Dharamsala, February 1
Polarisation within the Congress and the clamour of legislators to get their favourites on plum posts is leading to an unpleasant situation, with bureaucrats being shifted even the day after their posting.

The recent illustration of this fact is the case of the Una Subdivisional Magistrate (SDM). Pritpal Singh, a HAS officer, was posted as the SDM just two days ago. He was given a warm reception by the staff.

Just two days after he took charge, he was transferred. Sandeep Sud, another HAS officer, was posted in his place. Sources said he was the fourth officer on this post in the last one month.

The case of the Additional District Magistrate (ADM) in Una is the same. In the last one month, three ADMs were shuffled. After Rakesh Sharma and Sanjay Sharma, Darshan Kalia was made the ADM.

Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Kadam was posted in Una just two months ago. The sources said he was initially told that he would continue there.

Yesterday he was transferred to Chamba as the Deputy Commissioner. In his place, Abhishek Jain was made the Una Deputy Commissioner.

New HAS officers posted in Una district are not eager to join lest they face the embarrassment of being posted out just after joining.

An officer said on the condition of anonymity that he would want things to settle down for a few days before joining as the government might reconsider recent transfer orders after a few days.

In Kangra district, many posts are lying vacant. Posting and transfer orders have been issued in a matter of days. The post of the Executive Engineer with the Public Works Department in Kangra is an illustration of this fact.

Two officers are claiming the post as theirs on the basis of orders issued by their seniors. The post of Executive Engineer in Dharamsala is also lying vacant.

At the instance of politicians, officers are not willing to relinquish charge as they are being assured that they will be sent to the desired posts.

The sources said the confusion was being caused as ministers and Congress legislators were trying to bag the maximum plum posts for officers of their choice.

When one politician gets a posting order, another approaches the higher authorities the next day and gets it cancelled. The confusion is affecting the common man, who had high hopes from the new government.

Solan, February 1
Reacting to the news report ‘Buildings flout rules with impunity’ appearing in these columns on Thursday, Town and Country Planning Minister Sudhir Sharma has sought a report from the officials concerned in this matter.

Confirming this, assistant town planner Sandeep Sharma said the Solan office as well as the head office at Shimla had been directed to submit a report on the issue.

The news had highlighted how buildings violating various TCP norms were being raised along the National Highway-22, especially between Dharampur and Solan and there was a little regulation on such constructions.

Since the area falls in the Seismic Zone IV, it is highly prone to earthquakes and such violations will further put to risk the safety of the residents.

However, many buildings had collapsed in the Solan area in the past few years and a massive landslide had occurred near Barog in the recent past where a large part of the hillside had fallen on the road and a labourer was killed in the mishap.

Surprisingly, such mishaps too had not deterred builders from violating building bylaws and they continued to clear steep hill slopes exceeding the stipulated 45 degree norm.

It, however, remains to be seen what action the department takes against such violations as successive governments have been coming up with policies to compound such offences which had emboldened builders to indulge in such violations.

Shimla, February 1
The HPSEB Project Engineers Association has urged the government to allot hydroelectric project to the state electricity board to help improve its failing financial health.

Representatives of the association met Power Minister Sujan Singh Pathania and drew its attention to the fact that the installed generation capacity of the board was only 468 MW and it must be increased to at least 1,500 MW to make it financially viable.

They underlined the need to assign more projects to the board for an optimum utilisation of experienced technical manpower available with it. Engineers of the board were manning high position in various government organisations in India and Bhutan, where a number of projects are under execution.

They also demanded filling of posts of project engineers lying vacant for the last two years, including Chief Engineer (I&P), Chief Engineer (project and arbitration) in the board and the Himachal Power Corporation. They alleged that the post of Chief Engineer (P&M) was diverted to the Electrical Wing, which was a grave injustice to project engineers.

The association also brought to the notice that there was no project engineer (Civil) in the Himachal Transmission Corporation (HPPTCL) to supervise works pertaining to civil engineering like survey, planning and design of towers and foundations, construction of substation buildings and other related works.

A superintending engineer (civil) should be posted in HIMURJA, responsible for identification, investigation, planning and implementation of projects up to 5MW, from the project engineer cadre, it demanded.

Shimla, February 1
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has stressed that efficient management of disasters, rather than mere response to their occurrence is necessary.

He said more fire stations should be opened in the state under the Disaster Management Fund.

