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Friday,
September 12, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Notification on forest
land withdrawn Dhumal
challenges CM on development issue Dhumal’s
charges baseless: minister Vigilance
may quiz VC again CM’s
concern over forest cover Board
readies for starting English Vehicles
torched near Kulu Health
centre opens at Namhole |
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Leopard
kills baby girl, boy dies in accident Mysterious
fever claims three lives Accused
surrenders Army
recruitment rally on Sept 23 
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Notification on forest land withdrawn Shimla, September 11 The decision to withdraw the notification was taken by the Cabinet last week. The notification was issued on August 24, 1998, to exclude wasteland classified as ‘gair mumkin’ and ‘Charagah Bila Drakhtan’ from the forest areas notified in 1952. Subsequently, it allotted land for mining and other purposes on its basis circumventing the forest conservation Act. The Centre disapproved of the action on the ground that forest land could not be diverted for non-forestry without its prior approval under the Act. The committee, set up by the Centre to examine the issue gave its unambiguous opinion that the state had no authority to issue such a notification, which altered the status of forest land. The state was left with no option as the notification also contravened the directions of the apex court, which had ended all ambiguity about the definition of the forest land. It made it clear that forest land would not only include forest as understood in the dictionary sense but also any area recorded as forest area by the government, irrespective of the ownership. Mr Chander Kumar, Forest Minister, said that with the withdrawal of notification the allotments of forest land made by the previous regime on its basis had been rendered illegal. He said so far 130 such cases of allotments involving 310 hectare of forest land had come to light. The government would study the merit of each case before taking a decision. He also declared that a special drive would be launched within a fortnight to remove encroachments from forest land. In all 41,083 cases of encroachments, involving 8,168 hectare of forest area, had been identified. He did not foresee any problem in carrying out the job as the field officer had the power of Collector to take action in such matters. He said the Congress government had the necessary political will to take action against encroachers. In fact, it had demonstrated its determination to protect forests by putting an end to the use of wooden boxes for marketing apples. Until a decade ago over 50,000 trees had been felled for making apple packing cases. Today the fruit was being marketed in cardboard cartons. |
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Dhumal challenges CM on development issue Hamirpur, September 11 While talking to
mediapersons at a local hotel yesterday, the former Chief Minister claimed that projects worth hundreds of crores rupees had been started and completed during the BJP regime the BJP government had declared Dharamsala as the winter capital of the Himachal Pradesh. However, the present Chief Minister and the then Leader of Opposition in Vidhan Sabha had opposed this move of the then BJP government. He asked the Chief Minister to clarify his stand with regards to the winter capital issue of Dharamsala. Mr Ishwar Dass Dhiman and Mr Baldev Sharma, MLAs, Mr Pyre Lal Sharma, Zila Parishad chief and Mr Vinod Thakur, general secretary of the state, BJYM, were also present in the press conference. Mr Dhumal alleged that the present Congress government had tried to curtail the powers of the HP Vidhan Sabha, HP University and the now HP Backward Classes Commission. This commission had been dissolved and new appointments had been made contrary to the directions of the Supreme Court of India. He described the announcement of the state government regarding a 5-Rs hike in the wages of daily wage workers as a hoax. This hike would not be beneficial for the employees working in the boards, corporations as they were in the red at present. The former Chief Minister reiterated his charge about the failure of the state government to provide trays and boxes to the apple growers of the state. He said though that apple crop was a bumper one this time but the state government had failed to provide the apple growers with boxes. He said, “The apple season is ending but the government is till saying that trays are coming from China. No one knows when the Chinese consignment will reach India,” he added. |
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Dhumal’s charges baseless: minister Shimla, September 11 In a statement here today, he said there was no question of subverting the autonomy of the commission and the government had only nominated new members in place of those who had unduly long terms. In fact, one of them had been there right from the inception of the commission. Mr Rao said it was also incorrect to say that the existing OBC list had become invalid because of non-revision. He said the list was valid and operative and the process of revision had already started. He said Mr Dhumal was trying to make an issue out of non-issues just to keep himself politically alive after having been rejected by the people in the elections. |
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Vigilance
may quiz VC again Shimla, September 11 Dr Sharma had earlier told the team that he had nothing to do with the printing of question papers and the reasons for the whopping increase spendings from the secrecy fund could be explained only by Mr P.N. Bhardwaj, the Deputy Registrar concerned. Mr
A.P. Siddiqui, Superintendent of Police and Mr Vinod Sharma, Deputy Superintendent of police, who had been interrogating Mr P.N. Bhardwaj for the past two days, had seized some records pertaining to payments made from the secrecy funds. Dr Sharma would be confronted with information gathered from the interrogation of Mr Bhardwaj to ascertain the reason for the increase in expenditure from Rs 22 lakh to Rs 65 lakh in less than two years. The explanation advanced by Mr Bhardwaj that the university had tried to improve the quality of printing had not been found convincing as during questioning it was revealed that he had no knowledge about printing or even quality of paper. Both Dr Sharma and Mr Bhardwaj had been granted anticipatory bail by the High Court up to September 15. |
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CM’s concern over forest cover Palampur, September 11 This was stated by Mr Virbhadra Singh, Chief Minister, while addressing members of the Palampur Welfare and Environment Protection Forum at the SM Convention Centre on Monday night. He expressed disappointment on the tacit support to the mining mafia. The Chief Minister announced that the government would soon come out with an ordinance imposing a ban on commercial extraction of building material from khuds, rivers and quarries. Thakur Kaul Singh, Irrigation and Public Health Minister, while reacting to a demand of Mr K.B. Ralhan, president of the forum, that even after 25 years of the existence of the State Pollution Control Board, people were not getting potable water, said several schemes for the supply of clean drinking water had been launched while some others were in the pipeline. |
