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| Sunday, March 19, 2000, Chandigarh, India  
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Focus now on thermal power:
minister Villagers' dharna against
"police inaction" CM favours growing medicinal herbs Hike in salary deduction flayed HP Govt floats loan |
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800 stranded at Pangi,
Spiti Shanta calls on Karmapa
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Cong fears cross-voting SHIMLA, March 18 — With a direct contest between the ruling BJP and the Congress for the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Himachal Pradesh, the latter is trying hard to keep its flock of 28 legislators intact to prevent cross voting. None of the two candidates withdrew their papers on the last day today. Polling for the seat will be held on March 29. The Congress has yet to recover from the incident of cross-voting by two of its legislators during the earlier poll when Mr Anil Sharma, son of the HVC chief, Mr Sukh Ram, was the candidate. A senior Congress leader said the "black sheep"remained unidentified and might resort to similar tactics. He said with the BJP enjoying a strength of 35 in the 68-member Assembly, besides the support of three HVC men and an Independent, there was no hope of the Congress winning the seat and it was useless contesting the election. However, the die had been cast now. It is felt in Congress circles that the BJP-HVC may manoeuvre cross-voting once again. When contacted, the CLP leader, Mr Virbhadra Singh, said he would issue a three-line whip to legislators for voting in favour of the party candidate, Mr Thakur Singh Bharmourie. The BJP has fielded a party General Secretary, Mr Kripal Parmar. Certain BJP leaders claim that this time cross-voting will be seen at a bigger scale. Earlier in view of the bickerings within the BJP and the HVC, the Congress leadership was hopeful of securing one or two additional votes. But the situation has changed now. Initially, certain
Congress men were reportedly not in favour of fielding a
candidate in view of their poor numerical strength in the
Assembly. But others were opposed to allowing the BJP to
get the Rajya Sabha seat on a platter. |
Focus now on thermal power:
minister MALANA (Kulu), March 18 — The Centre has drawn up a comprehensive plan to meet the perennial shortage of power in the country under which the installed generation capacity will be increased to 2.40 lakh MW by the year 2012. Stating this at a function organised to announce the financial closure of the Rs 350 crore Malana hydel project here today, Mrs Jayawant Mehta, Union Minister of State for Power, said the government had taken a policy decision to shift focus from thermal to hydel generation. The step would go a long way in restoring the ratio of thermal and hydel generation in the country to 60:40. She said the ratio had over the years dwindled to 76 to 24 due to the raw deal meted out to the hydro-power sector. Referring to Himachal's vast power potential of 21000 MW, she said with hydel power getting due priority, the state would gain the maximum. While execution of hydel projects would speed up development, the huge returns these projects would fetch in form of royalty would make it the richest state in the country. She said the Centre would provide all possible help to the state in exploiting the hydel power potential and it was willing to provide training to state engineers. Mr P.K. Dhumal, Chief Minister,, complemented the Malana power company for advancing the completion schedule of the 86 MW project. He said the government policy to reward efficiency would encourage companies as the quantum of free power to be given as loyalty to the government would be reduced for completing the project ahead of schedule. Mr Laxmi Niwas Jhunjhunwala, Chairman, Bhilwara group, which is executing the project, while formally announcing the financial closure, said out of the eight hydel projects for which MoUs were signed in 1993, this was the only project which was actually under execution. He said the company had been assigned the 200 MW Allain Duhanagan project near Manali and was in the process of starting work on it. Mr Vishnu Kant Shastri,
Governor, was also present. |
Villagers' dharna against
