Dharamsala, June 26
Farmers in the lower areas of Himachal are waiting for rains to sow their fields. Fields in most areas of the lower Himachal, including Kangra and Una districts, are lying barren due to little or no rain in June till date.

The sources in the Palampur Agriculture University said the entire state received only 9.9 mm rainfall till June 15, which is 67 per cent below normal. In May, rainfall in certain areas of the state was 80 per cent below normal.

The sowing of maize usually starts in the lower areas of the state in the middle of May and the sowing of paddy starts in the first week of June. However, this year, no crop has been sown till date due to the delay in monsoon.

The recent state of fields in the lower areas has again illustrated that without permanent sources of irrigation, the agriculture potential of the hill area cannot be tapped. In many areas of Kangra district, the traditional khulls (natural water streams that carry water from melting snow) are the major source of irrigation. However, in many areas, farmers are fighting with the owners of micro-hydel projects alleging that they were siphoning off their traditional water sources in the form of khulls.

In most of the areas, agriculture is dependent on rains. Certain areas of Kangra district receive very heavy rainfall in monsoons. However, few schemes are available with the government to tap the water potential generated during monsoons to create perennial sources of irrigation for fields of farmers.

Some experts are of the opinion that the state government can use the traditional knowledge of locals to tap water for the lean period. Khatris, deep pits dug inside hills in which water fills during rains, are used by people living in the changar areas of the state for conserving water for summers.

Some Khatris are several metres deep and can store thousands of litres water. If Khatris are dug in the hills of the changar areas, the water potential generated during the monsoons can be tapped. The state government has laid stress on the canal irrigation projects in the state. Over Rs 300 crore Shah Canal project that would irrigate field in the Indora area of Kangra district is almost complete.

However, such projects require huge investment that cannot be generated without the Centre. The Chief Minister has laid the foundation stone of the Phina Singh canal for the Nurpur area of Kangra district. However, in the lower areas of the state, the water conservation pools that can tap rain potential during monsoons and the drip irrigation can provide the long-term solution to irrigation problems of the farmers. The Centre is offering up to 80 per cent on installing drip irrigation facility for horticulture and vegetable crops. However, very few farmers have put this scheme to affective use in their fields.

Chamba, June 26
The art of miniature painting has a place of pride in the art map of the world. Fostered by the Rajput aristocrats, kings, princes and their ministers, this art reached its climax during the 18th century when Rajput chiefs of Rajasthan and the Pahari region were freed from the clutches of the Mughals.

The story of the Indian painting commencing its journey from the Ajanta murals reached its last destination in the captivating Kangra Valley, where a new idiom of visual arts came into contact with the natural beauty of the hills blossomed into what is known as the ‘Kangra Kalam’ or the Kangra school of painting.

The Kangra Kalam tradition continued for about three centuries in various Rajput courts before it became a hand maiden of the Sikh rulers. With the end of the feudal era and the withdrawal of royal patronage, this great art started vanishing. However, the revival of the art of miniature painting is the need of hour.

In order to give a new lease of life to this languishing art, a week-long art workshop on traditional miniature painting organised by the Department of Languages and Culture, Himachal Pradesh, and Shilpa Parishad, Chamba, at the Bhuri Singh Museum Chamba was organised recently.

It is for the first time that a galaxy of gifted artists has assembled at the Bhuri Singh Museum to transmit the secrets of the miniature painting techniques under the auspices of master artist Vijay Sharma, a recipient of the Padma Shri award.

The workshop was inaugurated recently by Chamba SDM Rohit Rathore, who appreciated holding such workshops in Chamba.

The workshop comprising of artists from the desert regions like Jaipur in Rajasthan, and hilly regions like Basohli of Jammu and Kashmir, Chamba and Kangra of Himachal Pradesh would be a quantum leap in the revival of this dying tradition.

Artists working in various schools of Basohli, Kangra, Guler, Kishangarh and Jain worked under the same roof for a week, thereby providing an opportunity to the vanguard of young talent to explore their prowess under the guidance of artists like Kanheya Lal Verma, Kailash Chand Sharma, Hansraj Dhiman and Vijay Sharma.

Director of Languages and Culture Rakesh Kanwar visited the workshop and applauded the efforts of all senior artists. He hoped that this effort would go a long way for the renaissance of the tradition of miniature painting.

Chamba DC Sunil Chaudhary presided over the concluding function of the workshop. The paintings drawn in different hues during the workshop were displayed in the museum. The DC also distributed Kalanidhi awards to budding artists Prakash Dhiman for Pahari painting and Indu Sharma for her excellence in the pictorial handicraft of Chamba Rumal.

