 |
| Tuesday, April 11, 2000, Chandigarh, India  
|
Changes in planning law opposed HP to review old-age, widow
pension cases Phones dead for one month HP clears housing colony at
Sanjauli Workshop on roads organised Dhumal turns 56 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New HPSEB chief SHIMLA, April 10 — Mrs Asha Swaroop, Financial Commissioner-cum-Secretary Health, has been appointed as Chairperson of the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board, relieving Mr A.K. Goswami, Chief Secretary, of the additional charge. 
|
IIAS will get ‘Indian
identity’ SHIMLA, April 10 — Prof V.C. Srivastava, the new director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies IIAS, will strive to establish the Indian identity of the institute by encouraging collaborative research in hitherto neglected disciplines. "The institute has been all these years by and large functioning in isolation and it is one of the main reasons that it has failed to make its mark as outstanding centre of higher learning," Prof Srivastava observed during an interview here today. Much research work had been done by the instutute during the 35 years of its existence but it was not carried out from the Indian point of view. The emphasis now would be on Indian philosophy, culture, social sciences and literature to help establish the Indian identity in the context of World culture. The basic direction of research would be to project the Indian viewpoint. With this objective in view, the institute has decided to collaborate with G.B. Pant Institute of Social Sciences, Sanskrit Institute, Tirupati, Rashktriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Centre for Rural and Industrial Research and Development and Indian National Science Academy. The arrangement would enable the institute to continue its academic activity vigorously even during winter, when Shimla is in the grip of a cold wave. A proposal to set up a centre for the study of Indian civilisation had been approved by the centre in principle. This would help promote a better understanding of the country and its unique civilisation. Last week, the instutute had opened its own website. www IIAS ORG, which would provide all information regarding it and the ongoing academic activity. The entire library would be put on the Internet over the next three months. Simultaneously, efforts were being made to strengthen the academic proramme by not only increasing the number of research fellows but also ensuring that they were selected on the basis of intensive merit and no other consideration. The number had already been increased to 26 and the target was to raise it to 50 in due course. It had also been decided to bring out a Hindi research journal entitled ‘chetna’. A 24-day summer school on "working of mind" to be held in June will provide an idea of the direction of research. The institute is also organising a three-day national seminar on "The Mahabharata" from April 11. About 30 scholars from
different parts of the country and belonging to various
disciplines — life history, archaeology, astronomy,
anthropology, Sanskrit, prakrit and other ancient modern
Indain languages — will participate in the seminar. |
Changes in planning law opposed DHARAMSALA, April 10 — Fearing inclusion in the committee area, residents of the Naddi, Sidhbari, Rakkar, Sukoh and Shamnagar localities of the town are opposing the move for these areas to be included in the planning limits. After sitting over the matter for five years, the government has now asked officials of the Town and Country Planning Department to elicit the opinion of the residents of these areas. The Secretary-cum-Commissioner, Town Planning, has directed the officials to hold talks with the public, so that a decision can be taken in this regard. Interestingly, all these localities form part of the development plan, which was cleared in 1994, but are outside the planning limits. "The entire exercise of making the development plan has been rendered futile, as haphazard and unscientific growth is in full swing, especially in the Naddi area", lamented one of the officials. The Assistant Town Planner, Mr Raina, when contacted said the process to get a positive response from the public was on and a number of meetings had been held. "People are not averse to the idea of being included in the planning limits but fear being made part of the municipal committee at a later stage," he stated. A large number of people said they did not wish to lose the rural base by being dictated by the planning Act. "In case the government is willing to provideus basic amenities like street lighting and drainage, we have no problem. Otherwise there is no point in being included in the planning limits," said Prof M.R. Sharma of Sidhbari. Commenting on the government move, Mr Subhash Sharma, resident of Shamnagar, said it was a shrewd act by the authorities to burden the people with municipal taxes later on. He said on the other hand not even a slight deviation from the construction plan would be allowed by the authorities. Mr Raina said the fear of the people was unfounded as there would be restrictions only on construction of residential colonies, commercial establishments on outsiders and not on the villagers or the locals. The situation is the worst in the Naddi area, where construction of highrise buildings is in full swings. Even a slight tremor can spell doom, as recent faults due to tectonic activity, can be seen at Naddi. People feel that the government will realise the problem when the damage is already done. Scientists say that Dharamsala and the Chamba zone was still capable of generating earthquakes of large magnitude. Environmentalists and
