Dainik Nation News Portal
Class XI student Gayatri, who lives in the Deepnagar area of Dehradun elicited the attention of prime minister Narendra Modi who also talked of her complaint about the pollution in Rispana river in the provisional state capital. Some locals are hoping that, the issue being taken cognisance of the prime minister even in mentioning might encourage the state government to do something concrete to not only clear the Rispana and Bindal rivers of pollution and encroachments but also to facilitate restoration of water flow in these rivers which were once considered lifelines of the provisional state capital but have been dried down to bodies containing more waste material than water due to various reasons including lowering of ground water table near the source and along the rivers’ course due to indiscriminate boring.
After Modi mentioned her in his Man Ki Baat programme, locals and media persons could be seen at Gayatri’s house not far from the Rispana river in Dehradun on Sunday. A student of government girls inter college, Ajabpur Kalan, Gayatri told some media persons that she wished to become an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer and focus on keeping the surroundings clean. The phone message of Gayatri, whose father works as a welder was played by the prime minister in his message. After pleasantries she stated that, “I wish to share the issue close to my heart with you. I want to say that people will have to be made aware about the importance of cleanliness. Every day I pass by a river, in which people dump a lot of garbage and pollute rivers. The river flows under the Rispana Bridge before passing by my home. For the sake of this river we went to settlements on its banks, spoke to people and took out rallies too, but to no avail. I want to request you to kindly highlight this issue by sending a team there, or through the newspapers.”
The PM said, “Look at the agony of this young daughter, the 11th class student. How enraged she is by seeing the river strewn with trash. I consider this to be a good omen. This is exactly what I want – – that 125 crore countrymen be angered by filth. Once there is anger, dissatisfaction, rage, we will be compelled to act against this scourge. The good thing is that Gayatri is expressing her own anger, and giving suggestions to me, but she also goes on to say, that she has made several efforts but could not succeed. There has been an awareness ever since the launch of the Cleanliness Movement.” Modi went on to say, “I would urge my fellow countrymen, who have heard Gayatri’s message in my ‘Mann Ki Baat’ today, that it should be a message to all of us.”
It now remains to be seen whether the authorities and people of Dehradun are encouraged to take concrete measures without further delay to stop the continuing contamination of rivers and environment of Dehradun and elsewhere in Uttarakhand.
given compensation against their acquired land and they deposited major chunk of their compensation in an account namely Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee. Although state PCC president Kishore Upadhyay had expressed unawareness about any such account but investigation revealed that most of the affected farmers donated money into the account. With this announcement the suspected accused have become active and have started approaching their political masters.
Although CM Rawat has made announcement for the CBI inquiry, the question being asked is when he will send the required letter for this to the CBI. Sources state that as CM has mentioned that it started in 2011 then state was governed by BJP and concluded till Congress regime so this would not be easy task for the CM. Although he has enough mandate to go ahead with his crusade because during election BJP promised that they would give fear free and corruption free government to the people of Uttarakhand.