Nurpur, June 26
Hundreds of government pensioners from Nurpur, Indora and Raja Ka Talab block units of the pensioners’ association here on Friday took out a silent rally wearing black badges to protest against the government’s apathy towards their longstanding demands. The agitating pensioners also staged an hour-long dharna in front of the SDM’s office.

SL Gupta, president, HP Government Pensioners’ Association, Nurpur, said the pensioners had been demanding only such monetary benefits as had been recommended by the Fourth and Fifth Punjab Pay Commissions and accepted by the Punjab Government. “While presiding over the all-India pension day at Una in December, 2008, Chief Minister PK Dhumal had announced extension of financial benefits to pensioners on the Punjab pattern. Before coming to power, the BJP had promised the same in its poll manifesto. The government had, however, failed to fulfil its promise,” he rued.

The agitating pensioners submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister through the local SDM demanding grant of additional pension to the extent of 5, 10 and 15 per cent on attaining the age of 65, 70 and 75 years, respectively, a fixed medical allowance of Rs 500 per month and travel concession in the shape of one month’s extra pension after every two years.

My visit to Dalhousie was enthralling because of two reasons: the town still retains the purity of a hill station and my college friend Balbir Singh lives there. We met after a gap of 15 years and the bygone time had not told upon him. 

He was fit to climb with me the 2km steep slope of Bakrota where Snowdon is located, the house that once belonged to former Governor of Punjab Nirmal Kumar Mukherjee and where Rabindra Nath Tagore stayed in April 1873.

There is a marble slab at the bottom of the climb that reads “Snowdon, in this great historical house, at Bakrota, lived the great Nobel laureate, novelist, poet, composer, artist, educationist and humanist, Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore (1861-1941) during the summer of AD 1873 while as a 12-year-old boy along with his father Maharishi Debendra Nath Tagore, who had come here from Calcutta in April 1873.

The landscape, beauty and sylvan surroundings left deep imprint on young Rabindra Nath’s impressionable mind and he has nostalgically reminisced his stay in Dalhousie time and again through his writings, including poems, letters and his own autobiography. In a letter written in 1910 to a friend, Rabindra Nath has acknowledged his debt to the Himalayas of Dalhousie for providing the initial inspiration and motivation…” 

The inspiring words stimulated us to climb the steep hill but when the building was at stone’s throw, two Army jawans barricaded our further movement saying that it was, now, a sealed Army area. They were also not aware of the officer who could be contacted for permitting us to have only a peep at the so-called ‘historical building’.

I plead to the authorities to remove the above mentioned marble slab because it dotes on a lost world and let the history forever be draped under the Army-shroud. The house just below Snowdon is Dil Niwas, called Amar Singh’s house in common parlance, whose owner is a Sikh gentleman and cautioned us that the lonely path amidst thick jungle, which would take us to the main road, got tracked by the wild life at dusk.

Hurriedly we descended, but the journey up and down a kachha path meandering through the huge Deodars with verdure waving about, wild daisies sprouting on grassy glades, setting sun’s light, piercing the battalion of tall trees, playing hide and seek was an experience that left indelible impress on my mind. I consoled myself that one minus had many pluses too.

Surprisingly, the statue of Mahatma Gandhi plays not the second but the fourth fiddle to that of Netaji Subhash Bose in Dalhousie. The latter statue majestically stands on a wide platform with background of far hills while the former raised in 1990 on a small base is tucked in a congested corner of a road. Is it because Gandhi never visited Dalhousie, whereas Bose spent more than five months here from May to October 1937? Netaji stayed here at Kynance, a private residential building got constructed in 1933 by Dr NR Dharamvir of Lahore. I could see and photograph the building, courtesy Mrs Nilima Sen, the present owner. There Teju, the caretaker of the building and son of Mohan Lal, who had served on Netaji, and who as a child, had seen him, also invited his wife Acchari to get photographed with the building (See Photo). Bose was in a British jail prior to May 1937 where his health started deteriorating of pleurisy. He was released on parole on the prayer of his younger brother and came to Dalhousie to recuperate on Mrs Dharamvir’s request. He used to walk daily for about 2km plus -coming and going back to Kynance- sit and meditate by the side of a perennial spring whose water had curing effect on him. People, later, named it Subhash Bowli. It is situated on the Gandhi Chowk at the Jandrighat Road and the local administration has covered it and is maintaining it (See Photo).

