Tearful farewell to Saurabh Kalia
PALAMPUR, June 12 — Thousands of people, who had assembled here for the cremation of Lt Saurabh Kalia, bid a tearful farewell to the valiant officer who had laid down his life fighting the Pakistani-backed infiltrators in the Kaksar area of the Kargil sector.

Mandi Shimla Solan

HP to promote nature tourism: Dhumal
SHIMLA, June 12 — The Chief Minister, Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, has said the new tourism policy will be formulated with stress on heritage and nature tourism. Efforts will also be made to develop year-round tourism in Himachal Pradesh.

CLP to draft memo for finance panel
SHIMLA, June 12 — The Congress Legislature Party will meet here tomorrow to prepare a memorandum for the Eleventh Finance Commission and also discuss the probable candidates for the four Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Journalists donate blood for jawans
SHIMLA, June 12 — The Press Club of Shimla and Ashadeep, a non-government organisation, organised a blood donation camp for soldiers injured in Kargil action, here today.

Sepoy cremated with full honours
MANDI, June 12 — The body of Sepoy Tek Chand Mastana of 7 Dogra Regiment was brought today to Shyanh village in Balh valley by four Army officials.

Flower show begins
SHIMLA, June 12 — Monal Public School, Sanjauli, bagged the first prize in a flower show which began here today.

Tearful farewell to Saurabh Kalia
From Pratibha Chauhan
Tribune News Service

PALAMPUR, June 12 — Thousands of people, who had assembled here for the cremation of Lt Saurabh Kalia, bid a tearful farewell to the valiant officer who had laid down his life fighting the Pakistani-backed infiltrators in the Kaksar area of the Kargil sector.

The body of Saurabh Kalia was flown in from Delhi and was received by senior Army officers, the civil authorities and senior politicians at the Army helipad. It seemed as if the entire town had assembled to pay respect to the young officer on his final journey. The atmosphere in the town was gloomy, but a sense of national pride prevailed as people raised slogan — "Saurabh Kalia amar rahe" and anti-Pakistan.

The body of the Army officer was taken to his house where the religious rites were performed. Later it was brought to the Pragati Maidan, for the people to pay their respect. Wreaths were laid on the body on behalf of the President of India, by senior Army officers, the Governor and the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh.

Former Chief Minister Shanta Kumar, Minister Ravinder Thakur, MLAs Dulo Ram, Vipin Parmar, B.B.L. Butail and Pradesh Congress Committee chief Sat Mahajan also placed wreaths.

People lined up on the streets and showered flowers on the coffin of Lt Kalia as it passed through the town to be taken to the cremation ground.

His brother, Vaibhav Kalia, lit the pyre among the chanting of mantras. Heart-rending scenes were witnessed as the last rites of the officer were performed. He was given a state funeral with full military honours.

Meanwhile, the government has decided to name the locality where the house of Lt Kalia is located as Saurabhnagar. The former Chief Minister, Mr Shanta Kumar, informed that after consultations with the Chief Minister, it had been decided to erect a memorial to Lt Kalia. The land adjoining Neugal Cafe would be used for making this. The road next to the house of Lt Kalia would also be named after him.

CLP to draft memo for finance panel
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, June 12 — The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) will meet here tomorrow to prepare a memorandum for the Eleventh Finance Commission and also discuss the probable candidates for the four Lok Sabha seats in the state.

The CLP will draft the party's memorandum to be submitted to the finance panel which will visit the state capital on Monday.

It is learnt that the memorandum will stress for the restoration of the earlier scheme under which the Centre bridged the gap between the Plan and non-Plan expenditure. The practice was discontinued on the recommendation of the Ninth Finance Commission and it has upset the financial position of the state.

The meeting of the CLP will be held under the chairmanship of Mr Virbhadra Singh, who as Chief Minister in the past, faced the problems which arose following the discontinuation of the practice.

