Solan, April 25
A kerosene racket worth lakhs was unearthed by the Parwanoo police today with the seizure of a private tanker (HR-37-2035) carrying kerosene, which was to be supplied by the State Food and Civil Supplies Corporation in Kinnaur district. As many as 11,000 litres of kerosene worth Rs 1 lakh was seized by a police team led by Parwanoo SDPO Ramesh Pathania near Timber Trail Resorts on the Kalka-Shimla national highway this morning.

Solan SP S.P.S. Verma said the oil ment for distribution in Kinnaur district was being transported through another tanker (HP-07-3701) from the Parwanoo-based depot of the Indian Oil Corporation. This tanker transferred kerosene to another tanker bearing a Haryana number at a petrol pump owned by Mela Ram Sood in Shimla.

The police said the recket had been going for quite some time.

Following a tip-off the police was on a lookout for the tanker and had put up check posts on the Kalka-Shimla highway. The oil was being sold at a lucrative rate of Rs 25 to 30 per litre as against the official rate of Rs 9 per litre. This enabled the seller to make a profit of nearly Rs 2 to 2.50 lakh per trip.

The police was looking for another tanker.

Sensing the involvement of local police officials, the SDPO set up the naka accompanied merely by his gunmen and driver.

The police has registered a case of the Essential Commodities Act. Driver Narang Singh and cleaner Sandeep were arrested. The truck is owned by Panchkula resident Tejinder Singh.

This revelation has put a question mark on the role of officials of the Food and Civil Supplies Corporation as it is not possible to sell this oil elsewhere without the connivance of officials at Kinnaur. The police was verifying their role in the racket.

Food and civil supplies minister Ramesh Dhawala said a probe would be conducted into the scandal. 

Mandi, April 25
The police has arrested a schoolteacher in connection with the “case of flesh trade-cum-rape”, involving two minor girls, but is yet to reach to the bottom of the “flesh trade racket” in Mandi-Kullu-Manali tourist circuit.

The victim named hotels, including certain persons, with whom she allegedly had relations ever since she went missing from her home at Narla village on April 2.

The police had rounded up the girls, who joined the investigation and claimed to be maternal cousins from Jogindernagar and Paddar on April 22. But the police is trying to hush up the matter due to the involvement of influential persons.

The police found that “the kingpin in the case was victim’s cousin, who was also arrested recently from Sundernagar.

The minor girl victim, Kanta (name changed) told the police that she was taken to different places in Mandi, Kullu and Manali ever since she disappeared from her home at the behest of her cousin, Kamla (name changed), who was instrumental in Kanta’s disappearance on April 2.

The police arrested Sudhir, a schoolteacher, on Thursday from Paddar, who is posted at the Government High School, Sahal, near here after Kanta identified him. He was produced before the judge at Jogindernagar today and sent to judicial remand till May 6.

In fact, the police swung into action after Kanta’s father lodged a complaint on April 20 at Paddar under Jogindernagar police station. 

Shimla, April 25
The Bharat Tibet Sahyog Manch has urged the Indian Government to review its foreign policy towards China in view of the religious repression unleashed on the monks inside Chinese occupied Tibet.

Talking to mediapersons here today, president of the manch Dr Kuldeep Chand Agnihotri said India had very strong religious ties with Tibet and as such India should help in resolving the Tibetan issue. “India should help in facilitating talks between the Tibetan spiritual and temporal leaders, the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government so that an amicable solution can be found to the problem,” he said.

He said due to Chinese repressions the Tibetans had been forced out of their own homeland and were being forced to lead a life of refugees.

Seeing the whole situation the Indian Government should bring about changes in its policy towards China. “The Indian Government must also take up the case of innocent monks who had been bundled inside prisons for no fault at all,” he added.

The Shimla Tibetan Solidarity Committee led by its president Tenzin said the Chinese had unleashed religious repression and their brethren were suffering inside Tibet.

Local Tibetan community today held prayers at the monasteries on the birthday of the Panchen Lama, who is still in Chinese custody. Prayers were also held at the monastery in Sanjauli for the safety and long life of the Panchen Lama. Later in the evening a candlelight vigil was taken out from Naaz to the DC’s office.

Shimla, April 25
Blaming the previous Congress regime for mismanagement of Gumma carton factory, the BJP today criticised former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh of adopting double standards on the issue of giving the loss-making unit to private concerns.

