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| Sunday,
July 15, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Production in 3 units stopped Interests of fruit growers safe:
govt Fruit crops to get seed certification CM defends policy rollback Hydel
power project gets clearance |
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Shrawan
Ashtami fair from July 21 Xen remanded
in police custody IOC
decision ‘will hit’ Tibetans Need to beautify Mandi: Minister ‘Undo’
appointment of retired Dean Monitoring
panels being formed Hindu
Mahasabha workers burn Musharraf’s effigy Strike by
hydel project workers Demands of
MC staff ‘ignored’ Jawan
cremated 
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Production in 3 units stopped Solan, July 14 The board has also issued show-cause notices to seven other industries for their alleged failure to treat the effluents before their release into the public drains. These drains are located in the catchment areas of the Sirsa, a tributary of the Sutlej. Show-cause notices have also been issued to the Industrial Area Development Authority, the Notified Area Committee of Baddi and the HP Small Industries Development Corporation apparently for their failure to provide the requisite infrastructure for dealing with the menace of toxic waste discharged by the industrial units at Baddi. An official of the board at Baddi also collected samples of effluents from at least 20 other units besides the ones against whom action had already been taken under the provisions of the Prevention of Pollution Act. These samples had been sent to the board’s laboratory at Parwanoo for chemical analysis. The SDM Nalagarh, Mr K.C. Chaman, said the mass destruction of fish in the Sirsa was the third incident of its kind during the past one year. He said the state Pollution Control Board should be more vigilant during the rainy season and conduct more frequent checks on the discharge of industrial effluents into the public drains which ended up heavily polluting the Sirsa. The District Fisheries Officer, Mr Ashok Kumar, also visited the areas along the Sirsa where mounds of dead fish had appeared, yesterday. He said he planned to invoke the relevant provisions of the Fisheries Act against all those units found responsible for the deaths of “thousands of fish”. The fish who succumbed to the toxic waters of the Sirsa normally inhabit the Sutlej, but being found of swimming against the current, they headed towards the Sirsa in huge shoals during the rainy season. The locals pointed a finger at the working of the Pollution Control Board wondering what prevented it from taking action against errant units before the unfortunate mass extermination of fish in the Sirsa.” The stoppage of production in three units and disconnection of power supply to another was likely to affect nearly 8,000 workers, mostly migrant labourers. |
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Interests
of fruit growers safe:
govt Shimla, July 14 In a statement issued here today, he said the government was
committed to the welfare of fruit growers and it has supplied 1.60
crore packing cases involving a subsidy of Rs 16 crore to them over
the period. Besides Rs 70 lakh was given as subsidy on plastic and
wooden boxes used for transportation of fruit. The government
agencies procured 1.32 lakh tonne of fruit worth Rs 54 crore under the
market intervention scheme and gave Rs 6.92 crore as transport subsidy
for the growers of flood-hit Kinnaur. He said the government had not
only continued with the support price despite financial crunch but
also provided a huge subsidy on fungicides, insecticides and other
farm inputs. Unlike the Congress regime when growers had to toil for
arranging trucks, the present government had made immaculate
arrangements despite bumper crops in 1998 and 2000. They faced no
problems in transporting their produce to the market. The functioning
of the HPMC had also been streamlined and unsold stocks worth crores
of rupees were disposed of. A Kisan Bhawan was constructed in Delhi
for the convenience of growers and a hops palletisation plant had been
set up at Baddi. |
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Fruit crops to get seed certification Shimla, July 14 This was revealed during a meeting of the governing board of the State Seed Certification Agency held under the chairmanship of Mr S.S. Parmar, Financial Commissioner-cum-Secretary Agriculture, here yesterday. The certification standards were being finalised by the Central Seed Certification Board. An area of 746.27 hectares was registered under seed potato last year and it was being supplied by the Lahaul Potato Growers Society to Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnatka, West Bengal and north-east states. Dr Y.P. Gupta, Director, State Seed Certification Agency, said many multinational companies were producing vegetables seeds of different crops like cabbage, cauliflower, tomato, radish, turnip and capsicum in Sirmaur, Solan, Shimla, Kinnaur, Kulu and the parts of Kangra district. |
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CM defends policy rollback Shimla, July
14 Speaking at the concluding session of a conference
organised by the legal cell of the state BJP, he said the government
took decisions after due deliberations and consultants but at times
shortcomings were revealed later. As his government had been guided by
larger public interest it never stood on prestige and readily agreed
to review the decision which hurt people. He referred to the decision
to reduce the fleet of government vehicles which could not be
implemented even after a review in this regard. He called upon
advocates to play an active role as opinion-makers and explain the
real position to people. The state government started a novel scheme
