Dharamsala, February 22
The Himachal Pradesh school education board (HPSEB) has abolished all examination centres of private affiliated schools following complaints of copying during the past few years. The board has also introduced a new grading system for the private affiliated schools and changed the academic session of class-X in all schools of the snow-bound tribal belts.

Revealing this to The Tribune, B.R. Rahi chairman of the HPSEB, said in the past few years there were thousands of complaints against private schools helping students in copying.

With this decision of the board, thousands of students studying in more than 2000 affiliated private schools in the state will have to go to the nearest government school to take examinations. The school examinations in the state are beginning from March 5.

The chairman said no student would be allowed to suffer from this decision of the board. "We have decided to open 127 extra examination centres taking the total to 1449 centres for the convenience of students", he said.

To improve standard of education in private schools, the board has introduced a new grading system for the entire private affiliated schools, under which, they would be categorised into three categories- A, B and C according to the period of their existence, performance and the infrastructural facilities available with them.

In another decision, the board has decided to set question papers in accordance with the IQ level of the students. The IQ of the students has been categorized into three categories- above average, average and below average. Subsequently, 20 per cent of the questions would be set keeping in view of the IQ level of the above average students and 40 per cent each in accordance to the IQ level of the average and below average students.

The academic session of the class-X students studying in the snow-bound tribal areas of Pangi (Chamba), Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti districts has been changed from March to December. Now onwards, final examinations of this class would be conducted in December. Earlier, this academic session was applicable up to middle standard students only.

Shimla, February 22
Owners of the unauthorised constructions have been told to apply for the compounding of their structures by February 28 as the retention policy has been extended.

The state government notified the retention policy for inviting objections and suggestions on February 19. The final notification will be issued tomorrow and owners of unauthorised constructions can apply for retention till February 28. The retention policy is applicable in the 20 planning areas and 34 special areas in the state.

The reason for giving some more time to people is because under the latest retention policy, for which the last date for applying was December 31, only 2,731 cases were received. "Since a PIL was pending in the high court, people were skeptical and did not apply till December 31 and now they were keen that they be given some more time to apply," said a senior official.

Under the retention policy all those who have constructed structures before June 30, 2006, are eligible to apply for compounding of the building constructed in violation of the regulations of the Town and Country Planning Act.— TNS

Shimla, February 22
V.S. Kokje, Governor, today said strengthening the emotional unity of the people and expeditious execution of power projects were top priorities of the government which planned to harness the entire identified hydroelectric potential of 21,000 MW in the state by 2020.

Delivering his customary address to the vidhan sabha on the opening day of the budget session, he said a multi-pronged strategy had been formulated to execute projects in state and Central sectors, the joint sector and the private sector to add 5,744 MW of installed capacity during the 11th Plan.

The state electricity board had set up 3 Special Purpose Vehicles, the Beas Valley Power Corporation, the Pabbar Valley Power Corporation and the Kinner Kailash Power Corporation for the execution of the projects with an aggregate capacity of 1128.60 MW. Besides, the Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation had been incorporated to take up major projects in the state sector and Shongtong Karcham (402 MW) and Sainj (100 MW) had been allotted to it.

The efforts put in by the government on the development front ensured the state economy grew at a rate of 8.5 per cent during 2005-06 and it was expected achieve a growth rate of 9.3 per cent during the current year.

The plan size of Rs 1600 crore in 2005-06 had been raised to Rs 2,100 crore for 2007-2008, with highest priority to the social services sector. Significantly, the address omitted any reference to price rise, which has been a major issue.

Dharamsala, February 22
Chemists in Himachal have been running medicine stores even after the expiry of licenses issued by the drug control authorities of the state.

Licenses of 400 medicines and cosmetics stores across the state had not been renewed. There are more than 1600 medicines and cosmetics stores operating in the state.

The state drug controller has failed to renew their drugs and cosmetics licenses even as the chemists had applied for the renewal of licenses in time.

It all happened after the state government in December last year amended certain rules of the drugs and cosmetics act.

The state government after amending the rules has constituted a three-member committee comprising assistant drug controller (Shimla), assistant drug controller (Kangra) as permanent members and the drug inspector concerned of the district to scrutinise fresh applications related to the opening of the medicines and cosmetics shops at the district-level and issue new licenses to those who fulfilled all conditions required for it.

This three-member committee will also scrutinise the applications of the renewal cases as well as aspirant interested in setting up drug manufacturing units. These two items comes under part-VI and part-VII of the rules, respectively.

After amending the rules, not even a single meeting of the three-member committee has been held in any of the 12 districts of the state and nor any fresh or renewal case has been taken up for consideration. Moreover, no provisional grant has been given to the chemists who are running the drug stores for the past many years.

Tara Chand Thakur executive committee member of the Himachal Pradesh chemists association told The Tribune on telephone it was wrong on part of the government to bring the drug sellers and manufacturers under the same rules. There should be separate committees for part-VI and part-VII of the rules to make the process easier for the chemists to get licences renewed, he added. Sher Singh Thakur state drug controller refused to comment saying he was busy in the assembly questions. 

Mandi, February 22
The CPM today warned the state government it would organise a statewide protest against the anti-labour, anti-farmer and anti-teacher policies if the government did not take immediate steps to check the prices rise and the wrong policies.

Joining hands with the lecturers who are protesting against the MLSM College, Sundernagar, CPM leader Amar Singh Raghava stated here today that the state government had not released the grant to the college which was 95 per cent government-aided, hitting the staff badly as the employees were not getting their salaries on time.

Shimla, February 22
Terming the criticism of the state freedom of religion act by certain Christian organisations as misplaced, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today asserted that the new law did not bar religious conversions and only laid down a procedure to ensure transparency in the highly sensitive matter.

He said the legislation was not against any community or people of any religious denomination and its objective was to maintain social harmony and the rich cultural traditions of the hill state.

Any one who wanted to convert from one religion to another was free to do so by following the procedure prescribed in the act. Every now and then there were incidents of religious conversions which created social tensions and bred hatred among communities.

However, with a law in place anti-social elements would not be able to foment communal trouble by exploiting the emotionally sensitive issue.

He said there was no reason for any community to protest as the act would only check religious conversions through inducements, pressure and other coercive methods.