Mandi, September 20
Announcing a hike of Rs 300 in the pension for ex-servicemen and widows of the World War II and an increase of Rs. 17,000 for winners of the sena medals, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said that government would set up a legal cell to redress grievances of serving or ex-servicemen within a time-bound period and would take up the long-pending demand of “one rank one pension” with the Central Government.

Addressing a gathering present at the state-level rally of the ex-servicemen coming from all parts of the state after the CM chaired the meeting of the district Congress committee here today, Virbhara said a legal cell would be set up so that ex-servicemen did not face any delays in redressing their grievances as and when they were on leave or while in jobs as they got leave once in a year.

Referring to the pending demands of “one rank, one pension”, the filling up of 15 per cent job quota, the creation of separate battalion for the state raised on the occasion by earlier speakers - Maj-gen (retired) and ex-Rajya Sabha MP Vikram Singh, director, Sainik Welfare Department Lt-Col Mohinder Singh, the office-bearers of ex-servicemen ColBC Lagwal and Col R.C. Gupta-Virbhadra said the government had set up 15 per cent job quota for ex-servicemen at all levels and had filled it.

He added that that he would take up the case of “One rank, one pension” with the Central Government. He said every 10 soldier in the Army was a Himachali, and added, “We should give utmost to the country not asking the country what it gives us back”.

He said the government was giving a grant of Rs 15,000 for marriage of daughters of widows under the CM Kanyadan yojna, stipends for ex-servicemen children, one seat each for students of ex- ervicemen in dental colleges, 4 per cent seats in engineering colleges, 10 per cent seats in technical institutions and 2 per cent seats in agricultural university.

Virbhadra Singh announced that pension for the soldiers and widows of world ward II who are more than 60 years has been raised from Rs 200 per month to Rs. 500 and land grant has been increased from Rs. 900 to Rs 1500. The annual grant for the winners of the sena medals has been increased from Rs. 3000 to Rs. 20,000 and the winners "mentioned in dispatches" will now get Rs. 10,000 instead of Rs. 3000 given earlier, he announced amid applause. Present on the occasion were IPH minister Kaul Singh Thakur, excise and taxation minister Rangila Ram Rao, chairman HPSPSC BS Thakur ex MP Anil Sharma chairman state marketing board Satya Parkash Thakur and others MLAs from Mandi district.

Nurpur September 20
An eight member central team led by A.K. Yadav joint-secretary home affairs, Government of India failed to assess the damage caused by torrential rains and cloudburst in Nurpur subdivision today as the helicopter carrying it could not land at Rehan near here due to inclement weather. The officials of the district and local administration were kept waiting for the arrival of the team as per scheduled time at 12 o’clock but at about 3pm when the flight took off from Chandigarh it could not land here and finally the flight diverted to Bilaspur district. The team had to visit Khazian near here where a cloudburst had played havoc last month and Kandwal area where flash floods had washed away inter- state Chakki bridge throwing road connectivity in Kangra valley out of gear. As per official information, a loss to the tune of Rs two crore barring IPH schemes and roads has been assessed by the state revenue agencies.

According to Ashwani Kapoor the deputy commissioner, Kangra, although the central team could not undertake assessment of losses by visiting rain damaged areas in Kangra district but the state government would submit the loss report for Nurpur before the team in Shimla on September 22 during the scheduled meeting of the central team with state government representatives. He informed that the central team was also visiting affected areas in Bilaspur and Kinnaur district during its two-day long stay in the state. 

Solan, September 20
The first meeting of the newly constituted Board of Management (BoM) of Dr Y.S.Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, which was convened here today to approve the appointments of various statutory officials made by the university recently turned into a fiasco with the state high court ordering a stay on these selections.

The high court while reacting on a PIL filed on the basis of media reports held that since the selection committee had no SC/ST member on its list, it violated the mandatory direction of the Central Government which was enforced though the UGC.

As per the direction, each selection committee is supposed to have such members so as to ensure their interests are watched. The court held that since the other two universities had already adopted this amendment it was mandatory for this university to abide by the same amendment.

