Shimla, January 2
I. D. Dhiman, a senior BJP legislator from the Mewa assembly segment of Hamirpur, was today appointed as the pro tem speaker by the government.

After the issuing of the notification, Dhiman will conduct the House when the assembly is convened for the first time and the election to the post of the speaker will also take place.

Dhiman had been elected the leader of the opposition in the House after Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal was elected to the Lok Sabha after winning the Hamirpur by-election.

Interestingly, there was a major controversy surrounding the appointment as initially the government issued a notification for the appointment of the speaker instead of the pro tem Speaker. It was the Congress leader and former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who pointed this out and personally spoke with the speaker.

Virbhadra said the appointment of a speaker is made under Section 180(1) of the Constitution only when the post is lying vacant. He termed the notification of the appointment of a speaker against the Constitution.

Gangu Ram Musafir, who was the speaker in the last assembly has once again won the election and the new government would have to appoint a pro tem speaker and not a speaker.

When the issue was raised by Virbhadra, a new notification superceding the previous one was issued in which the mistake was rectified and it was mentioned that he would be appointed as the pro tem speaker.

It is expected that after the cabinet expansion the assembly session would be convened and the oath of the MLA’s and the election for the post of Sparker would he held.

In 2003 it was Ishwar Dass, Congress MLA from Ani, who was assigned the task of conducting the house. Since the then Speaker, Gulab Singh had lost the election, the post had lying vacant and as such Ishwar Dass was appointed as the pro-term Speaker.

Kangra, January 2
The BSNL today left the a large number of mobile consumers here in a lurch when their outgoing call facilities were withdrawn without any prior notice by the BSNL despite the fact that they had made payments of their mobile bills few days back.

The protesting BSNL mobile consumers approached the local community service centre in the telephone exchange, where they had made the payments, asking for the reason as to why their phones were barred from out going call facility.

The mobile consumers carrying the receipts of their payments tried to get in touch with the SDO, mobile, but his phone did not respond.

Among the affected consumers was a senior journalist, who made a complaint to A.K. Chaturvedi, GM, mobile, at Shimla and to Deleep Chand, chief accounts officer, mobiles, at Shimla and following their intervention the telephones were restored.

The consumers demanded that they should not be charged Rs 100 for reconnection as it was in no way their fault and wanted directions to be given to the concerned officials in this regard.

According to insiders, the lack in communication between the Accounts Department at Dharamsala and disconnecting officials at Dharamsala was the reason behind this mess.

The BSNL mobile authorities, without serving any warning through SMS messages to the consumers were disconnecting the mobiles.

According to Chand, at least four messages must go to the consumer from before the department barred the consumer from the outgoing call facility. He expressed surprise as to how the outgoing call facility was bared without a warning message sent to the consumer. Chaturvedi assured that matter would be seriously looked into, to avoid such inconvenience to the mobile consumers in future.

Shimla, January 2
The State Electricity Regulatory Commission has increased the tariff for small hydropower projects from Rs 2.50 to Rs 2.87 per unit and also ruled that building necessary infrastructure for evacuation of power beyond the interconnection point will be the responsibility of the state and not the independent power producers (IPPs). The order will go a long way in boosting private investment in the micro-hydel sector.

These issues have been holding back the private sector as the tariff of Rs 2.50 per unit fixed in 2000 had become uneconomical due to changes in the hydropower policy and uncertainty over the construction of transmission lines for evacuation of power. The new hydro policy makes it obligatory for the developers to maintain a minimum discharge of 15 per cent in the streams at all times, earmark 1.5 per cent of the project cost for local area development, grant compensation to fisheries and for use of forestland. The board had been demanding exorbitant charges for creation of evacuation infrastructure making the small projects unviable.

The commission followed the hybrid methodology to ensure that the cost of power evacuation infrastructure was shared by both the IPPs and the state utility. Accordingly, IPPs will construct transmission lines up to the interconnection point and beyond it, it will be the responsibility of the state electricity board. The evacuation infrastructure required for micro-hydel projects has been made part of the overall transmission plan for the state.

To ensure that the board was not put to losses by non-utilisation of the evacuation infrastructures, commission had also made provision for imposing penalty on the IPP in case it backs out without completing the project.

