 |
|
Panel disfavours cluster of reserved constituencies
Delimitation panel snubs MLAs
Schemes for women: depts told to gather data on benefits
Forest degradation on at alarming rate
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Police to go hi-tech in drive against drugs
‘CM discriminates against Kangra’
Model village plan to be replicated
Rs 2,000 cr to be spent on
roads
Youth Welfare Board hails job quota decision
Fire in bank: police clueless
Youth drowns in tank
|
|
Panel disfavours cluster of reserved constituencies
Mandi, April 23 After hearing public objections from Mandi, Kullu, Bilaspur and Lahaul-Spiti districts on the draft delimitation proposal-2006 under the revised guidelines here today, Justice Kuldip Singh said the commission’s revised guidelines disfavour the cluster of the reserved constituencies like Balh, Nachan and Karsog in Mandi district and similar segments in other districts. “The reserved constituencies in each district should be evenly distributed so that each section gets justice,” he added. Justice Kuldip Singh said the most objections were received against the proposal of the inclusion of the Jogindernagar assembly segment in the Kangra parliamentary constituency. “We will examine the merit of each objection at the meeting with the commission’s associate members shortly,” he added. Similarly, in other districts the clusters of reserved constituencies would be rectified so that reserved constituencies were equally distributed, Justice Kuldip Singh said while responding to the queries from reporters. Justice Kuldip Singh said normally the commission aimed at creating assembly constituencies within a particular district and did not include areas from other districts, “but in a parliamentary constituency this rule may not apply”. When asked whether the new order on the delimitation would come into force for the 2008 assembly elections, Justice Kuldip Singh said the commission would issue the final order within two months, but the President of India under Article 82 has the final authority to implement the final order. Earlier Justice Kuldip Singh heard all objections on the draft proposal in a good humour from the representatives from the Congress, the BJP and the CPM, including former and sitting MLAs and MPs along with their supporters. The other members and officials present on the occasion included Mrs Rajinder
Bhattacharya, State Election Commissioner, Mr Kaul Singh Thakur, a member of the Delimitation Commission, Mr Chander Kumar, MP from Kangra, and Mrs Pratibha Singh, MP from Mandi. |
|
Delimitation panel snubs MLAs
Palampur, April 23 These proposals concerned certain changes in the proposed draft paper to be placed before Parliament for final approval. Over 10,000 supporters of the BJP and Congress MLAs from Kangra, Una, Chamba and Hamirpur districts called on the commission and urged it to review its draft proposals and consider topography as the main criteria for making new boundaries for the Assembly constituencies. Justice Kuldip Singh (Retd), who heads the commission, told them that the commission was acting as per the guidelines of the law passed in Parliament. At this stage, he had no authority to make drastic changes as suggested by the MLAs and Ministers. He said local MPs should have raised these issues in Parliament when the delimitation proposals were being finalised. The proposals of the Delimitation Commission will affect the political scene in Palampur as after the implementation of these proposals, the number of Assembly segments in this region will come down to four. One of the Assembly
constituencies, Thural, will be abolished. Besides, the commission has proposed to place Jaisinghpur and Baijnath constituencies in the reserved category as the population of Schedule Caste voters have gone up in these two Assembly segments. Information gathered by The Tribune revealed that Mr Ravinder Ravi, BJP MLA and former minister from Thural, and Mr Sudhir Sharma, Parliamentary Secretary from Baijnath, will have no Assembly segments to contest from Thural, a stronghold of the BJP, would be abolished and Baijnath would come in the list of reserved constituencies. However, the home constituency of Mr Shanta Kumar, former Chief Minister, and Sulaha remains in tact. Mr B.B.L. Butail, senior Congress leader and political adviser to the Chief Minister, will also be hit. He would lose 17 panchayats of his constituency comprising 15,000 voters where he had spent a lot of money considered a Congress stronghold. The Congress and the BJP have openly opposed the proposal of the Delimitation Commission. In different press statements issued here today, leaders of both parties said injustice was being done to Palampur region of the state by reducing the number of Assembly segments to four from five. They said the commission had not touched other parts of the state. Mr Sudhir Sharma, Mr Ravinder Ravi and Mr B.B.L. Butail are among those to have lodged
their protests with the commission. |
|
Schemes for women: depts told to gather data on benefits
