Dharamsala, February 21
Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said here today that the government was not considering any proposal to grant second capital status to Dharamsala. He was talking to mediapersons on the first day of the second phase of his winter sojourn.

He, however, said the government would ensure that at least one minister sat in the local secretariat daily to look into the grievances of the people of lower hill areas. “Each minister will be asked to sit here for seven days continuously on rotation basis and sort out the grievances of the people on the spot”, he said.

When categorically asked that during the 2003 Assembly elections the BJP had promised to declare Dharamsala as the winter capital of the state, he denied that any such promise was made by the party. He said it was not feasible to shift the whole secretariat here. “Do you think shifting of the whole secretariat will solve the problems of the local people?” he said.

This is for the first time during the past 10 years that any Chief Minister had categorically turned down the demand of granting second capital status to Dharamsala.

Former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh used to stay away from such discussions although his government got constructed a new building of the state legislative assembly for holding of winter sessions here.

While in opposition, the BJP used to blame the Virbhadra Singh government for not giving due importance to this district. To suppress the voice of the BJP, the Congress not only constructed the legislative assembly building but also ensured functioning of the state government from here for two months during winter. The Congress government at that time had termed the move as a step towards ‘decentralisation of power’.

The Kangra district having in its pocket 16 Assembly seats had always been the hot bed of state politics and no party could dare to ignore issues related to this area, but Dhumal today seemed to be overconfident on this sensitive issue, possibly due to clear majority the BJP had got in the recent elections. The CM had inducted four ministers into his Cabinet from this district, which the BJP insiders feel was an enough share in the power for the area to counter the demand of granting winter capital status to Dharamsala.

Kangra, February 21
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal today said the hike in the HRTC bus fare was inevitable as the cost of the diesel and spare parts had gone up many fold and blamed the UPA government for the hike.

Dhumal was talking to mediapersons at Gaggal airport this afternoon, after his arrival here from Delhi. He said Rs 22,000 crore was the liability that was inherited by the BJP government from the previous Congress government in the HRTC alone.

In reply to a question, Dhumal said the government was planning to appoint private doctors in the Dr. R.P. government Medical College at Tanda and some private doctors too would be appointed as visiting doctors to eradicate the staff crisis.

Regarding the other paramedical staff shortage, the Chief Minister said the posts of nurses would be filled. In different medical colleges, the nursing institutes would be set up so that trained nurses could serve in as well as outside the state too.

He admitted that the shortage of doctors and paramedical staff was in every hospital in the state and the government was aware of it. He said his government would take all effective steps to meet the dearth of doctors and staff in the government hospitals in the state.

The Chief Minister said it was the BJP’s contribution that Rs 30 crore was spent on three airports of Kangra. Kullu and Shimla and said the expansion of Kangra airport was in progress.

He said he had received complaints that irregular flights of private airlines to Kangra were putting passengers to inconvenience and that the passengers were charged air fare at the whim of the airlines management.

He said he had written to the Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel regarding these complaints that Air India had reduced the flights to Kullu from four days a week to two days. He had taken up the matter with Delhi to restart flights four times a week to Kullu by Air India.

He was accompanied by Ravinder Ravi, IPH minister, Sarween Choudary, social justice and empowerment minister, Ramesh Dhawala, Food and supplies minister, J.P. Nadda, forest minister, Parveen Sharma, BJP MLA, and Vipin Parmar, BJP district president. 

Shimla, February 21
The Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC) proposes to introduce a performance-linked variable incentive scheme for the employees to boost profits. Under the scheme, various units of the corporation will be assigned annual financial targets. 

A percentage of the profits will be passed on to the employees of the units that achieved or exceeded the targets.

The corporation has set an ambitious target to double its profit from the current Rs 2.5 crore to Rs 5 crore in the next financial year. The annual turnover will be increased from Rs 46 crore to Rs 60 crore.

Managing director of the corporation Ram Subhag Singh Singh said the quantum of cash incentive would be approved by the board of directors. It could range from 10 to 20 per cent. While performers would be rewarded, the continuously non-performing staff would be penalised.

The focus would be on maintenance of properties, cleanliness and customer services. The system of procurement of stores and utilisation would be streamlined. The marketing and publicity structure would be made more effective and periodic publicity campaigns would be undertaken to attract tourists. The corporation would have a close coordination with travel agents and tour operators. The transport wing of the corporation would be strengthened and more Volvo and Deluxe buses would be added to the existing fleet, he added.

