Year-on-year increases in the number of new micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) set up in Uttarakhand over the last four years show that the hill industrial policy is slowly yielding results in the state.

The policy came into effect in 2008 to encourage the growth of MSMEs. The government claims that between then and June this year, more than 3,000 small (mostly micro) units, entailing an investment of Rs 400 crore and employing an estimated 12,000 people, have been set up.

Eight more persons, among them a sant, were killed and a sadhvi went missing after another bout of cloudbursts in three remote villages of Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand on Sunday.

This took the number of those killed over the past few days in flash floods and landslips to 46. About 25 more people are still feared buried under debris. Five persons, including three women, were killed as a flash flood and hillside debris hit village Kiroda around 2.30 am, as one house was completely devastated and agricultural fields destroyed.

Thirty-three people are feared killed and at least 40 feared buried under debris and mud as flash floods and landslips hit villages at Ukhimath and Kapkot in Rudraprayag and Bageshwar districts respectively of Uttarakhand on Friday.

Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna released Rs. 10 crore for Ukhimath and Rs. 1 crore for Bageshwar relief work. Governor Aziz Quereshi, while expressing anguish, appealed to the rescue teams, Red Cross members and the public to make all efforts to help those in despair.

The committee is expected to give its report in mid-October

Ahead of the B K Chaturvedi committee's assessment on the impact of hydel projects on the Ganga river, the Uttarakhand government is expecting a positive report on the issue. It has also started lobbying for the allocation of coal blocks. During the past three years, a series of hydel projects had either been scrapped or suspended on environmental and religious grounds in the hill state, with the Centre setting up the Chaturvedi Committee to examine the impact of hydel projects on the biodiversity in the state. The committee is expected to give its report in mid-October.

In a move to bring down the accumulated losses of the Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL), the government has given a package of over Rs 915 crore to the sole state-run power distribution company.

The accumulated losses of the UPCL stood at Rs 1,948.22 crore till the year 2010-11, the auditing for which has been completed. The annual losses of the UPCL for the same year were Rs 204.46 crore.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna on Tuesday raised by about 10 times the amount of relief for land lost or damaged due to natural calamities.

Describing the compensation being paid as too low, he directed the officials to enhance it from Rs.240 to Rs.2,500 per Nali in hill areas and from Rs.12,000 to Rs.1.25 lakh per hectare in plain areas.

With an aim to boost growth, the Centre has announced a series of new sops with an estimated cost Rs 250 crore for Uttarakhand. These include a textile park, two spice parks, two convention centres and horticulture cold- storage chains.

“We have brought new schems to boost growth in Uttarakhand with an estimated cost of Rs 250 crore. We have also held talks for increasing investments and FDI in the state,” said Anand Sharma, Union commerce, industry and textiles minsiter, after holding talks with Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna and industrialists here yesterday.

The Uttarakhand government on Thursday decided to invite fresh bids for small hydel projects with total capacity to generate 1,000-1,500 Mw of power in its attempt to bridge the widening demand-supply gap in the hill state.

The government has also asked the IIT Roorke to make an environmental-impact assessment report on all such small hydel projects, Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna said.

The second meeting of the National Ganga River Basin Authority’s inter-Ministerial group in Delhi on Tuesday could not make much headway on the contentious issue of the under-construction hydro-electric project on the Alaknanda at Srinagar in Uttarakhand.

The group, headed by Planning Commission Member B. K. Chaturvedi, heard the builders of the project and the campaigners for the protection of the Dhari Devi temple on the river, but there appeared to be no convergence.

Sudhir Vasudeva, CMD of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), on Tuesday launched the ‘Save the House Sparrow’ campaign to mark the 57th ONGC Day at Tel Bhavan here.

The campaign, initiated by ONGC in association with Action and Research for Conservation in Himalayas (ARCH), a local NGO, aims at the conservation of the dangerously dwindling house sparrow population in the locality and the surrounding region.