50 disaster-prone Uttarkashi villages disillusioned with elections

DEHRADUN: People in several villages of Uttarkashi who are compelled to spend archaic life without roads and electricity, and those who are not rehabilitated despite being slotted in hyper sensitive landslide zones, are upset about hollow rhetoric of development in this election season.

According to sources, a survey was conducted after flash flood disaster of 2013, which triggered landslides in many villages, after which 11 villages were earmarked for relocation to safer places. In the succeeding year too, with heavy rainfall, the region became more prone to landsldies, after which the tally was increased to 24 villages for rehabilitation but not a single village has been shifted.

Sanjiv Kumar, gram pradhan of Barsu village, situated on Gangotri highway, said, “Our village has been landslide prone since 2010, when more than 30 houses, many shops, small hotels and tehsil office got damaged under major landslide. Very few got compensation. We are still waiting for rehabilitation.”

More than 20 villages in Mori-Purola region are living without electricity. “These villages are situated in Govind Wildlife Sanctuary, owing to this, they are not provided grid based electricity. The solar system distributed to some houses 10 years ago are non-functional now. Even on Diwali, we light up our houses by burning chir leaves or wood or lanterns. But none of the politicians paid heed to our woes,” said Khajan Lal, pradhan of Pawani village.

Sankhla is among at least six villages which has no road. Bachani Devi, gram Pradhan of Sankhla village tells how they have to trek five km through forest area to go to tehsil and city. Ironically this village has no electricity either and does not feature in the state government created list of the villages without electricity.

Dinesh Singh, Gram Pradhan of Salu village that it took 22 years for people of Jadhav and Pilang village to get electricity in 2013 which had snapped after a major earthquake hit the entire region in 1991. Even now electricity supply remain erratic weeks together due to various reasons such as damage in transformer or in power lines as nobody for electricity department bothers to come . However People of Solu village are not even that unfortunate. Singh said that, electrical set up of the village which got damaged in 1991 earthquake has not been reinstated in last 26 years. “We are not excited about election, as these leaders are useless for us,“ said Singh.