H I M A C H A L   P R A D E S H

Sonia may be asked to nominate delegates
SHIMLA, Sept 23 — Following much turmoil in the organisational elections of the Congress in Himachal Pradesh, a move to authorise the AICC President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, to nominate the 11 AICC delegates and the PCC chief has been initiated.

BJP dissidents seek high command’s help
SHIMLA, Sept 23 — The scene of activity in the BJP dissident camp has shifted to Delhi with prominent leaders, including three ministers and as many legislators, holding a series of meetings with senior Central leaders to apprise them of their grievances over the past three days.

Examine land cheating case, DRO told
NURPUR, Sept 23 — In an alleged violation of land revenue laws the local Subdivisional Judicial Magistrate yesterday sent the complaint of Mr Inder Choudhary, an advocate, to the District Revenue Officer Dharamsala for a detailed report of contents of the complaint and directed him to submit the report by November 4.

HP districts to have driving schools
UNA, Sept 23 — Prof Prem Kumar Dhumal said the government had decided to open a driving institute in all districts of the state for imparting training to the youths after which they would be given driving licences.

Panel to probe stoning of hostel
SHIMLA, Sept 23 — The Himachal Pradesh University authorities have set up a committee to inquire into the stoning of boys’ hostel on the campus last night.

Roads that test survival skills
PARWANOO, Sept 23 — The condition of roads in all sectors of this industrial town has gone from bad to worse. The Nagar Parishad has not paid any attention to these roads for the past few years, leaving them broken and unsafe for vehicles as well as pedestrians. 

Tax-payer exposed to ridicule!
SHIMLA, Sept 23 — Dr Varinder Mohan, a practising psychiatrist in the small township of Dharampur in Solan district, yesterday made a startling revelation about the general attitude of the people towards honest tax payers.

2 killed as truck falls into gorge
KUMARHATTI, Sept 23 — Two persons died and eight were injured, two of them seriously, when their truck fell 500 feet into a gorge at Radiyana near Subathu, about 17 km from, today morning.

Wards at Civil Hospital opened
NAHAN, Sept 23 — Inaugurating the newly constructed male and female wards in the 50-bedded Civil Hospital at Sarahan, the Health Minister, Mr J.P. Nadda, said female health workers would be recruited at the local level in remote areas of Sirmaur district and Chamba to ensure minimum basic health services.

• St Edward’s function starts

Sonia may be asked to nominate delegates
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, Sept 23 — Following much turmoil in the organisational elections of the Congress in Himachal Pradesh, a move to authorise the AICC President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, to nominate the 11 AICC delegates and the PCC chief has been initiated.

Disclosing this to newsmen here today, Mr G.S. Bali, a general secretary of the PCC, said many senior partymen were in favour of the move to save the Congress from weakening in the state. He, said that the step will defuse the situation and create a cordial atmosphere. He said there was neither any move for splitting the party and nor any plan of anybody to resign from the Congress.

Mr Bali said the differences among the leaders during the elections will be sorted out once the office-bearers were nominated by Mrs Sonia Gandhi.

He claimed that the party elections were incident free and unlike those of the ruling BJP in which fisticuffs were exchanged between the two groups.

Meanwhile, the CLP leader, Mr Virbhadra Singh, called on the chairman of the pradesh election authority, Mr Hanumanth Rao, here last evening and urged him to settle the complaints of rigging which have been received from various places.

He is learnt to have asked Mr Rao to order re-election at places where the assistant returning officers had announced persons belonging to the other faction elected even without holding the election.

He is also learnt to have made it clear that those leaders who were claiming that the elections were free and fair and were complimenting Mr Rao for this, were in fact behind the mass rigging of the organisational elections.

Mr Virbhadra Singh is also learnt to have taken exception to Mr Rao having claimed that he had received only two complaints of irregularities pertaining to the election in Shimla and Bilaspur. He pointed out to Mr Rao that a large number of such complaints have piled up in the PCC headquarters here and steps should be taken to settle these without further delay.

A former Chief Minister and a sitting MLA, Thakur Ram Lal, has said no one in the Congress should ever think in terms of splitting the party on the issue of alleged irregularities in the organisational elections.

Thakur Ram Lal, who was reacting to the reported threat of a leader of Bilaspur regarding splitting of the party, said all party men should close their ranks now as the elections process had been completed.

Those having any grievances should approach the appropriate channels within the party for settling these instead of going to the courts and police stations.

Thakur Ram Lal, appreciated setting up of the central election authority under the chairmanship of Mr Ram Niwas Mirdha for the first time for conducting the elections in a free and fair manner. Other parties should also take a cue by holding their organisational elections this way, he added.

