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| Sunday, February
25, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Cement plant initiated despite
opposition Artificial lake built at magic cost Proposal on recruitment
rules decried HP Speaker calls on
Governor Body of Army jawan
recovered |
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Cement plant initiated despite
opposition Sundernagar: Earlier, the proposal of setting up a cement plant at Nalani Maloh (Sundernagar) was rejected by the Ministry of Environment and Forests as the proposed mining site was with in a distance of 500 metres from Bandli, a wildlife sanctuary, whereas as per norms the distance should not be less than 2.5 km. Later on it was admitted by Mr Kishori Lal, Industries Minister, that the proposal of the cement plant had been rejected by the central government, which was strongly recommended by the state government. This decision was hailed by the residents throughout Mandi district. Now the state government has adopted a new method to deal with this issue and has started the process to denotify half the area of the wildlife sanctuary, Bandli, which is spread over an area of 3176.52 hectares. Along with this the state government has also decided to cut half the area of the Nature Awareness Centre, Trambri, which is spread over 205 hectares and is surrounded from the two sides by Sundernagar town. NAC was created by Mr Rup Singh, Forest Minister, who represented Sundernagar Assembly segment in 1991. Now the Forest Minister is himself recommending to cut half the area of NAC, Trambri and is recommending denotification of half the area of the sanctuary, Bandli. All formalities have been completed by the top officials who are not supposed to act without asking for a report from the field staff. Even the Himachal Vikas Congress chief, Mr Sukh Ram, is not taken into confidence as he is not in favour of the plant. Now the case has been submitted to the Central Wildlife Board, New Delhi, the Chairman of which is Prime Minister himself. A highly placed source from the forest department confirmed that the government has written to the central government that the case for denotification of the sanctuary has already been moved and will soon get clearance from the Wildlife Board and has further requested that the condition of 2.5 km be relaxed in case of the hilly state due to which the earlier proposal was rejected. He further added that all this had been done to please the cement lobby. The residents of this subdivision and adjoining subdivisions of Mandi district have been opposing the decision since 1992. Now the people have formed environmental protection groups at various places and decided to fight out the controversial decision of the government. Even in Maloh village where the Harish Chander and company has decided to install the cement plant, the newly elected panchayat at its first meeting has passed the first resolution that the residents of the village are against the decision of the government to install the plant. According to the residents the installation will affect more than four lakh of people of Mandi district. It will further render various water mills useless. Also water channels of the area will be dried up. The crop pattern and yield of crops will be adversely affected and the yield of milk will be reduced. According to a source from the BBMB the state government has not taken into confidence the BBMB when taking this decision. According to Mr H.D. Sharma, secretary of Hotel and Guest House Association, Mandi, the decision of the installation of cement plant will adversely affect the tourism potential. Every year more than 60 lakh tourists visit this hill state. According to him the tourism industry is already facing setback due to uncontrolled truck traffic caused by the cement plants in Himachal. This subdivision was rocked in 1997. An earthquake of 5.2 intensity on the Richter scale was detected here with its epicenter in this town and it is feared that due to heavy mining operations it will further enhance the danger of earthquakes here. Now the residents have sent to the Prime Minister a representation requesting him not to clear the proposal in the interest of this hill state. The people are hopeful that the Prime Minister will protect them from the badly taken decision of the state government. |
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Artificial lake built at magic cost Solan, February 24 His magic trick? Give the conventional approach of damming up the river with a RCC structure a go-bye and adopt a down-to-earth, environmentally sound approach of constructing earth-fill dam using locally available material. He had also pruned down the depth of the lake from the originally proposed 15 metres to 1.6 metres, which was the highest recorded flood level of the rivulet at the site and hence was safe enough from the environment point of view. While cutting down the costs drastically, the low cost dam would provide all tourism facilities like recreation, boating and angling, which had been mooted earlier under the Rs 2 crore plan. Explaining the circumstances that necessitated the revision of the earlier project plan the IPH Superintending Engineer, Mr D.R. Gupta, told this reporter there were two main factors that forced it. The first and the foremost factor was Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal’s idea of the lake’s potential of becoming an important tourist destination thereby providing the local people with sizeable avenues of income generation. The Chief Minister laid the foundation stone of the lake on December 21, 1999, without considering the technical aspects of damming up the river. The second factor was that the dam site was, found to be unsuitable from the geological point of view. A high-powered experts committee that included the State Engineer-in-Chief and the State Geologist had found the geology, of the site too poor for the construction of a dam on account of the strata consisting of thinly bedded and shattered rocks dipping in downstream directions, “which would result in the sliding of the dam”. Coupled with it was the difficulty posed by the nature of the catchment area, which largely comprised of shales and slates that get easily eroded even by medium velocity flow of waters. This meant that the lake would receive heavy amounts of silts and could possibly become useless for the purpose of boating in a few years time. Subsequent investigations entrusted to a Chandigarh based private firm of consultants and a team of geologists of Roorkee University only confirmed the State Expert Committee’s findings. Mr Gupta said it was precisely the dilemma faced by him upon joining the Nahan Circle of the IPH last month. Either the intended beneficiaries of the lake project — the people of Sadupul had to wait for the fulfilment of their long cherished dream till the technicalities were sorted out which could take any length of time or some novel approach was needed to solve the problem and put the lake in place in the shortest of time, he said. He said he had always worked on the principle of applying known principles to unknown usages. After a few meetings with the local people it became clear to him that the only thing required was a water body capable of supporting tourist amenities like boating and angling. Mr Gupta said the difficulties posed by heavy siltation would be solved by dismantling the dam at the first inkling of the coming of monsoons, which also coincided with the end of the tourist season each year. The lake would cease to exist during the off-season and would be reformed after the rainy season was over. He said the present dam was constructed in less than three days and it would take about two hours only to dismantle it. Both the exercise would cost about Rs 1 lakh per annum. This was peanuts as compared to the amount of interest that could be earned on Rs 2 crore earmarked under the original plan, he said.
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Proposal on recruitment
rules decried Mandi, February 24 In a statement the two organisations warned that such an amendment would amount to “blatant violation” of the agreement arrived at between the unions and the government in 1994 when it had been agreed upon by the government that all vacancies in Milkfed would be filled within the existing cadre with a view to promoting those who were stagnating that for the past 20 years. The organisations condemned the proposed move as a ploy to please favourites of politicians or bureaucrats at the cost of those stagnating for decades. The two warned that all sections of Milkfed employees and officers would oppose the move and in case the government went back on its 1994 agreement, the unions would be forced to launch an agitation. |
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Shimla, February 24 In all, there will be 26 sittings during the session which will last till April 20 next. As per the tentative calendar notified today by the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat, Governor Suraj Bhan will address the Assembly on the opening day. He informed the Governor, the House would observe recess from March 16 to March 25 during which demands for grant of various departments would be scrutinised by respective department-related standing committees. The Budget estimates for 2001-2002 would be presented by Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, who also held the Finance portfolio, on March 9. The Budget would be passed on March 28. |
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Body of Army jawan
recovered Solan, February 24 Preliminary investigations have revealed that Nayyar had been mentally sick and seemed to have committed suicide by consuming a lethal dose of Diazepam. Some empty strips of this drug were found near his body. The police has registered a case under Section 174 of the Cr PC. He was reportedly suffering from depression and had been under treatment at the Military Hospital, Ludhiana some time ago. |
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