HP seeks special aid of 100 cr
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, April 26 — Unable to fight the twin problems of forest fires and acute water shortage from its own resources, the cash-strapped Himachal Pradesh Government has sought special assistance of Rs 100 crore from the Centre for the purpose.

The decision to seek central assistance was taken at a meeting of the state Cabinet held under the chairmanship of Mr P.K. Dhumal, Chief Minister, here today. The assistance was sought for the augmentation of water supply schemes and improvement in natural water sources, besides tackling forest fires. It also decided to release Rs 5 crore for undertaking relief works in drought-hit areas.

Expressing concern over the forest fires, the Cabinet appealed to right-holders, forest lessees and contractors to come forward and lend a helping hand to the Forest Department in controlling fires. It emphasised that protecting forests was the collective responsibility of the people. It was also decided at the meeting that an FIR be lodged for every fire incident so that action could be taken against the culprits in case of fires caused deliberately.

Continuing the efforts to curtail unproductive expenditure, the Cabinet decided to withdraw 30 vehicles from various boards and corporations. With this, in all 65 vehicles have been withdrawn and transferred to the general pool. The step will help save Rs 4 crore annually.

In another important decision the Cabinet approved the creation of a new court of Additional District and Sessions Judge at Una. It also sanctioned four new courts of Sub-Judge to be opened at Shimla, Chachiot (at Gohar), Indora and Nadaun. Besides, new 2,464 posts were created in the Public Works Department to regularise the services of daily paid workers who have completed nine years of service.

The Cabinet also decided to place additional funds at the disposal of the Irrigation and Public Health Department to enable it to supply drinking water through tankers in scarcity-hit areas.

As per another decision, the budget proposals and assurances would be implemented in a time-bound manner.

Apples worth Rs 8.82 lakh procured under the market intervention schemes in the landlocked Dodra Kawar area would be supplied to children and women as it was not feasible to transport the fruit out from this interior pocket.

Henceforth, ministers would take along only two vehicles each for touring. The Chief Minister's office will monitor their tours to ensure that the instructions were not violated. Senior officers will also not be allowed to keep more than one vehicle.

The Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police, who escort the Chief Minister during tours, will use only one vehicle. Only officers of the departments concerned will meet the ministers at rest houses during tours. Other officers will not call on the minister unless specifically asked to do so.

Summer brings water shortage
in its wake

SHIMLA, April 26 (UNI) — Come summer and people in most parts of Himachal Pradesh, including the capital town, are faced with an acute shortage of drinking water.

This summer, too, is not an exception. The crisis has been precipitated by prolonged dry spell and far below normal rain and snow in the last winter.

The problem threatens to assume alarming situation in certain areas where ponds have either dried up or water level of natural sources started receding.

Water shortage is greatly felt in certain areas in the districts of Hamirpur, Bilaspur, Kangra, Mandi, Solan and Shimla. The people, particularly women, have to tread a distance of one kilometre to three kilometres in rural areas to get a pitcher of water on their heads.

They take cattle to water source and make them drink water there.

At Shimla, residents and tourists have been also feeling the pinch of drinking water shortage. The most affected areas are those falling at the tail end of the town, including Tutu, Chakkar, Upper Chakkar, Kaithu, Anadale, Clestine, Bharari and parts of Summer Hill.

Shimla town is mainly supplied water from five sources. These are Nauti Khud at Gummachair, Churat Jagroti and Ashwani-Kusumpti pumping stations and gravity flow from Seog. Water from the catchment area of Kufri is stored at Seog and brought to Dhalli where it is purified for drinking purposes.

The total discharge of water from these five sources is 50 lakh to 55 lakh gallons per day against the requirement of 60 lakh to 65 lakh gallons per day, according to Shimla Municipal Corporation Commissioner Manoj Kumar.

Main reason of water shortage during summer is due to greater demand for water following increase in population. Nearly 50,000 to 70,000 floating population visit the town daily. Besides there is 10 per cent distribution loss which is "within manageable limit", Mr Manoj Kumar said.

Water is being supplied through tankers to hospitals and schools and hotels have been asked not to store water beyond the sanctioned limit. Use of water pumps is disallowed to the hotels.

Mr Manoj Kumar said that use of water for construction purposes was also likely to be disallowed. He said five hand pumps had been set up at different places in the town and survey was on to install more pumps to meet the water need of the people.

State Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has directed authorities to take effective steps to tackle the water shortage.

He has directed that wherever necessary, tankers should be hired and deployed for water distribution. However, preference will be given to augmentation of water available from hand pumps and maintenance of traditional water sources.