Speaking after releasing a survey on “Assessment of Existing Knowledge Level, Awareness and Preventive Practices of Disaster Management in Himachal Pradesh”, here, today, he said adequate fire-fighting arrangements at district and sub-division level would help mitigate the impact of disasters.

It is the first survey of its kind in the country done by the Economic and Statistics Department in collaboration with the State Disaster Management Authority.

Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister VC Pharka said the government should consider the recommendations of the survey report and a separate meeting would be held with the Revenue Department to discuss the matter in detail for disaster preparedness.

Economic Adviser Pradeep Chauhan said opinions and observations of all stakeholders would play an important part in handling pre and post disaster, both natural and manmade.

As per the survey, out of total respondents 98.01 per cent of the population was aware of the term disaster, while only 1.98 per cent said they were not aware of the term. While 79 per cent of the general population revealed that disaster management was a topic discussed among family members, 83 per cent said education was the best way to protect vulnerable section of society from natural disasters along with regular conduct of mock drills.

Shimla, February 1
The government has amended the policy for admission to postgraduate degree and diploma courses in all the government and private medical and dental colleges of the state.

Ali R Rizvi, Principal Secretary, Health, said here today that as per the amended policy from the academic year 2013-14 and for the next two academic sessions, admissions would be made on the basis of 66.6 per cent quota for general duty officers (GDO) and 33.3 per cent direct quota under 50 per cent state quota.

As per the prevailing policy, 90 per cent seats were reserved for GDOs, which was going to increase to 95 per cent from 2013-14 session. This was found to be impractical as adequate numbers of GDOs were not available for these courses. The total number of seats available for 2013-14 would be about 160.

He said now GDOs quota would have two categories, one for doctors working on regular basis and other for those appointed on a contract basis. The division of seats in both the categories would be on the basis of their respective strength in the cadre, he added.

Further, admission to PG Courses for 2013-14 will be on the basis of the National Eligibility Test conducted by the Government of India.

The application form will be available from February 16 to March 16 and the last date of receipt of applications will be March 30. The tentative date for counselling will be April 5. 

Bilaspur, February 1
The Central government has given Rs 2.50 crore as the first instalment for strengthening elementary education in the state.

This was stated by Ram Lal Thakur, chairman, State Planning Development and 20-Point Implementation Committee, while addressing the annual function of Government High School, Ghial at Bahadurpur Dhar, about 30 km from here, yesterday.

Thakur condemned the step of the BJP government to close down 134 government primary schools in the state. He said the Virbhadra Singh government had decided to reopen all the closed primary schools.

Thakur expressed concern over the tendency of some parents to send their wards to private schools and said despite being provided the best facilities, staff and equipment in government schools, attraction of high-fee charging private schools was not ending in some sections of people.

Earlier, headmistress Dipti Rana read the school progress report and presented achievements and problems being faced by the school.

Deputy Director of Education Bir Singh, SDM ML Mehta, panchayat president Hirdesh Thakur and school management committee president Jagdish Chand were also present on the occasion. 

Solan, February 1
Even as investors in the industrial hub of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) have been demanding provision of adequate housing facility for industrial workers, one-room tenements constructed by the Himachal Housing and Urban Development Authority (HIMUDA) have failed to find buyers.

The authority had constructed 256 one-room tenements in the Bhatoli Kalan area of Baddi, whose price ranged from Rs 4.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. Apart from one room, a kitchen was also provided in such tenements and the facility was considered ideal for industrial workers.

Despite an overwhelming demand, 80 such tenements had remained unsold, thus adding to the financial woes of the authority.

The authority had earlier constructed 352 such tenements, where barely 100 tenements had been bought by employees working in industries, while the rest had to be sold to other people in the absence of adequate buyers from the industry.

Investors said since industrial workers comprised a majority of migrant labourers, they had little inclination to spend in purchasing any property there and preferred to reside on rent. The well-paid industrial workers preferred to live in Pinjore, Chandigarh, Panchkula, etc, thus leaving a few buyers for these flats.

Officials of the authority said though they had been advertising about the availability of such tenements to attract buyers, the response was lacklustre. They added that this exercise would be repeated again so that the authority could recover some of its cost.

Even builders, who had constructed hundreds of flats in the BBN area in the hope of making a bargain, were struggling to recover the cost as there were a few buyers.

Due to the lack of proper infrastructure, industry executives did not settle in the BBN area and preferred to commute from the neighbouring areas on a daily basis.

