Badrinath portals to open on April 30
The portals of Badrinath shrine will open for devotees at 4.30 am on April 30. The decision was taken on Wednesday in a meeting held at the residence of the erstwhile royal family of Tehri on the occasion of Basant Panchami. The decision on opening of the Kedarnath shrine would be decided February 21, which also happens to be Mahashivratri.
The portals of Gangotri and Yamunotri shrines would be opened on Akshay Tritiya on April 26, but the time hasn’t been finalised as yet. Last year, the four Himalayan shrines, as well as the Hemkund Sahib, saw a surge in the number of visitors.
Wildlife body to map rivers
The Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, will map selected rivers of the country including Ganga, Ramganga, Yamuna, Gomti, Ghagra, Gandak, Koshi, Son, Chambal and Rupnarayan.
It will use state-of-the-art scientific tools and techniques such as laser-based distance measurement units for channel width determination, sonar-based channel depth estimator, doppler-based river flow determination, GPS and GIS technology in combination with the local traditional knowledge on riverside communities for river conservation.
The mapping will include 10 rivers. The assessment will generate baseline data on river habitat conditions based on which a roadmap will be prepared for aquatic biodiversity conservation in the Ganga basin.
Census work to involve 36K people
The Uttarakhand government has decided to deploy 30,000 enumerators and 6,000 supervisors for the first phase of Census 2021. The first phase will involve listing of houses, enumeration of houses and updation of the National Population Register. Work will begin on May 1 and end on June 15.
State government officials said a portal will be launched for management of census-related work, training and honorarium. The census data will be banked in an Android mobile application, in addition to paper entries.
CM felicitates officers for good governance
Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat felicitated 21 officials on Republic Day for their contribution towards good governance. The honorees, mostly IAS and Provincial Civil Services (PCS) officers, were awarded with the CM’s Excellence and Good Governance award at a function at the secretariat.
Among the officers to be honoured were Rudraprayag’s District Magistrate Mangesh Ghildiyal, senior IAS Bhupinder Aulakh, PCS officer Lalit Narayan Mishra, Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority vice-chairman Ashish Kumar Srivastava and Indian Forest Service officer PK Patro. While Mishra was honoured for his effort to push projects related to ensuring cleanliness of the Ganges, the DM received a piece of recognition for his contribution towards the development of Kedarnath. Aulakh was rewarded for her work towards women’s empowerment.