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Saturday,
February 16, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Panel to
go into token tax Fish
project in murky waters Poll duty
staff await remuneration Dhumal
blamed for split in HVC |
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No
takers for Baddi houses Scholars
blamed for distortions 13 kg
charas seized, 6 held Priest
attacked, cash looted from temple Sale of
rotten fruits banned
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Panel to go into token tax Shimla, February 15 Mr Krishan Kapoor, the Transport Minister, said here today that the committee would give its recommendations after examining the present token-tax structure. He advised people to be cautious of those private bus operators who were issuing baseless statements to mislead people and asserted that maximum facilities were being given to them. He said all bus permits were given, in accordance with the requirement of the people, as per the Transport Policy formulated by the present government. He said 2,300 private buses were plying on the road for the benefit of people living in remote areas. The present government has removed the “Inspector Raj” and decided to levy special road tax in place of the passenger tax after general consensus of the private bus operators. However, the road tax was being levied after reducing the previous tax rates and the same were reduced again after amendments on the demand of bus operators twice subsequently. Clarifying the position regarding passenger tax, Mr Kapoor said tax rate of Rs 9.5 per cent on 50 percent passenger occupancy on National Highway was reduced and brought down to Rs 6.70 on 35 per cent occupancy. He further added that state government gave more exemption on 30 per cent occupancy at the rate of Rs 5.75 to private bus operators from April 1,2000. on the same lines tax of Rs 8.61 on 45 per cent occupancy on national highways was reduced to Rs 4.79 on 25 per cent occupancy. The kutcha roads in rural areas were fully exempted from road tax. The Transport Minister said special concession of tax on 20 per cent occupancy had been given to private buses, which earlier was levied on 40 per cent occupancy. This certainly has given much economic benefit to the private bus operators. He said the private bus operators were also given tax holidays of 33 days in a year. Now, they are required to give tax for 10 months and 27 days only in a year. The minister said this exemption was providing a rebate of 3 to 4 per cent. The private bus operators would get full exemption tax in the wake of natural calamity or on any other reason of road blockade. He said the composite system had been adopted in place of passenger tax on goods carrier transport and tourist vehicle from December 1999. The national route permits were also being given liberally. Booking facilities had been provided to private bus operators and all rural transport officers authorised to register contract carriage vehicles from September, 2000. In addition, the government had taken a decision to register all private vehicles by the RTOs concerned in the district. |
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Fish project in murky waters Mandi, February 15 A scanty provision of Rs 6 lakh was made in the annual budget of 2000 and Rs 4.75 lakh in 2001 which speaks volumes about the apathy of the government to take up this vital project which when completed will revolutionise the development of fisheries in the state and generate self-employment. The central government is understood to have taken a serious note of the inordinate delay in the execution of the project for which it had released money about three years ago. After the Centre took cognizance of the delay, a meeting of senior government officials was held at Shimla in which a decision was taken to start the project at the earliest. The meeting was chaired by the Secretary, Animal Husbandry Department. The IPH officials present in the meeting submitted an estimate of Rs 60 lakh for the flood protection work. It is learnt that the work of the project will be assigned to
Agro Industries. The Sidhpur project will be the second Golden Mahseer Fingerlings Development Farm in the country. The lone-existing mahseer farm in this country is at Lonawala in Maharashtra established by Tata Hydro-Electric Company there. The Himachal Pradesh Government had invited the manager of the farm, Mr S.N. Ogale, in September 1999 to assess the potential of Himalayan Mahseer in the state. During his week-long visit, Mr Ogale went round the lakes, rivers and streams and found that adequate brooders were available. He also visited the site of the Sidhpur farm and confirmed that it was an ideal site. He conducted netting at a number of places, including Sunni, Kandapattan, Renuka, and Pong Dam and found plenty of brooders. He reported that there was vast potential in the rivers and reservoirs of the state which could be harnessed for raising the seed of Mahseer for multiplication not only in Himachal Pradesh but in the entire Himalayan range. The Kandapattan sanctuary was found to be the most ideal site for the collection of brooders and yearlings of Golden Mahseer. “Pong Dam also abounds in Mahseer”, he reported. He had further reported that the Fisheries Department of the state had world-class modern infrastructure, technical know-how and a network of qualified officers and staff who after acquiring some upgraded training could easily propagate huge quantity of Mahseer seed. He had recommended that the proposed project should be taken up in two phases. In the first phase the seed target should be fixed at five lakh while in the second phase it should be multiplied five times. Himachal Pradesh is endowed with tremendous potential for the development of fisheries with 3000 km of
riverine resources and a network of dams made for multi-purpose power projects — like Gobind Sagar and Pong Dam which cover an area of 25,000 hectares. Besides this, the area under high-altitude lakes is 700 hectares. |
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Poll duty staff await remuneration Dharamsala, February 15 Panchayat elections were held in December, 2000, and a large number of government employees sent on poll duty to various parts of Kangra district are still awaiting payment of TA bills amounting to Rs seven lakh. The State Election Commission has to bear the entire poll-related expenses but despite repeated requests to the authorities the employees have not received the payments yet. The state government had organised oath-taking ceremony for pradhans and up-pradhans from Chamba and Kangra districts here in Dharamsala, but payment of nearly Rs two lakh spent on transportation is still due to the Himachal Road Transport Corporation, which made buses available for carrying these elected members from 14 blocks of Kangra and six blocks of Chamba to the district headquarters here. The HRTC has been demanding this money along with 18 per cent of interest from the Panchayat Office. The ruling BJP did try to get political advantage from the oath-taking ceremony by making the elected members feel important, but those who made arrangements for the lavish ‘‘Kangari Dham’’ (lunch) for 2,000 persons are still awaiting payment. Himachal Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal specially came here for the function from Shimla. The government also owes money to private firms from outside the state which supplied election material and have been awaiting payment for over a year. These firms supplied poll material thinking that the payment from government would be received promptly. ‘‘We could face problems in the next elections if the payment is delayed endlessly,” commented an employee who is awaiting payment of the poll duty TA bill. The election expenses consist of various heads like the material and supply head, TA head and contingency head, provided by the State Election
