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Monday,
December 16, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Chief
Minister denies discrimination charge Gujarat win boosts BJP morale Plan to produce 10,000 MW Akalis
have finished BJP in Punjab: Pande |
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Resin
farmers’ hopes belied Reframe
disaster management policy: expert Withdrawal
of powers a ‘retrograde step’ Water,
sanitation workshop concludes Govt
College sans regular staff Bio-monitoring plan for Himalayan rivers Tourism Dept fails
to attract visitors
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Chief Minister denies
discrimination charge Nurpur, December 15 This was stated by the Chief Minister, Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, while addressing a public meeting at Chogan stadium here last evening. Mr Dhumal who presided over a state-level kisan mela organised by National Fertilisers Ltd., (NFL), claimed that his government had removed the barriers of regionalism created by the previous Congress governments in the state. He claimed that there would be no anti-incumbency factor in the coming Assembly elections as his government had acted according to wishes of the people and alleged that the Congress government in the state had always duped the people in the name of development. While ridiculing the claim of the AICC chief, Ms Sonia Gandhi, at a rally at Shillaru in the Theog Assembly segment that there was a wave of change in the state, Mr Dhumal said of course the change was in those Assembly constituencies where Congress MLAs had won in the last elections held in 1998. He also denied the allegation of Ms Gandhi in which she had held the present state government responsible for increasing unemployment. He lambasted the previous Congress governments for framing wrong policies which had resulted unemployment in the state. He also criticised the previous Congress regimes for ignoring the interests of the fruit growers of the merged areas of the state. “It is only his government which enlisted the mango in market intervention scheme which enabled the government to announce support price for it to benefit the fruit growers of the merged areas,” claimed Mr Dhumal. Earlier, the Chief Minister laid the foundation stones for a kisan bhavan to be built at the cost of Rs 25 lakh and building of a community Health Centre at
Rehan. He also laid the foundation stone for the Press Club bhavan near Chogan stadium here and announced a grant of Rs 5 lakh for its construction. Talking about the delay in the appointment of regular teaching and administrative staff in the local Arya Government College, Mr Dhumal held the previous managing committee of Arya Girls College headed by a Congress leader of the area responsible for it. He alleged that the committee had offered to hand over the college campus and management to the state government but later created problems which delayed the take-over process. He announced that the state Cabinet had recently approved college take over which had paved the way for the posting of regular staff in the college. He assured that all requirements of the college would be met shortly. When the Chief Minister was addressing the rally, the audience which stayed till late evening to hear him interrupted and raised slogans demanding district status for Nurpur. Mr Dhumal explained that the Congress which had been opposing the move of the government for creating new districts had submitted a memorandum to the Central Election Commission seeking its intervention for forbidding the government to carve out new districts. He said the government had been trying its best to remove objections of the commission. He said whenever the government got a nod, Nurpur would be given the district status. On this occasion the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of NFL launched Biotech fertiliser, a new product of the company, Mr Rakesh
Pathania, Chairman, HPTDC, and local MLA thanked the Chief Minister for fulfilling a long-standing demand for a government degree college of the area and sanctioning Rs 18 crore from NABARD for installing 17 tubewells in the Nurpur Assembly segment. Mr Rajan
Sushant, Mr Parveen Sharma, Mr Ravinder Ravi, Cabinet colleagues of the Chief Minister, Mr Ram Dass
Malangar, Deputy Speaker, Mr Kirpal Parmar, MP, Rajya Sabha and Mr Jaikishan Sharma, state BJP president were also present. |
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Gujarat
win boosts BJP morale Shimla, December 15 While the Congress had been posting impressive wins, the BJP and its allies were losing power in one state after the other that its popularity graph had been on the decline. This was also reflected in the BJP’s defeat in the Shimla Municipal Corporation poll held in April. Besides, moves like the creation of new districts and delimitation of Assembly and parliamentary constituencies had widened the gulf between the Dhumal and Shanta Kumar factions. Thus, the Gujarat victory will provide the cadre something to cheer on the eve of the Himachal Assembly poll. Mr Dhumal has hailed the Gujarat poll results as a positive vote for the performance of the BJP government and also for the leadership of Mr Narendra Modi. Mrs Vidya Stokes, the Pradesh Congress Committee chief, however, maintained that the outcome of Gujarat poll would not have any bearing on Himachal Pradesh as communalism was not an issue in the hill state. She said the people would put the Dhumal government in the dock for rampant corruption,
