 |
| Tuesday, March 7, 2000, Chandigarh, India  
|
HVC
crisis deepens White Paper sought on fund use Himachal PCC poll on June 30 Virbhadra denies report on RSS
Minister expresses inability to
remove HAS officer |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NHPC to get Hibra project Panun Kashmir flays killings Rs 4.33 cr for water supply scheme Six arrested for smuggling timber
|
HVC crisis deepens SHIMLA, March 6 — The crisis in the Himachal Vikas Congress (HVC) further deepend today with the party chief, Mr Sukh Ram, seeking explanation of 11 senior office-bearers, including the vice-president, who participated in the meeting which "revoked" the suspension of the PWD Minister, Mr Mohinder Singh, from the party. Those whose explanation has been sought are, Mr Inder Singh Thakur, Vice-President, Mr Kewal Ram Chauhan, Mr O.P. Rattan (both General Secretaries), Mr Rawel Singh Badayal, Mr Haminder Thakur (both Joint Secretaries), Mr Tarsem Bharti, Mr Devinder Bushahri and Mrs Vinod Chandel (all members of the party executive). Besides, three district chiefs, Mr Ranjit Singh Verma (Hamirpur), Mr Bhagat Ram Chauhan (Shimla) and Mr Sadanand Chauhan (Sirmour) has also been sent the notices for explanation. They have been asked to explain within 15 days. They have been told that the HVC chief had declared the March 1 meeting here as "unauthorised" and these office bearers had indulged in indiscipline by participating in the meeting. A spokesperson of the HVC said the "unauthorised" meeting had no right to revoke the suspension of Mr Mohinder Singh. The spokesperson claimed that supporters of Mr Mohinder Singh had "misled" the people by claiming that a majority of the members of the party executive attended the meeting. Only 11 members attended the meeting, whereas names of 37 members were wrongly mentioned in the list, he alleged. Mr Kewal Singh Chauhan and Mr O.P. Rattan were among the founders of the HVC and have remained trusted lieutenants of Mr Sukh Ram. Patch-up efforts between
Mr Sukh Ram and Mr Mohinder Singh have so far not yielded
any result. The minister has been asked to reply to the
party's charge sheet against him within a month. |
White Paper sought on fund use SHIMLA, March 6 — Mr Virbhadra Singh, Leader of the Congress Legislature Party, has accused the Dhumal Government of "mismanaging" the State’s finances and demanded a White Paper on the utilisation of Rs 700 crore given as special assistance by the Centre. Initiating the debate on motion of thanks on the Governor’s Address he said the House passed resolution to thank the Prime Minister for granting assistance and a euphoria was created in the State to give an impression that there was no financial crisis. However, the fact was that the financial situation had gone from bad to worse and the government, instead of exercising economy in expenditure, had been raising indiscriminate loans. Worse the political leadership did not even have a realisation about curtailing unproductive expenditure. Only cosmetic measures had been taken and no real effort had been made to contain the expenditure. The BJP while in opposition was opposed in principle to the very concept of raising loans and also the procedure adopted by the previous government, but after coming to power it had created four new corporation just to raise loans to meet the day-to-day expenses of the government. He warned that unless corrective measures were taken or Centre came with a huge package to help the State, the situation would go out of hand. He said development works had come to a standstill and panchayati raj institutions had been starved of funds. These institutions were not in a position even to implement the sanctioned schemes. Besides, the panchayats headed by pradhans owing allegiance to the Congress were not only being discriminated against in allotment of funds but they were also being intimidated to force them to join the BJP. Parallel panchayat bodies had been set up in the name of vigilance committees. Mr Virbhadra Singh lamented that not much was being done to solve the problem of unemployment, which had assumed alarming proportions. He said if the figures of employment generation stated by the government were added there should be no unemployment in the State, but the ground reality was different. He said it would not be possible to start work on all the three stages of Parbati project, as claimed by the Chief Minister, as even investigation report of the III-stage had not been prepared as yet. The NHPC had given a time period of 15 years for execution first stage which was too long. Earlier, moving the