Shimla, February 21
An unrealistic clause in the new hydropower policy has put majority of the independent power producers (IPPs), who have been assigned micro-hydel projects, in a soup.

The policy that came into force last year provides for penalty and automatic cancellation of the implementation agreement if the IPPs fail to obtain various statutory clearances and effective steps within the stipulated period. The IPPs have been allowed only six months for the work that normally take around 18 to 24 months. The clause provides that if these statutory requirements are not completed by any promoter in the stipulated period, a penalty of Rs 10,000 per megawatt per month will be imposed on him for six months and after one year, the implementation agreement will automatically stand cancelled.

Besides obtaining clearances from the forest, wildlife, environment, irrigation and public health and fisheries departments, the IPPs have to complete acquisition of land and enter power purchase agreement (PPA). Completing all these statutory requirements within a period of six months is a tall order, particularly as there is no single-window system of clearances and the IPPs have to run from one department to the other for the purpose.

The government has assigned 155 microhydel projects through the MoU route and implementation agreements have been singed for 114 projects. However, a majority of those who had signed these agreements have not been able to obtain various clearances even after the expiry of one year. As per the policy, their agreements stand cancelled. However, the IPPs refer to a subsequent clause as per which the government is required to serve a notice on the IPP concerned before cancellation.

They have not been served any notice and instead Himurja, the nodal agency for micro-hydel projects, had moved a case to the government for granting extension beyond the extended period of one year.

Hydropower expert R.L. Justa has urged the government to amend the unrealistic clause and provide at least two years for statutory clearances. He also suggested that a decentralised system be put in place to facilitate speedy clearances by setting up single-window authorities under the chairmanship of the DC in each district.

Shimla, February 21
With the fear of disciplinary action, including expulsion from the party for a period of six years looming large, many of the BJP mandals have agreed to settle their disputes rather than taking the matter before the state-level BJP disciplinary committee specially constituted to look into the election -related complaints.

The committee headed by state BJP vice- president, Rashil Singh Mankotia, has received complaints with regard to anti-party activities and working against the official nominee from 30 of the total 68 assembly constituencies in the state.

Though the committee was to submit its report to the state BJP chief by March 1, but now it is expected that the entire process would not be over before March 15.

It is learnt that many of the party leaders and workers against whom complaints have been received are willing to settle the dispute amongst them rather than face disciplinary action.

In Nadaun, the BJP mandal of Hamirpur district alone has received 48 complaints out of which 45 have been withdrawn and only three complaints will be taken up by the disciplinary committee.

Another interesting fact that has come to light is that 90 per cent of the complaints are against party leaders, who were contenders for the party ticket, but could not get it. “Though we are giving opportunity to every individual whether complainant or against whom the complaint has been made to present his case, but we would be too happy if workers resolve the issue amongst themselves,” says Mankotia.

The other members of the committee include Rajender Kumar Sharma, Convener of the state legal cell and Col Ganga Ram Jamwal from Jogindernagar. The committee was specially constituted to look into all election -related complaints and dispose them off at the earliest.

Bilaspur, February 21
Tension prevailed as relatives of Yamuna Devi (24) of Lamblu village, in Hamirpur district, wanted to cremate Yamuna Devi right in the courtyard of her in-laws in Dhaloh village under Talai police station in this district on Tuesday evening.

Earlier Yamuna Devi, who was married three months ago, died under suspicious circumstances and her body was allegedly found hanging in the house of her in-laws. She was declared brought dead by doctors at Ghumawin hospital.

Simro Devi, mother of the deceased got an FIR registered that the in-laws of her daughter were responsible for her death as they had been pressurising her for bringing in more dowry. Yamuna had told them about this, earlier.

It was with great difficulty that the village elders and police officers could prevail upon those men, who had come from her parents home, to cremate the body not in the courtyard but at the cremation ghat.

SP K K Indoriya, who also rushed to the spot to control the situation, said the police had registered a case under Sections 498 and 304-B of the IPC but husband Dinesh Kumar, father-in-law Sada Ram and mother-in-law Kaushalya Devi had already disappeared from the scene. They had got an anticipatory interim bail till February 22 from a court, while the police has arrested Minu, sister-in-law, of the deceased.