Commission. The District Panchayat Officer, Mr S. R. Sharma, said that he had written to the State Election Commission, besides
taking up the matter of payments with higher authorities. “We have made TA bill payments of about Rs 25 lakh to the government employees already and the remaining will be paid as soon as the money is received,” he stated. The government employees union has also requested the Deputy Commissioner, Kangra, to get the payments for the poll duty released. “It is the government employees who conduct the entire poll process and go even to difficult and remote areas, but when it comes to payments, there is inordinate delay,” commented one of them. They said that if the payment was not made soon, the employees would not be able to perform poll duties in future. |
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Dhumal blamed for split in HVC Hamirpur, February 15 He said the Kainthla Commission report was being used to tarnish the image of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh. He clarified that it had no relevance as he was not invited to depose before the commission though he was an eyewitness to the March, 1998 incidents. Talking to mediapersons here today, he said the days of the BJP government were numbered. Many BJP legislators were in constant touch with him to join the morcha, he claimed. He alleged that Mr Dhumal was to be blamed for the split in the Himachal Vikas Congress. He said the doors of the morcha were open for all except the Congress and the BJP. Mr Sukh Ram and Mr Virbhadra Singh were also welcome to the new forum provided they snapped links with the BJP and the Congress, respectively, Mr Thakur said. Mr Thakur hinted at fielding Mr Naresh Kumar Darji, pradhan of the gram panchayat, Sasan, from the Hamirpur Assembly
seat. |
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No takers for Baddi houses Shimla, February 15 The Himachal Pradesh government had expected that Baddi would grow as a
satellite town of Chandigarh and as such the board undertook a massive project of constructing houses and developing plots. The expectations did not materialise as the direct road between Baddi and Chandigarh, which would have reduced the distance between the two places by about 20
kms, has not been constructed because of reported official wrangles between the Haryana government and the Union Territory administration. The initially constructed 500 houses and 250 plots were sold like hot cakes in the hope of proximity to Chandigarh but another 300 houses constructed a few years ago in the Phase III did not find any buyers. However, some houses were sold one by one and 162 remained
unsold. Only 15 of these were bought during the sale mela and an inventory of 147 built up houses still stands with the board. The board has invested a sum of Rs 20 crore for constructing these houses and has been able to recover an amount of only Rs 10 crore. Mr Rajinder Makkar, chief executive officer of the board, said the ‘sale
mela’ was organised to dispose of the unsold houses on the spot at the actual cost as their price had steeply increased with the accumulation of 16.5 per cent interest on the loan taken from HUDCO by the board. However, at some places the bidders offered more than what had been worked out after taking the interest into account. He told the TNS here yesterday that keeping in view the heavy investments in construction of houses, the housing board had now decided only to develop plots and not build the flats or independent houses. It was proposed to acquire 400 bighas of land at Baddi for developing plots. Proceedings had also been initiated for acquiring land at
Kulu, Bajaura and Mandi for developing plots. It had been decided to launch a mega project of offering plots at Sanjauli in Shimla, Basal in Solan, Hamirpur, Palampur and Chamba shortly. |
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Scholars
blamed for distortions Shimla, February 15 The parishad, which has launched a weeklong campaign in support of “Bharatiyakaran” of education in the state, said that the left organisations were raising the bogey of
saffronisation to divert the attention of people from these facts. The organisations had a vested interest in pursuing the education system introduced by the British who degraded the Indian culture and values. The campaign will conclude on February 17. |
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13 kg charas seized, 6 held Shimla, February 15 The Kulu police Chief, Mr N. Venugopal, said today that one person from Mumbai and three others from Kulu district were arrested yesterday and 8.5 kg charas was seized from their possession during checking at the Dalashni bridge, near Bhuntar. In another incident, the police arrested one person at the Bajaura checkpost and seized 2.6 kg of charas from him. The accused was travelling in a private bus. Mr Venugopal said the police also arrested a Nepalese, Sange Lama, who was travelling in a tourist bus, and seized 1.85 kg of charas from him. A case under the NDPS Act had been registered, he added. He said the police had seized almost 60 kg of hasish and 7 gm of drug powder and arrested 35 persons, including seven foreigners, in the district this year.
UNI |
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Priest attacked, cash looted from temple Kumarhatti, February 15 According to the police, the miscreants knocked at the door of the priest's quarters inside the temple premises at 1.30 a.m. When Shiv Ram, a temple worker, opened the door, he was roughed up by them. Yash Bahadur, the priest, was also assaulted. After injuring the two seriously, the miscreants broke open the lock of the temple door with an axe and fled with the cash. The miscreants aged between 25 and 30, were probably from Bihar, the police said. |
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Sale of rotten fruits banned Hamirpur, February 15 She had also instructed that in case of suspected outbreak of cholera, all such persons residing in the locality shall undergo anti-cholera vaccination. The district Magistrate has also authorised various executive magistrates working in the district and the Health Department officers to take action under the order and launch criminal proceedings against the defaulters under Section 188 of the IPC. |
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