Kangra, June 15
A 50-year-old employee of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has been missing since May 26, when he reached Nagrota Bagwan for his night shift duty.

Mr Kishori Lal, an employee of the FCI posted at Nagrota Bagwan depot left his home in Shoura village near here on May 26, for his night shift duty. According to the police Mr Kishori Lal arrived in Nagrota Bagwan town and had a cup of tea from a shop struck Nagrota Bagwan, Massal, Kawdi and Bunnaid villages that evening leaving a woman dead, five persons injured and property worth lakhs destroyed.

His son Rajender Kumar said his father was seen in the town after 15-minute nightmare by some people. Mr R. S. Sodhi , Area Manager of FCI when contacted told The Tribune that Kishori Lal did not report for his duty on May 26, evening for night shift.

Mr Rajender Kumar said when he did not return, home next day he went to Nagrota Bagwan and came to know that (father) did not report in his office last evening. He said he lodged a missing report with the Nagrota Bagwan police.

Ms Sudharshana Devi, (45,) wife of Kishori Lal said “Three weeks have passed with no head way in the case and we don’t know the fate of the bread winner of the family”.

The police claimed the investigation in the case was on but family members of the missing person described police action slow. Residents of village Shoura were upset at the disappearance.

Mr R. S. Sodhi, Area Manager, FCI said he called on the Kangra District Additional Police chief twice and requested him to expedite the investigation in this matter. The police has not achieved any breakthrough in the case.

Kangra district police chief Mr Ajay Kumar Yadav was busy in a meeting with the DIG Law and Order in his office today was not available for comments Additional Kangra district police Chief Ram Lal said that he was not much informed about the update of case.

Reckong Peo, June 15
The water discharge in the Sutlej, which had increased to an alarming level during the past fortnight, has reduced over the past couple of days. This has made the people of Kinnaur heave a sigh of relief from the threat of floods.

However, an official of the district administration, after attending a review meeting under the disaster management plan, here today claimed that the administration was well prepared to handle any situation.

As per details available from sources in the Sutlej Jal Vidhyut Nigam (SJVN), the average discharge of water in the river near the Nathpa-Jhakhri power project has reduced to just 380 cumecs over the past couple of days.

During the past fortnight, the water discharge at various points had crossed 1,000-cumec mark that had forced the state government and the administration to pull up the socks for disaster management.

People feel that the water discharge in the Sutlej has decreased due to sudden drop in temperature in the upper parts of Kinnaur district over the past couple of days. Glacial melting has reduced with the drop in temperature, they say.

It may be mentioned that the average maximum temperature in Reckong Peo, district headquarters of Kinnaur, last week was around 27°C. This has come down to below 20°C during the past couple of days.

Meanwhile, the situation of power production in the 1,500-MW Nathpa-Jhakri project has been normal and all six units are functioning properly, maintains a senior official of the SJVN.

“The silt level in the river is also normal and there is no danger to any of our power houses at the moment,” says the official.

Dharamsala, June 15
Rubbishing criticism of the HP School Education Board’s move to recommend reference books for students of Classes XI and XII in the state, its chairman, Mr B.R. Rahi, said the decision was taken in the interest of students.

Addressing a press conference here yesterday, Mr Rahi said the reference books should not be confused with textbooks, as the study of reference books was not mandatory for students. The board was also not promoting guides in schools, as the Education Department has already banned them.

He said since many sub-standard reference books were available in the market, which also did not conform to the board’s syllabus, a decision was taken to constitute committees of subject experts, who would recommend three to five reference books per subject for the benefit of students.

As per a notification issued on April 22 this year the board has directed the recommended publishers to quote two prices on the cover, offering a discount of 10 per cent for students of Himachal Pradesh.

It was also decided that the board would have the right to blacklist any of the publishers without assigning any reason and that the publisher would have to deposit a renewal fee of Rs 3,000 per year per title.

As a result of this decision, the commission of the bookseller was brought down from 15 to 10 per cent so that students could get 10 per cent discount. These booksellers have reasons enough to criticise this move of the board.