He said all in-laws of yamuna have now joined the police investigation and whole matter is under consideration. 

Hamirpur, February 21
A flying squad of the Excise and Taxation Department raided three units of an industry in the district today. Units of the Chitranchal Engineering Service at Devpal chowk, Hamirpur, Mehal and Chandan Industry at ward No 9 in Hamirpur were raided by the team that took purchase and sales bills and a computer in its possession.

The raid at Hamirpur was conducted around 4.45 pm. Though officials of the raiding team refused to divulge anything in this connection, it is learnt that the industrial unit had established manufacturing units to take tax concession but was not doing actual manufacturing. According to sources, the units established in a backward panchayat area get 100 per cent tax concession for 10 years.

Proprietor of the industry Manoj Kumar said they were in assembling and service line and the unit at Mehal was yet to start.

Una, February 21
The inclusion of lower hills of Punjab in Himachal, about 50 years ago, has turned into a bane for Lal Singhi village, of Una.

Una district, before the reorganisation of old Punjab was a tehsil of Hoshiarpur district. Sources available here said in 1956, latha (a cloth that has revenue record of the area) got destroyed.

With the destruction of the record, the woes of residents of the village started. For the past 50 years, the residents have not been able to get their lands demarcated.

Though generations have changed but they have not been able to officially distribute inherited lands. No girdawari of land has been held in the village for many years now to establish the tillers and people are actually in control of lands.

In Lal Singhi village, there is no end to perennial boundary disputes.

Shiv Kumar, a resident of the village, alleged that the village panchayat has been approaching successive government and officials to get new record of the village prepared.

Earlier, they used to face difficulties in even selling their lands. Though the government has allowed registries of land, the people face difficulty in mutations, as demarcation are not provided by revenue officials on the plea of non-availability of the basic record.

The villagers also alleged that the revenue officials are deliberately not setting the revenue record straight as the complex system makes the people dependent on them.

The sources said the Himachal government had even tried to locate the old record of the village from Hoshiarpur. However, nothing could be retrieved. About three years ago, the revenue officials of the district on directions of the government prepared a new revenue map of Lal Singhi. However, the map has not been approved as yet due to which it has not been implemented.

The government was also losing the stamp duty due to failure of the administration to implement new map of the village, as there was no proper system to decide the value of the land.

However, it is hard to imagine that in the past 50 years, the government has failed to prepare the new revenue map of just 1400 hectares lands. It can just be attributed to apathy of revenue officials of the area.

Recently, the residents of Lal Singhi once again met the elected representatives of the new BJP government to get the record of their village straight.

It remains to be seen how long the present government will take to end their 50-year wait. 

Kangra, February 21
More than 300 BSNL fixed-line pre-paid plan subscribers of this town feel cheated allegedly because of the change in the plan by BSNL, violating the conditions laid down in it.

B.L. Sharma, a retired HPSEB SDO, one of the plan subscribers, said: “It is betrayal by BSNL and we will fight it out.” According to this plan, the customers were not to pay any monthly rent and were supposed to recharge their phones by pre-paid coupons.

He said in the current month they received telephone bills, which indicated Rs 220 as the fixed monthly charges and taxes, which BSNL consumers were not supposed to pay as per the plan. He said BSNL did not charge any fixed monthly charges for October and November as per the plan but now claimed a rent for December and January according to the February 7 bill.

The consumers threatened to move the court if BSNL did not stick to the earlier conditions of the plan.

Deepak Chaturvedi, general manager, BSNL, said the plan was not like a mobile pre-paid service but was a new plan ‘pre-paid over pos-tpaid’, which means that the phone could be used as both a pre-paid and post-paid connection. He said the subscribers were supposed 
to pay the fixed monthly charges under this plan. He, however, could not justify why these consumers were not charged the monthly fixed charges for October and November.

Chamba, February 21
Congress leader Pawan Nayyar, who contested the assembly elections from the Chamba constituency, has alleged that local BJP MLA B. K. Chauhan is misleading the public by making distorted statements with regard to the ongoing development works in Chamba.

Talking to mediapersons here recently, Pawan Nayyar said the announcement of Chauhan that about Rs 17 crore had recently been provided for the construction of roads in Chamba by the Centre was “wrong and misleading”. These funds were provided during the Congress regime under the Prime Minister Gramin Sarak Yojna (PMGSY), Nayyar said.