Shimla, April 23 Since this is only the first year of “gender budgeting”, the government does not want to bring in new elements and instead focus on the outcome of the existing schemes. Each department will undertake gender audit to identify the current gender differential impacts of schemes to enable the government augment women-friendly policies. The objective is to ensure that 30 per cent of the outcome from departmental budgets should positively impact to empower women in various spheres. The assumption is that no policy or department is gender-neutral and that every policy has a positive or negative impact on women. The gender audit will not only focus on the quantitative but also bring out the qualitative impact of schemes. Essentially, it will be a beneficiary incidence analysis (BIA), the outcome of which will enable the government to tailor its policies to the special needs of women. At present, various departments, while implementing schemes, ignore the gender aspect. The exercise of gender auditing will also help sensitise the functionaries about gender issues. To begin with, each department has been asked to create a separate cell in the budget branch to look after “gender budgeting”. |
|
Forest degradation on at alarming rate
Shimla, April 23 A comprehensive exercise to evaluate the impact of degradation on productivity of forests carried out for the first time by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) has brought out a disturbing picture. The forest productivity coefficient for the hill state which should be over 0.5 had come down to 0.31 in 1995 and to 0.28 in 2003. The impact of degradation was also reflected in the declining growing stock of important species. The total standing volume of the stock declined from 1,025 lakh cubic metre in 1995 to 952 lakh cubic metre in 2000. The maximum decline from 410 lakh cubic metre to 387 lakh cubic metre was observed in case fir and spruce which grows in the ecologically sensitive high areas. In case of kail, another alpine species, the standing volume decreased from 136 to 129 lakh cubic metre. The standing volume of deodar and pine increased by 10 lakh cubic metre and 20 lakh cubic metre, respectively, over the period, while the growing stock of other species declined by 73 lakh cubic metre. It is a paradoxical situation where the overall area under forest is increasing but the productivity is declining. Dr Hemant Gupta, Regional Director, FSI, who conducted the study, explains that the severe degradation of dense forests due to heavy removals is the main reason for the declining productivity. The dense forest (with density of 40 per cent or more) declined from 10,429 sq km in 2001 to 8,976 sq km in 2003, a huge loss of 1,453 sq km. Over the same period, the open forest (with density ranging between 10 and 40 per cent) increased by 1,446 sq km. The overall forest cover has shrunk by just 7 sq km but 1,453 sq km of dense forest has degraded into open forest. A dense forest has a productivity coefficient of 0.6 to 0.9, whereas it ranged from 0.1 to 0.4 in case of open forests. |
|
Police to go hi-tech in drive against drugs
Shimla, April 23 With the police stepping up its surveillance in the Kullu-Manali areas, those engaged in the cultivation of opium and hashish are now shifting their bases to other districts, forcing the police to intensify its fight against this illegal activity, with the latest technology. The state police will now make use of a chemical spray developed by Palampur Agricultural University which will defoliate and dry up the cannabis and opium plants which are being cultivated on large patches of land in Kullu, Mandi, Chamba, Shimla and Sirmaur areas. Besides, the police is making use of the latest technology like satellite imaging to get an idea of the areas which are under opium and cannabis cultivation to keep pace with the modern techniques being used by those growing drugs and involved in its trafficking. Some of the police personnel will undergo training to deal with drug-related cases, especially the financial investigation. This mainly involves confiscation of the property of the kingpins and drug peddlers. It is the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) which will hold three workshops for the police force from the state to deal with drug-related cases and the financial investigation. These will be held at Kullu, Dharamsala and Shimla shortly. Sources said that the conviction rate in the NDPC cases being handled by the police has gone up from 16 to 50 per cent. Properties of over half a dozen persons worth crores have been confiscated in police cases in the districts of Kullu, Kangra and Bilaspur. On the other hand, the conviction rate in the cases being dealt by the NCB is almost 100 per cent as the quantum of seizure is large. In one of the cases registered by the NCB against a resident of Sultanpur in Kullu, his flats, plots, fixed deposits and cash were confiscated. The NCB squad had seized 37 kg of hashish and 13 kg of opium from him. The police and the NCB have from time to time been destroying the cannabis and poppy cultivation in huge tracts in Banjar, Parbati, Malana and Manikaran areas of Kullu, Bali Chowki and Chuhar areas of Mandi and the Churah valley in Chamba district. The police will also train its dog squads, comprising German shepherd and Doberman. |
|
‘CM discriminates against Kangra’
Palampur, April 23 He said the Congress government had failed to create a regional balance in the state and was adopting the pick-and-choose policy while allocating funds under government-sponsored schemes to Kangra district. Addressing a news conference here this afternoon, Mr Thakur said the lower region of the state had been facing the worstever drought conditions for the past three months. In many areas the fruit and other crops were damaged by hailstorm but the present government had failed to provide relief to the affected farmers and fruit growers. Mr Thakur said the government had set up 10 divisions of the PWD in Shimla district which had only eight assembly constituencies with a population of seven lakh only, whereas in Kangra, the largest district of the state, there were only nine division of the PWD. |