The officials who have been selected include director, Research, professor MBA, librarian, director, Extension and Deans College of Horticulture and Forestry. The official members of the new BoM, including principal chief conservator of forests Dr Pankaj Khullar, former PCCF R.A.Singh, additional chief secretary, Horticulture, J.P.Negi, principal secretary, Forests, Ashok Thakur, principal secretary, Finance , VC HP Krishi Vishv Vidyalaya Palampur Tej Pratap, Dr D.R Sharma director Research, Dr Mahinder Pal director, Himalayan Research Institute, Dr J.P.Tewari, director, National Research Centre for Mushroom, director Agriculture, director, horticulture and former director, Horticulture, and advisor, Horticulture to the Government of HP K.C.Azad.

Though the university had convened a special meeting today to approve the selections made, the stay orders defeated the very purpose of the BoM’s first meeting.

Non-official members which include progressive farmer/orchardists, including one from the tribal area, one outstanding women social woker preferably having a background of rural advancement, an engineer, and a nominee each of ICAR and ICFRE. which have been nominated to the new BoM include progressive farmer Shiv Pal, Chandra Negi from Kalpa, Lekh Raj Chauhan president Fruit Growers Association, Shimla, and G.R Kaundal. Its notification was made on August 20 and they would attend the first special meeting of the BoM especially convened to approve the recent appointments.

Solan, September 20
Terror gripped the industrial area of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh today with a second incident of dacoity taking place in less than a week. In an incident, copper roll worth Rs 12 lakh, Rs 35,000 cash, four cellphones and a DTH set were robbed by a gang last night around 1.00 am.

The owner, Manikchand, lodged a complaint with the police regarding the incident. According to the police officials six masked men entered the premises of the said unit and after brandishing knives asked the security guard Hari Narain Singh to hand over the keys. He resisted their move but he was tied by a rope and locked inside a room. The robbers then entered the unit and encountered four employees, who were working for the night shift, Navrattan, Vijay Singh, Ram Niwas and Shambu. They asked the three for the keys. The three first tried to shrug off their request by pleading that they did not have the keys but were frisked and the keys were found in their possession. They were also locked in a room.

The robbers who had come well-equipped then brought their car inside the unit and loaded copper rolls into it and fled the spot. The incident has sent shock waves among the investors, as it was the second such incident in the area in less than a week. In an earlier incident four robbers had entered the premises of Anshu International, a packaging unit located at Nandpur, and had similarly locked the security guard and had fled with packaging material worth Rs 6 lakh.

SP Daljeet Singh said they had gathered some clues and the culprits were likely to be caught soon. He said both the cases were interrelated and they would soon be able to lay hands over the robbers. He said more men had been deployed in the industrial area to ensure that such instances would not repeated. — OC

Shimla, September 20
With 1.80 crore boxes of apple already sent to markets from various parts of the state, the total production was likely to overshoot the estimates for the season.

The Horticulture Department had assessed the total production at 4.82 lakh tonne equivalent to 2.41 crore standard boxes out of which 2.17 crore boxes (4.34 lakh tonne) were to be exported out of state. However, already 3.60 tonne fruit has been sent to the markets and every day over four lakh boxes were being transported out of the state. In all 40,775 trucks of apple have been sent out.

As the harvesting season closes on October 30 after the plucking of fruit in Kinnaur district, which produces around 16 lakh boxes every year. The total production is, thus, likely to surpass the estimates. It will not be surprising as the state had a lean crop last year when only 1.34 crore boxes were produced.

A lean season is normally followed by a bumper crop. However, the market remained low compared to last year, though the situation has improved over the past one week. The prices of the superior varieties of royal delicious, rich-a-red, red delicious and golden delicious remained Rs 150 to Rs 200 per box lower than the last year from the very start of the harvesting season.

The difference has come down over the past few days and yesterday royal delicious fetched Rs 630 per box as compared to Rs 670 per box last year. Similarly, Rich-a-red was being sold at Rs 550 per boxes as against Rs 600 per box last year.

However, red delicious and golden delicious were being sold at last years rate at Rs 525 per box and Rs 330 per box, respectively. Unlike previous years, when almost 90 per cent the fruit was sold in the Delhi market, a large quantity of fruit was auctioned at the emerging terminal markets within state.

Kangra, September 20
Inauguration of the Dr.Rajender Prasad Govt. Medical College at Tanda was again deferred in view of the staff and equipment deficiency and now has been pushed to next month.

Hirender Heera, secretary-cum-commissioner health and medical education after inspecting the hospital building told The Tribune this evening that she would submit the report to the Chief Minister that the hospital could not be inaugurated before next month. She said medical equipment and staff for the hospital was available but in view of the Prime Minister’s visit to the state on September 30 the inauguration would not be possible before next month.