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Board readies for starting English from Class I Dharamsala, September 11 Mr Rahi said it was the endeavour of the board to implement the education policies of the government in letter and spirit so that the student community was benefited. He said it had been decided that the Class XI examinations would continue to be taken by the board and the demand by certain quarters to allow the school concerned to hold these had been rejected. Mr Rahi said at a meeting in Hamirpur on August 30, representatives of 27 teachers’ unions as well as 83 teachers had supported the holding of the examinations by the board. He said at a meeting today, principals demanded more teaching days. The chairman said practical examinations of Class XI would be held before the theory papers and the results would be declared by the second week of May every year and before those of classes X and XII so that the number of teaching days could be increased. |
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Vehicles
torched near Kulu Kulu, September 11 According to police sources, the contractors of Satyam Construction Company, who were returning from the site in two vehicles met with an accident with the utility van parked on the roadside near Barsaini. The accident led to an altercation between the Junior Engineer and supervisor of the company who had engaged the workers and they called workers from the nearby camp. By the time the workers armed with iron rods reached near the two vehicles, the contractors had taken shelter in the house of their munshi. The workers broke the windscreen of the vehicles and set them on fire. The vehicles (HP-34-0037) and (HP-34-4112) were burnt and cash worth Rs 3.50 lakh and Rs 1.40 lakh, kept in two vehicles was also reduced to ashes. The police has recovered the burnt currency notes and registered a case under Sections 147, 148, 149, 436, 452 and 506 of the IPC against the workers and arrested seven persons. The police also rounded up 35 persons for interrogation. The irate workers also tried to set the house of the munshi on fire where the two contractors were believed to have taken shelter but the local villagers pacified them.
— PTI |
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Health centre opens
at Namhole Bilaspur, September 11 The Minister for Industries, Youth Services, Sport and Information Technology, Mr Ramlal Thakur, said this after inaugurating a two-storey Primary Health Centre at
Namhole, 23 km from here, today. He said such centres had been sanctioned for Hamirpur and Solan. Rs 47 lakh would be spent on the building at each station and Rs 2.53 crore on machinery and equipment at each place. The Indian Council for Medical Research
(ICMR) had also sanctioned a cancer-detection project at the Bilaspur Zonal hospital which would then refer patients to Indira Gandhi Memorial College Hospital at Shimla for treatment. |
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Leopard
kills baby girl, boy
dies in accident Mandi, September 11 The leopard pounced upon Neha, who was lying near the door, along with another 13-month-old girl, and jumped into the fields carrying her. Villagers chased the leopard for hours, but only her clothes could be traced. A relief of Rs 10,000 was given to members of the family. In another accident, a Class VI student of Bali Choki tehsil in Mandi district was killed on the spot when he fell from a hilltop. |
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Mysterious
fever claims three lives Shimla, September 11 This was the fifth consecutive year that the fever had afflicted people in the lower hills in August-September. Over the past 10 days, over 80 cases were referred to Indira Gandhi Medical College here, out of which three had died. As all tests to diagnose the cause of the fever were negative, doctors were using broad spectrum antibiotics. The patients had died of complication caused by high-grade fever, which if prolonged, affected brain, kidneys and liver. Since 2001, experts of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases
(NICD) had been involved in diagnosis, but to no avail. During the past two years, the institute had analysed about 75 blood samples, but could not diagnose the cause of the fever. They had carried out tests for dengue fever and
leptospirosis, but there were no positive indications. This year, the college had requested the NICD to send a team to diagnose the fever. The cases started arriving at the hospital towards the middle of August and continued till the third week of September. This year, the outbreak had been delayed by about a fortnight. |
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Accused
surrenders Bilaspur, September 11 Balbir Singh, 24, son of Pratap Singh Thakur of Kujail village near here, was wanted by the police since September 3. He allegedly murdered Rampal near Sunhani along with three other persons all of whom fled immediately from the scene of the crime. The Superintendent of Police, Mr M. Chander Shekhar, said here yesterday that three other accused in the case had already been arrested. He added that Balbir Singh has confessed to his crime. |
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Army recruitment rally on Sept 23 Chamba, September 11 In an official press release issued here yesterday Col. K.N. Jha, Director Recruiting Office, Palampur said that the rally for youths to Salooni, Churah, Bhattiyat, Bharmour, Pangi tehsils and Bhaleyee sub-tehsil would be held on September 23 while September 24 had been fixed for the youths belonging to Chamba and Dalhousie tehsils of Chamba district. Col. Jha informed that the rally for the wards of ex-servicemen, serving soldiers and war-widows along with the Sikhs and Ramdasia and Mazhabi Sikhs would be held on September 25. |
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Recruitment
rally on September 26
Shimla, September 10 Shimla recruiting branch Director Colonel M.S. Kukshal said here yesterday that written test would be conducted on September 28 at the same place. He said the candidates for the above recruitment were required to carry V certificate for Kinnaur and Lahaul Spiti and eighth class certificate for Gorkha candidates. Candidates should be 16 to 21 years ago and they should also bring character certificate from village Pradhan and bona fide domicile certificate, sports certificates, if any, along with 10-copies of a latest passport-size photograph in white shirt.
— UNI |
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Mushroom
fair ends Kumarhatti, September 11 |
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A clarification Mandi, September 11 |
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