UTTARAKHAND

Forest department plans to map areas of ‘Keeda Jadi’ to benefit locals

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The forest department ofUttarakhandis planning to undertake a significant initiative to provide economic benefits to the high-altitude mountain communities by conducting satellite resource mapping and ground surveys of locations where the rare medicinal herb known as Keeda Jadi is found. Keeda jadi is harvested from April to June and is predominantly found in alpine pastures of the Himalayas.

Recognising that previous efforts in 2018 to regulate the collection, Marketing, and royalty of keeda jadi for the benefit of hill villagers were not very promising , the forest department has now taken the approach of estimating the total production and mapping the locations first.Subodh Uniyal, the forest minister of Uttarakhand, told media, “The villagers of the hills should be the primary beneficiaries since they live in challenging geographical areas under harsh climatic conditions.”

The States Tourism minister Satpal Maharaaz expressed grief over the incidents of cloudburst in parts of Uttarkashi, Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Nainital districts this month. He said that given the events like cloudburst, it appears that the said Doppler radars in Uttarakhand are probably not functioning effectively. In view of the recent incidents, Maharaaz has written to the director of State meteorological center in Dehradun and instructed him to inform about the functioning of the radars.

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He further said that the will work towards strengthening the system by compiling the information of these incidents of Doppler radars in Garhwal and Kumaon region so that the damage can be minimised.

He further said that the the State Government is following the Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat’s committment to provide relief to the people affected by natural disasters in the shortest possible time.

Experts discuss potential of hemp in Uttarakhand

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An experts’ group discussed ‘technological advancements inhemp cultivationand procession for the fibre and allied industries’ at a national conference organised on Tuesday by Veer Madho Singh Bhandari Technical University.

The experts exchanged knowledge about hemp crops, its potential as a sustainable alternative to traditional crops for oilseeds, food source and various applications of hemp fibre in industries like textiles, constructions and automotive.

Notably, Uttarakhand is laying thrust on utilising hemp for industrial usage and is about to come up with a policy on hemp too.

Various prominent personalities remembered famous poet, writer and journalist Girija Shankar Trivedi and paid him homage on his 13th death anniversary on Thursday.

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Remembering Trivedi, noted singer musician Buddhinath Mishra said that he was a great teacher and writer of his time and anyone could learn something from his manners alone.

Mishra called him a Maharatna of Uttarakhand. Congress leader, Suryakasnt Dhasmana and poet, Hemchand Saklani also paid their respects to Trivedi on his death anniversary. Former vice chancellor of University, Sudha Pandey remembered him as an incredible poet. Educationalists Kamala Pant, Lalima Verma, former member of Public Service commission, Sanjay Sharma and many others also paid their tributes to Trivedi.

Joshimath to be renamed Jyotirmath: Uttarakhand CM Puskhar Singh Dhami

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Chief minister Puskhar Singh Dhami announced his governments decision to rename Joshimath, that is considered the gateway to the shrine town of Badrinath, as ‘Jyotirmath’.
The announcement, made at BJPs Vijay Sankalp rally in Nandannagar (earlier called Ghat), is being seen as a move to appease priests and locals, who have for a long time been demanding that the towns name be changed.
Significantly, the had recently renamed Ghat block, also in Chamoli district, to Nandannagar.

Joshimath is the winter seat of the Badrinath deity and houses one of the four maths established by Adi Shankaracharya in the 8th century, the other three being at Sringeri, Puri and Dwarka.

IIT & IWAI sign MoU to stabilise Ganga navigational channel

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The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee signed a memorandum of understanding with Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) to carry out a project on stabilisation of navigational channel at 17 locations along a stretch of the Ganga river from Varanasi to Sahibganj. This follows an earlier morphological study of the Ganga by the institutes Department of Civil Engineering sponsored by the Ministry of Jal Shakti.

Under this project, IIT Roorkee will carry out the channel stabilisation (river training) works on 17 locations along river Ganga for development of channel with eco-friendly techniques for capacity augmentation of navigation on NW-1. The work would help in preventing shifting of deeper channel, siltation resulting in formation of secondary channels, erosion of banks and other factors affecting the depth of flow in the main navigable channel, and thus will result in stabilising the main channel by containing the flow to get desirable flow and discharge patterns,which would ultimately reduce the need for dredging.The project work is to be completed in 25 months.