favouritism and discrimination in recruitments and lack of governance. Mr Ganesh Dutt, BJP spokesperson, said it was the victory of nationalist forces over the “so-called” secular forces, which tried their best to defame the BJP. Mr Harsh Mahajan, vice-president of the state Congress, said the Gujarat Assembly election results were not unexpected as the Modi-led BJP government had left no stone unturned to divide the people of Gujarat on communal lines. Mr Jaikrishan Sharma, the state BJP chief, has congratulated Mr Venkaih Naidu, the National Party President, Mr Narinder Modi and Mr Arun Jaitley, the party General Secretary, for the landslide victory of the party in Gujarat. In his felicitation message Mr Sharma said it was a defeat of the pseudo-secular forces and all those who tried to tarnish the image of Gujarat. He said he countdown had begun for the Congress with its defeat in byelections in Rajasthan and other states whereas the BJP was set to repeat its Gujarat performance in the hill state where elections are to be held shortly. Solan: Terming the BJP’s victory in the Gujarat Assembly poll as victory of those perpetuating communalism, the General Secretary of the National Youth Congress, Mr Kuljit Singh Nagra, said here today that it was a temporary phase and the people would soon regret this decision. Casting aspersions on the BJP’s ideology of having used communalism to further their interests, he said the trend was a threat to the country. Urging the political parties to pursue politics based on issues and developmental works he stated that while the Congress had emerged victorious where development was the issue, in Gujarat the BJP had won solely on the communal card. Talking to mediapersons the Youth Congress General Secretary expressed concern over the fact that as many as 12 lakh educated youth in Himachal were unemployed. The rampant corruption and failure of the BJP-HVC government to address the problem of unemployment in Himachal would be the major issue in the forthcoming Assembly elections here. He said while due credit would be accorded to candidates having a mass support it would also be ensured that non-active candidates from political families would not be granted ticket solely on the basis of their family background. Mr Nagra who is here to convene a series of meetings with Youth Congress activists in Himachal said an assessment of the organisational strength of the Youth Congress and poll strategy for the impending poll would be devised through these meetings. Mr Nagra was greeted by state Youth Congress General Secretary Mr Sanjay Awasthy and other activists. |
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Gujarat poll
outcome welcomed Hamirpur, December 15 The people of Gujarat, he added, had clearly voted in favour of Vajpayee-led BJP policies by giving the party their whole-hearted support in the elections. |
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Training camp for BJP
workers Shimla, December 15 Mr Suresh Bhardwaj, Vice-President of the party, inaugurating the camp urged the partymen to blunt the congress propaganda with logic and apprise the people of the achievement of the Dhumal government on the development front. He said the “vishwas yatra” being started by Prof P.K. Dhumal, the Chief Minister, from December 22 would set the pace for the party’s poll campaign. Mr Ganesh Dutt, the party spokesperson also spoke. |
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Plan to produce 10,000 MW Shimla, December 15 The state has drawn up a plan to generate 10,000 MW of additional power by 2008 which will earn the state Rs 2000 crore a year. The state has identified hydel power potential of 20,376 MW, almost 25 per cent of the country’s total potential. However, over the past 50 years only 3900 MW of it has been tapped. It was only over the past four years that the government gave priority to hydel power and took policy decision to restore the ratio of hydel power to the thermal power to 40° to 60 which had declined to 25° to 75. The decision has ensured adequate investment in the hydel power sector and work on some major projects has been started. These include the 2051 MW Parbati project, 800 MW Kol dam project, 144 MW Sawara Kuddu project 300 MW Baspa-II, 192 MW Allain-Duhangan and 70 MW Dhamwari-Sunda projects being executed in the private sector. Besides 176 MW Kashang, 12 MW Khauli, 100 MW UHL and 40 MW Renuka projects have been taken up in the state sector. The 86 MW Malana hydel project created history of sorts when commissioned in private sector in less than three years. Work on 126 MW Larji hydroelectric project is in full swing and is likely to be completed by 2004. Out of 10,000 MW power generation envisaged by the government under its perspective plan 2226 MW would be generated by the end of year 2003. The state will be in a position to supply power to consumers at lower rates and meet the energy requirements of the country in general and northern region in particular once these projects were commissioned. Alternative sources of energy are also being explored by encouraging the use of proven technologies to popularise renewal energy through Integrated Rural Energy Planning Programme (IREP), which has been taken up as full-fledged programme in 45 blocks of the state. The state’s performance in rural electrification has been remarkable after having achieved the target of 100 per cent electrification of census villages, the electrification of left-out hamlets has been taken in hand and 3970 hamlets have provided power so far. Accelerated power development programme for the strengthening of transmission and distribution system was being implemented. |
