Shimla, January 4
The appointment of chairpersons of various boards and corporations over the last one week has come under the scanner of the Congress high command after the rival camp lodged a complaint with party president Sonia Gandhi that Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh was functioning in an arbitrary manner and rewarding only his loyalists.

Led by former state Congress chief Kaul Singh Thakur and All-India Congress Committee secretary Asha Kumari, the disgruntled leaders met Sonia and impressed upon her the fact that the Chief Minister was making appointments in tearing haste to oblige his supporters without taking the high command into confidence.

They pointed out that he had rewarded half a dozen loyalists with plum posts and leaders of the rival camp were being ignored. They urged Sonia to cancel the appointments and stop Virbhadra Singh from making any further appointment.

Their main objection was that the appointments had not been made on merit. Candidates who had lost were being rewarded with sinecure jobs on factional considerations while those who had won were left high and dry, they added.

The appointment of nine Additional Advocates-General and six Deputy Advocates-General was also resented to by the rival camp, which alleged that merit had been ignored while carrying out the exercise.

The issue was discussed at length with Virbhadra Singh during a meeting in which Sonia’s political secretary Ahmad Patel and state affairs in charge Birender Singh Chaudhary were present, but the meeting was inconclusive.

The rival camp claimed that the appointments would be reviewed and no fresh appointment would be made without the approval of the high command. Virbhadra Singh is likely to meet Sonia tomorrow and she will have the final word on the appointments. The issue of the appointment of the state party chief is likely to be discussed as well.

Using the issue to pressurise the high command, the rival camp has thrown a spanner in the works of the Chief Minister, particularly his plan to have his own loyalists on the key posts of the state party chief and the Speaker.

The election of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker will be held during the session commencing on January 8. While Virbhadra Singh is keen on Kuldeep Kumar as the Speaker, the rival camp is pushing for the candidature of Brij Bihari Lal Butail.

The names of Gangu Ram Musafir, Chander Kumar, Rangila Ram Rao and Harsh Mahajan are being circulated by the Chief Minister’s camp for the post of party president while the rival camp is backing Asha Kumari, Sukhwinder Singh and Viplove Thakur.

Hamirpur, January 4
Former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has asked BJP activists “to ponder over how we polled fewer votes in the Assembly elections despite doing lots of work.”

Addressing a meeting of party workers of the Hamirpur constituency at Baroha today, he said: “Whosoever approached me for any work I always did it while in the government but it is a matter of concern why we polled lesser votes in the Hamirpur constituency.”

He said: “It is important to maintain good behaviour with people to garner votes along with doing their work and voters can be won by giving respect and not by terrorising them.”

“I have reports that some people campaigned with us during the day and campaigned for our rivals during the night,” Dhumal said.

Commenting on the workers’ grudge that works were not done through the transfer committee formed by the party at the constituency level, he said: “This committee was formed as a bridge between the government and people and if this committee failed in getting the works done why they did not approached him directly.”

The former CM said: “In a few polling booths like Matahni and Neri we polled lesser votes despite opening a Horticulture university study centre in the area.”

He said: “The party would re-nominate party office-bearers on the basis of their performance in the organisation elections.”

Talking about the party’s review meeting held at Una yesterday, Dhumal said: “The report gathered in this meeting would be discussed in the party’s core committee meeting.”

He also asked party workers to prepare for the next parliamentary and panchayat elections and thanked them for their support.

Hamirpur MP Anurag Thakur and other office-bearers were also present.

Shimla, January 4
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may take stern action against the party men who reportedly indulged in undercutting in about 15 Assembly constituencies even though complaints have been received from about 35 candidates during the meeting in Una yesterday which was convened to look into the reasons for defeat.

Senior party leaders said strict action would be taken against party men in at least 15 constituencies from where serious and substantiated reports of undercutting by party men were received.

The report of inputs received from candidates would be placed before the state and central leaders at the meeting of the core group likely to be held next month.