Target for installation of hand pumps will be reallocated so that the areas where signs of water shortage have appeared get higher share of hand pumps.

Half of the annual target for setting up of hand pumps is proposed to be achieved by the end of the next month by making special installation arrangements.

The Chief Minister has announced allocation of Rs 5 crore out of the State Calamity Relief Fund for the installation of hand pumps in addition to the normal plan allocations meant for their set up.

Allocation of funds from resources, available with the Deputy Commissioners under normal dispensation and various decentralised schemes, for augmentation of water supply by any means will be given priority.

Mr Dhumal has also directed that special drive should be undertaken for disinfecting the available drinking water sources to prevent outbreak of any epidemic.

Phones on demand from July
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, April 26 — Telephones will be available on demand in 66 urban exchanges including all 12 district headquarters of the state, and 100 rural exchanges from July onwards.

Stating this at a Press conference here today, Mr R. Madhvan, Chief General Manager, Himachal Telecom Circle, said the rapid expansion of the telecommunication network over the past two years had shortened the waiting list for new telephones drastically. At present there were 646 exchanges with an equipped capacity of 2.71 lakh lines and 2.25 lakh working telephones. To start with, the procedure would be streamlined to ensure the installation of telephones within seven days from the date of registration. Later, with the induction of a computerised commercial system in Shimla, telephones would be provided within 96 hours.

The telephone density in the state was the highest in the country and was comparable with advanced countries like the USA. In urban areas, as compared to an average of two telephones per 100 population for the country, the telephone density was as high as 4.40 per 100 in Himachal. It was as high as 24 per 100 in the urban areas. Dharamsala, with 29.32 telephones per 100, had the highest density, followed by Hamirpur with 26.84.

Mr Madhvan said in order to provide public telephones in tribal and other remote areas the department proposed to introduce the state-of-the-art "point-to-multi point" switch which would enable it to provide telephones in areas which were at present technically non-feasible. One such system was being installed at Kandaghat on an experimental basis and, if found successful, it would be used in Lahaul and Spiti district where 10 such systems would help cover the entire area. In addition, 100 satellite-based village public telephones were also proposed to be installed by the end of this year.

The telecom services in tribal areas would further improve with the commissioning of multichannel satellite stations by July.

While the Internet was available "on demand" throughout Himachal Pradesh, the department proposed to provide the synchronisation facility at all exchanges by December next for making connections stable and free from dropping.

To help reduce congestion and improve stability from small exchanges, the secondary switching areas of Shimla, Solan, Hamirpur, Dharamsala, Mandi and Kulu would also be provided with Internet remote access servers (RAS), to which all Internet subscribers would be connected.

The intelligent network (IN) switch would be installed at the Shimla telephone exchange by the end of June to provide facilities like the "free telephone", popularly known as "800 service", virtual calling card, personal telephone number and closed user group.

The department was also experimenting with the closed loop wireless system to provide reliable telecom services in areas like Thandar, Paonta Sahib and Asha Puri.

Mr Madhvan admitted that the department had been facing problems in maintaining services in rural areas due to an acute shortage of staff. The ratio of staff per 1,000 telephones had come down from 50 to 17 and it was expected to fall further to 14.5 by March, 2000. Unless immediate steps like making postings in the Himachal Circle tenure based were taken and simultaneously fresh recruitment was made for some technical cadres, it would be virtually impossible to maintain the vast network.

CM: Jhanjeli to be tourist spot
From Our Correspondent

MANDI, April 26 — Himachal Pradesh Chief Minster Prem Kumar Dhumal has said that people will not forgive the Congress and the so-called secular parties for the present political crisis and dragging the nation on the brink of a mid-term poll.

Addressing a public meeting at Thunag in this district yesterday, he claimed that the present government had accelerated the pace of development in backward areas and development work had been intensified after getting a Rs 300 crore special assistance from Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

He said Shilbari-Thalot and two other roads in the Thunag area were being constructed with funding from NABARD.

Earlier, he inaugurated an Industrial Training Institute, veterinary hospital and a 33-KV power sub station at Thunag.

Mr Rup Singh Thakur, Forest Minister, said a scheme had been launched in the state to involve the people in planning, plantation and preservation of the forest wealth.

Mr Maheshwar Singh, MP, announced a grant of Rs 1 lakh for these contraction of a "Sarai" at Thunag.

Mr Dhumal also said that the Jhanjeli area in Mandi district would be developed from tourism point of view.

He said the 2051-MW Parvati hydel project, which was the second largest in Asia and digger than Bhakra would provide employment to about 10,000 persons, besides generating an annual income of Rs 400 crore to the state exchequer.