BJP dissidents seek high command’s help
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, Sept 23 — The scene of activity in the BJP dissident camp has shifted to Delhi with prominent leaders, including three ministers and as many legislators, holding a series of meetings with senior Central leaders to apprise them of their grievances over the past three days.

According to sources close to the dissident leaders, the group had met Mr L.K. Advani, Union Home Minister, Mr Bangaru Laxman, newly elected party President, Mr Pramod Mahajan, Information and Technology Minister, and some other leaders. They held detailed talks on issues leading to differences in the party. They decided to approach the high command after the state leadership failed to taken any steps to redress their grievances.

Mr Krishan Kapoor, Mr Ramesh Dhwala, Mr Hari Narain Seni, all ministers, were among those who met the leaders. They impressed upon the high command to intervene to set things right in the party before it is too late.

Besides complaining against the manner in which the office of the Chief Minister had been functioning, they also tried to drive home the point that failure to remove the tainted Public Works Minister, Mr Mohinder Singh, from the Cabinet was tarnishing the image of the party and it would have to pay dearly for it at the hustings.

Their main grouse was that senior partymen were being sidelined and a systematic effort was being made to destabilise established leaders by propping up rootless persons. Consequently, committed party cadres were disillusioned.

Signs of dissidence surfaced in the party in July when three ministers and three legislators met Mr P.K. Dhumal, Chief Minister, as a group for the first time and aired their grievances. Therefore, they also met Mr Jaikrishan, state party chief, and apprised him of the what they considered the root cause of differences in the party.

Last week, 13 of them boycotted the official dinner hosted by the party after the meeting of the party office-bearers here and hosted a parallel dinner at the residence of Mr Krishan Kapoor. Mr Jaikrishan Sharma took notice of newspaper reports in this regard and wrote letters to all 13 legislators who failed to make it to the official dinner to ascertain the reasons of their absence.

Although, the party spokesman was at pains to explain that these were not show-cause notices, the action of the President had not gone down well with partymen who feel that it aggravated the matter instead of resolving it.

It remains to be seen what action the high commands takes to end the renewed factional war in the party which could have serious implications for the stability of the coalition.

Examine land cheating case, DRO told
From Our Correspondent

NURPUR, Sept 23 — In an alleged violation of land revenue laws the local Subdivisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) yesterday sent the complaint of Mr Inder Choudhary, an advocate, to the District Revenue Officer (DRO) Dharamsala for a detailed report of contents of the complaint and directed him to submit the report by November 4.

Mr Choudhary had filed a complaint in the SDJM’s court on September 12 under Sections 402, 166, 167 and 120 of the IPC against a Naib Tehsildar (Revenue), posted here a few months back who allegedly benefitted Jamat Singh by redemption of prime agricultural land situated at Chhatrolli village in the subdivision. This land had been mortgaged to his father Uttam Chand. The complainant claimed that the land had been shown in revenue record, ‘‘jamabandi’’, for the year 1994-95 in the possession of his father. Apart from this it was also recorded that the land had been mortgaged to Uttam Chand 40 years ago.

The complainant who is the Power of Attorney of the mortgagee has also made the field staff of the Revenue Department and beneficiary as a party in his complaint. It is alleged that the beneficiary in connivance with the officials and staff of the Revenue Department had hatched a conspiracy by preparing false reports and had even changed the entry in the revenue records in getting the mortgaged land redeemed.

It has been alleged that the patwari of the area had wrongly entered the mutation report of the mortgaged land on January 22 this year and the Kanungo examined it on January 27. Finally, the then Naib Tehsildar changed the revenue entry of the mortgaged land by means of a mutation in the absence of the mortgagee.

However, according to the HP Redemption of Mortgage Act, 1977, only Collector-cum-Subdivisional Magistrate can redeem the mortgaged land. But in this case a revenue officer of Naib Tehsildar rank allegedly did the same by flouting the revenue rules to benefit an individual.

HP districts to have driving schools
From Our Correspondent

UNA, Sept 23 — Prof Prem Kumar Dhumal said the government had decided to open a driving institute in all districts of the state for imparting training to the youths after which they would be given driving licences.

The Chief Minister, who inaugurated the Heavy Motor Driving and Earth Moving Machine Training Institute at Pakka Paroh near Amb, 30 km from here, yesterday said this had been done to minimise accidents.

Later, he distributed the passbooks to farmers of the district. He said 12,97,567 right holders in the state would be given the passbooks by March, 2001.

The Chief Minister criticised those leaders who had launched a campaign against the amended Revenue Act and said it was nothing but false propaganda.