resolution Mr B.R. Mandyal said the BJP Government had speeded up development over the past two years and started several new schemes for the welfare of downtrodden and weaker sections of the society. He said special attention was being paid to maintenance of roads which was neglected during the previous regime. The government had succeeded in getting four national highways sanctioned in one year as against three over the past 30 years. The House also passed the last batch of supplementary demands presented by the Chief Minister on Friday. Intervening during question hour Mr P.K. Dhumal, the Chief Minister, assured the House that action would be taken against the guilty officers in the bitumen emulsion scandal. Earlier replying to the
joint question of Mr Kaul Singh and Mr G.S. Bali, the PWD
Minister, Mr Mohinder Singh, informed the House that the
Chief Engineer Mandi Zone, ordered the purchase of 2400
tonne bitumen emulsion out of which 1700 tonne worth Rs
2.30 crore was received. He also puchased some other
items like paints, ropes, door fittings to the tune of Rs
26 lakh without any demand. |
Himachal PCC poll on June 30 SHIMLA, March 6 — Polling for electing the president of the Pradesh Congress Committee will be conducted on June 30. According to the organisational elections programme issued by the PCC here today, the last date for filing of nominations for the post of president of the PCC is June 15. Counting of votes will be done on July 3. Election of DCC
presidents and DCC executives will be completed between
June 5 to 8. |
NHPC to get Hibra project CHAMBA, March 6 — The process of assigning the construction work on the two prestigious hydroelectric projects of Hibra and Kuther on the Ravi river in the district to the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) is in the pipeline, Mr Shanta Kumar, Union Minister of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution system (PDS) said here yesterday. He hoped that Himchal Pradesh would soon be a power State of the country, Mr Shanta Kumar during his visit to Chamba inspected the progress on the ongoing construction work of the 300-megawatt prestigious Chamera hydroelectric project (stage-II) and expressed his satisfaction over the work which is ahead of schedule. Mr Parminder Singh, Chief Engineer of the Chamera project, disclosed that the work of tunnelling on four fronts of the project was started on October 16 last year and uptil now 1369 metres of tunnels had been excavated against a target of 1046 metres. The Chief Engineer said round-the-clock work of tunnelling eight to nine fronts was on, he said. The work on infrastructure facilities and residential accommodation would be completed by May this year. The project had already constructed 91 quarters which were being used by project employees. The project had taken up the task of widening Baloo-Hardaspura road through the state Public Works Department (PWD) for which Rs 95 lakh had already been deposited with the PWD. He said the Union
Ministry of Environment had accorded approval to the
catchment area treatment plan costing Rs 10.73 crore
which would be executed by the state forest department. |
Virbhadra denies report on RSS SHIMLA, March 6 — Senior Congress leader, Mr Virbhadra Singh, has denied that he ever presided over functions of the RSS during his chief ministership. In a statement here today, Mr Virbhadra Singh said during his political career of over four decades, he had never attended any meeting of the RSS level alone presiding over it. He was commenting on the statement of Mr Ganesh Dutt, media in charge of the BJP, who had made the allegation. Mr Virbhadra Singh took strong note of the BJP press note having been drafted and faxed by the State Public Relations Department. He described this as yet
another example of a blatant misuse of official machinery
and resources of the state to further the cause of the
ruling BJP and amounts to misconduct on the part of the
officials of the Information and Public Relations
Department. |
Old clocks tick again in
Shimla SHIMLA: After the repair of the historic clock on the Christ Church here, it is the turn of the clock on the Heritage building of the Telephone Exchange, which has started clicking. A mechanically driven clock with the traditional system of winding has been installed on the Telephone Exchange building, constructed right on the Mall by the British in 1885. The earlier clock worked on the pulse system and had been out of order for several years. A Calcutta firm, Anglo Swiss Ltd., had installed the clock at a cost of Rs 1.70 lakh. It was inaugurated by the CGMT, Mr N.S. Gill, last week. The suppliers of the new clock are specialised manufactures of tower clocks in the country. The clock is unique as it runs with a weight of 90 kg, which is wound through the levers. The Chief Technician of the company, Mr A.K. Sen, claims that the clock would function efficiently for at least 50 years. One such clock has already been installed at Kasauli. The clock on the Christ
