Shimla, January 16
Fresh snow today dashed all hopes of restoration of normalcy in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh prohibiting vehicular traffic to famous tourist site of Sangla once again.

Sangla, which was opened to vehicular traffic yesterday after almost a week, was once again cut off due to snowfall today, a report from Kinnaur said.

Snowfall since morning was reported from Pooh, Monga, Sangla, Kalpa, Kafoon and Nichaar, the report added.

Meanwhile, rain and snow intensified cold condition in Shimla and other parts of the state today.

Kalpa recorded 7 cm snowfall, Met office sources said.

Piercing cold wave swept Himachal Pradesh following moderate snowfall in higher reaches and rain in the mid and lower areas.

Tribal districts of Lahaul-Spiti and Kinnaur, Pangi valley and Bharmour area in Chamba district had a moderate snowfall, plumetting the temperature.

The 13,050-foot high Rohtang Pass, access to Lahaul Spiti, experienced heavy snowfall, intensifying cold wave in the Kullu valley. The tribal belt reeled under freezing cold wave with the temperatures hovering below zero degrees. Many natural water sources and lakes have already frozen in the tribal areas due to intense cold.

Keylong, headquarters of the tribal Lahaul Spiti district, had recorded about 7-8 cm fresh snow since morning. Kalpa in Kinnuar district recorded about 5 cm of fresh snow.

The 320-km Hindustan-Tibet road was closed beyond Rekong Peo, headquarters of Kinnaur district in the wake of fresh snowfall.

Rain lashed the famous tourist resorts of Manali in Kullu district, Narkanda and Kufri in Shimla district and Dalhousie in Chamba district, bringing a considerable fall in the temperatures and forcing tourists and locals to remain indoors.

The capital town of Shimla also experienced showers. The minimum temperature dipped to 6°C at Shimla. The minimum, however, rose to 5.6°C and 4.8?°C at Sunderngar and Bhuntar respectively.

The weather office has predicted moderate to rather heavy rain or snow at many places in Himachal Pradesh.

Kangra: Overcast sky accompanied by cool winds left Kangra valley shivering today after a few days of sunny weather.

Temperature dropped considerably as the Dhauladar mountain range experienced fresh snowfall today. It drizzled intermittently but did not rain heavily. — UNI, OC

Shimla, January 16
Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has urged the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to extend a reform package to strengthen the cooperative movement in the hill state.

He pleaded the state’s case for the reform package during a meeting with the bank CGM Raghu Raman here today. He said NABARD had released the package to 18 states in the country but Himachal Pradesh had been left out even though it happened to be a special category state and deserved all external-funded projects.

He said the state had pioneered the cooperative movement since the first cooperative society of the country was registered in Una district long back. It would be looking forward to all projects that could supplement the endeavour of the government speedy development.

Dhumal said NABARD funding had been of immense use in sustaining the agriculture-based rural economy through effective credit support, related services, institution development and other innovative initiatives. He appreciated the contribution of the bank in women empowerment, especially in the rural areas. He said over the years, the scope of the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) had enlarged to cover new irrigation projects together with sectoral expansion covering economic and social infrastructure and the state was availing the benefits of all such programmes. He said the state had over 43,000 women-oriented self-help groups out of which over 35,000 were credit-linked to the bank.

The Chief Minister said the government would accord top priority to rural infrastructure and investment in the sector would create new economic opportunities and generate additional employment. The creation of rural infrastructure in hill areas like Himachal Pradesh was a highly cost-intensive activity.

The state had succeeded in securing NABARD funds to the tune of Rs 1,513 crore during the past 12 years for 3,512 rural infrastructure projects out of which 2,538 projects had already been completed. He said 6,531 villages had been linked through 445 roads and 158 bridges and 1,175 irrigation projects completed. He said the per capita investment under the RIDF was the highest in the country.

He said other infrastructural development activities were also undertaken in the state under various programmes of the bank. The state would looking forward to more liberal funding by the bank for additional developmental and infrastructural-building activities. The state would also expect the bank to fund its eco-development activities to protect and preserve environment.

Raghu Raman informed the Chief Minister that the bank would provide credit worth Rs. 176 crore under different programmes to the state during the current financial year.