The 40-year ‘levelised’ tariff fixed by the commission will be applicable to projects for which power purchase agreements (PPAs) were signed after July, 2006. The developers of projects for which PPAs were signed earlier could approach the commission for revision of the tariff.

The tariff in Haryana is Rs 3.67 per unit and Punjab Rs 3.49 per unit, but the commission kept it at Rs 2.87 per unit to ensure that power could be sold outside the state at competitive rates after paying for wheeling charges.

The commission views the new tariff as a win-win situation for the utility, the consumers and the IPPs. The utility was able to sell power at Rs 7.30 per unit and as such buying it at Rs 2.87 per unit left with it with a large spread during the surplus months and a plus during the hydrological deficient period in winter. The consumer gets more power with greater reliability, less outage and an upgraded wheeling network at a very marginal cost. Finally, the IPPs get a decent long-term price, an evacuation structure at zero cost and benefits.

Dharamsala, January 2
Former power minister Vidhya Stokes is likely to be the leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) as the party high command has learnt to have given clearance to her name. The former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh had already expressed his unwillingness to become the leader of the opposition after facing the debacle in the assembly elections.

No formal announcement would be made in this regard by the high command owing to the democratic traditions of leaving the matter to the party legislators for electing their leader.

Sources in the party high command revealed that a strong lobby of Congress MLAs, including the high profile party leader G.S. Bali is favouring Stokes as the CLP leader, which is a new turn in the state party politics.

Sources further revealed that the meeting of the CLP would be held next week to formally elect the leader. Virbhadra was said to be lobbying for Vidhan Sabha speaker Gangu Ram Musafir as the CLP leader as he was being considered to be loyal to the former CM. But, Musafir did not find much support as another party leader and former minister Kaul Singh Thakur also considered close to the former CM had also been lobbying for the post. On the other, the party high command was in no mood to change the state leadership of the party organisation at the moment. Rajya Sabha member Viplove Thakur is presently the state president of the party.

Senior Congress leaders were of the view that the change in state leadership before the Parliament elections could further harm the prospects of the party. Insiders in the party revealed that Bali was also eying for the post of the state leadership of the party but the Congress high command was in no mood to change the leadership at the moment.

Shimla, January 2
State BJP chief Jai Ram Thakur today said by enhancing daily wages and the social security pensions, the BJP had proved that it was committed to fulfil the promises made by it in its election manifesto.

Addressing a press conference here today, he said the BJP would take care of all sections of society. “The state has little check over price rise so the only way to compensate the people is to enhance their wages and pensions,” he said.

The BJP chief also mocked at the statement of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh that Dhumal had fulfilled the promises made in the Congress election manifesto. “If they were so committed to fulfil the promises made in their election manifesto, what prevented the Congress from doing so in the past five years,” he quipped.

Hailing the enhancement in the social security pension and daily wages within two days of the formation of the government, he said the election manifesto of the BJP had already been adopted as a policy document. “Around 2.37 lakh families will benefit from enhancement in the social security pension which was not increased even by a rupee by the Congress regime,” he said.

“The BJP vote bank has gone up from 35.38 per cent in 2003 to 43.78 per cent during the recently concluded elections,” he said. Thakur dismissed talk of any kind of dissidence or lobbying by MLAs to get a ministerial berth. “It is only after the Cabinet formation that the finer details of having a coordination committee to ensure proper understanding between the government and organisation would be worked out,” he said.

On his continuing as the party chief or joining the ministry, he said this was the prerogative of the Chief Minister and he would accept any responsibility given to him by the party.

Shimla, January 2
Sanjeev Katwal has been appointed officer on special duty (OSD) to the Chief Minister. Katwal had been handling party affairs in the state BJP office here. For the past some time, he had been working with P.K. Dhumal.

The government today also appointed O.P. Sharma as the director (education). Sharma will replace Anita Rao, who had been holding the post till now. Sharma had been the director before he was replaced by Rao after the Congress government came to power. Incidentally, Rao is the sister-in-law of Rangila Ram Rao, who was minister for excise and taxation in the Virbhadra regime.

