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Saturday,
April 27, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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MC poll: 119 in fray Coop societies seek more commission Of leaking main, laid-back authorities and water shortage CM holding talks with Centre on cricket stadium Police to search Thamser Pass for Kitchen |
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Ngodup’s statue to be unveiled on April 29 Re-notify quota rules: panel Heavy rain breaches
Larzi coffer dam 40 shops gutted, probe ordered
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MC poll: 119 in fray Shimla, April 26 While the BJP and the Congress are contesting all seats, the Him Loktantrik Morcha, a joint front of eight parties and the Himachal Vikas Congress, have fielded candidates for wards 20 and 21 respectively. There is a straight contest between the BJP and Congress in Combley Bank (Ward No. 5) and Benmore (Ward No. 17) while the sitting Mayor Ms Jaini Prem, is facing Ms Swarna Sharma (BJP) in Combley Bank, Mrs Maya Kataria (Cong) takes on Mrs Neelam Sharma (BJP) in Benmore. The contest is triangular in Sabzi Mandi (Ward No. 14). After intensive campaigning for a fortnight, leaders and workers of various parties concentrated on door-to-door campaign to personally contact voters on the polling eve. The administration has made elaborate arrangements. As many as 102 polling stations have been set up. As many as 408 poll officials, 368 policemen and Home Guards, including 102 women constables, have been deployed. Mr P.C. Katoch, Deputy Commissioner, who is also returning officer, said 40 polling stations had been identified as sensitive and additional security deployed at such polling stations. Polling will be held from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. The counting of votes will take place on April 29. Mr Katoch said to ensure smooth elections three Assistant Returning Officers had been appointed to oversee polling and counting. The counting would be done in two phases. In the first phase counting for ward Nos. 1 to 4, 9 to 12 and 17 to 20 will be taken up. Votes of the remaining wards would be counted in the second phase. |
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Coop societies seek more commission Dharamsala, April 26 About 1000 members from various cooperative societies of Kangra district today took out a procession and handed over a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner . They said all cooperative shops in the district had been lying closed since April 1, as a result of which the public was facing a lot of inconvenience. Mr Buddhi Chand , an employees’ leader, said their agitation would continue till the government accepted their demands. He said their main demand was increase in the commission on the PDS from 1 per cent to 10 per cent. “When the Chief Minister, Mr P.K. Dhumal , was the state BJP chief he had accused the congress of discriminating with us, but today when he is heading the government, he has proved to be no different,” he stated. Members of the agriculture cooperative societies said despite the BJP promising in its election manifesto that they would be given government jobs at salaries, equal to the panchayat secretaries the government had not taken any steps in this direction. “ Many of our members who are office-bearers and workers of the BJP would resign from the party if the government does not accept our demands,” they threatened. Mr Buddhi Chand said despite the repeated assurances by the Chief Minister, their grievances had not been redressed and the meeting with the Minister for Cooperatives Mr Rikhi Ram Kaundal on April 23 remained inconclusive. He said the state executive of their union would meet at Theog in Shimla on April 29, in which future strategy to intensify the stir would be chalked out.
HAMIRPUR: Hundreds of cooperative secretaries of the district on Friday took out a massive procession through the main bazaar here in support of their various demands. Raising slogans in favour of their demands, they also raised slogans against the state government and the Minister for Cooperatives, Mr Rikhi Ram Kaundel. These persons have been on strike since April 1 and their demands include better service conditions and rise in their commission. They also held a rally at the Gandhi chowk and blasted the minister for his failure to accept their demands. They alleged that the government was not sincere towards their demands and that was the reason that no decision had been taken to end their 26-days-old strike. They warned the state government that they would further intensify their agitation if their demands were not met with forthwith. Meanwhile, the public distribution system has come to a complete halt in all parts of the district. |
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Of leaking main, laid-back authorities and water shortage Kumarhatti, April 26 Residents of the town are facing acute water shortage due to leakage of main pipe the agriculture land near the damaged pipe of around 50-60 bighas was being irrigated from the leaking water. Adequate water to Mansa Devi temple where Navaratra fair concluded recently was also not supplied. According to temple priest the devotees visiting the temple found it difficult to get water to wash hands before paying obeisance at temple as the temple remained without water supply for days. Due to scarcity of water certain devotees suggested to the priest to close down the temple, the priest rued. The temple tap got water supply when the presidents of Dharampur and Aanji Maatla panchayats intervened and met the Executive Engineer of IPH based at Solan to look into the matter. Similarly the Dharampur gurdwara remained without water for four days last week inconveniencing the devotees. Water supply by the IPH, to those who pay extra alleged tampering with water pipes by certain persons to ensure more supply for themselves and more than one water tap by certain persons of the town were other reasons behind water shortage in the town. |
