With the monsoon just a fortnight away, people of Uttarkashi town are a tense lot. They fear the rains will trigger landslides in the Varunavrat mountains overlooking the town.

The Government is in a spot, too. It has already spent Rs 68 crore over the past four years on the project to “treat” the mountains after Uttarkashi was hit by massive landslides in September 2003, when more than half the town went under the debris. Soon, a Central Government task force prepared a Rs 282-crore project to end the landslides and work started on “treating” the mountain.

But, a recent report prepared by Uttarakhand Lokayukta Justice S.H.A. Raza (retd) said there has been no visible result of the project on which huge sums of money has been spent. The report, which followed a complaint by Vishamber Dutt Painuli of Uttarkashi, said a “treatment” to stop landslides had never been undertaken in the world.

The report said despite treatment by concrete on the slopes, the seepage of water into the damaged rocks could not be stopped as demonstrated by landslides in June 2006.

The Lokayukta claimed a sum of Rs 7.37 crore had been misappropriated and suggested action against the erring officials.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Maj Gen B.C. Khanduri (retd) has now asked for a report about the feasibility of the project and allegations of corruption. “We are awaiting a report from the administration,” a source in the Chief Minister’s Office said.

“It is a big fraud. With this sum an entire new township would have been built,” said Durga Nautiyal, who lost his hotel in the 2003 landslides.