Capital Chromosome

Ever since Dehra Dun became the temporary capital of Uttaranchal on November 9, 2000 — the state commission appointed to select a capital is to submit its report by the end of the year — it’s on the fast track to a bigger, flashier look.

There is now an Ansals colony, complete with rows of neat houses. An advertisement of Delhi-based Uppal Towers calls on nature lovers, parents of school children and defence personnel to choose from their Neapolitan and Cosmopolitan villas. And there is a proposed Sahara City. The colonial town is now the city of colonies.

The changing vocabulary best reflects this journey. Duplexes, fully-furnished, air-conditioned and Ring Road have crept in to replace oaks, cottages and ivy. Palaces, complexes and arcades dot the town that’s been home to Vijaylakshmi Pandit, her daughter Nayantara Sahgal, writers Allan Sealy and Ruskin Bond.

On Rajpur Road — the arterial stretch leading to Mussoorie — the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam’s office has transformed from a dilapidated building into a snazzy glass one. A multiplex is being built outside the lane where anti-globalisation guru Vandana Shiva lives. On the same road is Vandana Luthra’s Curls and Curves, another sign of apparent prosperity.

The rapid growth of commercial complexes worries the town’s oldest residents. ‘‘We are really alarmed,’’ says Florence Pandhi, secretary, Friends of Doon. The society is credited with the campaign that resulted in the ban on limestone quarrying in the valley in 1988. ‘‘The old masterplan of the town has lapsend and the new one is yet to materialise and, in between, people are just building everywhere. All our green belts are going,’’ says Pandhi.

Land-buying haalmost become a frenzy, especially in the coveted Rajpur Road, where prices doubled once it was announced that Dehra Dun had pipped Gairsain to the capital post. So much so that Uttaranchal Chief Minister N D Tiwari refrains from mentioning exactly where the government wanted to build an administrative township. ‘‘Land prices will go up immediately in that area,’’ he says, adding, anyway, that they squashed the plans lest it pre-empt the recommendations of the commission.

Concerned over the land mafia, Tiwari says his government will bring in tougher legislation to deal with it.

In the meantime, though, the land rush is eating into litchi orchards and basmati fields, even in Majra, where a member of the Afghan royal family exiled by the British introduced the rice variety. ‘‘I remember the smell of basmati in Majra. But look at Majra now — there are only houses,’’ says Tiwari. ‘‘But urbanisation is not a problem unique to Dehra Dun or even India. London was not always a city.’’

But elevation to capital has brought some bonuses. The roads are smoother and the streets better-lit. The town’s old East Canal Road is wider — though at the cost of the canal. And there are attempts to bring the chaotic traffic under control. ‘‘The roads are not built for this kind of traffic. Almost 60 new vehicles are registered every day though there’s no parking space in the city. There are ‘no parking’ signs all over but no ‘parking’ signs,’’ says G S Martoliya, SP, City. According to R Sreedhar of the Academy of Mountain Environics who was consultant to the Uttaranchal government, Dehra Dun has the highest number of per capita vehicles in the country. ‘‘The average is about 1.5 per family.’’

There have been suggestions for flyovers and four lane-highways but traffic experts say none of them is practical or affordable. In fact, Dehra Dun has become the seat of grandiose ideas. Between power point presentations and suggestions to shift the logistics business from Dubai to Dehra Dun, the town of the understated has become the capital of hyperbole.

‘‘Many people from outside Dehra Dun see it as the city of the future and so there’s a rush to buy land or do business here,’’ says Upendra Arora of Natraj bookshop. This, of course, has spelt profit for the city’s business community. The increase in commercial activity can be gauged from the size of Dehra Dun Classified; a four-pager 10 years ago, it now runs to 48 pages.

‘‘The government has managed to build Brand Uttaranchal. As capital of the state, Dehra Dun will benefit,’’ says Sandeep Dutt, who has seen his sales increase threefold ever since he set up a Barista next to his English Book Depot. ‘‘I am an optimist. I think the city’s infrastructure is improving since it became capital,’’ says Dutt, who has also brought out a book on the schools of Doon.

It’s undeniable that money has poured in, buying infrastructure, government establishments, bank branches and ATMs. ‘‘On an average, 400 to 500 new dealers set up shop every year but in 2001-2002, the number shot up to 5000,’’ says R N Srivastava, assistant commissioner, administration. A large number of them were businessmen who felt the need to have a presence in Uttaranchal, as distinctive from Ghaziabad, Agra or Lucknow.

Most agree it is Uttaranchal’s bureaucrats who managed to create a buzz around the state and its capital. ‘‘The officers who opted for the Uttaranchal cadre were good, honest people. After all, why else would they choose a small state with a small budget?’’ asks Arora. The Mussoorie-Dehra Dun Development Authority (MDDA), too, has a tough vice-chairman in Dr S S Sandhu, the man credited with turning around Ludhiana.

But much of the officers’ good intentions seem to have got lost in the haze of doing too many different things at the same time. ‘‘We have a very good set of administrators but some how it’s not going right. Development and tourism should be promoted, but in the process we shouldn’t kill off the very elements that draw people to Dehra Dun. Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg,’’ says Shanti Varma, former principal of Welham Girls’ School who’s now settled in Dehra Dun.

The chief minister, on his part, pleads that his officers are overworked and the cadre too small: It has only 38 IAS officers of which 18 are on deputation.

Between an elite past and a fast-forward future, Dehra Dun is living its confused present. Ruskin Bond tries to put it in perspective when he says that the town had been changing even before it became capital, though the changes accelerated with the switch in status. ‘‘It was a sleepy old town earlier, now it’s a sleepy old city. But the drowsiness remains.’’