Three years back, when I was in my graduation final year, my friend received a call from her mother asking her not to come home for her birthday. Reason, the river in Haridwar was overflowing. That year military was summoned for rescue operations but thankfully the calamity did not occur. Since then every year heavy rain fall is being witnessed in Uttarakhand but no proper precautions has been taken. The recent Uttarakhand tragedy has definitely, aroused terror and sense of emergency throughout the nation, but what is failed to create (again) is the sense of responsibility among the government and the public as well. For past two years due to the heavy rainfall the rivers have been over flowing and our government did not took any appropriate measures to prevent the catastrophe but we the people of Uttarakhand are equally responsible for the damage. The cloud busts, heavy flood, never stopping rain are not the reason for the doom of Uttarakhand; instead the unsustainable use of resources, improper development and ignorance are the consequences which lead to the region to such a state.
The region of Uttarkashi was has been long warned by the ecologist, esp. certain areas like Uttarkashi. Deforestation is so high in that region people there don’t realize the need of trees. Trees are usually required to hold the, but in mountains trees prevent landslide and other similar happening as well. One of the other ways they benefit us is by stopping erosion of soil into nearby riverbeds. Their root systems anchor the slope, and slow down the runoff of topsoil and water into rivers during heavy rains. This slows the rate at which runoff is carried downstream, and helps prevent flooding. But there all the trees near river were replaced by houses. Now, I know that you will say that how are people in such a area supposed to know such things but even the educated people committed similar blunder. I know the concept of river view house is tremendous but not in areas where every a natural calamity takes place and not in an area which ecologist keeps on warning every year. I wonder why government does not hear such warnings. Even in the Kedarnath region, where the maximum damage has been informed, was warned by the Climatologist regarding heavy rainfall, but still neither the govt. nor the authorities in-charge cared take any notice of it.
The tremendous media is so busy in taking footage and photographs that they forget to help and show humanity. 24*7 we were being bombarded by the news of Kedarnath and Uttarkashi region but hardly, any newspaper covered the cloud burst in Nau ghar village. You see, it is a small village rather was a small village, where only 9 houses were situated; all the 9 houses were ruined by the burst but not even for ten minutes news related to that area was broadcast ed. The lives of those people, automatically, became less important for media as it hold less money. Another similar tremendous body is Government but I don’t even want feel like writing about it, in plain simple words it sucks, big time. They are so pathetic; so many states provide money to Uttarakhand lord knows where it has been invested. Chief Minister Mr. Vijay Bahuguna has been such a disappointment; it was so irresponsible of him to say that he cannot do anything anymore for this situation and the people should now handle it all on their own. On this backing out I wanted to tell on his face, “Sir if you cannot do your job then please, don’t apply for it such a high post. P.S BETTER RESIGN.” But he won’t because then how will he swallow all the money which he got for helping the victims of disaster. Record say some thousand people died but ask those who have witnessed the death and have escaped it, they will tell you the true story, more 10000 people died and almost 40% of them died due to the lack of proper aid. Today more than half of northern Uttarakhand population is homeless, jobless, and foodless and above all hope less. Kudos to Indian ARMY, they were the ray of hope at such a dark hour. Their help support and courage saved a lot of lives.
Doom of Uttarakhand, which by the way seems real close, will not happen due to natural calamity, instead, will happen because of unsustainable development and improper implementation of plans and policies. Not only the government but the residents need to understand that resources are limited and they supposed to be used wisely. Hampering the Mother Nature will not give us more space to live nor will it give more food to eat all it will do is bring more troubles like this. Already the rate of migration is quite high in the state and if the scenario did not changed then soon will come a time when their will be no living soul present in Uttrakhand esp. in the hilly areas.
Coca- cola plants are being protested all around the world due to their nature of irreparable damage to the environment esp. to soil and aqua. But the new 600 cr. Coca plant is being to settle near the river and agricultural area. By the way I wonder where that 600 cr are gone because throughout the calamity the government was shouting that they don’t have money to help people. Another death gadget which lingers on Uttrakhand is Tehri dam. Its phase one was completed in 2006 and it was supposed to be responsible for supplying 24*7 electricity to a lot many regions nearby and far away but nearby it is not helping much. I live in Dehradun, not very far from Tehri, and trust me the supply of electricity here is awful. All the electricity goes mainly to the Delhi and NCR areas, no offences Delhi people but this is true and I know that at times you face electricity problem as well but you really don’t have a clue regarding the condition here. Anyhow, this is not the main issue of concern but it is the largest and biggest of dam of the nation and this largest and biggest dam is already having cracks in it. I don’t even want to imagine what will happen if the water in that dam rushes out. If this happens then no one will be able to save Uttarakhand.
Their so many more signs like this rivers drying up, fertility of soil is decreasing, land acquisition, mountains are being blown up to make path ways etc etc. but we just ignore them and think that this development will led to more development. We don’t realize that there is a thin line between development and destruction. The saddest part is that our government is doing nothing about it and so are we. We need to wake up before the doom of Uttarakhand arrives.