HIMUDA officials said it was surprising that though industry associations had been persistently complaining of the lack of housing facilities for industrial workers, there were a few takers for such accommodations. These flats had been lying vacant since the last more than five to six years now, they added.

Nurpur, February 1
Forest Minister Thakur Singh Bharmouri said yesterday that the Forest Department had launched a special drive to eliminate lantana weed from forest areas to restore green pastures in the state.

He was here to lay the foundation stone of a forest inspection hut at Dharwal, near Indora.

He said so far the weed had been removed from around 1,300 hectare of forest area.

“The Forest Department is also formulating a strategy to retain monkeys in their original habitat so that the farming community can be saved from their menace,” he said.

He urged people to cooperate with the Forest Department in curbing illegal felling and encroachments on forest land in the state. He said the government had decided to spend Rs 1 crore on the facelift of houses of the employees of the Forest Department. 

Bilaspur, February 1
Scores of oustees of the NTPC Kol Dam project assembled outside the Deputy Commissioner’s office here yesterday and raised slogans against the management for failing to solve their problems and ignoring proper rehabilitation.

They were led by Babu Ram Thakur, Prem Lal, Lekh Ram Bansal, Sulekh Chand Rana, Dev Kumar, Pawan Kumar, Brij Lal Thakur, Anil Thakur, Subhash Chand, Brij Lal Bansal, Lal Man, Kamlesh, Kamal, Prakash Chand and Vikas Thakur.

Later they presented a memorandum for the Governor to the Deputy Commissioner, urging her to intervene as the administration had failed to solve their problems.

They demanded that at least one member of each family be given employment in the Kol Dam project or each family be given Rs 25 lakh as employment grant.

Dharamsala, February 1
The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) has condemned the incident in which a few miscreants had used Indian currency for propagating messages for Tibet freedom.

The sources here said that a few Rs 500 denomination notes carrying stamps of “Free Tibet Free China” were circulating in McLeodganj. Certain traders took note of the currency note and informed the authorities concerned. Till the filing of this report, no case has been registered in the matter. The CTA spokesperson said it had been brought to their notice that Rs 500 note bearing "Free Tibet, Free China" were reportedly in circulation in McLeodganj, Dharamsala. It could be work of certain mischievous elements, he added. The CTA condemns it and would like to appeal to all to remain vigilant against such mischief, he said.

“This incident is unfortunate as it comes at a time when Tibetans from India, Nepal and Bhutan are gathered in New Delhi to express our solidarity with Tibetans in Tibet,” he said.

Shimla, February 1
The government has modified the postings of some state administrative service officers ordered earlier this week. Rajeev Sharma, under transfer as Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development)-cum-Project Director (DRDA), Bilaspur, has been posted as Additional Director, Rural Development-cum-Ex-Officio Special Secretary, Rural Development.

He replaces Dr Ashwani Kumar Sharma, who takes over as Joint Secretary, Secretariat Administration and General Administration-cum-Director, Hospitality and Protocol. Sanjeev Bhatnagar, under transfer as Additional Director, Social Justice and Employment, has been posted as Additional Registrar, Cooperative Societies.

Rameshwar Sharma, Additional Director, Ayurveda, has been given additional charge of Additional Director, Social Justice and Empowerment. Pradeep Kumar Thakur, under transfer as DTDO, Mandi, is now Additional District Magistrate (Development)-cum-Project Director (DRDA), Bilaspur.

Minu Ram Dhiman, Assistant Commissioner to Deputy Commissioner, Bilaspur, will hold additional charge of Land Acquisition Officer for expediting land acquisition work of NHAI roads in Bilaspur and Kullu.

Solan, February 1
A farmer committed suicide by consuming some poisonous substance at Behendi village under the Kyar Kanata panchayat in Nalagarh subdivision of Solan district last night.

Balkrishan is survived by his wife, two grown-up daughters, one of whom is married, and two minor sons. He was rushed to a hospital in Bilaspur, but died on the way and was pronounced dead on arrival by doctors.

Nalagarh Deputy Superintendent of Police Praveen Dhiman said the farmer was an alcoholic and had taken loans from banks and some villagers.

Facing penury and under the burden of loans, he committed suicide. He had been ailing for quite some time and had availed himself of loans to bear medical expenses.

The post-mortem examination was conducted today and the body handed over to the deceased’s family. The police registered a case and started an investigation.