Kangra January 2
In a struggle to search his son, Sonu, missing for the past more than seven years, Rajesh Kumar (45), a balloon seller, of Backloo village of Chamba district, had been moving from pillar to post, has now threatened to resort to self immolation along with his family members in front of the district court at Chamba after January 15 if the authorities failed to get his son traced out.

Sonu was allegedly taken by a swami and a sadhvi in order to provide him good education and later on communicated Rajesh that Sonu was missing from his ashram.

Rajesh today told The Tribune here that he had expressed his decision of this extreme step before the legal-aids committee held at Chamba last year. He said the district and sessions judge during the meeting had directed the district authorities to send a team to Pathankot to search out his missing son on January 15, 2008 and take all steps to trace him out.

He said he had earlier approached the police authorities to send a police team with him to Punjab to conduct raids on hides outs of the swami for the recovery of the child but the police was allegedly succumbing under the pressure of the swami.

It was on August 23, 2000, when Rajesh, a balloon seller, was at Manimahesh pilgrimage to earn his livelihood and Swami Hari Harnand Puri of the Adayot Sanyas Ashram of Pathankot took 1990-born Sonu from his mother, Prakashu Devi, with a promise that he would provide him with good education.

This was the last day when the mother saw her son as after few months Rajesh received a letter from swami saying that his son was missing from the ashram.

He said the swami got an anticipatory bail from the sessions court on Januray 21, 2002, and the police did not interrogate him properly because he was influential.

He said that a missing report in the Dalhousie police station was lodged by him but Sonu could not be traced out till date. He said he had approached the Chamba DC, the SP, the DGP, and even the state human rights commission but Sonu could not be traced. He said he had approached the Prime Minister, President of India and even the Supreme Court through a PIL, but so far the boy was not recovered.

The police claim that after the ASP investigated the case it was later on transferred to the crime branch of the CID for investigation, where he was declared untraced.

Rajesh said that there was no option for him but to take this extreme step if authorities did not take effective steps to trace out his son, who, he said, was alive and swami was allegedly hiding him.

Chamba, January 2
At least 40 houses falling in Ghared panchayat in the Bharmour tribal sub-division have developed cracks following reckless blasting for construction activities on the 70-MW Budhil hydroelectric project being executed on the Budhil stream, a tributary of the Ravi in the Bharmour tribal region.

A resolution to this effect was also passed by the Ghared panchayat and accordingly the copies of the resolution were submitted to the local administration of Bharmour besides the Chamba DC. The officials of the local administration had confirmed the situation.

On the complaint of affected residents, gram panchayat pradhan Chain Dutt also visited the affected houses and took stock of the situation.

The affected families whose hoses had developed fissures, demanded the hydropower companies executing the project to pay compensation to the loss caused.

The blasting done by the project had also affected the government buildings. Moreover, the water sources in and around the project have also gone dry following the reckless blasting.

The local residents warned that they would resort to agitation if the hydropower companies did not pay genuine compensation to them.

Chamba, January 2
Chamba sessions judge J. S. Mahantan, convicted Ramanand, headmaster of Government High School, Bhanjraru, in Churah tehsil of Chamba district, for raping a student of his school and sentenced him to 10 years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 20,000.

According to the judgment delivered by the sessions judge on Monday, the convict on May 30, 2004, called the student from her home to school over the phone and raped her. At the same time, the convict threatened to kill her if she disclosed the incident to anyone.

After a few days when the girl revealed the entire episode to her parents, the case was registered by the police and put up in the court for trial. The court after conclusion of the case, convicted and sentenced the headmaster.

Mandi, January 2
There is a good news for the eco-friendly farmers in the state. Hindustan Salt Mines Limited has started production of rock-salt at Drang-Guma. The mines were flooded a few moths ago. Rock-salt is considered good for domestic cattle.

According to the company officials, 6 tonne rock-salt will be produced every day.

The demand of natural rock-salt had soared in the state as these mines were closed. “Animals like this salt as tastes better and is considered healthy for animals,” officials said. This salt is available at the rate of Rs 2 to Rs 2.50 per kg. The mines are located in Drang and Guma belt in Mandi. These are handled by the HSML, a Government of India undertaking.