Showing posts with label LUCKNOW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LUCKNOW. Show all posts

Friday, 3 November 2017

NTPC blast toll reaches 29, families of victims look for bodies and answers

The Centre orders a probe by NTPC's executive director; the state announces a magisterial probe

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Hamidullah Khan (41) is one of the five brothers who fell victim to the massive NTPC explosion that happened at the 500-Mw newly commissioned unit at NTPC’s Unchahar plant. Of the five, three have died and two are critically injured. Hamidullah has left four kids and no earning member.

His family, along with a politician from Chhattisgarh, was in argument with NTPC executives and UP government officials over the ambulance that will ferry the three bodies.

There are also murmurs of overwork, extra shift hours, lack of manpower, etc. Some even blame the Centre for pushing the public sector undertaking to achieve targets like adding a 500-Mw unit at Unchahar.

With outrage on the part of workers building up on Wednesday, some labour directorate officials from Rae Bareli were trying to pacify labourers by apprising them of the compensation that will come from the Centre, the UP government, and NTPC.

Till 7 pm on Thursday, the death count had reached 29 and the number of the injured was 80. The NTPC township looks eerily calm. The residential quarters are buzzing with usual action.
It was the guest house where politicians and the families of victims were pouring in, exhibiting nervous energy and having tense arguments. In a 20-foot 'control room’, the casualties were being counted and updated every minute.

At NTPC level, three of its heads of departments — those of operations, ash handling, and border maintenance — were injured. The head of operations, Sanjiv Sharma, succumbed to injuries later in the evening.

Click here to Know NTPC Blast

Thursday, 2 November 2017

More than 20 survivors suffered severe burns in the blast in the coal-fired plant operated by state-run NTPC

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NTPC explosion at an Indian power plant killed 20 people and injured up to 100 in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, authorities said, in one of the country’s deadliest industrial accidents in years.
 
More than 20 survivors suffered severe burns in the blast in the coal-fired plant operated by state-run NTPC (NTPC.NS), and casualty numbers would probably rise, state police said.

The 1,550-megawatt (MW) plant in the town of Unchahar supplies electricity to nine states, according to NTCP’s website. But the company said other facilities would make up the shortfall and outages were unlikely.

“Ash had piled up in the furnace beneath the boiler, which then led to building up of pressure resulting in the explosion,” senior state police official Anand Kumar said in a statement posted online.

India’s largest power producer said there was a “sudden abnormal sound” at a unit around 3:30 p.m., and flue gases and steam escaped.

The company said the blast hit a 500-MW unit that had been operating since April. Three other units with a combined capacity of 630 MW were continuing to operate, it added.

Around 90-100 people were injured, Uttar Pradesh’s top bureaucrat handling law and order, Arvind Kumar, told Reuters.

Police said 20 people have been confirmed dead by the district administration.

Click here to know NTPC Blast

Thursday, 16 February 2017

UP assembly polls: Dimple Yadav campaigns for sister-in-law Aparna

Aparna Yadav is the SP candidate from Lucknow Cantt assembly seat

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Election 2017 : Suggesting all is well in the first family of the Samajwadi Party (SP), Dimple Yadav, wife of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, on Wednesday campaigned for her sister-in-law Aparna Yadav in Lucknow Cantt Assembly seat.

Standing alongside Aparna, a reticent Dimple, who appeared more confident, cited various development works undertaken by the SP government against those of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led dispensation at the Centre, she said, did nothing but ban notes and force people to stand in queues outside banks and harm interests of small traders and artisans.

UP Election 2017 -Addressing a receptive crowd which also presented her with a sword, Dimple, attired in fawn colour saree, recalled as to how Taj City Agra has been linked with Lucknow through the only expressway of its kind in the country.

"This is an expressway of development, prosperity and improving the economy and it will be taken to Ballia (on SP returning to power)...Will you support us in it?" she said, asking people to raise their hands in support.

Amidst slogans and cheers, she referred to the Lucknow Metro project which she said was completed with the blessings of Netaji (Mulayam Singh) in two years' time... "Now even the prime minister has said he will come and sit in our metro," she said. (read more...)

Wednesday, 14 September 2016

Yadav vs Yadav: Samajwadi Party is shooting itself in the foot

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The Samajwadi Party might like to call itself socialist but it has never shied away from family rule. The last time SP was in power,  Mulayam Singh’s brother Shivpal, his cousin Ramgopal, nephew Dharmendra and son Akhilesh were the moving figures behind the administration in Lucknow. Shivpal was the PWD minister but wielded enormous clout in the government and was responsible for recruitment in the state’s police force for allegedly pecuniary benefits. 

In fact one of the reasons the police force in UP is considered ineffective is the probe Mayawati ordered after she came to power in 2007, sacking thousands of policemen who were appointed by the Mulayam Singh government and replacing them with appointees of her own. The transition weakened the effectiveness of the police force.

After SP lost power, it set out to clean up its stables. Party General Secretary Amar Singh left. Muslim pedagogue Azam Khan returned. And in 2009, Mulayam Singh appointed Akhilesh president of the SP.

Because of the power he had wielded, a large number of party leaders had cast their lot with Shivpal. Now Akhilesh began whittling his uncle’s sphere of influence. Observers got the first indication of discord in December 2011 over the induction of Hasanuddin Siddiqui. Siddiqui was Shivpal’s contribution to SP, thought as a great coup because he is the brother of read more..