FRUITFUL DISCUSSION ON DHARALI TRAGEDY HELD AT Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts

A healthy discussion was held at Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts on 26 September on the recent ecological disaster at Dharali at Uttarkashi, Garhwal Uttarakhand after the glacial lake burst due to massive cloud burst on 5 th August, 2025 with 70 human deaths and collosal loss of thousands of crores of rupees.

The main participants in the discussion were Sanjay Panwar, who came from Dharali, one of the victims whose magnificent hotel which was completely destroyed in the massive calamity, Laxmi Rawat, actor, theatre activist and Nilika Sisodia who moderated the event. Mr. Aranya Ranjan, Samoon Foundation, Sunil Negi, President Uttarakhand Journalists Forum and editor UKnationnews, Mayank Arya and several other activists also participated in the discussion.

While narrating the tragic incident of August 5, 2025 Sanjay Panwar of Dharali said that he was at his hotel the very day when this unforgettable tragedy occured afyer a huge forceful gushing floods came down with silt,mud, boulders towards Dharali within seconds engulfing the entire area creating havoc all around.

Pawar said that that it was by the Grace of Almighty that he alongwith several other villagers were fortunately in a temple at that very point of time offering obeisance to the local deities and therefore could save their precious lives. Had it not been the day of spiritual festivity, the tragedy would have been massive said Sanjay Panwar who felt the need for building roads on the upper side of the hills than near the rivers which get completely filled with overflowing gushing waters during the deluge thus destroying them completely and isolating the living population from the rest of the world.

Giving details about the Dharali tragedy Sanjay Pawar said that it was not actually the could burst that led to this tragedy but the bursting of the glacial lake at the upper portion of the Chitrkoot mountain leading to massive gushing flood waters flowing with already ravishing Kheer river with heavy boulders, muck and silt in abundance destroying and completely inundating about fifty to hundred hotels, houses and other structures including the ancient Temple.

The speaker Laxmi Rawat expressing her immense anguish over this tragedy which claimed seventy lives said that the ecological disasters have increased since the last two decades and we haven’t learnt any lessons from the ecological disaster of 2013, June 16 that led to thousand of tragic deaths and massive loss to the people and the government. She added that we talk lot about these mishappening but don’t have the credible solutions to come out of these tragedies.

Aranya Ranjan from Henwal Ghati , Rishikesh and Samoon Foundation expressed his serious concern over the government being negligent,apathetic and lethargic towards strictly implementing the norms restricting people to construct huge structures near the rivers thus contravening the regulations of two hundred metres bar on constructions near the rivers. He said that the time has come when we will have to be cautious towards such natural calamities in the near future by stopping the constructions in proximity to the rivers.

Senior journalist Sunil Negi said that the greed and lust to mint profits have led to these disasters becoming fatal as thousands of commercial structures have been built closer to the rivers with tragedy occuring on massive scales at the time of deluges.

There had been ecological disasters earlier too, though not to the extent we are facing today but then the losses especially human losses were little as the constructions on the river sides were negligible said Negi. He urged the government to be proactively strict on this front and increase regulations on constructions near river sides in adition to other remedies to deal with the future catastrophic possibilities.

The discussions were extremely useful and informative.

A documentary was also screened on the Dharali disaster on this ocassion. Sanjay Panwar and Laxmi Rawat were felicitated with a trophy and shawl each on this ocassion.