He said the Una-Bhota state highway would be developed and the bridge at Mandli village on the Gobind Sagar lake would also be built soon with funds from NABARD.

Earlier, the Chief Minister inaugurated three rooms constructed under the Sarswati Bal Vidya Sankalaya Yojna at Government Primary School, Amb-Bela. He also laid the foundation stone of Bachat Bhavan and a commercial complex at Amb being constructed at a cost of Rs 50 lakh.

Dr Rajan Sushant, Minister of State for Revenue, Mr Parveen Sharma, Minister of State for Excise and Taxation, Mr Ram Dass Malangar, Deputy Speaker, Vidhan Sabha, Mr Jain Kishan, state BJP chief, also spoke on the occasion. The Chief Minister was presented a cheque for Rs 50 lakh on behalf of the Chintpurni Temple Trust for the construction of a community health centre at Chintpurni.

Panel to probe stoning of hostel
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, Sept 23 — The Himachal Pradesh University authorities have set up a committee to inquire into the stoning of boys’ hostel on the campus last night.

The SFI and the NSUI have accused the ABVP of having resorted to such tactics after having been defeated in the campus elections.

A spokesman for the university said the Vice-Chancellor, Dr S.K. Gupta, has asked the committee to identify the persons responsible for the incident and also suggest measures to prevent such happenings in future.

Mr Vidya Sagar, president of the campus unit of the SFI, in a statement said seven students were injured as miscreants smashed panes of the hostel. He has demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident.

The NSUI chief, Mr Kewal Singh Pathania, said academic atmosphere on the campus has been vitiated and he demanded stern action against the miscreants.

Roads that test survival skills
From Our Correspondent

The residents of the town are surprised that any repair done on the roads gets damaged within a month or two. They say nobody is held responsible for the shoddy work and the contractors and officials responsible for it manage to escape scot-free. According to them, the Nagar Parishad has not done any repairs on the roads this year. Most of them say that the parishad should lay cemented roads instead of tarred ones.

Tax-payer exposed to ridicule!

SHIMLA, Sept 23 (PTI) — Dr Varinder Mohan, a practising psychiatrist in the small township of Dharampur in Solan district, yesterday made a startling revelation about the general attitude of the people towards honest tax payers.

Appreciating the gesture of Dr Mohan, the Chief Income Tax Commissioner, Himachal and Haryana, Mr J.S. Ahluwalia, said those who were dubbing Dr Mohan as a psychiatric patient for paying tax were themselves lunatics.

2 killed as truck falls into gorge
From Our Correspondent

KUMARHATTI, Sept 23 — Two persons died and eight were injured, two of them seriously, when their truck fell 500 feet into a gorge at Radiyana near Subathu, about 17 km from, today morning.

Sources said the primary investigations revealed that the driver dozed off and lost control of the vehicle. The rescue operation started as soon as the report reached Subathu. The Joints Group, a social organisation based at Subathu, sent its ambulance to the site and brought the occupants of the ill-fated truck to the nearby Thari Primary Health Centre.

The two killed on the spot have been identified as Deep Ram (45) from Mamleeg and Mukesh Kumar (19) from Chalawali in Kunihar tehsil. Their bodies have been sent to Community Health Centre, Dharampur, for a postmortem, said Mr A.K. Singh, Dharampur Block Medical Officer.

Those injured have been shifted to the district hospital, Solan. The police has registered a case.

Wards at Civil Hospital opened
From Our Correspondent

NAHAN, Sept 23 — Inaugurating the newly constructed male and female wards in the 50-bedded Civil Hospital at Sarahan, the Health Minister, Mr J.P. Nadda, said female health workers would be recruited at the local level in remote areas of Sirmaur district and Chamba to ensure minimum basic health services.

He said there would be no shortage of staff in the next two years with more doctors being recruited. For filling vacancies of the paramedical staff, he said the government had decided to recruit trained exservicemen on contract basis to tackle the situation.

He added that hospital societies were being formed to decentralise decision-making in day-to-day functioning and management of hospitals. He further said funds collected through OPD slips could now be used for the maintenance of these hospitals. The prescription slip fee had not been raised in district hospitals, he added.

Mr Nadda said the concept of patient-friendly hospital was being introduced in the state with more reliance on professional advice to end ad hocism in the health sector.

He said the common man would be given knowledge of standard treatment with the publication of a booklet by the department.

St Edward’s function starts
Tribune News Service

SHIMLA, Sept 23 — The week-long platinum jubilee celebrations of St Edward’s School started here today. The celebrations will include an inter-school table tennis and badminton tournament, cricket matches and singing competition, according to the principal, Father Ambrose D’souza.