Thursday, 16 November 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Vice president of Uttarakhand Congress Surya Kant Dhasmana said that the union government should take the mission to rescue 40 labourers stranded in a tunnel in Silkyara in Uttarkashi in its hands. Interacting with the mediapersons on Wednesday he said that the army should be pressed into the operation. He said that the labourers are trapped for more than 80 hours now and more delay could prove fatal for them. Dhasmana said that since the under construction tunnel came under the National Highways authority, the union road transport minister should have taken immediate cognizance of the accident and started rescue operation which was not done. The Congress leader said that the State had faced a similar disaster in Raini village in Chamoli some years ago in which all those trapped in the tunnel lost their lives. He expressed shock at the fact that the union minister Nitin Gadkari who takes credit for the construction of highways in the country has not uttered a single word in the Silkyara accident. Dhasmana also raised questions at the absence of a plan in which a machine is kept in standby after the first drill machine malfunctioned. He said that the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Karan Mahara has sent a delegation of party leaders headed by former minister Mantri Prasad Naithani to Silkyara.
