Carrying Capacity of All Hill Towns of Uttarakhand will be Surveyed

• 16 Jan 2023

Why In News?

• On January 14, 2023, the Uttarakhand Cabinet, taking a lesson from the Joshimath disaster, decided to conduct a scientific and technical survey of the carrying capacity of all the hill cities of the state.

Key points

• It is noteworthy that population and haphazard construction work are increasing the pressure in mountain cities beyond capacity. One of the reasons behind the Joshimath landslide is also being attributed to over-construction of the city's load carrying capacity.
• In the meeting of the state cabinet, it was decided that the responsibility of conducting a survey of the holding capacity of all the cities of the hilly areas has been entrusted to the Disaster Management Department. For this, the cooperation of other departments including Urban Development, Panchayati Raj will be taken. Technical agencies will be selected for the survey.
• Among the major hill towns of the state, Mussoorie, Nainital, Karnaprayag, Rudraprayag, Devprayag, Uttarkashi, Ukhimath, New Tehri, Guptkashi, Almora, Pithoragarh, Bageshwar, Ranikhet are under increasing pressure. In the first phase, the state government can conduct a survey of these hill cities.
• Under this, in the first phase, approval has also been given to conduct surveys in municipal corporation, municipality, Nagar Panchayat areas.
• Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that construction will be banned in cities where the load carrying capacity is found to be high. The Joshimath disaster is definitely alerting us to the future.