Regarding the medical equipment which had come from foreign countries and was held up by the Customs Department Hira said ,“I don’t know anything about it being held by the customs department”. She however, said a MRI machine and some other equipment had already arrived here which was sufficient to run the hospital.

She said the hospital would accommodate 500 patients and would be highly sophisticated, better equipped and well managed. The hospital building, which was completed in December 2005 and was awaiting inauguration, still had a lot of deficiencies. According to insiders X-ray machines of 100 MA had already arrived which could be used for fractures but X-rays of 500 MA used for the Head , Chest and other body parts were not available to the hospital as yet due to which it was not ready to receive accidental cases.

The hospital has a requirement of 200 nurses where as only 120 nurses are currently posted here. Five ICUs in the hospital for children, burn patients, medicine, surgery and anesthesia patients require a nurse for every patient as per the MCI norms but the deficiency has been a stumbling block.

According to sources 912 posts of different categories of doctors and other para-medical staff were created by the govt. out of which only 60 per cent had been filled. More than 500 posts for different categories of the para-medical staff were under process with the finance department.

Deficiency of staff quarters was forcing the employees to get their transfer orders to the hospital cancelled which was further delaying the inauguration. 130 security staff employees, 100 sweepers, staff nurses and 52 students of the three year B.Sc para-medical course also required accommodation.

Shimla, September 20
The Himachal Pradesh State Forest Employees Federation has urged the government to introduce the concept of eco-tourism on the analogy of the Uttarakhand Forest Corporation so that other activities like mining and mineral extraction can also be taken up.

The state executive of the HP State Forest Corporation met here today to discuss various issues concerning the corporation and employees. “Eco-tourism needs to be introduced in a big way in Himachal by adopting steps taken by Uttarakhand,” said Prakash Sharma, secretary general of the corporation.

He said the Uttarakhand Forest Corporation had been registering profits for the past five years after it took over additional activities like eco-tourism, minor mining and mineral extraction from riverbeds in forest areas. The experiment in the filed of nature tourism had been very successful in 11 blocks there, he added.

The executive committee thanked the Chief Minister for regularising 1,030 daily wagers. 

Solan, September 20
The Dharampur police today managed to arrest Suraj Pal, the absconding driver of a pick-up van, from Mohali Sector-56, six days after his vehicle had collided with the car of a former additional advocate-general, Sandeep Kaushik, who died in the accident.

Pal was arrested by a team of policemen led by SHO Bhisham Thakur who managed to reach his hideout where he was staying with his relatives.

He had been on the run after the accident.

Mandi, September 20
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh held fort in the Mandi district Congress as all the prominent and would-be contenders including the two ministers IPH minister Kaul Singh Thakur and the excise and taxation minister Rangila Ram Rao made their presence felt here at the District Congress Committee meeting in which he pulled up the party office bearers for not working hard to take the government’s achievements to the common men in the state.

Singh expressed his displeasure over the working of the party’s office-bearers indirectly hinting at the state president, “Viplove Thakur and her yes men”, stating that holding the top post did not mean the party was in good shape and the party would have to work hard.

The insiders who attended the District Congress Committee meeting in the Gandhi Bhawan here today revealed that the CM was not happy with the “working of the office bearers as they needed to work very hard to strengthen the party at the grass- roots level”.

Virbhadra Singh cautioned party men from all over the district by saying that, “We should not hope to win the next election on the weakness of the BJP alone, we have to work hard which so far has been absent. The party workers need to take the achievements of the government to the common man which we have not done”, “The BJP leaders are indulging in false propaganda as they have no issue to attract the attention of the people”, he added.

Kaul Singh Thakur said the next Assembly election would be fought under Singh’s leadership. Rao added that the BJP was indulging in “loose talk” and the achievements of the Congress government will win in elections.

Insiders revealed that the main contenders for the tickets made their presence felt today as “Virbhadra Singh enjoyed a cordial rapport with Dhawan”. State president Viplove Thakur has been doing a “secret survey” in each constituency of the state, assessing the “winability” of each sitting Congress MLA. She will present the report to the party high command, sources said.

Dharamsala, September 20
For the first time in the history of the hill state, rural women will hold gram sabhas in their respective villages on September 23 and will discuss issues related to them.

