H I M A C H A L   P R A D E S H

Centre rejects HP bid to denotify forest land
Chandigarh, August 8
The Centre has shot down a move by the Himachal Pradesh Government to denotify thousands of acres of forest land, spread across the state. 

9 die in bus mishap
Shimla, August 8
Nine persons were killed and 25 injured when a private bus fell into a khud at Khaneri in Rampur tehsil, 145 km from here, this evening. 

Commission gets control of Class III posts
Shimla, August 8
The Himachal today took out from the purview of the state subordinate all class III posts carrying pay scale of Rs 5000 and above.

Rs 12.5 cr for Himachal water schemes
Shimla, August 7
The Centre has sanctioned Rs 12.50 crore for various water supply schemes in Himachal Pradesh.

Pilgrims cross Chamba for yatra
Chamba, August 8
The first group of 591 pilgrims, including 307 men, 284 women and children, on way to Manimahesh from the Bhadarwah area of Jammu and Kashmir crossed the border of Chamba district under tight security provided by the Rashtriya Rifles, the CRPF and the Jammu and Kashmir Police.

Rain wreaks havoc on roads
Kumarhatti, August 8
Heavy rain during the past few days has wreaked havoc on roads in the region. The worst-hit are rural link roads that have been either washed away or blocked due to extensive landslips. 

Seminar on cardiac care held
Shimla, August 8
Cardiac care and the advances made in cardiac surgery and procedures to enable effective treatment was the core theme of a seminar organised today by Fortis Heart Institute and Multi-Speciality Hospital in Shimla.

Dharna by 150 senior citizens
Solan, August 8
Nearly 150 senior citizens sat in dharna in front of the Municipal Council office here for three hours yesterday. They were protesting against water scarcity in the town, some parts of which had not received water for the past six days.

Sanskrit academy  recast
Shimla, August 8
The Himachal Government yesterday re-constituted the state Sanskrit academy. It will be headed by the Chief Minister. 

Centre rejects HP bid to denotify forest land
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 8
The Centre has shot down a move by the Himachal Pradesh Government to denotify thousands of acres of forest land, spread across the state. The authorities concerned in the State Forest Department have been asked to explain as to how the move was initiated nearly five years ago without seeking permission from the Union Ministry of Forests and Environment.

Action has been sought against the officers responsible for issuing the notification to get the forest land denotified. A notice has already been issued to the Secretary (Forests), Himachal Pradesh. However, the Forest Officers in Himachal Pradesh maintain that pockets of land mentioned in the notification was not the forest land.

Mr Dinesh K. Sharma, Conservator of Forests, Northern Region, Ministry of Environment and Forests, said “ Himachal Pradesh was ecologically fragile and very sensitive. The ecology of the forest area could be disturbed by the denotification of forest lands”.

The decision of the Centre has been communicated to the state government after the National Advisory Committee, constituted under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, turned down a request of the state to “consider” its notification.

Inquiries reveal that the state government has been insisting on the Centre to allow transfer of the land, spread all over Solan, Mandi, Kulu and other districts in the state, for construction of public utilities. Under the Forest Act and the Forest Conservation Act, the forest land could not be diverted to non-forestry use without the prior permission of the Centre.

According to a notification of 1952, all the government wasteland and land on which government propriety rights were applicable, the Forest Act, 1980 and the Forest Conservation Act came into force. For any non-forestry projects a state government has to take prior permission of the Centre as upheld by a Supreme Court verdict.

9 die in bus mishap
Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 8
Nine persons were killed and 25 injured when a private bus fell into a khud at Khaneri in Rampur tehsil, 145 km from here, this evening.

The bus (No H.P.06-5011) was on way to Jhakri from Rampur. There were 35 passengers on board when the mishap took place. The owner of the bus was among the dead.

Five of the killed have been identified as Savitri Devi of Nirmand village, Vinod Sharma of Rattan Pur, Dev Raj Sharma of Nadaun (Hamirpur), Hem Raj of Kotla, owner of the bus, and Lokjang of Sarhan.

The injured have been shifted to a hospital at Rampur.

Ten seriously injured persons have been referred to the IGMC Hospital, here.

Commission gets control of Class III posts
Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 8
The Himachal today took out from the purview of the state subordinate all class III posts carrying pay scale of Rs 5000 and above.

This decision was taken at a meeting of the state Cabinet held under the chairmanship of Mr Virbhadra Singh, Himachal Chief Minister, here today. The cabinet also decided to transfer the recruitment to these posts to the state Public Service Commission. It also approved the abolition of one post of member of the board the pay scale of Rs 18,400-22400 in the Subordinate Services Selection Board and creation of one post in the same pay scale in the commission.

Giving details of the decision Mrs Rajender Bhattacharya, Chief Secretary, said that a proposal to mobilise Rs 1084 crore through term loan or bonds issued by private placement by the state Infrastructure Development board against the non SLR borrowing. The amount would also include guarantee for Rs 500 crore of term loan approved.

It also decided to provide guarantee of Rs 5 crore in favour of state Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation Solan for raising loan from the National Scheduled Tribes Finance and Development Corporation for providing loans to Schedules Tribe families. The decision would benefit tribal families as low interest loans would be available to them.

