 |
Friday,
June 14, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
|
Cong MLAs warn Dhumal Cong charges misleading,
say ministers Bio-conversion plant
awaits trial run Doc booked for botching up delivery Girl’s
death exposes police apathy Servant’s body found in house |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
HP releases
DA instalment Shimla, June 13 The Himachal Pradesh Government today released a dearness allowance (DA) instalment to its employees and pensioners at the rate of four per cent of pay with effect from January 1,2002. 
|
|
Cong MLAs warn Dhumal Shimla, June 13 The statement has come at a time when the BJP government has filed a complaint in the court against Mr Virbhadra Singh regarding his land holdings and has also in a time-bound order asked the Enforcement Department to make certain inquiries and take action against him. Mr Harsh Mahajan and Mr Rangila Ram Rao, who were considered close to the PCC chief, Mrs Vidya Stokes, were among the signatories to the statement. The strongly worded statement said that the Dhumal government instead of solving the burning problems of the state had wasted its energy in the past near four years in “fabricating false and frivolous” cases against Mr Virbhadra Singh in an attempt to “tarnish” his clean image among people. “Mr Dhumal knows it very well that to tarnish the image of Mr Virbhadra Singh tantamounts to tarnishing the image of the Congress Party as a whole. Being “frustrated” by the clean chit given by the CBI on the so-called charge sheet containing 24 allegations levelled by the BJP-HVC combine, Mr Dhumal is now trying to and implicate Mr Virbhadra Singh in any criminal case at all costs and is pressurising government officials to cook up cases against him. Officers who have refused to toe his line have been summarily
transferred, humiliated and victimised, the statement alleged. These MLAs alleged that tainted and corrupt officers, who were already in the Vigilance net, had been pressed into service to frame false cases against Mr Virbhadra Singh by fabricated reports and by twisting facts to involve him in court cases in view of the coming Assembly elections. They alleged that the Dhumal government had failed on all fronts and had crossed all limits of corruption, which was quite evident from the charge sheet submitted by the Congress to the Governor. These charges were subsequently substantiated by written allegations levelled by seven legislators of the ruling
BJP, including four sitting ministers, in which they had also levelled serious charges of
corruption, nepotism, favouritism, mal-administration and selling of the interests of the state against the chief minister and his ministerial colleagues. These legislators alleged that the misuse of government machinery and the resources of the state in order to crush his political opponents as apparent from the attempted harassment and
humiliation of Mr Virbhadra Singh was yet another attempt on the part of the Dhumal government to divert attention of the people from the rampant corruption, misrule, breakdown of rule of law and gross financial mismanagement. Those MLAs who signed the statement were, Mr Kaul Singh, Mr Chander Kumar, Mr Yogendera Chandra, Mr Ram Lal Thakur, Mr Ishwar Dass, Mr Kashmir Singh, Dr Prem Singh, Mr Tek Chand, Mr Harshwardhan Chauhan, Mr Dharam Pal Thakur, Mr Kuldip Kumar, Mrs Asha Kumari, Mr Singhi Ram, Mr B.B.Butail, Mr Rattan Singh, Mr Virender Gautam, Mr Raghu Raj, Mr Gangu Ram Musafir, Mr Harsh Mahajan and Mr Rangila Ram
Rao. |
|
Cong charges misleading,
say ministers Shimla, June 13 In a joint statement here today, the ministers said possessing illegal land amounting to about Rs 200 crore by Mr Virbhadra Singh was the “biggest scandal” which tantamounted to crossing all limits of corruption and to say that the Chief Minister was targeting him politically was wrong. The ministers alleged that Mr Virbhadra Singh always said it was the fault of the government that the land had not been taken over by it. However, Mr Virbhadra Singh himself was the Chief Minister at the time when these lands should have been mutated to the government. |
|
Bio-conversion plant
awaits trial run Shimla, June 13 The trial run of the plant which commenced last year has not been made functional till today because of improper construction and failure of the private company, assigned the project, to carry out the required processes. The plant is part of the Rs 7 crore project being implemented to ensure the scientific disposal of municipal waste. The local municipal corporation started supplying garbage to the plant from December 12 but hardly any manure has been produced from it. As per the design the plant is capable of converting garbage into manure at a recovery rate of 20 per cent. The corporation has so far delivered 3500 tonnes of garbage, which is enough to produce 700 tonnes of manure. However, the plant has been able to produce only 5 tonnes of finished and about 50 tonne of semi-finished manure. The recovery is, thus, only around 1.5 per cent. The plant site has virtually been reduced to a garbage dump. Foul smell emanates from the mountain of unprocessed garbage. The plant was set up to ensure scientific disposal of municipal wastes and provide odour- free environment but that has not been the case. Even the safety of the plant is threatened due to the frequent choking of the nullah as result of which the storm water gets diverted and finds it way into the processing yard, leading to the stagnation of water in the yard. Besides, a part of the garbage is also washed away into the drainage channel. The unprocessed garbage is not being sprayed with sanitiser and no effort is being made to aerate the waste as required under the process. The officers of the corporation maintain that the failure of the company to carry out these important processes was responsible for the stench emanating from the dump and non-conversion of the garbage into manure. The health officer has already brought the matter to the notice of the Municipal Commissioner who has in turn written to the government to invoke the appropriate provisions of the agreement with the company to force it to take the remedial steps. |
