P R A D E S H
Monday, April 26, 1999
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H I M A C H A L P R A D E S H |
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Monday, April 26, 1999 |
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spotlight today's calendar |
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Free Panchen Lama, demand
Tibetans |
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 DharamsalaMandi Shimla Solan
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Villagers donate 5.6 lakh
for college |
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Free
Panchen Lama,
demand Tibetans DHARAMSALA, April 25 — The Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) and the Tibetan Women Association (TWA) have accused China of keeping the Panchen Lama recognised by the Dalai Lama under detention for the past five years as part of a political exercise and bid to keep a firm control over the religious affairs of the Tibetans. On the occasion of the 10th birthday of the 11th Panchan lama, Chokeyi Nyima, the TYC and the TWA appealed to Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Ms Mary Robinson, UN Commission for Human Rights, to ensure the unconditional release of the Panchen Lama. Gedhun Chokeyi Nyima was recognised as the 11th Panchen Lama by the Dalai Lama on May 17, 1995. It was on April 17, 1995, that he along with his family was abducted by the Chinese. Since then they have been under detention. The TYC and the TWA said the continued detention of the Panchen Lama was causing tension and suffering among Tibetan inside Tibet and those living in exile. They urged the world community to extend support to their demand for the release of the Panchen Lama and his family and political prisoners languishing in Chinese prisons. They regretted that during the detention of the Panchen Lama, the Chinese authorities had denied diplomats the opportunity to meet the Panchen Lama. Tibetans took out a
procession and held a candlelight vigil in McLeodganj
today. |
Fires sweep Kangra forests PALAMPUR, April 25 — A forest fire in Kangra district has caused a loss of over Rs 5 crore over the past week with almost all forest belts in the district affected. In the absence of adequate resources and political will the department has failed to douse the fires. Though its machinery is now on maximum alert, it may now be too late as many fires are now out of control. At present over 100 reports of fires are reaching offices of the Forest Department daily. The worst affected areas are Dehra and Nurpur divisions, where all major forest belts are on fire. The long spell of dry weather, and it has not rained for the past two months and small streams and khuds adjoining forests have dried up, and heavy shedding by chil trees this year have added to the hazard. A senior forest officer told this reporter here this morning that the Forest Department cannot control the forest fire alone and expressed serious concern over the attitude of 'forest rights holders' who had not been extending cooperation to the department despite their getting fuel and fodder from the forests regularly. He admitted that the department had not anticipated the early onset of summer this year and the field staff were casual towards the first reports of fire. Also this year the top brass of the Forest Department had failed to issue the necessary guidelines in time and no meeting of subordinate officials could be held. Meanwhile, there is an
acute shortage of funds with the Forest Department to
combat the fire with vehicles provided to DFOs and other
officers being five to ten years old and the field staff
having no implements. |
Economy drive cosmetic SHIMLA, April 25 — The decision to enforce economy measures to curtail unproductive government expenditure is a welcome step but may not have any tangible impact on the financial crisis according to sources here. The measures appear to be more an exercise in disciplining the bureaucracy and the savings in real terms may not add up much. While measures like fixation of a maximum quota of petrol for various levels of officers may go some way in checking the misuse of vehicles, other steps like downgrading the railway and air travel entitlement of officers and making prior permission of the Chief Secretary for going to Delhi for officers in the payscale of Rs 8000 and above are unreasonable and unrealistic. Following the revision of pay scale even section officers are drawing a basic salary of more than Rs 8000. Thus the chief secretary will be burdened with a lot of additional work. A more practicable solution, senior officers point out, would be strictly monitoring of the tours of officers outside the state to check 'pleasure visits' at state expense. Besides, the chief secretary should monitor the tour programme of secretaries, who could in turn monitor the tours of heads of departments etc. The down-grading of travel facilities too will not lead to much saving and instead breed resentment among bureaucrats who see it as downgrading of their status. Similarly, instead of fixing the maximum number of calls for various levels of officers, the government could have asked for detailed printouts of calls made to check misuse say officials. Similarly the government has fixed the monthly petrol quota for officers but has not directed senior officers in the secretariat to surrender departmental vehicles. At present some officers are using three or four vehicles and the fixing of petrol quota will not affect them much. There are other areas where economy could be exercised like in electricity use in government officers, furnishing and superfluous purchases, particularly from funds placed at the disposals of deputy commissioners and in pilferage of stationery which has increased after the advent of photostat machines. Earlier, functional posts like those of executive engineers, deputy commissioners and police officers were exempted from such measures. But this time no such exemptions have been made with only ministers being spared the restrictions. Instead efforts should
