remain alive with proper maintenance being done. At least two to three lakh saplings must be planted under Harela programme, he said while stressing on medicinal plants and cardamom being planted on a large scale.
He also asked them to do everything to improve the state’s ranking in Swachchhta Abhiyan. He said that the performance of the SDMs/Joint Magistrates regarding this project should figure prominently in their annual character reports (ACR). Besides, the DMs should conduct review meetings on the urban swachchta abhiyan on weekly basis, he stressed while asking the Municipal Corporations to ensure that door to door picking up of garbage is started in the urban areas latest by the end of December this year and to fix up the user charges too. He said that the DMs would be the nodal officers of urban swachchata mission. The places meant for housing the trenching grounds should be identified in coordination with the forest department, Rawat said. Mention worthy, Dehradun figured 316 in the list of 434 cities under swachchta ranking recently released by the Centre. CM asked the officials concerned to ensure that Dehradun ends up 100th in the next such list to be released by the Centre.
CM instructed the DMs to fix the survey of land for the beneficiaries of Prime Minister urban/rural housing scheme. He also asked them to lay thrust on the observance of the tehsil diwas while activating the samadhan portals to ensure that the people’s grievances are addressed to in no time so as to spare them the trouble of coming to Dehradun.
Nainital DM apprised the CM during the meeting that Naini lake has returned to normalcy as far as its water level is concerned. CM asked him to check illegal construction along Sukhataal and to free it from encroachment. He asked the DMs to take pledge to revive at least one river in their localities while stressing on the rejuvenation of the dying rivers of the state.
While taking stock of the state of things of the forest department of Nainital, CM was upset over forest department having not yet installed biometric attendance system in the district. The system must be installed in the next one week, he stressed. He also got annoyed when he was informed that Nainital, Kathgodam and Haldwani cities are running far behind in swachchta ranking. DM was asked to make special action plan to make sure that things improve in these cities.
Bageshwar DM was asked to arrange storage of adequate quantity of food grains in view of the rains triggering food scarcity problems for the people.
Dehradun DM was assigned the task to revive Sushwa river while
Haridwar DM was asked to revive Ro river. Haridwar DM informed the CM that 42 lakh pilgrims have so far visited the holy city on the occasion of Kanwar Mela with Kanwar lane having been built to facilitate them.