If Shimla is the city of seven hills, Dalhousie, like Panchgani in Maharashtra, is a city of five hills- Balun, Kathalug, Patreyn, Tehra (Moti Tibba) and Bakrota. May the hills retain the old charm!

Nurpur, June 26
Farmers in Fatehpur and Indora development blocks in lower Kangra district have been growing cereal crops and fodder in their fields in the Shahnehar catchment areas. They had never thought about cultivating high-value vegetable cash crops.

Now, things are changing as the Shahnehar project funded project “Improved vegetable production technology for income generation of farmers of Shahnehar catchments” has started showing results in their fields.

Under this project, the Regional Horticulture Research Station (RHRS) is extending technical know-how to the beneficiaries for three years. This area has been envisaged to be developed as vegetable bowl in Kangra district.

In order to explore the possibility of transforming advance vegetable production technology, scientists of the Regional Horticulture Research Station visited the farmers in Shahnehar catchments in March and educated the growers to diversify their farming into high- value vegetable cash crops.

According to SS Rana, associate director of the Regional Horticulture Research Station, the farmers were also distributed quality vegetable plants and seeds. Rana said the principal investigator of this project AK Sharma had initially undertaken a benchmark survey in various villages of Shahnehar catchments and observed that farmers were utilising Shahnehar project canal’s irrigation water and they were still cultivating traditional cereal crops.

“After introductory field demonstration, a number of farmers were identified who evinced interest in diversification of their farming. The result of this survey was successful and caught the imagination of the farmers, who under the guidance of the Regional Horticulture Research Station grew summer vegetable crops like bitter-guard, bottle guard, tomato, brinjle and okra (bhindi) successfully,” he said.

Recently, three-day long special farm training camp was organised in the Regional Horticulture Research Station with an objective to impart advance technology in improved cultivation practices in vegetable crops with multi-media demonstration to as many as 25 growers identified from the Dholpur and Mand-Miyani areas of Shahnehar catchments. They will be imparted practical demonstration in their fields.

The fungal disease, which threatened to wipe out the precious deodar forests in the Chail Wild Life Sanctuary (see photo), has been contained by the joint efforts of the Himalayan Forest Research Institute (HFRI), Shimla, and the Forest Department.

The infected trees, which had started drying up, have shown signs of revival much to the relief of the department as fungal infection could spell doom for the forests. The strategy developed by the scientists of the HFRI for the management of the infected patch of trees has worked. They had traced the cause of drying of trees to a fungus, Phytophthora cinnamomi, which caused the roots of infected plants to decay and then disintegrate, destroying their ability to extract water, minerals and nutrients from soil.

The strategy included isolation of infected patch by fencing and digging a 1m deep and 2 ft wide hole around to prevent infection from spreading to the adjacent trees. A fungicide, Ridomil, was used to kill the pathogen within the infected patch. As a result, the percentage of infection in the diseased plot has declined from 20 to 1.6. The spread of pathogen to the nearby trees has also been controlled. Infected trees were revived and the status of regeneration and the ground flora also improved in the treated plot, says scientist Ranjeet Singh, who is involved in the management of the diseases in trees. His effort has been recognised by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, which conferred upon him the “National Award for Excellence in Forestry” for 2008-10.

Conference on concrete roads

The cost-effectiveness of the concrete roads as compared to the traditional asphalt surfaced roads has been debated for long in the state and the Public Works Department had even constructed some stretches of concrete on experimental basis over the past two years.

The initiative is likely to get the required momentum following the conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with the state government and cement company the ACC Limited on Concrete Roads - “Improving Connectivity for Access, Inclusion & Growth”, early this week. In a hill state where rains causes excessive damage to roads, concrete could help provide more durable roads but the high cost of such roads has been a major concern.

However, the conference cleared doubts about technical and economic feasibility of building concrete roads on a large scale. Chief Secretary Sudripta Roy endorsed the initiative underlining that durable road network was the key to rapid economic growth. The state has not only come out with a proposal to construct concrete roads under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), over Rs 500 crore is spent on road construction works in the state.

Though the initial cost of the concrete roads is high, they can last for up to 50 years. It will be worthwhile if cement companies came forward to support the initiative of building concrete roads as it will ultimately pay dividends to the cement manufacturers.

Shortage of teaching staff

The shortage of teachers has always been a major problem in Himachal Pradesh. Not only the state government but even the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) is facing problems in ensuring adequate teaching staff in its institutions.

