UTTARAKHAND CM ACCORDS THE IMPORTANT RESPONSIBILITY OF REVIVAL AND REHABILITATION of DHARALI N HARSHIL TO COLONEL KOTHIYAL , EARLIER CHIEF OF NIMS

The Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has accorded the entire leadership to revive, and rehabilitate the completely destroyed Dharali and Harshil to the hero of the Kedarnath Dham resurrector retired Colonel Ajay Kothiyal in the aftermath of the massive ecological disaster of 2013 at Kedarnath claiming thousands of lives and colossal damage to private and government properties worth fifty thousand crores including destruction of over two hundred villages.

Colonel Ajay Kothiyal was involved as part of the army in the reconstruction work after the Kedarnath disaster (2013) and his style of work was appreciated then.

But it should not be forgotten that at that time he had the entire logistics machinery of the Indian Army being a full fledged Colonel and the Chief of the NIM, and the trained soldiers were supported by the courageous trained team of NIM which they no longer have.

The then Chief Minister Harish Rawat had generously allocated funds for 5 times the wages of the hardworking labourers working in difficult conditions.

Former Colonel Ajay Kothiyal after his retirement from Indian Army had joined Aam Admi Party and was nominated as its Uttarakhand state president.

Under his leadership the Aam Admi Party contested in all the seats in Uttarakhand but lost badly. Retired Colonel himself lost becoming extremely discouraged and going into political oblivion for few months finally to join BJP and being appointed as its Ex servicemen body’s chief.

Keeping in view the satisfactory rather excellent performance of Colonel Kothiyal at Kedarnath Dham post ecological disaster of 2013 , the Uttarakhand CM has given the cudgels of the entire Dharali and Harshil catastrophe to Ajay Kothiyal for rehabilitation and renovation purposes relying on his dedicated team despite the hard fact that the government has the entire PWD and other infrastructure to do the needful.

According to a Congress leader of Uttarakhand Raghubir Bisht the situation today is completely different, and giving him this responsibility merely on the basis of his past image seems more like ‘brand management’ and not a solid administrative decision.

But here the first step was to appoint a political face. It seems that the real objective is more to ‘show work is being done’ than to ‘do work’.

What is really needed in the restoration work of Gangotri valley after Dharali disaster is—technical experts (geology, water resources, environment), involvement of local community, speedy financial approval and transparent tender process said Mr. Bisht.

It may be recalled that on 5th og August a huge flash floods with millions of tons of silt, boulders, mud etc came flowing ravishingly at Dharali , Harshil in Uttarkashi as a devilish force and destroyed everything to ground burying everyone and every house and building under it covering them over forty to fifty feet high.

Nearly seven died and 69 still missing according to government statistics. The NDRF, SDRF, local police, the Indian Army, ITBP, BRO etc are cumulatively on the job b to retrieve the dead bodies and supplying water,ration and medicines to he survivors and the local residents of Dharali.