This work is a part of ongoing Jal Marg Vikas Project (JMVP) of IAWI, which is sponsored by the World Bank. The JMVP envisages the creation and improvement of integration opportunities with other surface transport modes, such as roads and railways, so as to improve the overall efficiency of the Logistics chain by linking the waterways through various well-equipped terminals and jetties. The IWAI vice chairman Jayant Singh, member (Technical) Ashutosh Gautam, chief engineer Ravikant along with IITs professors Z Ahmad, PK Garg, AA Kazmi, PK Sharma and others were present at the signing of the MoU.

In order to prevent any loss in recovering taxes from transport corporations of other states and to avoid any technical anomalies in the data, the transport department will adopt a new working plan. After the stringent directions of transport secretary Ranjit Sinha last week, the officials of transport offices have been calculating collected tax revenue and tax arrears on the buses of other transport corporations. The regional transport officer (administration) Dinesh Chandra Pathoi disclosed that various reports and figures are being analysed by the officials to determine the tax situation of the department. He said that on the basis of data provided by the transport corporation, the officials found out that many corporations from other states are yet to pay taxes to the department here. He said that the department is working to recover the tax arrears in other states. He also revealed that some vehicles are also operating from multiple depots instead of only one and many are entering into the state through different routes which is also affecting tax collection records.

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Besides this, many vehicles listed in the corporation’s record are registered as bikes, trucks, ambulances among other vehicles rather than buses possibly due to a technical error, informed Pathoi. He said that the department will soon adopt a new working plan to prevent such discrepancies and revenue loss to the state.

Over 100 hectares offorestcover has been affected by wildfires in the past one month between February 15 to March 15.

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Mid-February is considered as the official commencement of summer wildfires pan India by the Forest Survey of India (FSI).
The data by Uttarakhand forest department indicates that 116 hectares has been affected in this duration. Both Garhwal, which has seven districts, and Kumaon, that has six districts, registered almost equal amounts of forest area 53.9ha and 50.7ha respectively under blaze in this duration. And nearly 12 hectares of (PA) have also come under the grip of fires. In the combined winter and summer wildfires from October 1 to March 15, Uttarakhand saw 97 forest fire incidents in which 155.7ha were gutted as per the data of the forest department. The fires led to losses to the tune of Rs 5.6 lakh to the state. While in the winter months, Kumaon region recorded absolutely zero cases of forest fires. Garhwal logged 20 hectares gutted and an almost equal amount of fires gutting 19.7 ha of PA.

The state has nearly 49.21sqkm of extremely fire-prone forest area, 757.92sqkm forest is very highly fire-prone, 4,070sqkm forest is highly fire-prone, 5,887.7sqkm forest is moderately fire-prone while 13,540sqkm forest is less fire-prone according to FSI. Nearly 15% of the forest has chir pine trees, whose needles are considered extremely combustible.Therefore, areas that had smallest of fires, saw spiked incidents in February, according to the authorities.

Centre sanctions Rs 1,036 crore for 2 key NH projects in Uttarakhand

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The Union Government has sanctioned Rs 1,036 crore for the four-laning of the Bhaniyawala-Rishikesh road and the upgradation of the Bareilly-Sitarganj highway.

While the Bhaniyawala-Rishikesh road is an important project as it connects Dehradun with the key tourist destination Rishikesh, the Bareilly-Sitarganj route is an important one linking Kumaon with western Uttar Pradesh.

IISWC and Sparsh Himalaya sign MoU

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The Indian Institute of and Water Conservation (ICAR-IISWC) and Sparsh Himalaya have signed a memorandum of understanding to execute inter-organisational collaborative engagements to promote Himalayan Ecosystems, people and Resources.

ICAR-IISWC director M Madhu informed that the MoU is aimed at stimulating and facilitating collaboration and promoting mutually-interested common programmes that help advance the interests of the Himalayan ecosystems and related intellectual life and cultural development. National and international level collaborative programmes and engagements for enhanced outreach, and awareness on technological outcomes and success stories would also be aimed at through this MoU.

The potential areas of collaboration include research, training, capacity building, experience sharing, and knowledge management in the domain of rural development and natural resource-based sustainable livelihood promotion.

Immediately, bothorganisations are developing a joint plan for a national conference in January 2022 on the technological contributions and success stories of the research and development organisations working on the welfare of the Himalayas.