People of the city are worried and angry about the plight of Dehradun and the works of Smart City.
In the name of Dehradun city and smart city, the bad condition of the city has now started hurting the people of Dehradun. Till now, people who expected improvement in the condition of the city have been completely disappointed. It was clearly revealed in the meeting of the United Citizens Organization held on Thursday that people are now fed up with the dug up roads and the disorganised city and want to improve the condition of the city as soon as possible by putting pressure on the leaders and officials.
The meeting was attended by leaders of BJP and Congress along with representatives of various organisations, dignitaries, social workers and journalists. Most of the speakers said that the way roads are being dug up for the last several years and the lives of the people of the city are being put in danger, is now unbearable.
In the meeting, along with the poor condition of the Smart City project, the Master Plan 2041 and cutting of trees in the city was also discussed. There was discussion on preparing a draft of Doon Declaration on all these issues and making it public on the occasion of State Foundation Day.
Anup Nautiyal, founder of SDC Foundation, while summarizing the findings of the meeting, said that MDDA did not give enough time to the people to register their objections on the draft of Master Plan-2041. He raised many questions on the possible changes in Doon Valley notification, the population of the city and the carrying capacity of Dehradun. He expressed the need to solve the problems in three ways. This includes making people aware and mobilizing by forming various committees, taking out Chintan Padyatras and taking help of legal process.
Starting the meeting, Jagmohan Mehndiratta said that people’s lives are being put at risk by digging up the entire city. The news about smart city that is published in newspapers does not happen on the ground. The traffic system is completely bad. Leaders and officials have visited foreign countries many times regarding Metro, but Metro is not coming out of the files. Councilor Devendra Pal Singh Monty said that the decision to make Dehradun a smart city was wrong.
Anil Jaggi said that the city has been ruined in the last 20 years. He expressed the need to form a pressure group to put pressure on the government. Ashish Garg expressed the need for a complete ban on commercial construction in residential areas. Nilesh Rathi said that now is not the time to discuss problems. Now there should be talk of solution. He pointed out the need to identify bottle necks and build flyovers as well as develop traffic sense among the people.
In the meeting Amar Singh, Jaipal Singh, Amarjeet Singh Bhatia, Prakash Nangia, Vineet Jain, Gulista Khanam, Colonel Thapa, Awadhesh Sharma, Lieutenant. Colonel JS Gambhir, Pradeep Kukreti, Jitendra Anthwal, Bhupendra Kandari, Manoj Dhyani, TN Johar, Jaya Singh, Brigadier Bahl, Virendra Painuli etc. also expressed their views. Sushil Tyagi of United Citizens Organization conducted the operation.
