Uttarakhand 2023: Silkyara and other disasters; a common civil code in the works

Dehradun: Hope alternated with despair over the fate of 41 workers trapped in Uttarkashi’s Silkyara-Barkot tunnel for 17 days in November. The nation’s attention was riveted on the catastrophe, but this was just one among the several natural disasters the state suffered in 2023.

Joshimath town and some other areas faced land subsidence – the sinking of earth that led to cracks in homes. Floods destroyed crops in Haridwar district, a cloudburst in Rudraprayag swept away three shops into the Mandakini in August leaving 23 people dead or missing.

And a landslide over a resort near Rishikesh killed five members of a Haryana family just hours after they had checked in for a vacation.

A panel headed by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai spent the year working on a draft Uniform Civil Code for Uttarakhand, which could become the first state to have one – barring Goa which inherited a common code from the Portuguese at the time of Liberation.

After a fourth extension to the committee's term, the Uttarakhand cabinet gave its approval this month to the work done so far. The panel's recommendation could, some say, serve as the template for a nationwide uniform civil code.

The Silkyara tunnel disaster revived the debate over striking a balance between infrastructure development and ecology in the hills.

The tunnel is part of a Char Dham project under which roads are being widened for quicker travel to Uttarakhand’s main shrines. Some experts say this makes the area prone to landslips.

The workers were trapped when a 60-metre stretch of the tunnel collapsed apparently due to a landslide, blocking their exit.

Two tubes, four and six inches wide, served as lifelines that helped get food and other essentials through to them. A massive rescue effort was launched, involving work on several approaches to reach the workers – including digging through the rubble of the collapsed portion and drilling from above.

Sophisticated equipment was called in. But it fell upon a small group of rat-hole miners to dig through the last few metres of the rubble after the auger machine, essentially a mammoth corkscrew, gave up.

Used to working in confined spaces, the men used hand-held tools to complete the escape chute from where the 41 tunnel workers emerged safely.

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has promised an audit of all tunnel projects in the state.

Environmentalist Ravi Chopra, who resigned last year as the chairman of a Supreme Court-appointed committee on the Char Dham road project, warned that such disasters will continue to happen if ecological concerns are not taken into account.

Land subsidence in Joshimath earlier in the year had triggered a similar debate.

About 1,000 people left their homes when big cracks developed in them. Several buildings, including two adjacent hotels that leaned dangerously towards each other, had to be demolished.

Experts blamed the subsidence on the town's location on a slope over moraine deposits, the construction of multi-storey buildings and the absence of a proper system for disposal of water coming from the upper reaches. The state government has said it will conduct a study of the “carrying capacity” of over a dozen cities in the state.

In June, communal tension loomed large in Uttarkashi’s Purola town after an alleged attempt to abduct a Hindu minor girl by two men, one of them a Muslim.

Posters were pasted on shops run by Muslim traders, asking them to leave town. Right- wing outfits gave a call for a ‘mahapanchayat’ but local authorities imposed prohibitory orders to scuttle it.

Still, several Muslim families temporarily left. About 40 shops didn’t open for more than a fortnight.

Rocked by a series of paper leak scams in recruitment examinations, the state government brought in a stringent law, under which offenders could be punished with life imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs 10 crore.

Days after the Silkyara episode ended, Uttarakhand government held its Global Investors Summit, and claimed that MoUs worth over Rs 3.5 lakh crore were signed with leading industrial houses.

In his inaugural speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did his bit for promoting Uttarakhand as an ideal state for destination weddings as well. Playing on the “Make it India” slogan, he gave the catchphrase “Wed in India”.