Now women are coming out openly against social evils of female foeticide, dowry, domestic violence, sexual abuse etc which was earlier confined to individual efforts.

Veena Sharma, a woman activist and block development committee member from Dharamsala was hopeful that now women would get a common platform at the village-level to discuss issues related to them which would help in the development of the state.

Acknowledging that 33 per cent representation of women in the panchayati raj system and local self-governments had to a great extent helped to empower women, she said the new initiative of holding an exclusive meeting of women would help educate the less-fortunate women.

Sarika Katoch, another woman activist who is currently leading the nation in the Commonwealth Youth Caucus was of the view that local NGO’s, social activists, representatives of the panchayati raj system and local self-governments should get together to chalk out future strategies for the empowerment of women.

District panchayat officer Satish Sharma said women should come forward and discuss issues related to them so that a strategy could be chalked out for their upliftment.

Women meetings at the village-level would set an example for the male-dominated society and demonstrate that the society was now changing, he added.

Bilaspur, September 20
Forests, youth services and sports minister Ramlal Thakur has said that the Central Government has allocated Rs 2,000 crore for the implementation of railway project from from Bhanupali to Bilaspur and further to Rampur.

Addressing a villagers’ meeting at Dabhat today evening after inaugurating Rs 3-lakh additional accommodation for government high school, he said the project would change the economic face of the area apart from opening new avenues of employment for the youth. He said the project would also give boost to the industrial development of the state.

He also declared that Rs 23 crore would be spent during the current financial year on implementation of Rs 88.09-crore Anadpur hydel channel project that would provide 25 cusecs water to arid and dry zone of the Chagar area. He said the state government had set up special division and three subdivisions of the Irrigation and Public Health Department in the area for faster implementation of the project that would irrigate 940 hectares in the area.

Bilaspur, September 20
Kanshi Ram Upmanyu (89), a freedom fighter of the Praja Mandal Movement, died at his village Bhandwar in Chandpur area near here last night. He had been ailing for some time.

Kanshi Ram joined the freedom movement at Amritsar in 1935. He underwent imprisonment several times during the Quit India movement. He was cremated today. His funeral was largely attended by panchayat leaders and representatives of political parties. Tilak Raj Sharma, MLA, offered floral tributes to the departed soul. Tehsildar Dhanvir Thakur handed over Rs 5,000 to the family of the deceased on behalf of the government.

Chandigarh, September 20
BBMB chairman U.C. Misra laid the foundation stone of a housing complex constituting 90 flats for the BSL project in Sundernagar today. He directed the senior officers of the project to complete the construction in time by adopting high standards of construction norms.

In the first phase 72, houses are constructed at Sundernagar at the cost of Rs 2.8 crore and are nearing completion. These houses will be allotted to the employees in December, 2007. In the second phase, 90 houses are being constructed at the cost of Rs 5.33 crore at Sundernagar.

Addressing officers and staff at the Dehra Power House, Misra said he was happy to announce the cash award equivalent to 15-day basic pay to the officers and staff who worked day and night for the restoration of the power house.

Solan, September 20
Two construction labourers were electrocuted and three others sustained burn injuries in Paras Pharmaceutical factory at Thana village under the Baddi police station in this district, today morning.

The deceased were identified as Vijay Babu and Sher Singh, residents of Rampur district of Uttar Pradesh. The seriously injured labourers Vinod, Promod and Deepak were admitted to Nalagarh hospital and were later referred to P.GI. Chandigarh.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the mishap took place at about 9 am when all the labourers were carrying an iron ladder in the factory premises to carry out some work. As soon as the laboueres started shifting the ladder, it suddenly touched the over-head electric line.

In another incident, Ranjeet Singh, a labourer died when a large number of boxes fell on him in Aqua Mall factory in the Export Promotion Park area of industrial estate Barotiwala, this afternoon.

Bilaspur, September 20
Vinod Patial (42) of Dugga village, Hamirpur district, who was driving a Maruti car, was killed and two others Amarchand and his daughter Mina of Dandiyar village, Una district, who were in the same car, were injured seriously when this car had a head-on collision with a truck at village Awari near Kandraur near here today on National Highway — 88.

Villagers rushed all the three injured occupants of the car to district hospital here but the driver Vinod Patiyal was declared brought dead while Amarchand and Meena were admitted with a serious condition in the hospital.

The truck driver fled from scene of the accident and has not been traced. The police has registered a case.