The Chief Minister, Mr P.K. Dhumal, has also demanded restoration of the practice, particularly for the special category states.

The CLP is also expected to discuss the candidates for the Mandi, Shimla (reserve), Kangra and Hamirpur Lok Sabha seats.

The candidature for the Mandi and Kangra seats is becoming a ticklish issue as none of the party stalwarts has come forward to stake claim for these seats.

Incomplete Kangra bus stand
From Ashok Raina

KANGRA: The bus stand of this pilgrim town, education, tourism and business centre has been in a pitiable condition because of government apathy.

The foundation stone of the bus stand was laid by a former Chief Minister, Mr Shanta Kumar, on November 28, 1992. amid slogan shouting and protests by a section of the people who wanted that the bus stand should not be shifted from there. The bus stand spread over 28 kanals of land made operational on the same day.

Since then only less than half the area of the bus stand has been metalled and a temporary booking counter and a passenger shed constructed.

There is not even a rain shelter for the passengers proceeding to Mandi, Kulu, Manali, Palampur, Baijnath and Dharamsala. There is no proper booking counter for the buses proceeding to the above-mentioned stations.

In view of the non-availability of the counters, private buses are parked in a haphazard manner at the exit gate of the bus stand resulting in traffic jams inside and outside the premises. Most of the times it results in clashes between drivers and conductors.

The bus stand in charge said whenever they intervened to regularise the traffic at the outgate, HRTC employees were manhandled and beaten up by private bus operators and a number of cases were registered by the police.

He said as they did not have the powers to challan the drivers, their frantic efforts to regularise the traffic within the bus stand ended in a fiasco.

Most of the private buses pick up passengers for Pathankot from here, but later force them to alight at Jassure. There is no check of the RTO on such a wrong practice.

More than a thousand HRTC and private buses enter the bus stand daily, but the government is paying the least attention for its proper development. According to HRTC sources, Kangra has the highest number of passengers in comparison to other depots in the region. Local residents have been demanding that the bus stand should be upgraded to a depot. Transport Minister Krishan Kapoor a few months back assured mediapersons here that the bus stand would be upgraded to a depot, but nothing has been done in this direction.

As no long-distance buses start from here, pilgrims, tourists and aged passengers suffer a lot. Only eight seats in two deluxe buses and 70 seats in six ordinary buses are reserved here. Consequently hundreds of long-route passengers travel standing.

When the Divisional Manager, HRTC, Mr A.C. Negi, was asked why work on the bus stand had not started for the past five years, he replied that it had been allotted to the HPSEB. He did not know why it had not started. He said, "this is between the Managing Director, HRTC, and the executing agency. We are simply record keepers."

Mr Harbajan Singh Choker, Executive Engineer, Civil Construction, Division Palampur (SEB), said Rs 1.80 crore was required for the completion of the bus stand, but the HRTC had released only Rs 8 lakh for the Kangra bus stand. It was later diverted to the Chintpurni bus stand and thus the work could not start. He said work on the Kangra, Palampur and Chintpurni bus stands hand come to a grinding halt for want of funds.

Because of the incomplete bus stand, auto-rickshaws and taxies parked on the Dharamsala-Hoshiarpur highway are proving to be the worst traffic hazard. The bus stand has no boundary wall from the front side and latrines have been constructed in the centre of the bus stand thus polluting the atmosphere.

HP to promote nature tourism: Dhumal
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, June 12 — The Chief Minister, Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, has said the new tourism policy will be formulated with stress on heritage and nature tourism. Efforts will also be made to develop year-round tourism in Himachal Pradesh.

He was addressing concluding session of a workshop on tourism organised by the Tourism Department here yesterday to enlist the suggestions of hoteliers and other associated with the tourism industry.

Stressing the need for the development of eco-tourism, Mr Dhumal said special efforts would be made to promote heritage and nature tourism for which there was a great scope.