Shimla, January 16
Punjab MLA Jessi Khangura has urged the Himachal government to have equity participation in the proposed project to construct an international airport at Chandigarh, as it will go a long way in promoting tourism and industries in the hill state.

In a letter to Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal, he recalled that as the leader of Opposition, he had agreed to his suggestion and also written to the concerned quarters in this regard.

The Kila Raipur MLA underlined the need for implementing the project as a joint venture involving Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, besides the union territory of Chandigarh. He pointed out that the Mohali airport, proposed by Punjab over a 250-acre area, would be too small. For an international airport, a minimum of 1,000 acre was required with a scope for expansion up to 4,000 acres. To take full advantage of the project, at least 50,000 acre should be available for residential and industrial development in its vicinity.

Khangura said international airports were not developed so frequently and the project must be properly planned so that it could serve the needs of traffic and trade of the region for a long time to come. The best proposition would be to evolve a consensus among the three states and the union territory.

Both the Mohali and Chandigarh proposals were constrained by the availability of land. Punjab and Haryana shared a significant border with a suitable terrain. It should be feasible for both governments to contribute 1,000 to 2,000 acres each along their border.

Moreover, a joint venture would only help Punjab, which was currently in a sorry financial state and was facing great difficulty in meeting its proposed 24.5 per cent obligation.

The state should also commit 10 per cent of the equity of the projects’ special purpose vehicle for the landowners whose land would be acquired in addition to the proposed financial settlement.

In the developed world, the growth of cities was being increasingly airport-centric. Therefore, it was essential that the new airport had sufficient surplus land for growth.

He had also taken up the matter with Punjab and Haryana and union ministry for civil aviation. 

Palampur, January 16
Tourism, which plays a significant role in the economy of the state, is facing rough whether, thanks to the apathy of the state government.

Haphazard construction of hotels at Manali, Dhalousie, Shimla, Dharmsala, MacLeodgunj and other places in the state has given rise to various problems, like proper disposal of garbage, contamination of drinking water, parking of vehicles, pollution and has led to a large-scale soil erosion. Frequent traffic jams have become a regular feature at Manali, Dhalousie, Palampur, Shimla, Dharmsala and MacLeodgunj. Although the state government has time and again announced that it would come out with a new “master plan” for the development of tourism, but all have been confined to official files so far.

The government has been making tall promises to provide better amenities to tourists visiting the state time and again, but in reality nothing has been done. Corrupt traffic police, costly hotels, poor parking facilities and heavy taxes welcome the tourists. The tourists have to pay heavy hotel tariff compared to other states. The high crime rate has adversely affected the pilgrimage tourism, particularly in the northern parts of the state. In Chintpurni and Kangra alone, one dozen cases of murder and rape were reported in the past year. The police had recovered 6 dead bodies, which have not been identified till date. The victims were tourists.

The state will take a long time to catch up with states like Kerala, Goa, Haryana, Uttrakhand that are way ahead.

Promotion of tourism here is essential as the tourism industry is an important revenue earner and is also a good source of foreign exchange.

In the past 10 years, stress was laid to develop places like Shimla, Manali, Dhalousie etc as major tourists centers. The HPTDC, a state government undertaking, has virtually failed to deliver goods in the absence of proper planning of policies. 

Dharamsala, January 16
The state vigilance and anti-corruption bureau today registered a first information report in the apple plantation scam of Bara Bhangal in Kangra district.

DSP O.P. Jamwal said Prakash Chand, a horticulture extension officer, has been booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The involvement of few more persons in the scam could not be ruled out at this stage. Prakash Chand was yet to be arrested in this case, he said.

Few tribal families of Bara Bhangal in connivance with the officials of the Horticulture Department had availed subsidy benefits of lakhs of rupees on the name of planting the rootstocks of apple trees under the horticulture technology mission (HTM) programme implemented by the state government with the assistance of the union government.

More than 100-odd families of this village had opted for plantation of apple saplings in the year 2003-2004. On the basis of which, a detailed project report was prepared by the local panchayat and submitted to the Horticulture Department for approval. The department under the HTM programme provided more than 14,000 rootstocks of royal, golden, spurs and dwarf varieties of apple to the panchayat for distribution among the tribal people.

However, the then village pradhan, who died about two years back, allegedly did not distribute the apple rootstocks properly. Some families, who demanded more rootstocks, were given less while some of them were not even given a single rootstock. Those who did not plant even a single rootstock had also availed the subsidy in accordance to the demand put forth by them.