In a statement issued here today, the Shimla district BJP chief, Ganesh Dutt said the statement of Virbhadra Singh that the factory should not be given to private concern was surprising. He must not forget that in 2004, the Congress regime had invited tenders for giving out the factory to private concerns.

He said the former Chief Minister had double standards and now he was opposing the move, which he had initiated while in power. “It is solely due to the indifferent attitude and callousness of the Congress regime that the growers have been forced to purchase cartons from the market,” he said.

Dutt said it was due to mismanagement that the production at the factory had come down from five lakh cartons in 2006 to only one lakh last year. It was due to the fault of the previous government that the factory employees have not received their salaries for the past five months.

He said the Congress, which claimed to be pro-growers had even reduced the subsidy on cartons from Rs 10 to Rs 2 per carton.

Shimla, April 25
The government will soon fill 40 posts of junior engineer in gram panchayats through empanelling.

Speaking to a deputation of technical assistants here today, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said the government had enhanced the authorised limit of work to be executed by a gram panchayat from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh. There were 878 technical assistants empanelled in the state, who were supervising the gram panchayat’s developmental activities and more would be empanelled to give a boost to developmental in the rural areas.

The Chief Minister said each technical assistant had been assigned work of at least two gram panchayats.

Dhumal said the government had already sanctioned 40 posts of civil junior engineer to supervise developmental activities in the rural areas and the process for their recruitment on a contract basis was under way.

The government had improved the service conditions of the empanelled technical assistants, with the qualified ones eligible to compete for other positions to further improve their prospects. 

Dharamsala, April 25
The stalemate over the elections to the Yol Cantonment Board is continuing. Army authorities here have failed to pacify the villagers, who are firm to boycott the elections to one of the oldest cantonment boards of the country. They were given a chance by the Army authorities to file nomination papers for the elections on April 22. However, no villager came forward to file the nomination papers. The authorities of the board said they were sending the report to higher authorities.

The members of coordination committee formed by the villagers over the issue, while talking to The Tribune, said they were not benefited from the board. Recently, the Army had constructed a wall around its facilities in the Yol cantonment area, which further separated the villagers from the area.

Once they demarcated their area and disallowed access to their land the cantonment board had lost its purpose, Subash Sharma former president of the board said.

The villagers alleged that the former elected members had repeated adopted unanimous resolutions for de-notification of the board. However, the Army authorities were not budging.

The national Rural Employment Guarantee scheme is being implemented in the state. But, the villages were notified under the cantonment board so they would not get the benefit of the scheme. The villagers even had no Below the Poverty Line cards to take benefits of the government scheme.

About the resentment among the people against the board, they said it was hard for them to understand.

Meanwhile, the villagers are adamant that they will not participate in the board elections and are planning to take up the issue with the elected representatives of the government. 

Palampur, April 25
The State Civil Supply Corporation has decided to sell only standard drugs in its medical stores in the state. Besides the corporation would also centralise the purchase of medicines with immediate effect to check the direct purchases of medicines being made by the salesmen of the medical stores.

Official sources told The Tribune here today that civil supply minister Ramesh Dhawala issued specific directions to this effect, yesterday.

It may be recalled that The Tribune had published a news item recently highlighting to sales of substandard drugs and exploitations of patients visiting the government hospitals in connivance with medical officers posted in these hospitals.

It was further revealed that Dhawala had also ordered a high-level probe into the purchase of medicines made by the state Civil Supply Corporation in the past two years. Information gathered further revealed that in the past two years the corporation had purchased medicines worth Rs 25 crore for its store directly from the dealers by passing the companies. According to rules, the company was bound to constitute a purchase committee and only after its recommendation it could buy the medicines. The record pertaining to purchase of medicines had been sealed and matter was being handed over to state Vigilance Bureau for investigation.

A senior officer of the civil supply corporation confirmed that while making purchases of medicines the officials of the corporation failed to constitute a purchase committee, further it also ignored the standard companies and made purchases of substandard drugs from those companies, which were not approved by the corporation.

There are 32 medical stores owned by the corporation in the state, these stores are situated on key locations in the two medical colleges and major hospitals of the state. While opening these stores the main object of the corporation was to provide standard medicines on reasonable rates to the patients visiting these health institutions but in present the circumstances of these medical stores failed to serve the real purposes and become centre of irregularities.

Dhawala was deeply concerned with the situation and had personally inspected 12 medical stores in the past one week to have a first hand picture.