The party leaders who had been pointing fingers at senior leaders for the party debacle were warned in no uncertain terms to refrain from making such statements, failing which they could face disciplinary action.

Ram Lal, national organisation secretary of the BJP, personally told candidates from Kangra to desist from making any controversial statement as it would only intensify factionalism.

It is reliably learnt that state BJP chief Sat Pal Singh Satti has been directed to tell all party leaders to not go to the media and to raise all party matters at the organisational level.

He has been authorised to take strict action immediately in case any leader crosses the line.

Satti confirmed that the meeting of the core group would be held next month where the final decision would be taken.

“Though we have received a lot of complaints from candidates, we can take action in case of serious undercutting with the consent of the state and central leadership,” he remarked.

Barring former Horticulture Minister Narinder Bragta, who contested from Jubbal-Kotkhai, former Transport Minister Mahender Singh, who contested from Dharampur, and Renu Chadha, who contested from Dalhousie, all candidates were present in the meeting.

Some candidates even gave a break-up of the voting pattern in their respective constituencies to establish the fact that fellow party men played a crucial role in their defeat. The maximum complaints were received from Kangra district, where the party suffered a major drubbing.

Former ministers Kishan Kapoor and Ramesh Dhawala and former legislators Vipin Parmar, Atma Ram and Praveen Sharma, all Shanta Kumar loyalists, vociferously raised the issue of undercutting by leaders owing allegiance to former Chief Minister PK Dhumal.

Dhumal loyalists accused the Rajya Sabha member and national vice-president of the BJP of damaging them in the elections, which cost them dear. Both factions blamed each other for the defeat.

Dharamsala, January 4
Completing the land settlement work and expediting and modernising the revenue work will be a tough challenge for the state government. Due to the incomplete settlement of land records, people in the state have been suffering at the hands of revenue officials. In many cases, land partition and demarcation cases have been pending with the Revenue Department for the last many years.

The most glaring example of the state of revenue records in the state is illustrated from Lal Singhi village in Una district. Located on the border with Punjab, it is still a part of Hoshiarpur district in Punjab in revenue records even though Una became a part of Himachal Pradesh in 1966. In ‘farad’ (revenue papers declaring the ownership of land) issued even today, Lal Singhi village is a part of Hoshiapur district in Punjab.

The land settlement work in the state was started from Chamba district in 1952. It has been 56 years since then, but the work is yet to be completed in the entire state. It is still going on in many districts, including Harmirpur, Kullu and Una. The new technology procured by the settlement office in Dharamsala, that caters to northern region of the state, can provide help in speeding up the work.

The settlement office here procured total solution machines of Nikon to carrying out the settlement work. Earlier revenue officials used calibrated iron chains or ropes to carry out measurements in the field. The system was time-consuming and error-prone. Officials used to carry chains to the field and required manual labour to carry out measurements.

The new machine uses infrared technology to carry out the measurements. Officials with the department said the machine could be installed at one point. The measurements of all visible points could be taken from the machine by just carrying the prism to other points and the measurements taken by the machine were accurate up to the millimetre level, they added.

The officials here maintained that the work that was done in two months earlier could now be completed in just two days. The north zone settlement office in Dharamsala has two such machines. These machines have been put to use in Dharamsala and Kullu districts. The department has sent a request to the government for two additional machines to speed up the settlement work. The request, which involves a cost of just Rs 10 lakh, is still pending.Officials with the department also rued the lack of computers at the settlement office. The officials said the department had just four computers whereas it required at least 20 more to digitise the entire record. People in Kullu, Hamirpur and Una districts have to travel to Dharamsala to get copies of ‘musavis’ (basic survey reports of settlement department).

In Madhya Pradesh, the government has created copies of ‘masavis’ and given those to booksellers for sale in respective areas. The advantage of the scheme is that the people get the record at their doorstep rather than wasting time and money on travelling to settlement offices to fetch records. The proposal to set up a similar system has been sent to the government, but the government is yet to act on it.