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Akalis have finished BJP in Punjab: Pande Hamirpur, December 15 Talking with reporters here today, he said the Akalis would not be able to stage a comeback in Punjab as the present Congress government in state was doing a lot for the well-being of the people of the state. The Akalis had failed to launch any morcha against the government and their jail bharo stir was a big fiasco. The Akali Dal was a divided house and it would not be able to stage a comeback, he added. Mr Pande denied any division in the party in the wake of differences of opinion between two of its top leaders, Capt Amarinder Singh, and Mrs Rajinder Kaur Bhattal. The Punjab minister admitted that the state was facing a fiscal crisis. Entire world was in grip of fiscal crisis and efforts were on to put state back on rail with regards to its finances. The Centre was not helping the state and this was another reason behind some of the harsh decisions taken by the state to manage its finances properly. Mr Pande said he would strengthen his department to provide better and modern printing facilities to all departments in the state. Old machinery would be replaced and computerised machinery would be installed. The Secretary of the department had been told to prepare a list of the old machinery and once the list was prepared, the matter would be discussed with the Chief Minister for placing an order for the modern machinery. The Cong leader, who is party in charge for Hamirpur district said persons with winning capacity and having good reputation would be fielded at all five Assembly seats. He said the party was well knit in the district and would face the elections unitedly. He said that a large number of party activists had met him in the past three days and submitted him lists of candidates to be fielded from the district. Mr Pande said, though Hamirpur was the home district of the Chief Minister, Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, yet the Congress would field strongest candidates to oust the BJP from power. The Congress observer today met a number of deputations from the five Assembly segments of the district and listened to their viewpoint. He also held a meeting at Lambloo to elicit the viewpoint of the party workers of the Bamsan area, the home constituency of the BJP Chief Minister. The workers spoke freely and decided to work whole-heartedly for the party. A majority of the party workers supported the candidature of Mr Kuldip Singh Pathania, former MLA from this seat. |
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Resin farmers’ hopes belied Shimla, December 15 The hopes of farmers, who till the last year had no option but to sell their resin to the State Forest Corporation, for a substantial increase in their sale proceeds have been belied due to flooding of the Indian market by imported rosin (processed resin). The prices of rosin has been crashing ever since restrictions on imports were lifted under the WTO agreement. Over the past two years prices of rosin have come down by about 25 per cent. This year alone the rates have come down from Rs 32 to Rs 28 per kg. The private processing units outside the state have reduced the purchase price of resin accordingly and it ranged between Rs 2,400 to only Rs 2,450 per quintal. The State Forest Corporation is procuring it at the rate of Rs 2,050 per quintal. There is little incentive for farmers in taking their produce out of the state as the cost of transportation and taxes more than neutralises the price difference. The state corporation, which had been anticipating shortage of resin for its two processing factories due to the lifting of ban on export, procured over 20,000 quintals of private resin, slightly more than last year. It tapped 88,000 quintals of resin from government forests to utilise the full processing capacity of its factories after a gap of three years. However, the corporation was operating at almost the break-even level and any further decline in prices could make resin processing uneconomical in its units. It had significantly cut down the cost of production to face global competition and improved the quality of the produce. The percentage of pale grades of rosin which fetch a higher price has been increased from 52 in 2000 to 71.5 per cent this year. However, there is no market for it in the northern region, the main requirement is in Mumbai. The situation worsened this year as the Centre reduced the import duty from 30 to 25 percent. It further proposed to bring it down to 20 per cent over the next two year, which could spell disaster for the corporation and ultimately the farmers. Unrestricted imports have hit the economic interests of farmers not only in Himachal but also Jammu and Kashmir and Uttranchal. The three states together produce 30,000 tonnes of rosin to meet 75 per cent of the country’s requirement. Unless the Centre increases import duty to discourage unwarranted imports the rosin industry in the country would perish China which accounts for 80 per cent of world rosin trade has already flooded the Indian market and if no preventive measures are taken it will capture the entire domestic market. |
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Reframe
disaster management policy: expert Shimla, December 15 Mr Shukla stated there was an urgent need to restructure the policy on disaster management, reflecting a holistic approach involving prediction, mitigation and preparedness in the pre-disaster phase along with the ongoing post-disaster relief and rehabilitation. He said experts must ponder over the efficacy of modern designs of buildings and the engineering model in hilly areas. The Director, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehra Dun, Dr N.S. Virdi, said surface faulting was the main reason for earthquakes. The state came in seismic zones IV and V, where the intensity of quakes could vary from 8 to 9 on the Richter scale. The periodicity of major earthquakes had been estimated between 5-100 years. If an earthquake of the same intensity as that of Kangra in 1905 was to recur, it could cause havoc. |