have been made to curtail the expenses of ministers who
remain on tour constantly with a fleet of vehicles in
tow. |
Villagers donate 5.6 lakh for
college MANDI, April 25 — The Himachal Pradesh government has taken up a task of revamping of the health and educational institutions in the state despite financial restraints. Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, Chief Minister, announced this while laying the foundation stone of a building of a degree college at Bassa in Nachan area of the Chachiot valley, yesterday. He said the college building would be constructed in a record time and Rs 3.71 crore had been allocated for it. He appreciated the gesture of the people of the valley who had donated Rs 5.6 lakh for the college building. He criticised the previous government for opening health and educational institutions in the state without making financial provisions. Mr Dhumal said the government had launched the Ambedkar meritorious students scholarship scheme under which students of the Scheduled Castes were given annual scholarship of Rs 10,000 each. The Chief Minister said semi-furnished accommodation with a common kitchen was being provided to the teachers serving in tribal areas as an incentive. As a mark of respect to the former Chief Minister of Himachal, Dr Y.S. Parmar, the scheme has been named as the Yashwant gurukul awas yojna, he added. He said 13,612 new rooms for primary schools were being constructed under the vidya sankalp scheme to strengthen the primary education in the state. Every primary school under the scheme would be provided at least three rooms. He said the work on 2051 MW Parbati Hydel Project and other projects would provide employment avenues for the people of the state in the coming years. Mr Mohinder Singh, PWD Minister, Thakur Roop Singh, Forest Minister, Mr Prakash Chaudhary, Minister of State for Animal Husbandry, and Mr Maheshwar Singh, MP, also spoke on the occasion. Mr Maheshwar Singh announced a grant of Rs 4 lakh from his discretionary fund for the construction of the college. Later, Mr Dhumal also
laid the foundation stone of community health centre at
Gohar. |
Forest fires rage near Kasauli SOLAN, April 25 — More than 4,500 pine trees were scorched and hundreds of newly hatched wild pheasants were believed to have perished in three different fires near Kasauli and Dharampur today. A fierce fire had been raging in an area of about 12 sq km of the Jangesu forests near Kasauli since Friday. It spread to the adjoining Mashobra forests this afternoon where an area of about 4 sq km had been ravaged till 9.30 p.m. today. Another fire broke out in the forests below Dagshai covering an area of about 2 sq km, about 2 km from Dharampur, at about 4 p.m. today. Teams of part-time forest watchers, forest staff and villagers had been deployed to control the fires in all three forests but none of the fires had been put out till the filing of this report at 9.45 p.m. This is the breeding
season for wild pheasants and other birds that abound in
these forests. It was feared that wild animals living in
boroughs and hundreds of newly hatched pheasants must
have perished in the fires. |
YC to
organise
protests SHIMLA, April 25 — The Himachal Pradesh unit of the Indian Youth Congress has expressed concern over the failure of the government to deal effectively with water scarcity and forest fires and decided to stage protests in areas worst hit by the twin problems. The state executive of the Youth Congress, which met here yesterday under the chairmanship of Mr Sukhwinder, president, decided to organise a one-hour "rasta roko" protest in Hamirpur on May 10 over the lack of adequate drinking water in areas reeling under the dry spell. It would be preceded by a rally at Bilaspur on April 29. A resolution adopted at the meeting said laxity in tackling the water problem and containing forest fires showed the "indifferent" manner in which the government had been functioning over the past one year. It decided to launch a drive to cleanse natural sources of water like "bowlis" so that villagers could use these in time of distress. Through another resolution it opposed the setting up of any new cement plant in the state as such units polluted the environment which, in turn, affected tourism. It favoured a complete ban on polythene bags. The Youth Congress also criticised the government for its failure to solve the problem of unemployment. While work on hydroelectric projects had not started and only agreements had been signed, the government had, for reasons best known to it, withheld the results of interviews conducted for filling vacant posts in various departments. It had also failed to come out with any scheme to encourage youth to undertake self-employment ventures. Daily paid workers had not been paid wages for the past three months. Mr Sukhwinder said the
Youth Congress would organise blood donation camps in all
districts on May 21. |
