Friday, 25 February 2022 | Gajendra Singh Negi | Dehradun
Travel Travails
Apart from exposing the functioning of the authorities responsible for failing to check rampant overloading of vehicles and improving the condition of roads, the recent road accidents in Champawat and Pauri districts also point towards negative effects of social practices which have evolved and got accepted in recent times. The ill-fated vehicle in Champawat district in which 14 lives were lost was overloaded with people returning from a marriage ceremony. Day marriages are a recent phenomenon in the mountainous parts of the state where instead of staying overnight the marriage party returns back on the same evening or even at night as was the case in Champawat. Those returning from such joyous ceremonies are usually drunk and alcohol coupled with driving at late hours on serpentine roads of hills is a certain recipe for disaster. On the other hand, the car that plunged into a deep gorge in Pauri district was driven by a teacher and was carrying other teachers. For teachers and other employees commuting long distances from cities to their workplace has become much of a norm now. More and more employees are undertaking such tiring daily trips which usually drastically cut their working hours and the vehicles carrying such commuters are generally driven in haste. Needless to say these journeys are done at the risk of lives, health and work.
Pension Tension
By announcing that the state government employees inducted in the service after January 2004 would now be covered by the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) the Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot’s has won the hearts of the employees and made his position in the desert state strong. However the Congressmen of Uttarakhand are rueing that the party would have reaped a rich harvest of votes had Gehlot made this declaration ahead of voting in the state. Considering the fact that a very close contest is likely on cards in the Himalayan state this assumption holds ground. At the same time it also indicates that the central leadership of the Congress party is losing control over regional satraps like Gehlot because it seems that the Rajasthan CM has taken the decision on his own. A strong central leadership of Congress would certainly have directed its CM to make this path breaking declaration at such a time that would have benefited it in the poll bound states of Punjab and Uttarakhand.
Left in Lurch
A political party which had started its mission Uttarakhand with a lot of flair and promise much before other parties in the state seemed fatigued and directionless during the last phase of the campaigning in the state. This party had hired a bunch of professionals in every district of the state and was boasting to provide third alternative to the people of the state but when it realised that despite a bevy of freebies and mascot of a popular ex -serviceman it is failing to cut much ice in the bipolar political environment it pulled off at the last moment leaving candidates in all 70 assembly constituencies to fend for themselves. With the vanishing of those who promised them heaven, the bewildered foot soldiers of the outfit are now battling it out to settle the expense bills and dues of those hired during the campaign.