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CM holding talks with Centre on cricket stadium Shimla, April 26 Talking to newspersons, he said he had taken up the matter of the possession of the historic Annandale ground with the Centre. The government planned to develop it into a cricket stadium of international standards. This would not only provide state-of-the-art facilities for sportspersons but also help in boosting tourism. Referring to the election manifesto of the Congress for the civic elections, he said the party had again made tall promises to residents of Shimla without mentioning the promises made in the manifestos for elections of 1992 and 1997. He said his government had implemented the election manifesto in letter and spirit. He said the BJP was committed to providing the people basic amenities. He said the government had cordial relations with its employees and had provided all financial and other benefits to them. It conducted regular meetings with various unions to solve their problems. He said the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Kerala and other states crushed the employees’ agitation without giving any relief. |
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Police to search Thamser Pass for Kitchen Dharamsala, April 26 Mr Sanjay
Kundu, SP, Kangra, said that search teams comprising the police, the Army, the ITBP and the locals had returned empty handed from the Narwana area where two shopherds had reportedly seen a parachute like object. “We are now searching the Thamser Pass, a difficult trek between Manali and Chotta
Bhangal, to get some clue about Joel Kitchen,” Mr Kundu said. He said being at a height of over 5,000
metres, the entire area was covered with snow and it was difficult to reach there. He said the ITBP had already set up their base camp and the entire exercise would take at least four days. He said the other search parties were still looking for Kitchen at other places. Meanwhile, parents of the British
paraglider, Bill Kitchen, and his wife returned to McLeodganj today after spending almost a week at Bir and Billing from where their son, Joel, had taken off on the afternoon of April 7. Still not having lost the hope of finding their son , they said they were confident that they would return back to England with Joel. |
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Ngodup’s statue to be unveiled on April 29 Dharamsala, April 26 The newly elected Vice-President of the TYC, Mr Tenzin Samphel, said Tibetans observe April 29 as Martyrs Day as it was on this day that Ngodup breathed his last after committing self-immolation in Delhi on April 27. He said the TYC had decided to erect a statue in his memory and to honour all those martyrs whose sacrifice for Tibet’s independence had kept the cause alive. He informed that the chairman of the assembly of Tibetan People’s Deputies, Mr Pema Jugney, will unveil the statue near the main temple in McLeodganj. He said Ngodup, who was a gardener at a monastery in McLeodganj, had committed self-immolation to draw the attention of the world towards the suffering of the Tibetans and the gross human right violation in Tibet. Mr Samphel, said the TYC would continue its struggle for complete independence. “We have been raising the issue of Tibet so that we can seek the intervention of the world community to pressurise China to hold a dialogue with the Dalai Lama for working out an amicable solution to the Tibet problem, which would be in the interest of both the people of China and Tibet,” he stated. |
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Re-notify quota rules: panel Dharamsala, April 26 “We are of the opinion that when reservation in civil services has been held valid by the court, the same policy be extended for the posts of judicial services as ex-servicemen are being denied this privilege,” he said. He demanded that the state government should re-notify
reserva- tion rules and have these approved by the High Court so that ex-servicemen can avail of these concessions. |
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Heavy rain breaches
Larzi coffer dam Shimla, April 26 The entire network concreted area of the barrage complex was submerged along with the equipment of the contractor. Mr. R.K. Mahajan, Chief Engineer of the project, said due to continuous rain, the water level upstream the coffer dam rose from 956.3m at 8.30 pm on April 24 to 961m at 9.48 am the following day. There was, however, no apparent damage to the structure and all concreted works as well as reinforcement and structural steel erected in the barrage complex were safe. |
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40 shops gutted, probe ordered Dalhousie, April 26 The Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Mr Prem Bhardwaj, along with a team of official, rushed to the site for carrying out rescue and relief operations. It took about an hour to douse the flames with the help of fire tenders of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) and the Air Force. The DM, Mr Rahul Anand, said revenue officials had been directed to assess the exact loss caused by the fire and disburse relief to the victims as per the Relief Manual. He said he had ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident and directed the SDM, Dalhousie to submit a report within a month. A case had been registered. |
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Congress expels two
members Shimla, April 26 |
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