Mismanagement by Government officials deployed for relief operations was evident when rescued pilgrims were simply sent by road without officials facilitating any communication with their anxious relatives. The rescued pilgrims were stranded at Indranagar in Rudraprayag for five hours due to landslide closing the road to traffic.
Although choppers were rescuing stranded pilgrims on war footing level, State Government officials were working at snail’s pace. Choppers were disembarking the rescued pilgrims at the nearest helipad between Phata and Guptkashi but the Government officials failed to deploy vehicles outside these helipads so rescued pilgrims were seen asking for lift outside the helipad. The Pioneer team, which was coming from Sonprayag to Guptkashi, gave a lift to 62-year-old Janardan Joshi from Gandhinagar, Gujarat up to Guptkashi Government enquiry centre. During conversation he asked, “Will you tell me where I can meet my wife Harshida Janardana Joshi, who was rescued as part of ladies first policyIJ”
It would be unbelievable that the centre, which was being run from a private hotel without electricity, was consistently making announcement of name of rescued person. Neither they had made arrangement of communication facility nor made arrangements of food for rescued pilgrims. Although state had opened a medical camp and made arrangement of conveyance to ferry them upto Rishikesh. People including local residents were running community kitchens for all including rescued pilgrims, hapless relatives, police and media as well below the enquiry centre till 10 pm.
In Guptkashi, officials were putting all efforts to flush out the rescued pilgrims as early as possible and they did not bother about the road clearance. On June 24 they had flushed hundreds of pilgrims through 60 Mahendra jeeps and all including two MPs from Rajya Sabha Tarun Vijay and Bhagat Singh Koshyari and Armed Supply Core (ASC) commanding officer (CO) Subhash Kumar were stuck in Indranagar, where two meter long huge boulders along with soil spread over around 100 meters at seven different places, at 10 am.
They were sent without any escort and were not having communication gadgets. Meanwhile three responsible persons and The Pioneer apprised the Chief Secretary Subhash Kumar about the road closure and more than 100 vehicles carrying pilgrims from Guptkashi and ration from all over India on either side of the blockage. Meanwhile local inhabitants, who were crossing from either side, apprised a JCB driver, who was busy in removing the debris from road, about the landslide at seven places. Knowing it, the stranded CO Kumar intervened and brought two more JCB machines by procuring diesel for the JCB on his credit.
As MP Tarun Vijay heard about it then he immediately agreed to pay the amount of diesel then CO Kumar said that he bought oil on credit. later these three JCB machines were able to clean the seven kilometer stretch in five hours.
Thereafter stranded traffic moved from either side. From outskirts of Guptkashi to Ghansali there was no police assistance for the hapless pilgrims facing emergency. In Ghansali police personnel were enquiring about the vehicles carrying pilgrims.