The cabinet also approved the waiving of the guarantee fee at the rate of one per cent and 0.2 (zero point two) per cent commitment charges on the said state guarantee for the benefit of tribal people of the state.

The Chief Secretary said that the Cabinet also approved the creation of 16 posts of various categories and purchase of two vehicles for making two Fast-Track Courts at Dharamsala and Shimla functional.

Rs 12.5 cr for Himachal water schemes
Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 7
The Centre has sanctioned Rs 12.50 crore for various water supply schemes in Himachal Pradesh.

The Irrigation and Public Health Minister, Mr Kaul Singh Thakur, who called on the Union Rural Development Minister, Mr Kashi Ram Rana, in New Delhi, yesterday said Rs 7.78 crore had been released for setting up 2,489 hand pumps, Rs 1.25 crore for providing drinking water to 463 schools and Rs 3.42 crore for reviving traditional water resources in the state. He said 6,800 primary schools would be provided drinking water facility with a cost of Rs 31.62 crore during current financial year. The Centre had sanctioned Rs 14.40 crore for setting up 1,200 hand pumps in drought-affected areas of the state. He disclosed that a fresh survey on the drinking water status would be carried out in the state and completed by March, 2004.

He said he had sought financial assistance for setting up two mobile laboratories in the state, which till now had 14 testing laboratories.

Mr Kaul Singh also requested the Centre to allow the Rs 75-crore Bansan water supply scheme to be funded by Japan International Cooperation for improvement of water supply schemes in the severely drought-hit villages in Hamirpur district. Financial assistance of Rs 13.41 crore to provide drinking water to 17 gram panchayats in the Kutlehar area of Una district was also sought, he stated.

Pilgrims cross Chamba for yatra
Our Correspondent

Chamba, August 8
The first group of 591 pilgrims, including 307 men, 284 women and children, on way to Manimahesh from the Bhadarwah area of Jammu and Kashmir crossed the border of Chamba district under tight security provided by the Rashtriya Rifles, the CRPF and the Jammu and Kashmir Police.

Giving this information here today, Dr D.K. Chowdhary, Deputy Superintendent of Police, said security arrangements on the border of Chamba district adjoining the militancy-infested belts of Jammu and Kashmir had been beefed up in view of the Manimahesh Yatra.

Rain wreaks havoc on roads
Our Correspondent

Kumarhatti, August 8
Heavy rain during the past few days has wreaked havoc on roads in the region. The worst-hit are rural link roads that have been either washed away or blocked due to extensive landslips. This has affected the transportation of vegetables to markets and remote villages have been virtually cut off.

In Banasar panchayat under Dharampur block, arable land has been washed away, causing great loss to tomato crop. The Bhojnagar-Banasar road has been closed for the past two weeks due to heavy landslips. The 29-km-long Jorji-Mallah road has also been blocked due to landslips. The Patta-Beja road had remained blocked for three days. Similarly, the Parwanoo-Jangheshu-Kasauli road was badly damaged in rain last week.

Vegetable growers of Bhojnagar, Kabakalan and Neri Kalan panchayats are facing great hardships to transport their produce to the Chakki-ka-Mour vegetable market due to the bad condition of the Chakki-ka Mour-Bhojnagar road. The condition of the Subathu-Waknaghat road has also worsened. Heavy rain has caused around Rs 50-lakh damage to roads in the Kasauli PWD division.

Seminar on cardiac care held
Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 8
Cardiac care and the advances made in cardiac surgery and procedures to enable effective treatment was the core theme of a seminar organised today by Fortis Heart Institute and Multi-Speciality Hospital in Shimla.

Attended by more than 65 doctors, the seminar was addressed by senior Fortis doctors, including Dr Virendar Sarwal, Consultant, cardiothoracic and cardiovascular surgery, Dr R.P. Singh, Consultant, interventional cardiology, and Dr Rakesh Jaswal, Consultant, invasive cardiology.

Discussions at the seminar focused on the latest advances in the world of cardiac care. Also discussed were the current status of coronary bypass surgery in CAD, angioplasties, high growth of heart ailments, their causes and ways to encourage a preventive approach among people, new technologies and medical expertise revolutionising cardiac care in the country.

Dharna by 150 senior citizens
Our Correspondent

Solan, August 8
Nearly 150 senior citizens sat in dharna in front of the Municipal Council office here for three hours yesterday. They were protesting against water scarcity in the town, some parts of which had not received water for the past six days.

A spokesperson of the senior citizens said some of them did not have any young and able-bodied family member living with them “who could go and fetch requisite quantities of water from distant sources or from the occasional tanker deployed by the Municipal Council.” As such they were the worst sufferers.

The senior citizens wanted regular supply of potable water to their homes.

When contacted, Municipal Councillors Ajay Chauhan andJhina promised to get adequate supplies restored after sorting out the matter with the IPH Department authorities responsible for lifting the water supplies from the nearby Ashni Khud.

Sanskrit academy recast

Shimla, August 8
The Himachal Government yesterday re-constituted the state Sanskrit academy. It will be headed by the Chief Minister. 

The Education Minister will be its Senior Vice-Chairman and the Principal Secretary, Education, Principal Secretary, Finance, Director of Education, Senior Professor from the Department of Sanskrit, HPU, and the OSD (Sanskrit), will be its official members. — TNS