He announced a grant of Rs 10 lakh for the construction of a senior secondary school at Jhanjeli

Mr Dhumal also called for improvement in education and health institutions in the state for providing better services to the people.

The Himachal Government had taken several steps to strengthen the education system in the state, Mr Dhumal said while addressing a gathering after laying the foundation stone of the building of a government college at Bassa in the Nachan area of Mandi district.

"Slighted" varsity teacher takes retirement
From Our Correspondent

SHIMLA, April 26 — Dr Javeed Alam a noted academician took voluntary retirement from the Himachal Pradesh University after 25 years of service.

Dr Alam felt "slighted" in the campus. He was denied professorship by the university even after he was selected by the UGC in 1988 as a research professor in the all-India category. He was the only teacher in the country in political science to have been selected. Dr Alam has written several articles in reputed journals and has authored several books.

Dr Javeed Alam belongs to the category of scholars like Aijaz Ahmed, Irfan Habeeb, Prabhat Patnaik, Sommit Sarkar etc has even co-authored a book with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. It was "Fresh Perspectives on India and Pakistan".

Many junior teachers were made professors and Dr Alam was ignored sometime back. "My individual work was double than all the accumulated work of five other teachers who were selected", told Dr Alam to The Tribune, yesterday. He was immediately called back or told to resign in 1984 when he was teaching in York University in Leeds, U.K. Even two years' leave without pay was denied to him and this very university has sanctioned leave for more than 10 years to "certain favoured" teachers. He gave the example of a recent rejoining by a teacher in bio-sciences after 11 years with seven years in the UNDP.

Dr Alam who was a visiting fellow in Calcutta in 1981, with Centre of Studies for Social Sciences and on leave to Centre of Studies for Developing Societies, New Delhi in 1992. He claims to have never taken a single pie from H.P. University.

"India Living with Modernity" his latest book, is published by the Oxford University Press. Another book "Democracy in India" being published by Penguins is in the offing. His other writings have from all over Europe, Australia and America, presently working with three German social scientists and two Delhi School of Economics Professors on "Communities and Cultural Boundaries in India," for Heidelberg University, Germany, Dr Alam felt , "HPU never recognised his potential".

It is our bad luck that we are losing such a teacher, fighter and social scientist, said some teachers from the campus.

We will miss his guidance, his lecturers, writings, say some researchers about Dr Alam who was on the Editorial Board of India Institute of Advance Studies', journals.

On the other hand the Vice-Chancellor says that Dr Alam has sought voluntary retirement much before he joined this office. As a researcher Dr Alam was held in high esteem in the field of political science but he was never forced instead he had requested the university on personal grounds for pre-mature retirement, says the V.C. But there is no doubt that university will lose an eminent academician, he added.

German envoy meets Dhumal
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, April 26 — Dr Heinrich D. Dieckmann, Ambassador, Federal Republic of Germany, called on the Chief Minister, Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, here today.

Mr Dhumal said the state government had given special priority to hydel generation and tourism development and also to the setting up of fruit processing plants in the state as there was a tremendous potential for these. He said Himachal would welcome foreign investment in these areas.

Dr Dieckmann informed the Chief Minister about the system prevailing in Germany in water management and waste disposal. Mr Dhumal told him that the state government had taken various steps to save the environment from pollution which the German Ambassador appreciated.

The Ambassador said he would explore the possibility of investment in Himachal by the German Government and private parties.

He invited Mr Dhumal to Germany to have an idea of the fruit processing technology and various developments that had taken place in the country.

13-yr wait for govt benefits
Tribune News Service

DHARAMSALA, April, 26 — Vimla has been running from pillar to post for 13 years to find her missing husband even as she brings up her three children.

Vimla Devi, husband, Mast Ram, peon in the Education Department, disappeared while on duty in 1987. She has been working as a domestic servant while she raises her three children at her parents' house.

The family has not been given any money or other benefit by the government despite the fact that Mast Ram served for 20 years. In the normal course if the whereabouts of the missing person are not known for a period of seven years he is deemed dead, and his family is given all the benefits including employment.

32 hurt in bus mishap
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, April 26 — As many as 32 persons were injured when a bus of the Himachal Road Transport Corporation bearing number HP-07-0634 which was on its way from Tiali to Shimla met with an accident near Phagu, 20 km from here.

While 13 seriously injured persons were admitted to IGMC Hospital here, the rest were discharged after giving first aid.

Mr H.N. Kashyap, Additional District Magistrate rushed to the spot along with the police and medical team and supervised rescue operations.