of constructing 13,612 rooms for primary schools to ensure a minimum
of three rooms in each primary school named as Saraswati Bal Vidya
Sanklap Yojna which would be completed by March. The governments of
West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan had adopted this
scheme. The Chief Minister said to ensure that students and
development in far-flung areas of the state did not suffer for want of
staff, sub-cadres had been set up. There had been progress in the
field of road construction. He said in the social sector, the budget
provision on the vital sector of education had been raised from Rs 392
crore to Rs 942 crore within a three years and over 11,000 posts of
teacher had been filled. He said the government was considering to
amend the law to regularise encroachments by innocent people who were
utilising land for their need but added that those who were making
encroachments deliberately would not be spared. |
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Hydel power project gets clearance Shimla, July 14 The project is to be set up on the Pabbar river, a tributary of the Tons, in Shimla district. The project, to be constructed at a cost of Rs 393.04 crore, will generate 320 million units per annum. The state will get 15 per cent free power during the first 12 years after the commissioning of the project and 20 per cent thereafter for the remaining period. This will fetch an income of about Rs 15 crore per year to the state which will further increase after the twelfth year of commissioning of the project. The project is proposed to be commissioned in 2006 and will be the first project of its kind being taken up for execution by an independent power producer in the Yamuna basin. The state electricity board has been entrusted with the job of execution of the power evacuation system as a deposit work for the company from the project site to Maliana sub-station in Shimla and further to Kunihar and Baddi at a cost of Rs 33.89 crore. It is pertinent to mention here the board has already executed the evacuation system for the recently commissioned Malana powerhouse from Malana to Bajaura sub-station well before the scheduled commissioning date of the project. |
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Shrawan Ashtami
fair from July 21 Una, July 14 Mr K.K. Pant, Deputy Commissioner, said after a meeting of the mela organising committee today, Mr O.P. Sharma, Additional Deputy Commissioner, had been appointed mela officer and the DSP, Mr Vimukt Ranjan, mela police officer. He said the mela area had been divided into seven sectors and each sector was headed by the sector magistrate and police officer. To streamline heavy rush of traffic, vehicles carrying pilgrims from Hoshiarpur and Nangal had been directed to drop pilgrims at the police barrier before Bharwain chowk. For car and other light vehicles parking had been provided at the bus stand in Chintpurni. In view of the law and order situation, carrying of weapons, and sharp-edge weapons had been prohibited from July 20 to July 30. Mr Avishek Trivedi, SP, said pilgrims would be sent in two files for darshan. Band, dhol, loud speakers and nagara had been banned in the mela area. Begging had also been banned. Rupees 4,000 would be charged from the langar committee which would be refunded after the mela. BILASPUR: All arrangements have been made for the peaceful conduct of Naina Devi 10-day Shrawan Ashtami Navratra fair which will begin at the shrine of Mata Naina Devi from July 20. Addressing a meeting of the mela management committee at Naina Devi, 75 km from here, on Friday officiating Deputy Commissioner S.L. Sharma said since an estimated 15 lakh devotees were expected to come, nothing had been left to chance and a large number of police force and Home Guards would be deployed. |
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Xen remanded
in police custody Mandi, July 14 The state Anti-corruption Department had registered a case against the PWD official under Section 5 (13) (1) (D) 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act at Mandi. The Executive Engineer had allegedly unloaded 20 quintals of steel bars in his village from the supplies consigned in two trucks to the PWD stores in Kulu. |
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IOC decision
‘will hit’ Tibetans Dharamsala, July 14 In the first reaction of the exiled Tibetan government, after the awarding of Olympics-2008 to China by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Minister for Information and International Relations, Mr
T. C. Tethong, said that the people who would now suffer because of the action of the IOC will be the ordinary Chinese, Tibetans, Uighurs, Mongolians and others who work for fundamental rights and freedom. “The members of the IOC, who voted for Beijing, must now shoulder the responsibility for the suffering that will certainly be unleashed on the ordinary people by a totalitarian one-party state which will assume that it has received international permission for its horrendous repression,” said Mr Tethong. He said that with this single act, the IOC has erased the memory of more than 40 million Chinese who died in the great leap forward era in the 1950s, the atrocities of the cultural revolution, the massacre that followed the 1989 Tiananmen Square. |