“The funds under the PMGSY are sanctioned only after completing formalities such as draft project reports of the scheme etc,” said Nayyar. Moreover, these funds had already been allotted during the Congress rule and the process of tendering of various works had been completed, Nayyar added.

Nayyar congratulated Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal for dedicating the Ohli bridge across Kaded khud, about 10 km from Chamba town, to the people of the local gram panchayat as the bridge was constructed during the Congress regime at a cost of Rs 70.35 lakh.

Nurpur, February 21
Local MLA and former chairman of the HPTDC Rakesh Pathania adopted 11 poor students of Shivalik Public School, Ganoh, today. He was at the school to preside over the annual prize distribution function.

He said he would bear the entire expenses of their education and clothing from his salary. He said he wanted to adopt 125 students of his assembly constituency from the poorest of the poor families by the year-end. He said he would also approach Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal for extending succour for the cause.

Pathania, who gave prizes to the meritorious students of the school, was honoured by the school management on the occasion. The students presented a colourful cultural programme. He also announced a grant of Rs 51,000 for a laboratory in the school.

Solan, February 21
A single-member team of the National Wildlife Board of India is here to inspect the feasibility of excluding some habitations from the Chail sanctuary. Team head Sawarkar, a former official of the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehra Dun, would study the proposal submitted earlier by the Forest Department.

As per the proposal, 7,529.63-hectare area had to be de-notified from the existing sanctuary area. This would leave an area of 823.53 hectares in the present sanctuary. There is also a proposal to add 706.16 hectares from the adjoining Koti forest range so as to keep the total area under the sanctuary appreciable.

As per the proposal, the total sanctuary area will remain around 3,206.80 hectares after the de-notification exercise. All habitations, which comprise around 70 per cent of the existing sanctuary area, are proposed to be excluded. This would provide relief to the people as they had been unable to execute new constructions in the area.

The team would study the viability of the proposal and send a report to the National Wildlife Board of India. It would then make recommendations to a Centrally empowered committee of the apex court which would further approve the changes. 

Hamirpur, February 21
The strong recommendation of National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) to open an anti-retro-viral testing centre (ARTC) in Hamirpur district has not been implemented till now by the state AIDS Control Society despite AIDS claiming 56 lives in the district till date.

The NACO had recommended for an ARTC here since Hamirpur has been quite prone to the AIDS during all these years. Though first case of the AIDS was identified in 80’s in the district. The number of cases have multiplied manifold and at present about 1,000 persons are infected by HIV virus and about 500 full-blown AIDS cases exist.

According to figures provided by an NGO, 40 per cent of AIDS victims in the state are in Hamirpur district alone, which include 10 orphans and 80 widows.

The ARTC not only help in AIDS detection but its absence in the area leads to lack of information about the test among the target group and patients from Hamirpur have to go to ARTC, Shimla, for the anti-retro-viral test.

Though the Health Department under the NACO project provides financial help to children and women having HIV infection in the form of cash money for milk and medicines, besides, free education but interestingly no survey has been conducted till now for proper identification of the beneficiaries.

The HIV infected children from 0 to 15 years are given a cash amount up to Rs 700 varying according to their age but their exact number cannot be identified in the absence of proper survey and the ARTC.

Project director of state AIDS control society S. Puri said, “We have received the final approval from the NACO about opening the ARTC at Hamirpur and the process to open it is on; while we would provide the infrastructure ant the NACO would provide machines for establishing this centre.”

Bilaspur, February 21
The police here has arrested husband Sanjiv Kumar and his parents of Kaseh village near here in a dowry death case of 24-year-old Ramna Devi, who was married on December 5, 2007.

Reports said Kaushlya Devi of Salassi village near here had alleged that her daughter Ramna was being ill-treated and harassed by her husband and in-laws for not bringing in enough dowry and were forcing her to bring in more of it. This forced her to take some poisonous substance.

This resulted in her death at the regional hospital here, after she struggled for life for two hours. She was rushed in here, last evening.

Ramna, who was handicapped and was employed as a pharmacist at the Bala-Jhandutta animal husbandry dispensary. She is said to have telephoned her brother earlier, that she was being pressurised by her in-laws to bring in more dowry.