Dharamsala, March 20
Waking up to the falling standards in government schools, the State Education Department has decided to penalise teachers for poor results.

Sources said here today that a circular had been issued, stipulating penal action against teachers showing poor results. Similar disciplinary action was also to be taken against the head of the institution.

The sources said one increment would be dropped in case “the pass percentage, of the negligent teacher is below the board percentage, between 0 and 25 per cent in case of board classes and in case the result is less than 75 per cent for non-board classes.”

If this is repeated next year in case of board classes, one increment would be withheld with cumulative effect. The annual increment of a government schoolteacher varies from Rs 250 to Rs 400.

The circular, which has been sent to all government schools in the state, adds. “Each head of institution will be equally responsible for poor results and the Deputy Director concerned will recommend same penal action as in the case of teachers for poor performance.”

For a headmaster of a high school, penalty would be recommended if both board classes has results between 0 and 25 per cent. Similarly, in case of a principal, penalty would be imposed if either the results of Class VIII and X or result of Classes XII were between 0 and 25 per cent.

Regarding the completion of syllabus and its revision, the Education Department directed the principals and head-masters to ensure that every teacher maintained a dairy in which he divided the syllabus in three quarters and the fourth quarter should be utilised for revision. He should also get signatures from the head on records of what was taught during a particular month.

In case of non-board classes, the teacher would be liable to disciplinary action if the result was not satisfactory in the annual examinations and the pass percentage was below 75 per cent. The reporting officer would record adverse entries about the poor performance in the ACR in red ink.

The head of an institution would also not be spared in case of non-performance and an entry would be made in his ACR by the Deputy Director concerned and the case would be recommended to the Director of Education for stopping the increment without cumulative effect if it was the first instance.

In case of teachers on contract, the contract would be retained only the annual examination results were not below 25 per cent. The penalties would be applicable only if the number of students in a class/subject was ten or more and the teacher had taught that class/subject for six moths or more.

An official of the HP Board of School Education, however, said it would have been better if the directions had been issued at the beginning of the session so that teachers had the chance to make extra efforts.

Kangra, March 20
Mohd Taj Bathi, a resident of Rajgarh in Pakistan, got emotional when the entered the premises of the local Gurudutt Anglo Vedic Senior Secondary School of which he had been a student before Partition.

Mohd Taj Bathi, a chemist in Lahore, was accompanied by Mr Nasir Ahmad Jangwal and Mr Abid Hassan Bathi, both residents of Lahore. They were feeling that their dream had come true by visiting Kangra, their birthland.

The trio has been staying in the town with their old friend and the then neighbour Mr Prem Chand Bansal.

Mohd Taj Bathi said the happiest moment of his life was when he visited Mata Bajjreshwari Temple here today. He recalled that in his childhood, he would visit the temple during Navratra’s and get prasad.

All three visitors paid obeisance at the temple.

He said they had been dreaming of visiting their place of birth since the past 50 years but the recent softening of the visa policy and better relations between the two countries had made their dream come true. He said Pakistanis were eager to visit Delhi and Mumbai.

When told that 27 Pakistanis were missing in India, he said it was unfortunate. When India had provided them with facilities and relaxation, it should not have been exploited. This would create an atmosphere of mistrust again, he said.

Mr Jangwal said he had no interest in cricket but he wanted to salute the soil where he had been born and had spent his childhood. He said he met his friends and the elderly.

They visited their ancestral houses in the town and they were welcomed warmly.

He said residents of their hometown loved them and that they would love to visit the town again.

Mr Abid Hassan Bathi’s mother was born in the Donga Bazar locality here and he was happy to experience the affection of the people of his maternal town. “I was born in Pakistan and visited India for the first time but I liked India and we wish to come again and again”, he said.

Mrs Primla Devi, wife of Mr Prem Chand, said their family was happy to meet them after more than five decades.

Solan, March 20
Erratic internet, cellphone as well the basic land line services by the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has left the users harassed for the past one week.

The situation had arisen due to the fact that a major section of the BSNL employees, including JTOs and SDEs, had struck work following the alleged non-acceptance of their long-pending demands.

Repeated complaints by the users comprising cyber café owners, media persons, corporate offices and other daily users had gone unheard as the department had chosen to turn a deaf ear to the complaints.

