Picture : Twitter/ ANI
The Joshimath Bachao Sangharsh Samiti urged the Centre to take over the relief and rehabilitation work in Joshimath as it accused the Uttarakhand government of adopting a “lackadaisical” approach, even as number of buildings developing cracks in the subsidence-hit town rose to 849, out of which 165 are located in the danger zone.
As per PTI report, The Joshimath Bachao Sangharsh Samiti (JBSS) also raised pitch for scrapping of NTPC’s Tapovan-Vishnugad hydel project. The development comes on a day the Supreme Court refused to entertain a plea seeking the court’s intervention to declare the crisis in Joshimath a national disaster, saying since the state high court is seized of a “broad range of issues” it should hear it as a matter of principle.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, JBSS convenor Atul Sati accused the state government of ignoring its warnings about the imminent disaster for 14 months and dealing with it now at a snail’s pace.
“The crisis has endangered the very existence of a historic town, but the relief and rescue operations being carried out by the state government are devoid of any urgency,” it said. “We demand from the Prime Minister that the relief-rehabilitation and stabilisation work in Joshimath is taken over by the Centre to secure the lives and interest of people,” the letter said. Joshimath, the gateway to famous pilgrimage sites like Badrinath and Hemkund Sahib and international skiing destination Auli, appears on the edge of a precipice with gaping cracks appearing on buildings, roads and public facilities. The state government faces an uphill task providing relief and rehabilitating the affected families in brutal winter.