The shortage of revenue staff at the ground level is also a problem that is hampering work and causing agony to landowners. The Revenue Department is facing a 40 per cent shortage of staff at the ground level. Many posts of patwari and kanugo are lying vacant as the government has not carried out recruitment for the last many years.

Bilaspur, January 4
Deputy Commissioner Ritesh Chauhan has declared two paid local holidays during this calendar year.

A notification issued here today said January 14 in lieu of the Lohri festival and March 23, the concluding day of the state-level Nalwadi fair, here, would be observed full paid holidays for all employees of government and semi-government organisations here in 
the district.

Shimla, January 4
The HPSEBL Project Engineers Association has urged the government to allot hydroelectric projects to improve the financial health of the state electricity board (HPSEBL), which has plunged deep into a debt trap.

A deputation of the association met Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and apprised him of the financial problems being faced by the board and the present scenario of the hydropower development in the state.

It drew attention to the fact that the government had decided to reserve projects up to 25 MW for the HPSEBL, while the bigger projects were to be executed by Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation Limited.

While a bulk of the projects have already been assigned to the private sector, there were about 10 small projects with an aggregate capacity of 175 MW, which could be allotted to the board.

The association emphasised that the allotment of projects was essential to ensure optimum utilisation of the services of project engineers.

The board had a full-fledged project wing and an independent member was on the board for taking care of the projects.

Financial revival and long-term sustainability of the board would not be possible without assigning projects to it.

The deputation included Subhash Gupta, SP Gupta, KD Sharda, Bhanu Pratap Singh, HM Dhareuala, Rajesh Mahajan, Ashwani Dogra, Anshul Sharma, Nitin Garg, Navneet Gupta, Navneet Sood and Sanjeev Gautam.

Una, January 4
The newly installed Minister for Industry, Labour, Employment, Public Relations and Parliamentary Affairs, Mukesh Agnihotri, today received tumultuous welcome in Una town. Congress workers gathered in a large number to welcome him.

It is after a long time that Una has got representation in the state Cabinet. Earlier, Des Raj, the late BJP MLA from Una, was the Minister for State in the Himachal Cabinet.

Agnihotri has won consecutively from the Haroli Assembly constituency in Una district for the third time. With his induction in the Cabinet, he has emerged as a strong Congress leader from Una district. Owing to his closeness to Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, Agnihotri is likely to hold sway in the district.

While talking to mediapersons, he said he would strive to bring Una district on the national map in terms of industrial development.

He said the availability of land was a major bottleneck in the development of industry in the state. Many big industries shirk from establishing units in the state, due to formalities and difficulties in collecting ample land for setting up of their units.

The state government would develop land banks to check this issue where the formalities for providing land to industrial units could be reduced, Agnihotri said.

He said lack of railway network in Himachal was also a major hurdle in the development of industry in the state.

The state would lobby for the creation of an additional railway network in the state. Una is the only district that has a broad gauge railway line in the entire state. “We would urge the Union Minister for Railways to start commercial railway operations in Una district to help the industry, Agnihotri said. The Minister said the present government would ensure that at least 70 per cent employment was given to local residents by industrial units coming up in the state.

The minister also indicated that there would be major changes in the Department of Public Relations in the days to come. Many officials of this department had acted as agents of the BJP in the Assembly elections. Such officials shall be taken to task.

Besides, the government would strive to modernise the department and provide better facilities to its field-level officials. He also held a meeting with district officials to review the progress of various development works going on in the state.

Solan, December 4
The Solan police arrested Jai Nishchal of the RK Puram area of Delhi for abducting a woman and keeping her confined to a room in Goa. He was produced before a local court on Tuesday evening and remanded him to police custody till January 10.

Superintendent of Police (SP), Solan, Prem Thakur said since the accused would be taken to Goa for verification they had sought a remand for 10 days.