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Need to beautify Mandi: Minister Mandi, July 14 Mandi had once become an ugly town of khokhas, but thanks to proper planning all wooden structures were removed and a modern Sunken Garden Complex had emerged in this town of temples where thousands of tourists visit as it was the gateway to the panoramic Kulu valley. A lot more was needed to further beautify this town and the Nagar Parishad and the Town Planning Department should jointly work on this direction. Mandi or for that matter the entire Himachal was located in the earthquake-prone region and keeping this stark fact in view all construction should be planned accordingly. “We must learn a lesson from the earthquake of Gujarat, which caused widespread devastation and deaths. A similar quake had struck Kangra and Mandi in April 1905. The state government had, therefore, drawn up an elaborate disaster management plan and one of the crucial decisions taken was to restrict future constructions to three storeys only both in the urban and rural areas. There had been callous violation of the provisions of Town and Country Planning Development in the past both by governments and people but this would not be permitted in the future. |
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‘Undo’
appointment of retired
Dean Shimla, July 14 The appointment of a retire in the regular pay-scale of Rs 16,400 — 22,400 was in violation of rules and the stated policy of the government, they said. They also brought to his notice the fact that the result of the interviews held for felling 70 clerical posts had been declared but the administration had failed to provide staff as per the recommendations of the Kaw Committee. Besides, five posts of deputy registrar and two of special private secretary were lying vacant, which was affecting the efficiency. |
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Monitoring
panels being formed Nahan, July 14 This was stated by the Zila Parishad Chairman, Mr Chander Mohan Thakur, while presiding over a meeting of a district-level vigilance and monitoring committee. He said such committees were being formed at panchayat, block and district levels to monitor development work. Mr Thakur urged the Project Officer, rural development, to involve the parent teacher associations in the construction of toilets in schools and panchayati raj institutions. He said Rs 23 lakh had been spent on sanitation in district Sirmaur so far. Dr Sanjay Sharma asked Mr Thakur to link health centres with the scheme. Mr Thakur said Rs 2 crore had been spent on integrated waste development projects on watersheds in district Sirmaur and 5280 hectare had been developed under these projects. He asked committee members to report all irregularities in the execution of projects to him. He said a subsidy of Rs 20,000 be given to persons having income below or equal to Rs 30,000 per annum and a bank loan of Rs 40,000 would also be provided. Two persons had so far benefited under the scheme. The Additional Deputy Commissioner, Mr Sarabh Negi, urged bankers to dispose of cases of social and welfare banking on a priority basis. |
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Hindu Mahasabha workers burn Musharraf’s effigy Kangra, July 14 Dr Nalinder Gautam, state president of the mahasabha, addressing the demonstrators said the Agra summit was a sell-out of national interest by the Prime Minister. He said the Kashmir issue had been internationalised by the summit. He described the low-key attitude of the Prime Minister as shameful and unfortunate for the country, adding that Mr Vajpayee was accepting dictates from the Pakistan President giving an impression that India was a weak nation. He said on the one hand General Musharraf was fighting a proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir and on the other he had come for the summit to sort out the Kashmir issue. The demonstrators raised anti-Pakistan, anti-Musharraf at and anti-Prime Minister slogans. |
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Strike by hydel project workers Mandi, July 14 He said the CITU had initially demanded 90 per cent more daily wages than the minimum wages in the project where labourers had to work in the most hazardous conditions. Later the union agreed to 20 per cent increase offered by the companies. He said even this increase had not been implemented by the companies which forced workers to strike work. Mr Singha threatened to extend the strike to an indefinite period if the companies did not increase the wages. |
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Demands
of MC staff ‘ignored’ Shimla, July 14 He said the government had even failed to acknowledge the 17-point charter of demands submitted by them despite repeated reminders. The main demands include proper implementation of the pension scheme and provident fund rules regularisation of all the daily-wage workers who had completed eight years of service, removal of anomalies in the pay-scales of executive officers, secretaries and sanitary supervisors and abolition of the deputation and contract system. He said the government abolished the entry fees collected by municipal bodies unilaterally without compensating them proportionately, leading to starvation of funds and non-payment of salaries. |
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Jawan
cremated Bilaspur, July 14 A large number of
villagers and leaders of different political parties and the district
administration paid floral tributes. Rajpal’s body was brought
here by a military contingent from Assam where he was fighting
terrorists. He is said to have died due to a mysterious
disease. Those who paid tributes to Rajpal included the HP State
Cooperative Bank Chairman, Mr Krishan Kumar Kaushal, HP State Small
Savings Board Vice-Chairman Randhir Sharma, Zila Parishad Chairman,
Banta Singh Dhiman and District Congress Committee president, Hoshiyar
Singh Thakur. |
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De-addiction centre
set up at Una Una, July 14 The project had been financed by the Ministry of Social Justice and Employment, Government of India. |
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