A local villager, Richu Ram, made a complaint to the state vigilance and anti-corruption bureau, about one-and-half year back. The bureau conducted a preliminary inquiry into it and found the complaint correct, a report of which was forwarded to the state headquarters of the bureau demanding approval for the registration of a criminal case in this scam. After getting the approval, the FIR was registered today, the DSP said.

The DSP further said the exact amount of loss in the subsidy scam could not be ascertained at the moment, as it required physical verification by going on the spot.

The present village pradhan, Kanchan Devi, admitted that a few people had availed subsidy in apple plantation on forged documents from the Horticulture Department. She said the panchayat would give full support to the investigating authorities in this matter.

Shimla, January 16
The crisis that had gripped the Shimla District Congress Committee (urban) following the poll debacle has further deepened with the office-bearers of the dissolved party unit asserting that they will continue to function.

President of the unit Arun Sharma has said the dissolution of the district Congress committee was a conspiracy to malign him and his team. He also alleged that the PCC chief Viplove Thakur had acted in undue haste at the behest of Harbhajan Singh, who had lost the Assembly election from Shimla. He said it was surprising that the elected body was dissolved without giving a notice.

He urged the high command to set up a committee to inquire into the allegations of anti-party activity levelled by Harbahajan Singh against the district unit and also reasons for his defeat. He stated that he had not received any official intimation from the party regarding the dissolution of the district body, which would continue to function and soon convene meeting of the general house to ascertain the reasons for its defeat. A report would be prepared on its basis and sent to the high command.

Sharma said the party did its best during campaigning and prominent leaders like former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and external affairs minister Anand Sharma canvassed for him. Even Congress president Sonia Gandhi had also addressed a rally in the state. Further, Shimla was brought under the Jawahar Lal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission and projects worth Rs 3,900 crore were approved. Yet, he lost the election because he had not maintained rapport with the electorate.

The party unit had, during the exercise for election of candidates, made it clear that there was a strong resentment against Harbhajan Singh not only among in the public but also the party workers and chances of his winning were dim. However, once the party decided to field him, the party worked hard for his victory. The charge of anti-party activity was baseless. He said Harbhajan should have accepted people’s mandate with grace instead of looking for alibis and scapegoats to cover his own failure.

Dharamsala, January 16
The state vigilance and anti-corruption bureau has booked a retired language teacher on allegations of getting the government job on a fake certificate. An FIR under sections 420, 465, 467 and 471 of the IPC and 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act was registered against him in the bureau’s police station here, yesterday.

DSP O.P. Jamwal said the alleged accused Ashok Kumar, a resident of Fatehpur in Kangra district, got the job of a Hindi language teacher in the Education Department by submitting a fake certificate, 25 years back.

Many complaints were made against him to the Education Department, but no one verified the facts. As a result, he continued in the service for years. When the complaint was filed 2003, the said teacher applied for a voluntary retirement. The application was accepted and he was given voluntary retirement after 22 years of service.

The teacher claimed to have got a Punjab University’s diploma of a language teacher from Government College, Gohana in Haryana. When the bureau inquired into the matter, it was found that there was only one Women College at Gohana at that time Ashok Kumar claimed that he was studying there. Moreover, there was no record of Ashok Kumar found in the university’s record.

Interestingly, the fraud teacher had managed to delete and destroy all documents related to his certificate from the official records of the Education Department, schools where he was posted and his service book. The DSP said the details of his diploma certificate and the institute where he studied seemed to have been deleted by a blade. Therefore, the bureau had not been able to procure the original or any zerox copy of the certificate on the basis of which he got the job.

However, the matter was still under investigation, the DSP said adding that the investigating officer was yet to arrest the alleged accused teacher.

Nurpur, January 16
HPPWD minister Gulab Singh has asked the department to submit a report regarding the bungling of money in the temporary bridge project built over the Chakki river on the interstate border of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh at Kandwal village, by tomorrow. 

The bridge has been thrown open for light vehicles The issue was taken up with the minister by BJP leader Malvika Pathania.

Sanctioned at a cost of Rs 44 lakh on the Pathankot-Mandi highway, the bridge has been thrown open for light vehicles by the National Highway wing of the Himachal Pradesh Public Works Department (HPPWD).

