PMO holds high level meeting on Joshimath situation !

In view of Joshimath sinking and around six hundred houses, hotels n other buildings including roads developing wide cracks, the prime minister’s office have also come into proactive mode with the principal secretary to the prime minister P. K. Mishra to hold an important meeting with the cabinet secretary, secretary n members of National Disaster Management Authority including Rajendra Singh, now member NDMA n formerly the DG Indian Coast Guard, various senior officers of Central government and of state government also to find a credible solution to the urgent n critical problems of Joshimath, that’s literally sinking and more than 600 families constrained to sleep in the open under minus one degree temperature in relief camps of Joshimath.

Yesterday on 7 th January the chief minister of Uttarakhand had visited Joshimath, inspected the affected houses n buildings developing cracks and met the disturbed families assuring of financial compensation n help and also committing construction of houses for the displaced families at Gauchar, Pipalkoti and other safe locations of Garhwal.

The families in distress will be ferried by choppers assured the chief minister. Till now about sixty six families have already been evacuated to safer places.

The chief minister also visited several houses with cracks on ceilings and walls and directed the officials to shift all the affected families to relief camps for now providing all basic amenities.

For the time being the NDRF teams have been dispatched to Joshimath for all kinds of help and support to the affected families n evacuating them to relief camp safely.

The high level meeting in progress will also confabulate with the officials at the ground zero including DM n Commissioner of Garhwal and Joshimath through video conferencing to arrive at a definite conclusion and expedite the relief and rehabilitation operation at the earliest n expeditiously.

Situated at more than 6000 feet the temperature of Joshimath goes into minus degree and snowfall is a common feature during December January. Even the land on which the strong pillars of Auli trolley are fitted, have also developed wide cracks and therefore Joshimath has been declared a full danger zone, already coming under Zone 5 prone to earthquakes as revealed by Mr Sen of Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology. Not only this but the highway leading to the last village of border MAANA and the roads outside the CRPF camps manning our border have developed wide cracks.

The thousands of families today are in real distress with their around six hundred houses developing wide cracks, muddy water oozing out of those cracks and people under apprehension about their houses collapsing anytime including big hotels and other buildings with roads developing wide cracks.

The Joshimath Bachao Sang harsh Samittee led by Atul Saying had held a massive protest and Joshimath Bandh attended by thousands of women, men, youths n children finally compelling the media, vernacular, national international highlighting the issue with entire state machinery n PMO coming into proactive mode. This problem was being highlighted for years but unfortunately the local governments and administration has never took it seriously finally the geological situation coming to such a dangerous n critical turn.

What is interesting here to note is these calamities are all man made after Garhwal n Kumaon regions of Uttarakhand are confronting environmentally unfriendly development especially the hills bring made hollow from inside by digging long tunnels, deforestation taking place while widening of highways, massive constructions on river sides including forest fires taking place on massive scale during summer seasons completely destroying the flora and fauna of the Himalayan state. Above all Joshimath comes in Zone 5 being ecologically extremely fragile and prone for unpredictable earthquakes apart from the present crisis of sinking of the city developing wide cracks all over viz in houses, buildings, roads n land beneath. Sounds shocking that despite Joshimath experiencing cracks in houses and land since long the successive governments have never heeded to the people’s call and grievances turning deaf ears and blind eyes towards them. For instance despite the massive flash floods of Rishi Ganga after glaciers melted or cloud bursts happened in February 2021 and percolated inside the Joshimath cracks worsening the situation further, the central and state governments instead of acknowledging the warning signal went ahead to boost tourism with its so called overambitious Helang Marwadi bypass project not hearing to objections of the protesting local populace. This bypass road project’s construction continued unhindered as the government was hell bent upon going ahead with it to lessen the distance to Badrinath temple by thirty kilometres. Not being heard the Joshimath Bachao Abhiyan Samittee was compelled to file a petition in Supreme Court to intervene at the earliest to save the ecology of Joshimath closing this project forthwith. But unfortunately the court sided with the All weather Road Project and allowed this bypass to continue as it was to save the distance to Badrinath by thirty kilometres. The arguments and logics of environmentalist to close this project leading to escalation of Joshimath crisis weren’t heard by the government. They turned a blind eye despite the hard fact that that the Rishi Ganga over flooding have percolated inside the cracks of Joshimath n Vishnu had Hydropower Project tunnel completely jammed with much and silt which too further percolated in Joshimath resulting in present crisis including the pathway of Sunil Ward in Auli confronting extreme submersion. Though the cracks on Joshimath earth were witnessed in 2020 but in 2021 after Rishi Ganga over flooding these cracks further widened. Not only this but in an article of Current Science magazine in 2018 a detailed report was published referring to the massive landslides on 19 th May 2017 at Vishnu Prayag, the confluence of two rivers Dhauli Ganga and Alaknanda merely 8 kilometres away from Joshimath n brought in the knowledge of the government about the forthcoming ecological disasters but the negligent government continued with its so called overambitious projects playing with our fragile ecology resulting in the current Joshimath situation which has put the lives of thousands of people to acute risk n danger.