 Early Times Report
JAMMU, Oct 3: Tawi Trekkers J&K honoured eleven mountaineers of Jammu who have scaled Mount Everest.
Farooq Khan, who was the chief guest of the function, honoured 11 Everest heroes of Jammu with “Duggar Gaurav Adventure Award” in the presence of guest of honour Param Vir Chakra awardee Captain Bana Singh, Patron of the club Rahul Sharma, Chairman Sprawling Buds ICSE School, Jammu; Advisor of the club, Professor Lalit Magotra, Co- Chairman of the Club Zorawar Singh Jamwal; General Secretary, Shawetica Khajuria & Vice President of the club Mridhu Padha. Legal Advisor of the club Prem Sadotra, ex. Chairman, Jammu Citizens Co-operative Bank, Parveen Sharma; Ex President Jammu Chamber of Commerce & Industry,Rakesh Gupta were also present on the auspicious occasion.
In his welcome address Ram Khajuria, President of the club said that since most of the past as well as the current mountaineers of Jammu who have scaled the Everest are almost unknown to their own people of Jammu, the purpose of honoring these heroes in a function is to make the present generation aware of the outstanding achievements and contribution of our sons and a daughters to the promotion of mountaineering in the country and the laurels they have brought to Jammu so that they act as source of inspiration for younger generation. Out of a total of 488 Indian nationals who had climbed Everest till 2020, Jammu has a fair share of 11 Everest summiteers, he added. However, two prominent awardees, C P Vohra who retired as Director General Geological Survey of India and was the first mountaineer of Jammu to climb Everest in the year 1965 and is presently stuck up in USA because of non-availability of flights and Col. Ranveer Singh Jamwal who is doing his duty in Ladakh could not make it to the function.
Accordingly, the Award ceremony started with the second Everester of Jammu Rajiv Sharma who scaled Everest in 1993. He was followed by other Everesters who scaled Everest in the later years, Ram Singh in 2008; Kamal Nayan in 2012, Sub. Balkar Singh in 2016, Rahul Jarngal, Sandeep Singh and Nirmal Kumar in 2017. Then it was Sangeeta Bahl who scaled Everest in 2018 and became the oldest Indian woman to scale Everest at the age of 53. And finally, Phalail Singh was felicitated for summitting Everest in 2019. All the awardees were honoured with a turban, a shawl, a framed citation and the Duggar Gaurav Adventure award.
International sport Climber Shivani Charak, a student of Govt College for Women Parade, Jammu, who has so far won 24 national medals and a bronze medal in the Asian Youth Championship was also honored on the occasion along with Monti Rajkhowa, the third Indian woman to scale the dangerous Kangchenjunga peak, the third highest peak in the world. A very senior member of the club Wing Commander Rajesh Mukhi was also felicitated for summitting Winson peak, the highest peak in Antarctica continent.
A souvenir containing bio data of all the Everesters of Jammu was also released on the occasion. |