|
Doc booked for botching up delivery Dharamsala, June 13 The case has been registered following a complaint of Dr Manju Ahal, a non-practicing doctor and social activist. In her complaint to the SSP Kangra, she alleged that her sister-in-law Namrata Katoch was suffering from high-blood pressure and was diabetic and it was only under the advice of gynaecologists in Delhi that she went ahead with the pregnancy. She was under the medical guidance of Dr Sushma Sood in Palampur. According to the complaint, Dr Sood was aware of the case and her reports had indicated a normal delivery. The doctor had also said she should be informed immediately when labour pains started. On June 3, Ms Katoch was admitted to the Civil Hospital. The next day, though staff was aware of the seriousness of the case, the doctor did not come to the hospital immediately. Later, instead of looking after the patient, she insisted on being driven back to her residence as she had to pack lunch for her son. She also directed the attendants to pick up the OT nurse from her residence so that a caesarian section could be performed. The patient was handed over to the nurse at 9.30 a.m. and at 10.45 a.m. it was informed that the baby could not be saved. Dr Ahal has also written to the Chief Minister and Health Minister in this regard. Dr Sood, however, refuted the allegations, saying that “I am the only gynaecologist in the Civil Hospital and there is always a great rush of patients. In this case, relatives of the patient had been told about the risks as the mother was diabetic. The hospital has no ambulance and it is a practice that the relatives of the patients pick her up from her residence and drop her back.” |
|
Girl’s
death exposes police apathy Shimla, June 13 The police virtually denied prompt medical aid to the victim, enraging people who beat up the policemen present on the spot. They also raised slogans in front of the police post and demanded action against those on duty. According to eyewitnesses, 17-year-old Sheena was entangled in iron railings after falling down from a height of about 40 feet. Her body had been pierced by two iron bars and she was bleeding profusely when a tourist noticed her. Soon a large crowd gathered and the police also arrived. While the crowd wanted the girl to be taken to hospital, a policeman declared her dead and insisted on taking a photograph first. Meanwhile, some people contacted the nearby fire station and brought ladders to extricate the girl. The policemen, however, did not allow them to do so, much to their annoyance. Finally, a photograph was taken and the body was brought down. The crowd, however, lost patience and attacked the policemen. Agitated residents maintained that the girl could have been saved had the police not stopped them from taking her to hospital. They kept raising slogans against the police until midnight. Mr
Pradeep Kumar, SP, who reached the spot along with the Additional
District Magistrate, Mr Abhay Pant, said prima facie it appeared to be
a case of suicide. He said a magisterial inquiry had been ordered. |
|
Servant’s body found in house Parwanoo, June 13 According to Brij Mohan Sharma, the additional Station House Officer of Parwanoo. The deceased has been identified as Prakash Bhadur (18). He hailed from Nepal and was working as a domestic help in the house. According to the police, Mr Jaideep Sachdeva, the owner of the house, was out of station since June 7 and Prakash was staying alone in the house. Mr Rakesh Bhanot, a family friend of Mr Jaideep Sachdeva, had informed the police regarding the body. Mr Bhanot told the police that as no one was picking up the telephone for the past two days, he had gone to the house today afternoon and had found the decomposed body hanging in the staircase of first floor of the house. The police said the death had most probably taken place on June 10 as the newspaper of June 10 was found in the servant quarter while that of June 11 was lying near the gate. The police suspected it to be a case of suicide. |
|
HP releases
DA instalment Shimla, June 13 This will increase the DA rate from the present 45 per cent to 49 per cent and put an additional burden of Rs 45 crore annually on the state exchequer, according to an official spokesman here. The spokesman said the DA instalment would be paid in cash to employees from this month and arrears up to May 31 last credited to their GPF accounts. The DA instalment would be paid in cash to pensioners.
UNI |
|
School sans teachers Mandi, June 13 |
|
Three arrested Chamba, June 13 Mr Ajay Yadav, Superintendent of Police, Chamba said that these persons were arrested under Section 41(2) of 189 of the Criminal Procedure Code. These persons had been identified as Mohd Yaqub, resident of Nera village in Tissa police station, Sonia Rana, resident of Garli Pragpur in Kangra district and Santosh Kumar Gupta, resident of Parnei village in district Hazaribag of Jharkhand.
OC |
|
Villagers force miscreants to flee, torch scooter Dharamsala, June 13 The miscreants, carrying sharp-edged weapons, tried to enter the house of a woman, threatening her sons with dire consequences. When the woman raised an alarm, many villagers gathered and started pelting the miscreants with stones, forcing them to flee leaving their weapons and scooter. Later, the vehicle was torched by the villagers. When the police arrived, the scooter had been reduced to ashes. |
|
Effigy burnt Dharamsala, June 13 Earlier, the Irrigation and Public Health Minister, Mr Ramesh Chand Dhwala, received the South-East Asia Tobacco Eradication Torch here. |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 122 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
