‘SINKING’ JOSHIMATH TOWN

ChinmayaIAS Academy - Current Affairs January 9, 2023 Environmental Issues, GS3 Leave a comment 182 Views

Residents of Joshimath, the Himalayan pilgrim town that appears to be sinking, are blaming major power and road infrastructure projects for their plight and are demanding that the government resettle and give new homes for all those who have lost their properties in the town.
Members of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) are set to visit the town on Monday to assess the situation and advise the Uttarakhand government.
A day after Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami visited Joshimath, which is experiencing land subsidence, residents continued their protest at the tehsil headquarters on Sunday, blaming the Tapovan-Vishnugad power project of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) for the “irreversible” damage to the sacred town.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) convened a high-level review of the situation in Delhi on Sunday, which was attended by State and Central officials, and experts in geology and disaster management.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also held discussions with Mr. Dhami about the situation.

PMO reviews situation in Joshimath town

According to an official statement from the PMO, Uttarakhand Chief Secretary S.S. Sandhu informed the review meeting that after a ground-level assessment, it was determined that a strip of land around 350 metres wide had been affected.
The PM’s Principal Secretary, P.K. Mishra, stressed that the immediate priorities for the State should be the safety of people living in the affected area.
A team of the National Disaster Response Force and four of the State Disaster Response Force have reached Joshimath, where the district administration is working with the affected families to evacuate and relocate them to safer places with adequate arrangements for food, shelter and security.
Atul Sati, convener of the JoshimathBachaoSangharsh Samiti which is leading the residents’ protest, said the government only stopped the development project when the town was on the brink of disaster.
“We had warned years back that NTPC’s work is going to get this town to sink. No one paid heed. Look at the situation of Joshimath now,” he said.
Putting equal onus on the construction of the Helang-Marwari bypass by the Border Roads Organisation, Dinesh Chaudhary, a shopkeeper in Sunil village of the Joshimath region, said that merely halting the projects would not help. “The government must put a full stop on the NTPC and BRO projects. Only then Joshimath will be saved,” he said.
The residents of Joshimath, also known as the gateway town to the Badrinath temple, said they had been complaining to the government about cracks in their houses for over a year now.
However, the administration became active only after its own building started developing cracks. In fact, now even roads and rocks on trekking routes have visible fractures.
Dehradun-based social activist Anoop Nautiyal alleged that the Chamoli district administration had only managed to evacuate 68 families in a week and make temporary rehabilitation arrangements for 1,271 people.
He said the slow pace at which the administration was working on evacuation and rehabilitation was not enough in this “time of emergency”. “On January 4, the administration had space for rehabilitation of 385 people.
Five days after the rescue operations started, allegedly on a war-footing, the administration, till January 8, was able to manage to create space for rehabilitation of 1,271 people. This figure is not even 6% of the total population of Joshimath,” Mr. Nautiyal said.
According to the 2011 Census, Joshimath has a population of over 16,000 people. Administrative officials say the town currently has over 20,000 people living here.
Chamoli’s Additional District Magistrate Abhishek Tripathi said the administration had asked NTPC and Hindustan Construction Company to each make temporary arrangements for the rehabilitation of 2,000 residents. “We will rehabilitate people in Pipalkothi, 35 km from Joshimath, if need be,” he added.
Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat, who visited the area, asked people to vacate their houses if they were damaged.
In the PMO meeting, it was decided that all four members of the NDMA and the Border Management Secretary would visit Joshimath on January 9 to assess the findings of technical teams and advise the State government on short and long-term actions.
“Residents are being informed of the developments and their cooperation is being sought. Advice of experts is being sought to formulate the short-medium-long term plans,” it said.