Talking to The Tribune on phone, Gulab Singh said, “I have asked the national highway wing to send me a report in this regard by tomorrow.”

Malvika Pathania said she had taken up the issue and sought enquiries of the project besides other works taken up by the HPPWD by the previous government. She claimed that the public money had not only been misused for constructing the makeshift bridge on the Chakki river but also on re-carpeting of roads at different places in the area during the Congress regime.

She has also requested the minister to release payments to the contractors only after testing the durability and stability of the bridge for at least one rainy season. 

Shimla, January 16
The Forest Department has ordered Jagson International Company to remove masonry works raised by it for the Jakhu Ropeway Project, which had embedded the deodar trees near Titla Hotel, and take appropriate remedial measures to undo the damage caused to other trees due to excavations being carried out for the project.

Divisional forest officer Rajesh Sharma issued directions after an inspection of the ongoing construction work. He asked the company to ensure that no masonry or other structure was raised with in a radius of about 2 mts from the trees and in cases where the roots had been exposed due to excavation, protection walls should be provided.

He also took notice of the damage being caused to the forest due to careless dumping of debris and directed that the same should be removed and disposed of at proper dumping sites.

The company was granted permission to cut 29 trees for the project but during construction many other trees were getting damaged. Environmentalists maintain that if the company was allowed embed trees with concrete masonry, they would dry up in due course of time. Hundreds of trees have already dried up in this manner.

Meanwhile, forest minister J.P. Nadda and secretary (tourism) Manisha Nanda have also sought detailed reports from their respective departments in the matter.

Shimla, January 16
Though still on the higher side the number of government employees in the heavily overstaffed hill state has finally started showing a declining trend.

The latest employees’ census reveals that the total number of government employees, including daily-paid, work-charged, voluntary and tenure staff, has over the past five years come down marginally from 2,85,589 in March, 2002, to 2,77,290 in March, 2007. However, the number of regular employees swelled from 1,44,446 to 1,74,388, tenure employees from 4,614 to 9,201, part-timers from 9,655 to 13,219 and voluntary employees from 2,771 to 4,334. The strength of work-charged employees dwindled from 28,653 to 6,185 and daily-wage workers from 45,125 to 21,242, mainly on account of regularisation of those who have put in more than eight years of service. Still almost 5 per cent of the population was in government employment as against 1.5 per cent in the neighbouring states.

With a strength of 60,054, the Education Department accounted for the highest 34.44 per cent of the regular employees, down from 41.49 per cent in 2003. It was followed by the PWD (17.74 per cent), irrigation and public health (10.3 per cent), health (8.6 per cent) and police (7.3 per cent).

The percentage of women employees declined from 21.6 to 19.6 per cent but that of the Scheduled Castes rose from 18.4 to 19.7 per cent and of the Scheduled Tribes from 4.9 to 5.8 per cent. The percentage of gazetted officers declined marginally from 6.1 to 5.08 per cent. There were 8,854 gazetted officers in all and the percentage of women gazetted officers was on the lower side at 3.7 per cent.

Kangra district had the maximum number of 32,494 regular employees, followed by Shimla district (30,797), including 10,542 state headquarters employees and Mandi district (26,764). The highest number of 16,795 employees were stationed at the state capital, followed by 4,552 at Dharamsala and 2,700 at Mandi.

While 1.56 per cent employees were drawing monthly emoluments up to Rs 5,000 as on March 31,2007, the maximum 57.44 per cent were drawing salaries between Rs 7,000 and Rs 15,000 per month. As many as 931 senior officers were receiving more than Rs 35,000 per month, 944 (including 31 non-gazetted employees) between Rs 30,000 and Rs 35,000 and 1707 (including 165 non-gazetted employees) between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000.

The 31 state public undertakings had 44,151 employees, including 5014 non-regular, with the state electricity board accounting for the maximum of 26.650 employees, followed by the HRTC (8056) and the forest corporation (3776). In addition, local bodies also had 4206 employees of which 2,666 were regular. The Shimla Municipal Corporation had the maximum number of 1558 employees.

Shimla, January 16
The state government has constituted rapid response teams to deal with the latest bird flu threat. A spokesman of the Animal Husbandry Department said here today that no case of bird flu had been reported in the state till date but the department was not taking any chances and taking all required measures to effectively deal with any such exigency. 

