Bilaspur
Shimla
Nahan
Solan

Teachers want govt to honour agreement
BILASPUR. May 2 — The District unit of Himachal Government Teachers Union criticised the Himachal Government for failing to implement and enforce its commitment of five per cent house rent allowance from September 1997, six per cent rural allowance and other benefits based on the Punjab pattern.

Forest fires cause serious concern
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, May 2 — With the weather gods in no mood to relent, the rampant forests fires raging in the mid and lower hill areas of the state are causing serious concern to the government.

Despite round-the-clock vigil by officials of the Forest Department, fires are breaking out with alarmingly high frequency, causing huge damage to the ever-depleting forest reserves.

About 611 incidents of fire have occurred affecting forests spread over 12,900 hectares. Normally, only a few fires are reported during April and the frequency of such incidents increases towards the end of May and in June. For instance, there were hardly any major fires last year. In 1997 only 71 hectares of forest was affected by fire.

However, this year the unusually hot weather created a June like situation in April itself.

The maximum number (159) incidents of fire have been reported from the Bilaspur forest circle where 3,027 hectares of forest has been affected. However, the maximum damage to forests has been caused in Sirmaur district where 4,249 hectares of forest has been affected in 88 incidents.

Fortunately so far the blazes have been confined to the forest floor. As such, not much damage has been caused to big trees and only young trees have been affected.

The Forest Department has deployed over 7,000 fire watchers. It has also purchased 30 walkie-talkie and 15 wireless sets. With this, it has a network of 300 mobile communication sets.

Mr Roop Singh, Forest Minister, reviewed the situation at a high-level meeting here yesterday. The minister said this year Rs 1.5 crore had been provided for fire protection measures from the state plan and another Rs 3.2 crore had been sought under a centrally sponsored scheme. Besides, the state had urged the Centre to provide a grant of Rs 5 crore for strengthening the fire control measures.

Mr Roop Singh directed the department to form local village-level committees to combat fires. He expressed the hope that the people would lend a helping hand to the department in saving the forests.

Meanwhile, in a bid to control fires all able-bodied adult males have been ordered to perform "thikri pehra" to bring the situation under control.

Notifications ordering "thikri pehra" have been issued by the district magistrates of all areas which are prone to forest fires.

This follows yesterday's high-level meeting in which the Chief Minister, Mr P.K. Dhumal, asked district officers to take effective measures to control forest fires and drought.

The Deputy Commissioner of Shimla, Mr Ram Subhag Singh said a control room had been set up in his office where any report about water problems and forest fires would be given on telephone number 257013.

He said to meet the water scarcity, it had been decided to install 47 handpumps in the district. Seventeen of these would be in Shimla town.

Over 100 forest fires reported
From Our Correspondent

NAHAN, May 2 — Over 100 incidents of forest fires have been reported from different parts of the district so far. Forest Department sources have verified only 60 incidents but they conceded that fresh fire incidents were increasing alarmingly.

At this time all six tehsils of the district have been badly affected by the forest fires. Forests in Nahan, Jamta, Banethi and Dharti hills around Nahan town have been affected by fire for the past seven days. Fire has broken out at about 17 places in these areas where forest officials and local people have been trying to control fires round the clock.

Some Forest Department officials involved in controlling fires in the Jamta area said some miscreants were involved in some fire incidents and they were causing forest fires at more than half a dozen places every day. Some forest workers had spotted these miscreants at night but the miscreants managed to escape.

One forest guard in Jamta forest range was injured seriously in trying to control the flames. He was admitted to Civil Hospital here. Meanwhile, two other forest workers were saved by the villagers in the Jamta area when they were trapped in a burning forest.

Paonta, however, is the only forest division in the district from where minimum number of fire incidents have been reported. Yesterday fire broke out suddenly in the Garib Nath thick sal forest of Paonta. The Forest Department officials immediately rushed to the site and with the cooperation of the villagers of Haripur and other nearby villages managed to put out the fire within two hours in spite of adverse wind and inaccessibility of lantana bushes. The fire could have destroyed the sal trees wasting years of labour of local villagers and the Forest Department.

Divisional Forest Officer, Paonta, R.M. Reddy informed that one fire watchman had been deputed in each forest beat of Paonta Forest Range.

More than 20 forest fires were still raging in the different parts of the district and had not been put out despite the best efforts of the officials.

Teachers want govt to honour agreement
From Our Correspondent

BILASPUR. May 2 — The District unit of Himachal Government Teachers Union criticised the Himachal Government for failing to implement and enforce its commitment of five per cent house rent allowance from September 1997, six per cent rural allowance, rupees 250 medical allowance, rupees 200 laboratory allowance and other benefits based on the Punjab pattern. A meeting of the unit presided by the district president Roshanlal Sharma at Ghumarwin, 30 km from here last evening, demanded that the family planning operation "incentive increment" be given on new pay-scales, compensatory allowance be increased in line with prices and all pending cases of salary be decided and arrears paid. All vacant posts be filled and posts of language teachers be created in all upgraded middle schools.

The union thanked the Chief Minister for declaring three advance instalments to all C and V teachers in lieu of stagnation and demanded that these instalments be released immediately. The union criticised 'mismanagement' in the office of district education officer.

Dhumal's remarks in ‘bad taste’
From Our Correspondent

SOLAN, May 2 — Senior opposition leaders here have taken exception to the manner in which Chief Minister PK Dhumal referred to Netaji Subhash Chander Bose, two former Prime Ministers and a former Chief Minister at Friday's public meeting at Darlaghat.

Mr Dhumal had described Mr I K Gujral as 'that French cut' poked fun at the speech handicap of Mr Deve Gowda and Mr Virbhadra Singh and lampooned a famous saying of Netaji Subhash Chander Bose while asking for the people's support for his developmental plans and strategies.

The senior vice-president of Samajwadi Janata Party (HP) Mr Kulrakesh Pant termed Mr Dhumal's remarks as 'most unfortunate and transgressing the limits of decency'. He said that the Chief Minister should immediately make amends.

The sitting Congress MP, Mr Kishan Dutt Sultanpuri said every public utterance of Netaji Subhash Chander Bose, particularly the one quoted and lampooned by Mr Dhumal were held as sacrosanct by a large number of people, especially of his generation.

Mr Dhumal, who was a relatively new entrant to Indian politics, should neither have twisted. Netaji's words to suit his own political ends nor have referred to the former Prime Minister and Mr Virbhadra Singh in the manner in which he did.

Sitting Congress MLA, from Arki, Mr Dharam Pal and the DCC, general secretary, Mr Arvind Gupta also expressed unhappiness at Mr Dhumal's remarks.