H I M A C H A L   P R A D E S H

Forest Dept ready to check fires
Staff, equipment shortage resented
Hamirpur, April 18
The Department of Forests here is ready to meet the threat of forest fires in view of the summer season. Pine trees of the district are known all over world and the total area covered under the forests, DPF and UPF, comes to around 16534.14 hectares out of which 8 per cent area is under the cover of pine tree forests. Pine trees are highly vulnerable to the forest fires.

Delimitation panel meeting on April 29
Shimla, April 18
The decision of the Delimitation Commission to invite fresh proposals for redrawing the boundaries of the parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in the state notwithstanding, the Gaddis and Gujjars of the new Himachal areas, who were accorded the status of the Scheduled Tribes last year, will be denied their political right to contest elections from earmarked seats.

No names in report on NIT violence
Hamirpur, April 18
The report of the internal inquiry committee, led by Dr R.L. Sharma, Professor in the Civil Engineering Department into the August 28 violence at the NIT here, is complete and the Disciplinary committee is studying it.

PWD throws out contractor
Kumarhatti, April 18
The controversy over the alleged irregularities in the construction of the Kheel Ka Mour — Mataando road, near here, under the Pradhan Mari Gramin Sadak Yojna (PMGSY), has taken a new turn, with the HP Public Works Department deciding to terminate the contract with the private contractor due to delay in completion and substandard quality.

Potable water project runs into rough weather
Bilaspur, April 18
An ambitious Rs 57 lakh IEC project launched by the Central Government under the Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission here run into rough weather under the project, Chetna, a prominent social organisation, here was awarded work of launching an awakening and information campaign in the district regarding the risks of polluted water and practical steps to save drinking water and its sources from getting polluted by involving women and youth of the area concerned.

500 posts of forest guard to be filled
Dharamsala, April 18
The Himachal Forest Minister, Mr Chander Kumar, yesterday announced that 500 vacant posts of Forest Guard in the department would be filled soon. He was addressing a public meeting at Amani village in the Guler Vidhan Sabha constituency.

Suraj Bhan flags off trekking expedition
Shimla, April 18
Dr Suraj Bhan, Governor, has lauded the role of the NCC in inculcating the spirit of nationalism, patriotism and strengthening the unity and integrity of the country.

Truckers’ strike jacks up vegetable prices
Shimla, April 18
The indefinite strike called by truckers affected supplies of various commodities on the fifth day today in Himachal Pradesh. A surge in prices of certain vegetables and fruits was reported.

Leopard’s cub killed in bazar
Shimla, April 18
A few month old leopard’s cub was killed at Lakkar Bazar bus stand, here early today. The cub died on the spot and is believed to be run over by a bus. The police reached the spot and informed the Wild Life authorities.

Forest Dept ready to check fires
Staff, equipment shortage resented
Our Correspondent

Hamirpur, April 18
The Department of Forests here is ready to meet the threat of forest fires in view of the summer season.

Pine trees of the district are known all over world and the total area covered under the forests, DPF and UPF, comes to around 16534.14 hectares out of which 8 per cent area is under the cover of pine tree forests. Pine trees are highly vulnerable to the forest fires.

The department has taken timely steps to curtail the fires, according to Mr P.L.Chauhan, Divisional Forest Officer, Hamirpur. It has appointed a large number of daily-paid workers for three months, which are known as firewatchers.

The main job of these workers is to clear the forests of pine needles and to save the forests from the suspected fire incidents.

Talking for The Tribune, Mr Chauhan said the department had already taken preventive steps to deal with the situation by resorting to control burning of forests itself and with the help of people living nearby various forests.

This work is going on with help of forest guards who are less in number. There are 73 beats in the district.

However, the total number of forest guards is one third of their beats. Each guard is asked to cover to or three beats.

The Central Government has yet not sent its share of money to the state and the district under the forest saving programme. The money is mainly utilised for the deputing of daily-paid firewatchers and to provide them various equipments.

