Two more hotels in subsidence-hit Joshimath have precariously tilted towards each other, as the ropeway to the skiing resort of Auli was shut after cracks appeared in its control room and an army helipad developed fissures.
Hotels Snow Crest and Comate, on the road to the Joshimath-Auli ropeway, were on Sunday declared unusable and closed. Cracks have developed on their walls. Earlier, Malari Inn and Mountain View on the same road had tilted towards each other and are being demolished.
Cracks also emerged on the walls and floor of the control room of the ropeway service. Part of a helipad of the army subsided on Saturday evening, turning it defunct.
The fresh cracks fly in the face of claims by officials on Friday that the situation was returning to normal as no house had developed fissures after January 7.
Ropeways are a focus area of the BJP governments at the Centre and in the state, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi laying the foundation of two other routes on October 21 last year.
On a pilgrimage of Kedarnath and Badrinath that day, Modi had claimed that people in many countries would celebrate because he had laid the foundation stone of the two ropeway services. The two upcoming ropeway lines are the 11.5km Gaurikund- Kedarnath service in Rudraprayag district and the 13km Govindghat-Hemkund Sahib service in Chamoli district.
Each bus of the 4.15km Joshimath-Auli ropeway used to carry 25 passengers or 900kg.
The number of houses where cracks have opened up in Joshimath has increased from 723 to 782 in the last 24 hours.
Ranjeet Sinha, secretary, disaster management, said the ropeway had been closed. “The government has shifted 223 families from the damaged houses to safer places on the outskirts of the city. As many as 148 houses have been identified as completely unsafe to stay,” he said.
Dhan Singh Rawat, minister of health and education who performed puja at Narsingh temple on Sunday, said he had sought the blessings of the God to help Joshimath.
He said The Indian Space research Organisation (Isro) had taken down from its website the pictures of subsidence in Joshimath, a day after the Centre issued a gag order. “It was creating panic among residents. Isro removed the pictures on my request,” the minister said.
According to a government report, Joshimath subsided 5.4cm between December 27 and January 8.
Local people have been continuing their relay dharna round-the-clock and torchlight protests in Joshimath every evening to mount pressure on the government to announce proper compensation and a rehabilitation policy.
A government source said they had tasked the National Thermal Power Corporation and the Hindustan Construction Company with building 4,000 prefabricated houses for the affected people.
Ironically, locals have been demanding the expulsion of the NTPC from Joshimath. “NTPC is the villain. It used explosives to build a hydro-power project and a tunnel, which weakened the surface of the town and resulted in landsides and cracks on the earth and our houses,” said Manoj Rawat, a resident.
The NTPC has claimed that it never used explosives in Joshimath and no work was going on below the town.
Rawat said: “The ropeway and many other construction activities here are in excess of the carrying capacity of the town, but the government is pressing forward with the projects in the name of development. What is more surprising is that the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam, an agency of the state government, charges Rs 1,000 (round trip) for the ropeway service. The government makes money and puts us at risk.”
The ropeway has been in operation since 1994. The ropeway between Joshimath and Auli had been planned by the V.P. Singh government in undivided Uttar Pradesh in 1982 and inaugurated during Mulayam Singh Yadav’s rule in 1994.
“The government should learn from its mistakes and either stop the construction of ropeways and other heavy structures in the hills or come out with more technologically accommodative ideas,” said Rawat, an MSc student.
Ritu Sah, another local, said over 2,500 people had migrated from Joshimath after the earth started sinking early this month.
“The government has no plan, they are depending on the gods. The fact remains that the hydro-power project, the tunnel and the ropeway have done irreparable damage to Joshimath. We don’t know which government did all this but we know that the present government is playing games with us,” she told reporters.