According to a police complaint lodged by the woman’s father at Dharampur police station, she was allured by Nischal who promised to provide her a job. But instead of keeping his promise, he clicked her pictures in objectionable postures threatening to sell these through Internet.

The SP said he blackmailed the girl and tortured her. She somehow informed her father who then sought police help to rescue her. A team of the Solan police arrested him from Goa and saved the girl on December 31.

Nishchal is a web designer in Delhi and earns Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh per month. He came in contact with the girl through her cousin and later both developed a friendly relationship. The police has registered a case under Section 366, IPC, for abduction.

Shimla, January 4
The efforts of an RTI activist, who has been campaigning for weeding out undeserving but politically influential families from the lists of below poverty line (BPL) households, yielded results with the government ordering an inquiry to ascertain if they deserved to be included.

Special Secretary, Rural Development, has issued directions to all Deputy Commissioners to review the “genuineness” of the presence of public representatives on the BPL lists and ensure their “deservingness” as they were part of the process of selection of BPL families.

He has further ordered that the matter be probed through the respective SDMs to ascertain the eligibility, socio-economic status of present and ex-panchayati raj representatives on the BPL lists and further action be initiated for the exclusion of ineligible persons.

The issue was raised by RTI activist Dev Ashish Bhattacharya who obtained detailed data pertaining to the BPL lists that revealed the presence of over 11,000 panchayti raj representatives, almost 40 per cent of the total number, on the lists.

He filed a complaint on the basis of the RTI data with the Chief Secretary in November last and after perusal of the information provided, the government has now ordered a comprehensive review of the lists taking all relevant aspects into consideration.

As per information, as many as 5,138 panches, 4,481 ex-panches, 442 pradhans, 530 ex-pradhans, 22 zila parishad members and 15 ex-zila parishad members were on the BPL lists in the state.

The maximum number of 2,297 PRI functionaries was in Kangra, followed by Chamba (2,058), Mandi (1,681) and Shimla (1,487).

The most backward district of Sirmaur had only 358 PRI functionaries on the lists, whereas the most developed districts like Hamirpur (668) and Solan (382), which have almost equal population, has BPL functionaries.

Even a small and developed district like Bilaspur has 558 PRI functionaries on the lists.

The state had reserved jobs for BPL families and a number of undeserving persons have acquired government jobs on its basis, points out Bhattacharya.

The situation is alarming to the extent that rich are manipulating their way into the BPL lists to avail the facility of job reservation and in the process the poor are marginalised.

“I have taken up the Mundkhar Panchayat of Hamirpur district for micro analysis of the issue and my various RTI queries have revealed that total manipulation and politics is happening for the selection of BPL families and shamelessly the rich are eating into the scheme that is exclusively meant for the poor. Further steps will be ensured by me on this issue to expose the nexus between the rich and politicians of villages so that the poor get their rights,” he said.

Solan, January 4
A youth, Dharun Sharma, died last evening after he consumed some narcotic substances, including proxyvon capsules and hashish, which the police later recovered from his room.

Superintendent of Police, Solan, Prem Thakur, said the matter came to the fore when Ashish, a BTech student who was staying with the deceased, called up the 108 emergency ambulance services to take his friend to a hospital when he became unconscious.

He was taken to the hospital by the ambulance staff where he was declared dead.

Ashish told the police that the duo had consumed these narcotic substances till late on Wednesday night and he had woken up around 1pm yesterday while Dharun was found in an unconscious state in the toilet.

The police was conducting inquest proceedings under Section 174, CrPC, as no foul play was detected, the SP said.

The case has, however, brought to the fore the ready availability of these narcotic substances in Solan. Since there were large numbers of students residing in rented accommodations in the town, miscreants found a lucrative market to run this trade on the sly.

The death due to drug overdose had also put a question mark before the authorities who failed to check the sale of narcotic substances to youngsters.