He said rapid response teams had been set up in every district and they had been provided with all required equipment to combat the threat of bird flu.

As a precautionary measure about 4000 samples collected from various government and private poultry farms had been sent to the Disease Investigation Laboratory at Bhopal and they all were found negative for bird flu. He urged the people not to believe baseless rumours being spread in this regard and asserted that all poultry products were safe.

Shimla, Januarys 16
A Tibetan monk Jamiyang, who has been working for the uplift of slum dwellers near Dharamsala for the past several years, has embarked on a mission to help such 10,000 hapless people in the state.

He said he had been encouraged to take up such work on a large scale by the state society for disability and rehabilitation studies and a charitable trust, Tonglane, which had promised to extend help in the mission.

He said to begin with he would set up a hostel with facilities to provide vocational training to young boys and girls living in slums so that they could get rehabilitated in life.

It will have capacity to lodge 100 persons. He is already providing free hostel facility to 20 boys and girls and is also giving their parent an allowance of Rs 150 per month so that they do not send their children for begging or collecting scrap from garbage dumps.

He said most of the boys and girls were doing exceedingly well in studies. He had also started tuition camp in the slum colony to help children get admission in public schools. 

Solan, January 16
The first ‘khula darbar’ convened by health minister Dr Rajiv Bindal here today exposed the laxity of the health officials who skipped their official duties to greet the minister. At least two staffers from the Civil Hospital Kandaghat, including a doctor and a radiographer, not only made it a point to greet the minister during office hours but also skipped their duties.

While the doctor had availed a half-day leave but the radiographer had left behind no such application.

Interestingly, none of the two turned up at the hospital till its closure. CMO Dr S.N. Sharma when informed about the laxity directed hospital in-charge Dr S.L. Sharma to issue a warning to the erring staff and mark them absent for the day.

The CMO also added that an explanation had been sought from the two for their absence from the hospital. It not only led the x-ray unit to remain close for the entire day but also the patients suffered due to the absence of the doctor.

Dr Bindal while convening his first ‘khula darbar’ assured that the issue pertaining to the pending ESI dues, which had not been paid since April 2005, would be taken up with the authorities for speedy payment.

A large number of people, including those from the rural areas, turned up in large number to air their grievances before the minister. Bindal directed the officials, including the ADM Rakhil Kahlon, to dispose such matters and provide relief to the aggrieved people.

He further assured the people that the areas, which had been excluded from the Rs 57-crore Giri water scheme, would be included so as to benefit maximum number of people.

He directed the officials of the IPH Department to draw the necessary plan. He also directed the officials of the marketing committee to chalk out a plan for extension of the marketing committee.

Bilaspur, January 16
BJP MLA from Kotkehloor Randhir Sharma has declared that a high level enquiry would be ordered into functioning of the mid-Himalaya watershed development project here and it would be ensured that in future this project is implemented for the benefit of the society and not for a handful of individuals.

Addressing a constituency-level meeting of Kotkehloor BJP workers here today, Sharma urged them to play a constructive role and help in solving difficulties of the people of the area, who have been neglected and ignored for the past many years.

Randhir Sharma said he has met Chief Minister and he has agreed to take up the matter of the Naina Devi wild life sanctuary with the Centre. It is expected that the area would be freed from this sanctuary, benefiting thousands of aggrieved families. He stated that the earlier Congress government’s anti-farmer Khair wood export policy would be revised while steps would be taken to provide more concessions on the pattern of the neighbouring state of Uttranchal for setting up of green houses in an attempt to promote horticulture, floriculture and off season vegetable revolution in state. He said IRDP families would be identified and the problems of the state, which have agitated people due to wrong policies of the earlier Congress government, would be solved at the earliest.

Earlier, Randhir Sharma heard problems and difficulties of people of his constituency. He assured them that he would take up these matters with the government and the Chief Minister.

Present on occasion were BJP district president Daulat Ram Thakur, former zila parishad chairman and a veteran leader Banta Singh Dhiman, constituency president Ranjit Singh, vice-president Surendera Bharti, general secretary Suresh Chaudhary, zila parishad member Chaman Thakur (advocate) and prominent leaders like Swatantra Sankhyan Jukhala and Bhag Singh Thakur Charole.