"police inaction" SOLAN, March 18 — Protesting against what they described as the failure of the police to solve the murder case of Ram Asri of Sambhowal village, near Nalagarh, 500 irate villagers held a dharna in front of the police station at Nalagarh and blocked traffic on the Nalagarh-Swarghat road for over six hours yesterday. The police had recovered the body of Ram Asri from Khabra forests on March 7 and subsequently arrested Shiksha Devi of Sambowal village, and two forest workers, Naranga Singh and Hari Singh, after registering cases of murder against them. The protesting villagers alleged that the police for reasons best known to it, was not arresting the real culprits and harassing innocent villagers in the name of investigations. They said Shiksha Devi had named two persons, including a priest of a temple situated inside the Khabra forests, as those involved in the murder case, and demanded that they be rounded up immediately. Before lifting the dharna and blockade of road, the villagers served an ultimatum on the police that the agitation would be intensified in case they failed to arrest the real culprits responsible for Ram Asri's murder ‘within two days’. Meanwhile, the Deputy
Superintendent of Police, Nalagarh, Mr Prem Thakur,
denied any police inaction in the case. He said the
investigations had been hampered by the confusing
statements made to the police by Shiksha Devi. He hoped
that his men would be able to solve the case and bring
the guilty to book soon. |
CM favours growing
medicinal herbs CHAMBA, March 18 — The Chief Minister, Prof Prem Kumar Dhumal, disclosed that medicinal herbs would be grown on a commercial basis in the state. He said that Forest and Ayurveda department would jointly formulate a plan and impart training and other knowledge to those interested in growing herbs in the State. Prof Dhumal, launched vanaspati van yojna at Mani Jhullra, about 40 km from here last evening. The Chief Minister said that Rs 8.27 crores would be spent in Chamba and Kulu districts on bringing about 5000 hectares of area under herbiculture. Out of this, 2529 hectares would be covered in Chamba district in the Masroond and Mani forest range and remaining in Solang and Mari areas of Kulu district. He said in Chamba district Rs 4.14 crores would be spent under this project. Addressing newspersons Prof Dhumal said that he held a meeting of officers regarding the prasharan janta kay dwar par policy. The Chief Minister
directed the officers information about their tour should
reach the residents of the respective areas before-hand. |
Hike in salary deduction
flayed MANDI, March 18 — The local unit of the Himachal Pradesh Police Employees Association (class-III) expressed deep resentment against five-time increase in deduction from their salary in lieu of free travel facility provided to them in HRTC buses. Association members expressed shock over the "callous attitude" of the government and that of the MD, HRTC, towards the police. A sum of Rs 20 per month used to be deducted from the salary of police personnel as a token amount for travelling in HRTC buses. This has been increased to Rs 100 per month. The members of the Third
Battalion of Himachal Armed Police also held a meeting at
Pandoh and urged the government to withdraw the hike
which was brewing discontentment among police personnel.
They decided to close the mess of 3rd Battalion on March
23 to protest against the hike. |
HP Govt floats loan SHIMLA, March 18 — The Himachal Pradesh Government with the approval of the Centre has decided to float a loan of Rs 40 crore (notified amount) which will bear interest at the rate of Rs 11 per cent per annum from March 22, 2000. Interest will be payable half yearly on September 22 and March 22 each year. He said that the
proceeds of the loan would be utilised for financing the
capital expenditure in connection with the developmental
programmes of the state. |
800 stranded at Pangi, Spiti SHIMLA, March 18 — About 800 persons are waiting for being airlifted to the tribal areas of Pangi and Lahaul-Spiti as the helicopter flights have failed to operate since February 23. Stating this here today, the leader of the Congress Legislature Party and a former Chief Minister, Mr Virbhadra Singh, criticised the government for not providing helicopter hired for carrying the stranded persons to these areas. Most of the people were stranded at Kulu, he added. Most of the people have
to depend on helicopter services as Rohtang was expected
to re-open in the month of May. |
Shanta calls on Karmapa KANGRA, March 18 — The Union Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution System, Mr Shanta Kumar, today called on the 14-year-old 17th Karmapa Ugyen Trinley Dorje at Zwtou monastery at Sidbari where the Karmapa has been staying since January 7, and sought his blessings. The Karmapa is waiting
for grant of political asylum by the Government of India
since his arrival here on January 5, he after escaped
from a monastery at Lhasa in Tibet along with his sister
and five others. |
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