scientists feel that this is a technical issue where
development and orientation angle should be given more
weightage than popular public opinion. |
HP to review old-age, widow
pension cases SHIMLA, April 10 — The Himachal Government will review all 29,201 pending old-age, handicapped and widow pension cases to ensure that only the deserving got this benefit. Stating this during question hour Mr Mansa Ram, Himachal Civil Supplies Minister, said that the cases would be decided on merit and the undeserving would be weeded out. He said 17,778 pending cases were of old-age, 3,503 of handicapped and 7,920 of widows. During 1998-99 as many as 6,277 cases were sanctioned and 816 in 1999-2000. The Centre had sanctioned 13,662 fresh cases which would help reduce the pending cases substantially. Mr Ramesh Chaudhary, Himachal Irrigation and Public Health Minister, said hand pumps would be installed in water scarcity-prone areas on priority. He said over the past three years 2490 hand pumps were installed out of which 981 were installed in 1999-2000 as against a target of 704. Mr Roop Das Kashyap, Urban Development Minister, told Mrs Asha Kumari that Rs 9.32 crore had been set apart for the Swarn Jayanti Rozgaar Yojana. As many as 4.88 lakh man days were generated and 559 persons got self employement. Intervening during the
question hour, Mr P.K. Dhumal, Chief Minister, clarified
that the government had not levied any new tax but only
fixed the maximum limit for various taxes to be levied by
panchayats. |
Phones dead for one month KASAULI, April 10 —Telephone subscribers of Jagjit Nagar exchange near here are facing difficulties as phones have been out of order for the past one month. Either the phones remain dead or function for a brief period and then become non-functional. People cannot make or receive calls even from nearby areas "sometimes it takes more than half an hour to call up even locally" complained Kalapna a local subscriber. We have to travel all the way to Kasauli to make long distance calls", laments another subscriber Krishan. Telephone department officials when contacted said that lightening which occurred early last month, had caused a fault in telephone lines. They are trying to detect and repair it. There are 30 lines in the exchange and only eight are functional. These are directed through the Patta exchange. Meanwhile the residents
feel cut off from the other areas in the absence of
proper functioning of the phones. |
HP clears housing colony at
Sanjauli SHIMLA, April 10 — The Himachal Pradesh Housing Board today approved proposal for the construction of a housing colony at Sanjauli here. The board, which met here today under the chairmanship of Mr Roop Das, Kashyap, Urban Development Minister also approved the proposal to raise a loan of Rs 25 crore from the National Housing Bank for the purpose. In all 232 flats will be constructed in the colony. The board also cleared
the proposal for raising loan from the National Housing
Bank, amounting to Rs 40.00 crore for the construction of
housing colony at Basal, and Rs 7.00 crore for the
construction of housing colony at Nalagarh in Solan
district. |
Workshop on roads organised DALHOUSIE, April 10 — A workshop on ‘Proposal for road constructions in the light of the Forest Conservation Act in Chamba district was held at Dalhousie today under the chairmanship of Mr Mohinder Pal, Conservator of Forests, Chamba. Nearly 20 officers from the Forest Department and the Public Works Department attended the workshop. Addressing the workshop, Mr P.S. Dogra, Superintending Engineer, PWD circle, Dalhousie, said the PWD was aware of the protection and conservation of forests while undertaking the construction of roads. But he urged the Forest Department to get the proposals of roads cleared from the Environment Ministry as expeditiously as possible. Mr Pal suggested the PWD
authorities to map out the proposal for the road
construction considering all aspects and requirements of
the forest bye-laws in totality so that their proposals
may be cleared by the Government of India. |
Dhumal turns 56 SHIMLA, April 10 — Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, Chief Minister, turned 56 today. The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was on a retreat in Manali, was the first to congratulate him. The Governor, Mr Vishnukant Shastri, also greeted the Chief Minister on his birthday. Members of H.P. council
of ministers, MLAs chairmen, vice-chairpersons and
officers of the state and large number of persons from
all walks of life congratulated him. |
New HPSEB chief SHIMLA, April 10 — Mrs Asha Swaroop, Financial Commissioner-cum-Secretary Health, has been appointed as Chairperson of the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board, relieving Mr A.K. Goswami, Chief Secretary, of the additional charge. Mr R.C. Kapil, Director,
Public Relations, has been posted as Deputy Commissioner,
Kangra. Mr K. Bharti, Director, Language, Art and
Culture, will hold additional charge of the Director,
Public Relations. |
 |
| 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 | |