All provisions of the notification are in the interest of the students so that they get to know which reference books have quality content and adhere to the board’s syllabus, as per the recommendation of the subject experts, and also get 10 per cent concession on the price.

However, many well-known publishing houses are missing from the list of recommended books. Mr Rahi said this could be because they did not agree to the conditions and did not apply to the board.

Reckong Peo, June 15
In a bid to breathe life into the losing credibility of the ruling Indian National Congress (INC) among the tribal people of Kinnaur, the state president of the party, Ms Viplav Thakur, has decided to hold a meeting of the district office-bearers and active members of the party on June 18 at the district headquarters.

The ruling party suffered a severe blow in the last elections of the Panchayati Raj institutions held early this year. The BJP, the main opposition party, had managed to brush away the ruling party by winning the Zila Parishad and all Panchayat Samiti elections in the tribal district, besides, claiming the support of a majority of the newly elected gram pradhans of the 65 panchayats.

No matter, the Congress has an elected member Jagat Singh Negi as its representative in the Vidhan Sabha from Kinnaur but ever since he was removed from the post of Parliamentary Secretary following orders of an apex court, last year, the popularity graph of Congress began to decline.

Political observers say that the debacle of Congress in the PRI elections could be attributed to the removal of people’s representative from power. Perhaps, this could be one of the reasons behind the fiasco of the ruling party but more important was the aggressive nature of the BJP that successfully emerged under the leadership of district president Tejwant Negi.

Even as the local Congress MLA is very hard working and try to help the public day and night but still the local people feel that Tejwant Negi is young and possess dynamic leadership qualities that undoubtedly may be another reason behind the success of BJP in the PRI elections.

Perturbed over the growing popularity of the young BJP leader, the local MLA, going by a media clipping in a vernacular newspaper, has recently filed a defamation case against him, which does not seem to be healthy political trend for the ruling party.

Therefore, realising the past mistakes, the top brass of the ruling party is looking forward to win back the confidence of the tribal people in Kinnaur who, otherwise traditionally, have been more inclined towards the Congress.

Sources within the Congress leadership revealed that besides introspection within the party for the downfall, other reasons such as administrative support to the party office bearers and workers with regard to the local aspirations would also be discussed in the forthcoming meeting.

Shimla, June 15
The Forest Department today resumed the drive to remove dharas (illegal structures) and demolished 18 unauthorised structures in the Court Hill area near Lakkar Bazaar.

Forest officials accompanied by a posse of security men arrived in the colony early in the morning and started pulling down the structures. Unlike the first phase of drive there was not much resistance from the owners of dharas.

In all 916 encroachments were detected, out of which 286 were removed by December 2005 when the drive was suspended for two months on the directions of the Supreme Court. However, the drive could not be resumed as the government decided to transfer the municipal forest areas from the local Municipal Corporation to the Forest Department.

The High Court, which has been monitoring progress, had asked the Forest Department to come out with timeframe for the demolition of the remaining dharas. The department has in an affidavit stated that 134 dharas will be removed by June 30,2006.

Sources said that demolition of all the structures might not be possible by the stipulated date. The department may seek time up to July 31 to complete it as many of the dharas were in reality regular concrete structures, which were not easy to demolish.

The cases for removal of the 496 dharas were at various stages. They would be demolished as and when the authorities passed the ejectment orders.

Kangra, June 15
Himachal Transport and Tourism Minister G.S. Bali today ruled out any hike in the bus fares despite a hike in the petrol and diesel prices and announced that the government had sanctioned Rs 90 lakh for the Gajrehar link road and Rs 10 lakh for the Himani-Chamunda road in the Nagrota Bagwan Assembly segment.

Mr Bali was addressing a public meeting at Baglehar. He said the state government was committed to link every village in the state with road.

He announced upgradation of Government Primary School, Baglehar, from the next academic session. He said that government was striving hard to provide quality education in schools.