Meanwhile, Forest Department officials are highly upset over the shortage of ground level staff and lack of modern equipments with them.

They lament that no modern fire-fighting equipments are given to them and they area forced to extinguish the fires with the help of ‘dandas’ made of wood.

Delimitation panel meeting on April 29
Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 18
The decision of the Delimitation Commission to invite fresh proposals for redrawing the boundaries of the parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in the state notwithstanding, the Gaddis and Gujjars of the new Himachal areas, who were accorded the status of the Scheduled Tribes last year, will be denied their political right to contest elections from earmarked seats.

The process of delimitation, which was stalled on the eve of the Assembly poll following a storm of protests from various political parties and leaders, has been again resumed and the commission is holding a meeting on April 29 in which all nine associate members, all four Lok Sabha MPs and five MLAs, will also participate. The members have been asked to submit fresh proposals indicating that the draft proposals, which caused a political upheaval in the state, had been scrapped.

The new proposals would not be able to take care of the increase in tribal population following the inclusion of Gaddis and Gujjars of the merged areas in the list of the Scheduled Tribes even if these are based on the 2001 census as it was conducted before the decision came. The population of the two communities in these areas ranges between 70,000 and 80,000 which, if taken into account, lead to increase of one reserved seat for the Scheduled Tribes.

At present three out of the total 68 Assembly seats are reserved for Scheduled Tribes. The Gaddis are mostly concentrated along the Dhauladhar ranges from Baijnath to Shahpur in the Kangra district whereas Gujjars are scattered in Nurpur, Nalagarh, Una and Paonta subdivisions.

As things stand at the moment the next delimitation will be held after the Census to be conducted after 2026. This means that the Gaddis and Gujjars of the merged areas will not benefit from the tribal status they have won after more than two decades of struggle for another 32 to 34 years.

Constitutional experts and politicians, however, maintain that inviting fresh proposals will not help in carrying out the exercise rationally unless delimitation is conducted on the basis of the 2001 Census instead of the 1991 Census. Besides, the 84th constitutional amendment should be partially dropped to lift freeze on delimitation up to 2026. While the freeze on the number of seats might continue the exercise must be carried out after every Census to avoid political unrest.

No names in report on NIT violence
Our Correspondent

Hamirpur, April 18
The report of the internal inquiry committee, led by Dr R.L. Sharma, Professor in the Civil Engineering Department into the August 28 violence at the NIT here, is complete and the Disciplinary committee is studying it.

Talking to The Tribune here today, Dr S.K. Bhowmick, acting Director, said no one had been named in the report.

The committee had found no evidence against those who had damaged the property. The mob had caused this incident, the committee observed.

He said that authorities would take action on the basis of the findings of the disciplinary committee. He said he was not aware of the fate of the inquiry report of the Deputy Commissioner of Hamirpur.

Dr Bhowmick said the Ministry of Human Resources had not made the local NIT the lead institution.

This institution had been named as a networking institution, but this status was not accepted by the NIT authorities and the matter was still pending with the ministry. Six NITs had been made lead institutes.

He termed the reports that the NIT at Hamirpur had suffered huge losses as baseless. He said the process of making all NITs, state engineering colleges and private engineering colleges as lead institutes was a continuous process and the Hamirpur NIT would also fall under the same category during the current fiscal year. He said grants for the lead institutes were given on the basis of Five-Year Plans.

No harm would be caused to the local NIT with regard to the sanctioning of grants for various projects, he added.

PWD throws out contractor
Our Correspondent

Kumarhatti, April 18
The controversy over the alleged irregularities in the construction of the Kheel Ka Mour — Mataando road, near here, under the Pradhan Mari Gramin Sadak Yojna (PMGSY), has taken a new turn, with the HP Public Works Department deciding to terminate the contract with the private contractor due to delay in completion and substandard quality.