The often-repeated reply of the officials assuring that the services would soon be restored provided no respite to the thousands of subscribers.

Worst-affected were the scribes who had not been able to use the internet services since the past one week. Even students, who wished to use the internet for searching the results of various IGNOU courses, were a disappointed lot.

Officials said since they were on strike they had little idea what had gone wrong.

They added that if their demands were not met soon the probability of the situation going from bad to worse could not be ruled out and asserted that given the present scenario even the local calls could be impaired in the near future.

The GM, Mr Tejinder Singh, said that the problem arose due to a snag in one of the neighbouring areas which was at times Ludhiana, Shimla or even Chandigarh. He however assured that the internet services would soon be restored. The subscribers who turned up in good numbers at The Tribune office here today complained that they were unable to make or receive calls from other networks like Airtel or Reliance despite trying for hours. Even BSNL cell users had to try for long to call another BSNL subscribers.

Even the BSNL helpline number 9418024365 was rarely available, lamented subscribers who tried in vain to get an information from this customer care number.

Their other helpline number 197 also failed to provide any relief as it was mostly busy.

The 1957 number provided by the BSNL internet node helpline was often without any attendant. The situation was so bad that even the short message services were adversely affected with 100 per cent message failures.

Subscribers, travelling along the national highway-22, rued that signal remained missing on major part of the highway while travelling from Parwanoo. It surfaced only a little beyond Dharampur.

Harassed subscribers said that the officials simply refused to entertain their complaint about internet failure and asserted that their official site worked well.

They said they would soon change over their cell phone connections to other service provider.

Shimla, March 20
With the Centre finally coming out with a proposal to enact a law to ban feeding of simians on the directions of the Supreme Court, the initiative taken by the Himachal Pradesh to check the monkey menace is likely to be replicated in other states.

Monkey nuisance has, over the years become a major problem in the hill state, particularly the capital city of Shimla, but the government has not been able to find a solution.

However, The Forest Department has been compelled to prepare an action plan following a PIL filed in this regard in the High Court.

Enactment of a legislation to ban public feeding of monkeys in towns, religious places and along the highways is one of the control measures suggested in the 38-point action plan which has been prepared after a headcount of simians in Shimla, Rampur and the Shimla-Parwanoo national highway.

Pending enactment of such a law, the state has amended the Shimla Municipal Corporation Act in October last to make feeding of monkeys a punishable offence. Since the rest of the state cannot be covered under it, the government has also sent a proposal to amend the Section 289 of the IPC to the Centre.

The thrust of the action plan is to transform the commensal and semi-commensal monkeys, who live in and around human habitations and have become addicted to junk food, back to non-commensals by discouraging people from feeding them.

At the same time, improving the degraded natural habitat by planting fruit trees, providing water holes, salt licks and taking other measures is essential so that the primates need not venture into human habitations in search of food.

Other short-term and long-term measures suggested in the plan include sterilisation of monkeys in worst affected areas like Shimla and their translocation into deep forests areas far away from human habitation.

In fact, acting on the plan, the Forest Department had last year trapped 3407 monkeys from Shimla, Rampur and various locations along the Shimla-Kalka National Highway released them in deep forests. It is a small number compared to the fact that the total number of simians in the state was over four lakh.

The latest census carried out by the Forest Department has revealed that the population of simians has been by and large remained static over the past one year. As per the actual headcount conducted across the state on December 16 last, there are 3,17,115 monkeys and 53,331 langurs in the state.

The figure, in fact, show a slight decrease as compared to the census carried out in June 2004 which put the number of monkeys at 3,19,168 and that of langurs at 56,986. In fact, the census of simians will be undertaken every six months for three years under the plan to ascertain the impact of measures.

As a long-term measure to contain the growing monkey menace along the Shimla-Kalka National Highway, the state Wild Life Department plans to set up “peri-urban way stations” where the people can feed the animals.

The monkeys will be kept in the way stations in big enclosures spread over an area of one hectare so that they could move around freely. The centres will be virtually developed into animal welfare centres with veterinary facilities.

In the first phase, three such centre will be established on the highway. In case the effort helps in containing the monkey menace, similar centres can be established in various temples.

As the translocation of animals into deep forests will provide only a temporary relief, such long-term measures were necessary to find a permanent solution to the problem.