The government has often come out with various schemes to appoint voluntary teachers, contract teachers and even PTA (appointed through parents teachers association) to meet the shortfall without undergoing the long process of regular recruitment. The KVS has introduced the system of hiring teachers, under which payment is based on the basis of number of lectures taught. It is cost-effective and ensures that teachers perform the job for a specified number of hours every month.

On the other hand, various schemes of the government paved way for backdoor appointments. It created a mess in the education department as teachers appointed under these schemes are eventually regularised. Now, Chief Minister PK Dhumal has announced that the government would consider hiring teachers on the pattern of KVS. It is indeed a welcome step for a fund-starved state like Himachal.

Bilaspur, June 26
Senior leaders of the district Congress led by state Congress general secretary and former Forest Minister Ram Lal Thakur have drawn attention of Chief Minister PK Dhumal and IPH Minister Ravinder Ravi towards drought conditions prevailing in most parts of the Naina Devi constituency and other three constituencies of district.

Due to the scorching sun, natural water sources are drying up either totally or partially and all IPH drinking water supply schemes are being affected.

Talking to mediapersons at the Circuit House here recently, Thakur said the government should reconsider its policy of not deploying tankers for providing clean and potable drinking water in drought-hit villages.

They urged the government to immediately order providing drinking water through tankers till the monsoon sets in.

Along with Thakur, former MLAs Babu Ram Gauttam and Tilak Raj Sharma from the Bilaspur Sadar constituency, district general secretary Gopal Sharma and senior leader Pratap Kaundal and other leaders from various parts of district were present.

The leaders felt that it was an anti-people decision to deprive the drought-hit district from regular summer facility of water supply through tankers and on mule backs to the remote villages.

The leaders pointed towards “a hand pump scandal” involving lakhs of rupees as Rs 20,000 is being drawn in name of hand pumps. They said Rs 50,000 each is being drawn in name of digging a hand pump where no water was found, though no such hand pumps were dug up anywhere.

Only three contractors have been patronised for digging of hand pumps, giving them monopoly and depriving the work from competition of quality and cost.

There is great demand for drinking water and a hand pump takes days to become operational and capacity of these contractors is limited.

The leaders demanded an impartial inquiry into “hand pump scandal” so that the bungling of public funds can be stopped.

Palampur, June 26
Zila Banao Sangharsh Samitis from Palampur, Nurpur and Dehara Gopipur have formed a joint action committee at a meeting here today to chalk out a plan to demand for the creation of three new districts of Palampur, Nurpur and 
Dehara Gopipur.

The joint panel has decided to intensify their agitation by organising dharnas, rallies besides observing hunger strikes. It was also decided that joint action committee will gherao the Chief Minister during his visit to Kangra.

Jagmel Katoch, president of Palampur Zila Banao Sanghrash Samiti, told mediapersons that the agitation to demand district status for Palampur would be intensified and residents from 250 panchyats of Palampur region would also take to the streets to press for their demand.

He criticised senior BJP leader Shanta Kumar for opposing the creation of the new districts. He said Shanta Kumar was playing dirty politics over this sensitive issue instead of respecting the sentiments of over seven lakh residents of Palampur. He said he should not forget that people of the Palampur region had given him name and fame, elected him to the Assembly and parliament many times.

He said Shanta Kumar was the state Chief Minister twice but he did not initiate reorganisation of the districts. Palampur suffered for want of district status, he claimed.

Rakesh Pathania, BJP MLA from Nurpur, told mediapersons that if any political party or leader opposed the move for the new districts, people of Kangra would teach them a lesson in the Assembly elections. He said the Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal should announce creation of new districts at Palampur, Nurpur and Dehara Gopipur if he wants to come back to power.

Palampur, June 26
A half-completed retaining wall on the Palampur-Dharamsala highway opposite Santoshi Mata Temple has virtually become a death trap.

It seems that the Public Works Department (PWD) has forgotten to complete the wall for the past one year. Several accidents have taken place at this point yet the PWD has not completed the wall.

The highway is narrow at this point, which makes it accident-prone. In the past one month, six accidents were reported from this point.

A year ago, Executive Engineer, PWD, Palampur, had awarded a contract for the construction of the retaining wall at this point in order to widen the highway. However, the half-completed retaining wall further narrowed the road, resulting in accidents.

An official of the PWD admitted that the wall was left incomplete as the department planned to construct a new bridge at this point. But till date the state government had not released funds for the bridge.

KB Ralhan, a resident, said senior officials of the PWD were well aware of the situation. They passed through this road almost daily but initiated no steps to finish the work.