Confirming this, Mr P.C. Dharoch, Executive Engineer, HPPWD, said yesterday that the work pending — metalling and tarring — would now be completed by the department.

The contractor had been penalised for delay in and poor quality of work, he said, adding that the 6 km stretch of the 12- km road would be metalled in two to three months.

An inspection team of the PMGSY, along with Mr Dharoch, inspected the road on Wednesday.

The road had remained controversial since the beginning.

Potable water project runs into rough weather
Our Correspondent

Bilaspur, April 18
An ambitious Rs 57 lakh IEC project launched by the Central Government under the Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission here run into rough weather under the project, Chetna, a prominent social organisation, here was awarded work of launching an awakening and information campaign in the district regarding the risks of polluted water and practical steps to save drinking water and its sources from getting polluted by involving women and youth of the area concerned. Chetna president Jagdish Kumar Nadda, who is also Chairman of IEC Project Coordination Committee and Des Raj Sharma, project coordinator, said here yesterday that their organisation was given a contract for one year from January, 2003 which was to expire on January 2004 but now the Centre had informed Chetna that the project had been “made linited” uptill March 31, 2003 for three months only and, as such, this written contract ended on March 31, 2003.

The functionaries said Chetna had already trained a large number of youths and also held several workshops and training camps and raised sufficient infrastructure according to project guidelines of the Government of India but now this sudden “breach of contract” had resulted in not only great loss to this social organisation but also to people of Bialspur who were to benefit immensely as the district is draught-prone.

500 posts of forest guard to be filled
Our Correspondent

Dharamsala, April 18
The Himachal Forest Minister, Mr Chander Kumar, yesterday announced that 500 vacant posts of Forest Guard in the department would be filled soon. He was addressing a public meeting at Amani village in the Guler Vidhan Sabha constituency.

Terming the previous government of Mr Dhumal as anti-poor, the Forest Minister said the present Congress government was sensitive to the problems of the poor and landless. He said the state government would soon revive the Indira Gandhi Awas Yojna and Gandhi Kuteer Yojna under which poor and landless would be allotted 5 marlas of land so that they could construct their own houses.

The minister said Government High School Amani, has already been upgraded to senior secondary level and assured people that the shortage of staff in the school would soon be removed.

Suraj Bhan flags off trekking expedition
Our Correspondent

Shimla, April 18
Dr Suraj Bhan, Governor, has lauded the role of the NCC in inculcating the spirit of nationalism, patriotism and strengthening the unity and integrity of the country.

He has exhorted NCC cadets to spread this message so that hard won freedom was maintained and country could progress in leaps and bounds.

Dr Suraj Bhan, flagged off All India Girls Trekking Expedition, 2003, organised by NCC group of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh for senior and junior wings of the NCC at Kufri near here today.

He said such expeditions go a long way in achieving the objective.

He said the nation was proud of younger generation and they should shoulder the responsibility by making the country a great in the community of nations.

Truckers’ strike jacks up vegetable prices

Shimla, April 18
The indefinite strike called by truckers affected supplies of various commodities on the fifth day today in Himachal Pradesh. A surge in prices of certain vegetables and fruits was reported.

The strike had resulted in a rise in the prices of tomato, onion, some vegetables and fruits, sources said.

“The prices of vegetables grown locally, however, faced a marginal increase,” they said. Sources also said it was feared that prices might soar further, if strike was not called off immediately. The supply of cement outside the state was also affected, as cement could not be transported from plants located in the state, they added. The state government, meanwhile, decided that the State Road Transport Corporation buses would be used for transporting medicines, vegetables and other essential items. PTI

Leopard’s cub killed in bazar
Our Correspondent

Shimla, April 18
A few month old leopard’s cub was killed at Lakkar Bazar bus stand, here early today. The cub died on the spot and is believed to be run over by a bus. The police reached the spot and informed the Wild Life authorities.

The claws of the leopard’s cub were removed by the people before the police could reach the spot.

The police has registered a case under the Wild Life Act.