Chief Minister Harish Rawat may have been able to strengthen his position on the political front by ensuring the exit of his bête noire Satpal Maharaj from the party and according official positions to a few others, but he has yet to prove his mettle on the delivery front.
He tried to reach out to the people of the state by announcing a few popular measures like opening of state services after becoming Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, but he has so far not laid down his Government’s vision to strengthen the people’s basic concerns like drinking water crisis, education, health, nto name a few, during the past four months since his assuming charge of the office of the Chief Minister.
A matter of concern is that the Himalayan state is presently reeling under acute drinking water crisis this summer. Gherao of none other than state Potable Water Minister Mantri Prasad Naithani, by citizens of Pithoragarh’s Berinag block on May 25, alleging that they were getting drinking water once in six days only, gives that impression.
Though the minister tried to pacify the agitating citizens of Berinag by assuring smooth supply of drinking water for all, the drinking water crisis continues to hit normal life.
If the people of the hill areas like Pithoragarh’s Berinag region have to depend on their traditional or rather natural sources of drinking water in the absence of proper drinking water supply arrangements by the State Government, the situation seems to be quite tough for the people in urban areas like Nainital district’s Haldwani region due to lack of alternative water supply arrangements.
Several areas of Haldwani and its adjacent areas continue to suffer from acute drinking water shortage and the people of the affected areas have now taken to the streets.
The role of public representatives here seems to be just issuing statements or directing the officials concerned to solve the drinking water crisis.
MlA from Haldwani assembly constituency Indira Hridayesh asked the officials concerned to take necessary steps to solve the problem.
Describing the ongoing drinking water crisis in a statement as a lack of coordination among different agencies, she stressed on the need to have better coordination among Jal Sansthan, tube-well and electricity departments to smoothen the drinking water supply in the city. Unlike some other cities there is no dearth of drinking water in Haldwani. According to the official of the Jal Sansthan concerned, while availability of drinking water in Haldwani remains about 35 million litre per day (MlD), the demand for the same is only around 28 (MlD), thus showing about seven MlD drinking water in surplus.
Besides, the Jal Sansthan has also installed tube-wells in many parts of urban as well as rural parts of Haldwani and neighbouring areas, yet the drinking water crisis continues to hit normal life for long mainly because of delay in replacing over four-decade old drinking water distribution system.
Apart from the drinking water crisis, decline in pass percentage of recently announced 10th and 12th standard board results only indicate the poor standards of basic education sector in the hill State. Though following the poor board results the Chief Minister asked the officials concerned to take a few measures, his Government has so far been able to do little to restructure the basic education department where teachers’ priority seems to be posting at a place of their choice.
Similarly, basic service like health which is directly related to the the public also needs restructuring as in the absence of doctors in remote and hilly areas, the health services remain restricted to major Uttarakhand cities like Haldwani and Dehradun.