Shimla, April 25
The state electricity board finally decided to go for complete computerisation of its functioning right from monitoring of energy losses and management of load to billing the consumers.

The board is working on two information technology packages which would enable it to achieve a high degree of automation in operations, bring transparency in its functioning and ensure efficient and reliable services to the consumers. The first package will help it switchover to spot billing with handheld devices, put in place a complaint handling mechanism, monitor energy losses right down to subdivision level and also take care of load management.

The computer-based energy audit will help reduce power theft and also enable the board to take appropriate measure to bring down transmission and distribution losses. A consumer database would also be created with each consumer having a unique identification number. The package is being developed in such a way that all data and information required by the state electricity regulatory commission could be generated in the required format at a click of the mouse. It will drastically bring down the workload and bring efficiency in the day to day functioning of the board.

Member finance of the board J.C. Sharma said initially 140 urban subdivisions would be covered. The process would start from the Shimla circle, which had 10 subdivisions. Each subdivision was being given eight computers and one server to set up a local area network and connectivity was provided through leased lines of BSNL. All offices would be connected through a wide area network. The consumers would be able to have all information regarding the status of their applications and complaints through Internet.

A toll free number will be available to consumers for registering complaints. There is also a provision for setting up a call centre at the state headquarters.

The second package is being designed for asset mapping using the GIS (geographical information system) and GPS (global positioning system) to have an exact valuation of assets and consumer indexing. A satellite image had been procured from the national remote sensing agency, Dehra Dun, to develop the application. It will enable the board to work out the technical and financial feasibility for any system augmentation before actual implementation in the field.

Shimla, April 25
With Himachal emerging as the leader in production of quality trout in the country, the government is considering setting up a marketing agency to ensure that the farmers get good returns and do not face any problem in selling their produce.

With more than 60 trout farms being set up by farmers in Kullu, Manali, Mandi, Karsog and the Janjhiali area, it is being felt that in the absence of a proper marketing agency these will not be very profitable ventures. Efforts are also being made to get approval from the Marine Export Development Agency (MEDA) so that trout from the hill state can be exported.

With a huge demand for the delectable cold water fish being abroad, Himachal could send huge supplies to foreign countries once the formalities of MEDA are completed and a certification agency is set up.

Trout production, which was about 35 tonnes last year is expected to touch almost 100 tonnes. “We are keen that the farmers themselves form a cooperative so that there are no marketing problems or else the government could create an agency or entrust the task to the HPMC, which already has its presence in many parts of the country,” said a senior officer.

As a result of increase in trout production, the government has been forced to reduce its rate from Rs 250 to Rs 220 and now the state Fisheries Department proposes to reduce it further to Rs 200. The owners of private farms too have lately been selling their fish at reduced rates as there has been an increase in production.

Though the Fisheries Department has set up trout farms at Patlikuhl in Kullu, Barot in Mandi, Sangla in Kinnuar and Dhamwari it is the coming up of several private farms which has given a boost to trout production. Though trout farming is being undertaken in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand, Himachal not only tops in production in the country but its fish is also rated as the best in Mumbai and Delhi.

The total production in the five trout farms in the government sector is about 20 tonnes and about 15 tonnes in the private sector.

Seeing good profit and future of trout farming in Himachal, farmers in Kullu have taken loans up to Rs 50 lakh for setting up trout farms.

Though some trout farms have been set in Shimla and Chamba, they are mainly concentrated in Mandi and Kullu districst. The Fisheries Department is providing both seed as well as the feed to the farmers. 

Shimla, April 25
In a minor police reshuffle the government today ordered the posting and transfer of six DSPs, with Arvind Digvijay Negi being posted in the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau here.

Sandeep Bhardwaj, DSP, Leave Reserve, Police HQ(PHQ), will be the new ADC to Governor V.S. Kokje. He will replace Sunal Mohan Agnihotri, who has been posted as ASP, Shimla.

Arvind Digvijay Negi, DSP, Third Battalion, Pandoh, has been posted in the Vigilance Bureau at Shimla. Man Singh, posted as DSP, India Reserve Battalion, Bangarh, has been posted as DSP, Traffic, Shimla.

Kulwant Singh, DSP, HQ (Solan), has been transferred against the same post to Third Battalion, Pandoh.

Bhagmal, DSP, Vigilance, at Shimla has been posted as DSP, HQ (Solan).