Church has been functioning satisfactorily after having
been installed in September last year. The original clock
was installed in 1860 and had stopped working about 30
years ago. |
Minister expresses inability to
remove HAS officer KANGRA, March 6 — The Himachal Health Minister, Mr J.P. Nadda, has expressed his inability to remove the HAS officer, posted as Additional Director, Health Services, whose removal was demanded by medical officers of the state. Mr Nadda assured a delegation of the Himachal Pradesh Medical Officers' Association that he would convey their sentiments to Chief Minister in this regard. Dr Susheel Sharma, spokesperson for the Himachal Medical Officers' Association, in a statement here today said that, however, the minister had agreed and accepted their demands for the release of time scale of four, nine and 14 years, the release of 10 per cent house rent allowance, and the release of postgraduate increment by March 31. Dr Sharma said Mr Nadda had accepted their demands at a meeting with a delegation of the association at Shimla recently in presence of Health Secretary and Director, Health Services. Dr Sharma said the deadlock over the issue of the HAS officer's removal from the post of Additional Director Health Services, continued. The association
threatened to resort to a direct action if the government
did not implement its decision regarding the acceptance
of the demands. |
Panun Kashmir flays killings KANGRA, March 6 — The Panun Kashmir, frontline organisation of the Kashmiri Pandits, today condemned selective killings of the innocent Kashmiri Pandits by Kashmiri and foreign militants in the Kashmir valley in the past few days. A spokesman of the Himachal unit of the organisation, Mr Madan Lal Kaul today condemned gruesome killings of the innocent Kashmiri Pandits in the valley for no fault of theirs. He denounced the killing of Brij Lal at Uttersoo in Anantnag district on the eve of Shivratri. He said last month militants attacked a cluster of Kashmiri Pandit houses at Tailwani and killed six Kashmiri Pandits, including women and children. He said the revival of the selective killings pointed towards the failure of the state government. He demanded resignation of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and Union Home Minister L.K. Advani for their failure to safeguard the Kashmiri Pandits in the valley. The spokesman also
expressed concern over the increase in the militant
activities in the Jammu region. |
Rs 4.33 cr for water supply
scheme DALHOUSIE, March 6 — The Union Ministry of Urban Development has allocated Rs 4.33 crore for the construction of Dalhousie water supply scheme which is one of the key water supply scheme of Himachal Pradesh. Giving this information to reporters here yesterday, Mr Shanta Kumar, Union Minister of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution System, said the prestigious water supply scheme specially designed for Dalhousie was prepared by the Himachal Pradesh Government with an outlay of Rs 7.35 crore. Under the scheme, water will be lifted from a source, Bathri stream, at Sherpur near the Ravi river from a distance of about 10 km and having a total lift of 1498 metres. When completed and commissioned, this scheme would go a long way in meeting the present requirement of water supply in Dalhousie. Meanwhile, Mrs Ranu
Chadha, President of the Dalhousie Municipal Council has
thanked Mr Shanta Kumar for his endeavour in getting the
amount sanctioned from the Central Government. |
Six arrested for smuggling
timber MANDI, March 6 — The police has arrested six persons, who had allegedly attempted to cross the forest barrier at Komand on Friday. They were trying to take out four Maruti vans carrying smuggled timber. However, a woman forest aguard foiled their attempt. Fearing being caught they reversed their vans unloaded the timber at some unknown place and absconded. The forest staff,
however, identified the persons involved in the crime and
the numbers of vans which led to the arrests. |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh Tribune | In Spotlight | 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 119 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