Solan MC gets 1.11 cr grant SOLAN, April 25 — The local municipal council chief, Mr Rajeev Bindal, said yesterday that Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal on March 31 had ordered release of special grants amounting to Rs 1.11 crore for various developmental schemes for the town. Mr Bindal, who addressed a press conference, said Rs 31 lakh had been received for improving water pipes distribution system and for paying off the arrears of water bills to the Irrigation and Public Health Department. He said the town would soon have a Rs 18 lakh musical fountains and a Rs 4 lakh toy train, to cater to the entertainment needs of citizens and children. A sum of Rs 10 lakh had been earmarked for providing public toilets, Rs 21 lakh for the benefit of weaker sections under the Swarn Jayanti Rozgar Yojana and Rs 10 lakh for setting up the parking lots. Rupees 12 lakh would be spent on installing mercury lights. Mr Bindal said the
municipal council held a meeting yesterday in which a
resolution was passed expressing gratitude to the Chief
Minister for making such large grants for the welfare of
the Solan citizens. |
Staff federation finalises
demands SHIMLA, April 25 — The Himachal Non-Gazetted Services Federation has finalised the demands to be raised at a meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee to be held shortly. The federal committee
which met at Hamirpur screened the 2745 demands received
from various constituent associations and decided to take
up only 75 of them. The main demands included house rent
allowance for husband and wife, enhancement of tribal
allowance, hill compensatory allowance and winter
allowance, grant of project allowance and bonus and the
framing of a transfer policy, the finalisation of the
recruitment and promotion rules and the grant of ration
money to policemen. |
Set up district planning
panels, SHIMLA, April 25 — The Zila Parishad expressed concern over the failure of the government to constitute district planning committees, without which the very purpose of development in the rural areas was being defeated. In a resolution adopted at a two-day meeting of the parishad, the government was urged to set up the planning committees as per the Panchayati Raj Act without any delay. It also urged the government to entrust "full control" of the district rural development agency to the parishad. The parishad also
expressed unhappiness over the meagre honorarium of Rs
1,000 per month being paid by the government to members.
Even this amount had not been paid for the past 15
months. The parishad took serious note of the absence of
district-level officers at the meeting. |
CM
inaugurates bridge DHARNDA (Sundernagar), April 25 — Residents of the Dharnda Gram Panchayat and its nearby panchayats were very happy yesterday as for the first time a Chief Minister visited this place. They gave a warm reception to the Chief Minister. Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, who visited the panchayat yesterday adjoining to the Sundernagar town laid a foundation stone of Rs 50 lakh drinking water supply scheme. He also inaugurated a Dharnda bridge constructed at the cost of Rs 36 lakh. He also announced a grant of Rs 2 lakh for the construction of two rooms and repairing of playground of school complex and sanctioned Rs 5000 for students who presented cultural items. Mr Dhumal addressing a gathering said policies of the Congress were not in national interest. The Himachal Government has not taken any loan this time to meet the expenses as has been done by the previous government. This was possible as Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee has given assistance of Rs 300 crore to Himachal, in its one-year tenure, the BJP government has achieved many landmarks as many projects have been started. Mr Maheshwar Singh, MP,
sanctioned an amount of Rs 75000 to the Mahila Mandal,
Dharnda. The Chief Minister was accompanied by Mr
Mohinder Singh, Mr Rup Singh, Mr Parkash Chaudhary, all
ministers. |
Cong
objects to
RSS camp in school SOLAN, April 25 — The District Congress Committee has taken strong exception to the alleged holding of a RSS camp inside the premises of the Government Senior Secondary School at Kandaghat, 15 km from here from April 13 to 15 earlier this month. DCC general secretaries, Mr Arvind Gupta and Mr Shiv Kumar told mediapersons here today that a local RSS 'pracharak' had held the camp mainly for primary school-going children with the sole objective of their indoctrination, in RSS ideology. While everybody has the democratic right to preach any particular faith or ideology the use of a Government school for such purposes was highly objectionable, they said. Both leaders said that
as per information available with them, the RSS planned
to hold similar camps at Chail and Chausa in this
district in the near future. They appealed to ruling
party leaders with whose "tacit backing the
Kandaghat camp was held", to restrain the RSS from
using public building for holding its camps and
threatened to stage 'dharnas' if such were held in
government premises in future. |
Laudable act by NSS volunteers UNA, April 25 — Wheat crop, stocked hay and at least 10 houses in Basal village were saved from being destroyed in a fire by volunteers of NSS of Government Senior Secondary Netaji Subhash Memorial School, 8 km from here when a fire started from bushes on April 22 afternoon. Mr Rajinder Sharma,
Principal of the school, told The Tribune yesterday that
girls and boys of plus two class who were attending an
NSS camp rushed to the place where fire was spreading
towards wheat bundles and heap of hay and nearby houses.
Soon students and people joined and helped in putting out
the fire. |
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