LAHDC threat to
resume stir
SRINAGAR, Sept 19 — The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council has threatened to resume agitation for union territory status for frontier regions of Ladakh if the state government does not accord "full autonomy’’ to the council.

State staff strike on Sept 25
SRINAGAR, Sept 19 — The Jammu and Kashmir Government Employees Conference, a representative body of the government, public sector, autonomous employees and workers today gave call for a "Kashmir bandh" on September 25 protesting what it called "ongoing violation of human rights" in the valley.

J & K suspends 32 PDD men

SRINAGAR, Sept 19 (PTI) — The Jammu and Kashmir Government has suspended 32 officials of the Power Development Department (PDD), including an Executive Engineer, for defrauding the state of crore of rupees while executing the Kishanganga hydel project in 1992-1994 official sources said today.

The suspended include, and Xen, two Assistant Xens, an Assistant Engineer and 10 Junior Engineers.

The spokesman said action was likely against other serving and retired officials. Investigations had revealed that funds, running into crore of rupees, were misappropriated by the engineering staff in connivance with other officials and a large number of contractors during 1992-94.

The project envisaged construction of a dam on the river Kishanganga near the Malik bridge, Gurez, in Baramula district and diversion of water through a 11.17-km long tunnel, construction of a power house at Kralpora-Bandipore for generation of 330 MW power and construction and widening of a 36-km long road from the Sumbal bridge to Sonawari-Bandipore, 55 km from here.

As many as 1093 works were stated to have been executed but the record of 783 works involving Rs 10.81 crore were either destroyed or withheld from the vigilance parties, the spokesman said.

He said of 306 works, record of which was made available to the vigilance teams, over Rs 4 crore were found to have been misappropriated.

The records seized by the Vigilance Department were put to scrutiny by engineering experts and special audit teams. After spot inspections, the experts concluded that the funds had been misappropriated on account of "purchase of store items, non-existing works and execution of sub-standard works".

It was also found that purchases were made in excess of requirement and in some cases even without requirement, the spokesman said.

He said many items were shown to have been purchased but were not received in the departmental stores.

Cement, a major component of the work, was found to be purchased through contractors who had procured it in the open market. A large sum of money was found to have changed the hands.

In some cases no technical sanction was obtained, the spokesman said, adding that against the initial sanction of Rs 1 crore, the accused booked expenditure and created liabilities of Rs 15.81 crore, which were gradually cleared.

LAHDC threat to resume stir

SRINAGAR, Sept 19 (PTI) — The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) has threatened to resume agitation for union territory status for frontier regions of Ladakh if the Jammu and Kashmir Government does not accord "full autonomy’’ to the council.

"The LAHDC formed three years ago has not been given full powers and cabinet minister status to the chairman of the LAHDC not accorded yet," Chief Executive Councillor of the LAHDC, Thupstan Chewang told mediapersons at Leh yesterday.

He said there were "certain issues" on which there was a discord between the state government and the LAHDC. Such issues included appointment of employees, land laws and control over the functioning of the LAHDC.

Mr Chewang accused the state government of dividing the region on religious lines by creating Muslim- dominated Kargil against Buddhist- majority Leh in the region and said the wedge had been reached at a "point of no return."

"It is now very difficult to narrow down these differences between the two regions," he said.

He hoped the matter would be discussed at detail the Cabinet meeting to be held in Leh to remove hurdles in the way of restoration of internal autonomy to the region.

In reply to a question, he said Ladakh was an integral part of Jammu and Kashmir and the constitution of the Autonomous Hill Development Council was in no way going to affect the integrity of the state.

State staff strike on Sept 25

SRINAGAR, Sept 19 (PTI) — The Jammu and Kashmir Government Employees Conference (JKGEC), a representative body of the government, public sector, autonomous employees and workers today gave call for a "Kashmir bandh" on September 25 protesting what it called "ongoing violation of human rights" in the valley.

The decision to observe the bandh was taken unanimously at a meeting of the executive committee of JKGC, Ghulam Rasool Ganai, senior vice-president of the conference, told reporters here today.

He said the step had been taken as the government "failed to stop violation of human rights, excesses against government employees (and) rampant corruption in the administration".

The government has also failed to remove doubts about handing over of the public sector into private hands, release of salaries to the employees pending for the last couple of months for which a deadline was fixed as September 20, Mr Ganai alleged in a statement.