Dehradun : Though incessant rains that
have been lashing Uttarakhand since June
in the aftermath of the Kedarnath tragedy
and showing no signs of receding, the focus
of the central government as also the state
is now on the rehabilitation and
reconstruction. The biggest bottleneck in this
task is how best to ensure environmental
safety and at the same time deliver the
goods.
Though the IITs of Roorkee and Mumbai
have chipped in to contribute the necessary
expertise in rehabilitation and
reconstruction works, experts feel that the
June 16 tragedy has hit this small mountain
state in its soft underbelly. Years of
haphazard construction and rampant
dynamiting of the fragile mountains have
only added to the woes of the planners.
The
latest
list
of
identified
danger
zones
to
aggressive
landslides
as
updated
by
the
National
Remote
Sensing
Centre
has now gone up to 1604 as 268 new low
and high hazard zones have been added
after the June 16 holocaust. Besides, there
are hundreds of villages that have also
come under the highly sensitive list and
need to be rehabilitated.
Experts at the Wadia Himalayan Geology
Institute here feel that before the
rehabilitation and reconstruction work is
undertaken, there is need for mapping the
landslide prone zones. The state government
planners also feel that this exercise should
be undertaken immediately so that
necessary corrective measures can be
adopted before any construction is
undertaken in such areas.
Experts of IIT Roorkee and Mumbai feel that
a prosperous and planned Uttarakhand can
be re-established after the tragedy, but
before starting there is a need for studying
its geological and topographical conditions.
Besides the aspirations and the causes that
led to the June 16 tragedy have also to be
taken into consideration, they observed.
Asserting that the two IITs have the
necessary wherewithal to undertake the
task, they said that houses and roads would
have to be constructed in a manner to
ensure that there is no repeat of the tragedy
in the future. “We are just waiting for the
nod from the Uttarakhand government to
take upon the gigantic task”, they claimed.
Meanwhile the planners of the Uttarakhand
government have also started preparing the
road map for the restoration and
rehabilitation of the devastated areas of the
state, though the concentration is still is on
connecting the villages that remain cut off
even after one month of the tragedy. The
rains have been the major reason for the
slow progress in the relief and
rehabilitation process.
However, as of now the focus of the
planners is that while rehabilitating and
reconstructing the state, special thought
will be given to the environment, forests
and wildlife and it will be anusred that the
statement given by the chief minister that
no construction will be allowed within 200
metres of the rivers and streams is
implemented in letter and spirit.
It has also been decided that keeping in
view the fact that this small mountain state
is in a high active seismic zone, all houses,
buildings and other constructions are made
using appropriate technology should there
be an earthquake of high magnitude on the
Richter scale in the near future. And before
any villages are rehabilitated the Geological
Survey of India (GSI) will be asked to
conduct necessary tests.
It has also been decided that the Central
Building Research Institute (CBRI),
Geological Survey of India (GSI), Remote
Sensing and other allied establishments are
kept in the loop during the entire planning
and construction stage and the roads are
constructed in a planned manner with due
thought given to drainage of water due to
rains and snow.
The planners were also of the view that the
villages of the hilly areas of the state will
be rehabilitated in the higher reaches only,
for which the state government will make
land available and the centre will also be
asked for necessary permission where forest
land is involved while the villages of the
lower reaches will be rehabilitated in the
plains.
Special development will be done of areas
which involve religious places that are
visited by lakhs of pilgrims annually.
To avoid a repeat of the Kedarnath tragedy,
as of now the state government is working
on how to regulate the number of pilgrims
to the important shrines of the state to
ensure that there is no overcrowding and
collection of large number of people at any
one time.
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