Priest community unhappy with inordinate delay in completion of construction of their houses.

KEDARNATH : The priest community is quite unhappy with the sluggish pace of construction of their houses at Kedarnath. However the district magistrate Raghav Langar assured that the houses will be complete by next year.
Some 107 buildings are being built to accommodate 473 families of priests of Kedarnath temple in the Kedarpuri.
“It has been over a year that the deadline is being postponed time and again.The working agency is deliberately doing so , all because the houses are meant for the priests and, not tourists. We are suffering endless and living in small dingy accommodations,” said a priest on the condition of anonymity. The houses were to be completed by March this year but the deadline has been extended by more than a year.
Upender Rana, supervisor engineer of the working agency said that the work is not picking much pace due to problems inherent in working at such an altitude. “ It is difficult to get the machinery and equipment and, weather July onward is not convenient. It rains and becomes biting cold. Now the snow will play spoilsport. Despite all the problems, the labors, especially the Nepalese are braving all the odds and working continuously,” he said.
There are couple of buildings in ruins which look incongruous standing in the league of the other new huts for tourists and shops. An onlooker points out that these are couple of those buildings, which owners have refused to give to the government for acquisitio. However Langar clarifies, “We have acquired all the land required by us. In the second phase new 21 buildings will be built. We are waiting for the government order to be issued in this regard.”
He said, there are buildings which have not been acquired and the owners are not even willing to give land to the state government. “We got some 50 ft clear passage from temple and, more space around it as well. We don’t require the land from those who are not willing as it is also not required as according to our masterplan so they have been told to retrofit and reconstruct them as they are in bad state now . If we acquire and reconstruct all the buildings then it would need 10 more years, for which we have neither money nor time. So we are sticking with the master plan,” he said.
Though the entire series of the infrastructure has been protected with a three tier wall, however a building and small helipad has been left outside it. Langar said, “This is the helipad and safe house built for the VVIP such as president, prime minister and chief minister when they come to the Kedarnath for visitation.”