Kishore Upadhyay meets CM Dhami and demands various concessions for Tehri Garhwal inhabitants including opening of Char Dham Yatra
The Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Saturday visited New Tehri for the very first time after his becoming the eleventh chief minister of Uttarakhand. On his visit to New Tehri Bhaghirathipuram, the former Tehri Garhwal MLA and minister and also former Uttarakhand Congress chief Kishore Upadhyay urged him to revoke the previous decision by approaching the honourable high court with written assurances of strictly adhering to Covid 19 pandemic protocols and request to open the Char Dham Yatra which has adversely affected thousands of inhabitants of Tehri Garhwal making their survival at stake, including hurting the religious sentiments of pilgrims and tourists, intending to visit Uttarakhand to pay their obeisance to Lord Kedarnath, Badrinath and Gangotri and Yamunotri.
While welcoming the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami with open arms, Vanadhikar Andolan founding patron, Kishore Upadhyay submitted him a 19 point memorandum, raising several important issues and their subsequent resolution.
Apart from the first demand of opening of Char Dham portals, Upadhyay demanded revocation of the orders of Sridev Suman Vishwavidhyalaya terminating the sevices of its employees, requesting for their reemployment with retrospective effect.
In addition to these demands he also demanded declaration of Uttarakhandies as forest dwellers including bringing the state under jurisdiction of an OBC state, including free delivery of domestic gas, water and electricity to the state consumers followed by a monetary compensation of Rs 25 lakhs to the bereaved families of those killed by man eaters and wild animals with a govt job to next of the kin.
He also demanded among other demands, withdrawal of all the court cases against the Tehri Dam evacuees compounded with re allotment of new shops to the owners of Koti Colony Bazaar shops which are in extremely dilapidated conditions etc.
He also mentioned several problems related to the Tehri Dam evacuees and those of UPNAL employees requesting for allotment of housing facilities at the earliest.
Kishore Upadhyay also demanded immediate implementation of new grade pay of the Uttarakhand police as well as the Prison police and employees.
In the context of excessive rent/ fare imposed on the Boat owners of Tehri Lake @Rs 60000, Kishore Upadhya requested to decrease it from the present rate to lesser amount giving relief to the boat owners.
Elaborating on the grievance of the Tehri inhabitants, the memorandum stated that the land assessment of the Tehri Dam has not been done till yet and permission have been granted to enhance the level of Tehri Dam, which is completely unjustifiable and amounting to cheating with the affected inhabitants.
Our demand is that as done earlier, every affected family of Tehri Dam be sanctioned two acre agricultural land along with a house each and incase the said land is not alloted, they should be given a financial compensation of Rs 5 crore to each of the affected familes.
Prominent among those present while handing over the memorandum to Uttarakhand CM and signatories are : Kishore Upadhyay, former MLA n minister, Rakesh Rana, district Congress President, Shanti Prasad Bhatt, former district president, Darshanik Raaat, Mahila Congress district President, Rajendra Prasad Dobhal, Chamba, block President, Devendra Naudiyal, President City Congress New Tehri, Kuldeep Panwar, former Pramukh, Pradeep Ramola, Jagdamba Prasad, etc
