By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 19 Jan: Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami today held a review meeting at the Secretariat on the ongoing relief and rehabilitation work in Joshimath. He directed the senior officials to ensure expeditious remedial action in Joshimath as soon as the final reports are received of the agencies conducting surveys and studying the subsidence affected areas. Dhami emphasised that plans for treatment of the affected area should be prepared at the earliest and remedial action begun without any delay.
The CM also told the officials that the views of the displaced persons should be also taken while deciding on their rehabilitation. He also directed the District Magistrate, Chamoli, to send a report to the government as soon as possible after taking suggestions from the local people.
The Chief Minister assured that better arrangements would be made by the government for the people getting displaced from the affected areas of Joshimath. In an important move, the CM also directed the administration in every city of the state not having a proper drainage and sewerage plan and system to prepare an action plan on installation of drainage and sewerage systems in a phased manner. He said that the towns identified should be marked category wise.
Secretary, Disaster Management, Dr Ranjit Kumar Sinha informed the meeting that, in the preliminary investigation report of the National Institute of Hydrology (NIH), the water seepage noticed in Joshimath and that from the tunnel of NTPC Hydropower Project were from different sources. The water had been tested and the samples do not match. He, however, added that the situation in this regard would become completely clear only after the reports of various other central agencies and the National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) Roorkee are received.
He also reported that 258 families of the landslide affected area of Joshimath had been accommodated in relief camps and all necessary facilities are being provided to them. He added that water discharge as well as the silt in the affected area had reduced drastically over the past few days.
Present at the meeting were Chief Secretary Dr SS Sandhu, Additional Chief Secretary Radha Raturi, Additional Chief Secretary Anand Vardhan, Secretary R Meenakshi Sundaram, Additional Secretaries Savin Bansal and Anand Srivastava along with the officials from various departments.