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Withdrawal
of powers a ‘retrograde step’ Dharamsala, December 15 As per gazette notification, in future all NGOs and social organisations working beyond the limits of one development block will have to seek registration with the Registrar Co-operative Societies at Shimla. Earlier, the Deputy Commissioners were empowered to do so and they had authorised the
local SDMs to register such organisations. Talking to this correspondent, Mr Ajit Kumar, Chairman of the Dhauladhar Education Society, and a well-known social worker, said this would adversely affect the spread of co-operative movement in
the state and also discourage new NGOs and social organisations to come forward for registration. He said new social organisations and co-operatives would now have to go to Shimla for registration which was time consuming and would lead to heavy expenses. Mr Ajit Kumar said many new organisations might not bother to undertake this exercise and ultimately give up the idea of working in Himachal Pradesh. Mr Ajit Kumar while appealing to the state government to reconsider its decisions, expressed the view that Himachal had most of its population living in remote and inaccessible areas. Even after 55 years of Independence, many villages lack basic facilities and the government departments had failed to reach to these people. He said in recent years, individuals with zeal had penetrated into these areas and had started encouraging locals to come forward for their development. He said these attempts had started yielding results in shape of new NGO groups coming up with local membership. If restrictions were put at initial stage, the movement would die, he said. Mr Ajit Kumar feels that on the other hand, the state government must encourage more NGOs to go to distant and remote villages and work for the upliftment of rural poor. |
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Water, sanitation workshop concludes Nahan, December 15 The one-day workshop was organised by the Vishwa Jagriti Manch , an NGO with the help of Himachal Irrigation and Public Health Department
(IPH), Nahan circle. Mr P.L. Jain, Superintending Engineer, IPH, Nahan circle, presided over the function and called upon people to help implement the new water supply schemes. He said that there was no shortage of funds for new water supply schemes and the people would have to contribute only 10 per cent of the cost. These schemes would be implemented by the community, added Mr Jain. A cultural show based on the theme of the progress presented while six resource persons imparted training on water conservation and sanitation to the villagers. A resolution on keeping villages neat and clean was also adopted. People from Nahan,
Bankala, Satiwala, Rama Dhaun, Mattar, Bikram Bag and Nauni participated in the discussion. |
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Govt College sans regular staff Nurpur, December 15 The Chief Minister, Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, had on June 16 announced the takeover of the local Arya Girls College. The management of the college also agreed to hand over the management and assets to the government. The state government finally took over the college premises on October 26. HP University has till now failed to list even the faculties in the college. The college has no common room, canteen, separate urinals. The present staff has not been getting salary as the government has not released the drawing and
disbursing powers. The Students Central Association headed by NSUI and the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) unit of the college are up in arms against the lackadaisical attitude of the government and HP University in providing basic amenities and posting regular teaching and administrative staff in the college. |
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Bio-monitoring plan for Himalayan rivers Shimla, December 15 An official spokesman of the board said a regular surveillance of the quality of water of major rivers and tributaries was being regularly undertaken by the board from more than 90 regular monitoring points on major rivers. Keeping in view the decline in the quality of water it directed major hotel and tourist resorts to put up sewage treatment systems for the disposal of solid wastes. As a result work related to the setting up of improved waste water management and treatment system had been undertaken in all hotels on the Beas. Besides, efforts were undertaken by the board, Irrigation, Public Health and Urban Development Departments for setting up sewage treatment plants and municipal solid waste treatment and disposal facilities at the critical points along the Beas. |
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Tourism
Dept fails to attract visitors Shimla, December 15 Thus, the department has to make use of old documentaries to market tourism potential of the state. These documentaries lack freshness and do not have the appeal to attract up-market tourists. The department also does not have a permanent publicity officer and has only an ad-hoc arrangement in this regard. |
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