Emphasising the need for infrastructure development to facilitate tourists, he said that the government would ensure that all places important from tourism point of view were developed in a systematic and phased manner.

Meanwhile, inaugurating a three-day youth convention. Role of Sri Sathya Sai youth in the next millennium, here, yesterday, Chief Minister stressed the need for channelising the energy of the youth for constructive purposes.

Mr Shyam Sunder, president, state Sathya Sai Seva Organisation, said the Sathya Sai Seva Organisation had undertaken various activities in the state aimed at the service of the humanity.

Mr Justice Doraiswamy Raju, Chief Justice, Himachal High Court, was also present on the occasion.

Journalists donate blood for jawans
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, June 12 — The Press Club of Shimla and Ashadeep, a non-government organisation, organised a blood donation camp for soldiers injured in Kargil action, here today.

A large number of journalists and members of student organisations donated blood.

A medical team from Military Hospital, Shimla, conducted the camp.

The Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, was the chief guest.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Dhumal condemned the barbaric torture of six captured Army jawans and the mutilation of their bodies by the Pakistanis. He described it as a violation of international convention.

Expressing sympathies with the bereaved family of Lt Saurabh Kalia, Mr Dhumal said the state government had decided to name Van Vihar at Palampur after Lt Kalia. The road to his native village would also be named after him.

About 45 persons donated blood and 225 registered their names for blood donation in case of an emergency.

Sepoy cremated with full honours
From Our Correspondent

MANDI, June 12 — The body of Sepoy Tek Chand Mastana of 7 Dogra Regiment was brought today to Shyanh village in Balh valley by four Army officials.

He was killed while he was patrolling near his picket at Planwala near Jaurian, 70-km north-east of Jammu on June 8.

Sepoy Tek Chand (26) is survived by his 80-year-old father, 70-year-old mother, wife Veena, three daughters, the eldest studying in class IV and one-year-old son, Biki.

"My son made the supreme sacrifice for the country", his father, Chura Ram, said in a choked voice while the women folk of the village consoled his mother, wife, sisters and other grief-stricken relations.

Sepoy Tek Chand was cremated at the village with full civil and military honours. Officials of the Army transit camp, Pandoh, were present on the occasion.

Mr Prakash Chaudhary, Minister of State for Animal Husbandry, the Additional DC, Mr O.C. Sharma, the Additional SP, Mr Vinod Dhawan, and the SDM, Mandi, Mr Chaman Singh, paid their last respect.

The district administration has given Rs 25,000 as relief to the family. An additional sum of Rs 2 lakh will be given by the state government as per the Cabinet decision.

Dogs maul blind boy to death
From Our Correspondent

SOLAN, June 12 — A pack of stray dogs mauled to death a five-and-half-year-old, deaf, dumb and blind boy here yesterday.

Ashish, son of migrant labourer Ram Saroop, was attacked and dragged around by some stray dogs after he walked on to the roof of his house in sleep early in the morning yesterday.

His mutilated body was found by neighbours after sunrise. A part of the abdomen had been devoured and a bunch of hair had come off his head.

Telltale marks of blood showed that Ashish had been dragged around on the concrete floor after having been felled by the canine assailants.

It was being surmised that the attack on Ashish in all probability started as a playful act. It ended in the gruesome tragedy after some blood oozed out of the Ashish’s body triggering animal instinct, which normally remained dormant, in stray dogs.

The post-mortem report has established that death occurred due to a violent fall.

Flower show begins
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, June 12 — Monal Public School, Sanjauli, bagged the first prize in a flower show which began here today.

Loreate Public School, Bharari and Shimla Public School were placed second and third, respectively.

The theme for the schools was "India in next millennium".

The show is being organised by the Shimla Amateur Garden and Environment Society. This is the first flower show of the society.

According to Mrs Rama Sharma, a member of the society, the competition among the school children was to arouse their creative skills and sense of harmony with nature through the language of flowers.