Dehradun, May 03:
Secretary to Chief Minister Dr. SS Sandhu today asked the District Magistrates to develop feed back machinery to ensure safe and uninterrupted Char Dham Yatra. He said that this would ensure timely mitigation of problems. He asked them to pass the information of inclement weather conditions and road blockages through SMS to concerned persons and also send report to Monitoring Cell set up at Chief Minister Office at Secretariat.
Dr. Sandhu, through a Video Conferencing, instructed the concerned DMs to monitor conditions of water, power supply, road medical facilities and traffic and resolve the problems well in time. He asked them to provide information about weather conditions and road blockages to police, tour operators, Roadways officers of Delhi, Dehradun and other neighbouring cities through SMS. He instructed the DMs of Garhwal Region to keep vigil on the arrangements in yatra routes.
Dr. Sandhu asked Secretary Health to ensure joining of doctors by tomorrow in yatra routes and instructed Secretary PWD Amit Negi to ensure immediate repair of roads whenever reported. Stating that the places prone to landslide and accident were already identified, he advocated giving special attention to these places.
Additional Secretary to Chief Minister and in-charge Monitoring Cell Dilip Jawalkar said that the concerned DMs had been provided with the email address, Fax and phone number of Char Dham Yatra Monitoring Cell. He asked them to inform the Cell about any disturbance in Yatra through email, Fax or SMS. He instructed them to resolve local level problems at their levels and inform the Cell.
DIG Garhwal Range Sanjay Gunjyal asked to depute in the yatra route only those police personnel who are physically fit. He maintained that solutions to several problems could be found out after taking feedback from the returning pilgrims. He said that the vehicles would be allowed to ply by all means from 5 am to 8 pm. He disclosed that the Police Department had set up 38 Centres to meet emergencies and only trained persons be deputed for Search and Rescue operations. He said that 58 temporary police posts had been established for yatra season with all requisite facilities and equipments. He instructed all the 60 Tourist Police Centres to remain ready for the assistance of pilgrims.
District Magistrate Rudraprayag Neeraj Kharkwal informed that Kedarnath Yatra was going on undisturbed with all basic facilities available. He said that 100 persons had been deputed for sanitation work, DM Chamoli Murugeshan revealed that so far 44,000 pilgrims had visited Badrinath Shrine. 18 doctors had been deputed in the yatra routes. The meeting was also attended by DM Uttarkashi Rajesh Kumar, DM Tehri Ranjit Sinha, DM Pauri Chandresh Yadav, DM Haridwar D Senthil Pandian and DM Dehradun Ravinath Raman.