|
Model village plan to be replicated
Shimla, April 23 The Department of Town and Country Planning (TCP) has chosen this village, falling under the Bilaspur planning area, as a model as it has all basic features of a village in that area. Besides having all requisites of a village, the presence of an open-air jail and rosin and turpentine industry here makes it more ideal, creating job avenues for the villagers. The village has 84 houses, out of which 60 per cent are typical single-storeyed structures. Having a population of 476 in 2001, the growth rate of the village is 9.2 per cent as compared to 15.4 per cent of the district and 17.9 per cent of the state. The population of the village in 1991 was 436 only. As per the plan prepared by the TCP Department, there are a number of problems that the village, spread over an area of 66 hectares, faces. There is the problem of accessibility to the houses as there are no proper approach roads. Besides this, there is an acute shortage of drinking water and problem of deforestation, soil erosion and unplanned development. It is under the various schemes like the Mahila Mandal Self-Help scheme. Various projects will be taken up in the village. As per the model-village plan, potential areas have been identified for which there is a lot of scope in the village. “There is a proposal to get a community centre, check dams and rain-water harvesting structures made in the village so as to ease out the problems being faced by the villagers,” said an official. The department has identified sericulture, bee-keeping, floriculture, herbal cultivation and milk production as the areas where people can work and supplement their income. In order to meet the growing requirements of the villagers, there is also a proposal to have parks, shopping areas, cafe and other facilities created. One of the main objectives of having a model village plan is to keep the agricultural land protected and intact. “Efforts will be made to have plans for villages keeping in view the potential areas where employment can be generated and the income of the villagers supplemented while protecting the basic rural activities like agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry. Even though it is mandatory for the panchayats to prepare a development plan of the area and same for the block so that there is micro-planning but this is not being followed. |
|
|
Rs 2,000 cr to be spent on
roads
Shimla, April 23 Besides, the Centre has approved the four laning of the Zirakpur-Pinjore-Parwanoo-Shimla under the national highway development programme. It will cost more than Rs 1,000 crore and the project will be implemented by the National Highway Authority of India for which land acquisition process is being initiated. The Chandigarh-Baddi road to be constructed by the Punjab and Haryana Governments in their respective territories has been approved by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways under inter-state connectivity programme at a cost of Rs 1,300 crore. The construction will be completed by October 2007. The government has also decided to widen various roads, including the Mehatpur-Una-Amb road, Una-Agahar, Barsar-Jahu-Rewalsar-Mandi road, Ghumarwin-Sarkaghat-Jogindernagar road, Theog-Kotkhai-Rohru road, Kumarhatti-Sarahan-Nahan, Solan-Yashwantnagar Sainj road and the Mubarkpur-Chintpurni-Dehra Dharamsala road. Widening of portions between Dehra to Ranital, Kangra bypass, Mataur and Gaggal to Dharamsala have been approved under central road fund. The Ranital to Kangra bypass section will be taken up under the national highway works. |
|
Youth Welfare Board hails job quota decision
Shimla, April 23 The board members, including Mr Anup Rattan, Mr Puran Chand, Mr Anil Mintoo, Mr Vijay Kanwar, Mr Dig Vijay Singh, Mr Suresh Kardo, Mr Sanjeev Saini, Mr Virender Negi, Ms Anjana Sharma and Mr Kamal Sharma, said the decision would go a long way in reducing unemployment in the state. The members, however, condemned political leaders who raised the issue of regionalism for political gains. The decision of establishing Vidhan Sabha in Dharamshala was a historic one and it demonstrated that the government was concentrating on all-round development of the state, they added. |
|
Fire in bank: police clueless
Mandi, April 23 The police claimed that the fire started from the shop of musical instruments in the adjoining room of the private building in which the bank was housed. “But we are also investigating other angles as a foul play by bank staff and the shop owner could not be ruled out,” said the police. The DSP, Headquarters, Mr K.C. Shandil, said the strongroom was safe. |
|
Youth drowns in tank
Nahan, April 23 As per police sources, the young man had gone for fishing at the pond. The police said as per the version of his family members the deceased was suffering from mental ailment due to which he had suffered several fits in the past. It is apprehended that due to some fit he might have fallen in the water and died. |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
