DEHRADUN: In the two days that NarendraModi has been in Uttarakhand, he has managed to completely rile not just the Congress government of Vijay Bahuguna but also the administrative staff involved in rescue operations at Kedarnath, Badrinath and Uttarkashi. But above all, he has also managed to bring home some 15,000 stranded Gujarati pilgrims.
The Gujarat CM, who flew in on Friday evening, held a meeting till 1am with his crack rescue team of five IAS, one IPS, one IFS and two GAS (Gujarat Administrative Service) officers. Two DSPs and five police inspectors were also part of his delegation. They sat again with the nitty-gritty of evacuation in a huddle that a senior BJP leader said lasted till 1am on Sunday.
Around 80 Toyota Innovas have been requisitioned to ferry Gujaratis to safer places in Dehradun as have four Boeings. On Saturday, 25 luxury buses transported a bunch of grateful people to Delhi. The efforts are being coordinated by two of the senior-most IAS officers of Gujarat, one currently stationed in Delhi and another in Uttarakhand.
via Narendra Modi lands in Uttarakhand, flies out with 15,000 Gujaratis – Times Of India.
No need to change the title. It is ludicrous enough as it is. Ignoring for one minute the stupidity of a CM flying in (most likely disturbing existing resuce operation) in order to save “his own people”, lets do some math.
- Luxury buses, 25 buses, times 60 people, times max 2 trips per 24 hour span = 3000 people
- Innovas, 80 cars, times 7 people, times 3 trips per day (in flood prone areas, I am being optimistic) = 1680 people
- Boeings, 4 planes, time 200 people, times 3 trips per day = 2400 people
So, even using wholly unrealistic assumptions on capacity and number of times per day, it seems that he would have quite some difficulty getting more than 7,000 people out in a day (lets ignore the issue of gathering all these people in one place at once for boarding the Boeings or busses) … a far cry from 15,000 certainly.
But of course, kindergarden maths is not what this is about, so for some more intellectually fleshy thinking about it read it all on Kafila.