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Rain Losses: Rs 734-cr sought from Centre
Highway blocked in Mandi
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Bio-carbon project gets Centre’s approval
…not a drop to drink
Health centres in poor state
Gyspa to be national project
Farm produce rots
Attempt to kill neighbour; 1 held
Nandi drinks milk in Kangra temple
Doc arrested for abetting suicide
Brakel wants independent probe
HPU Poll
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Heavy rain hits life
Shimla, August 14 Rain also affected harvesting of apple as farmers were forced to stay indoors. Numerous landslips in the interior areas affected transportation of the produce. The vegetable growers have been severely hit in Sirmaur as they were not able to market highly perishable crops like tomato as landslides had blocked roads. Naina Devi recorded the highest precipitation of 160 mm, followed by Amb 121 mm, Bangna 103 mm and Nadaun 100 mm. Renuka had 95 mm rainfall, Ghamroor 92 mm Nagrota Suriyan 80 mm, Mehre 71 mm, Sujanpur Tira 60 mm, Berthin 59 mm, Sunii 58 mm, Sangrah 52 mm. Shimla and surrounding areas have also been experiencing intermittent rain and 36.1 mm of rainfall had been recorded till evening. Kangra: Resentment prevails among residents of as many as 50 villages for the past two days over the blockade on the Daliara-Dadaseba-Talwara road following heavy rainfall. The traffic on the Chanour--Sheetala Devi temple road was also blocked since yesterday morning, residents of Chanour said today. In Kangra valley also traffic on the link roads was hit due to rain. Reports of damages to some houses and cowsheds were received from different parts of the district. The railway traffic on the Pathankot-Jogindernagar railway track remained disrupted due to a landslide on the track between Gulier and Lulsu following rain in the area. Bilaspur: Thousands of passengers and hundreds of vehicles were stranded when a series of landslides struck National Highway- 21 between Suharghat and Bilaspur town due to unprecedented heavy rain yesterday. Reports said the road was blocked and despite all efforts of the PWD authorities to open the road for clearing vehicular traffic, only the small vehicles could cross the blockade, but the buses and trucks could not. Most of the traffic for Bilaspur, Mandi and Kullu was diverted through Una, a long and circuitous route, taking almost double the time and money to reach the destinations. Authorities said attempts would be made to clear the road at the earliest, to avoid further difficulties to those, who were virtually trapped between various road blockades and landslides. Whenever monsoons break in this region, this road gets blocked due to the topographical nature of the hills and the sliding loose slippery soil. The tragedy is that politicians of the respective governments have been repeatedly declaring to construct an alternative road to meet such emergencies, but they have not been converted into action since years. Meanwhile , a person, Khazana Ram of Dehavin village was killed and landlord Premlal with his wife, son and a servant were seriously injured, when his collapsed at Deola Chamb village last night.The mishap occurred due to subsiding of land near the house as heavy rain lashed the region . A grant of Rs 5,000 each would be given to the family of the victims. |
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Rain Losses: Rs 734-cr sought from Centre
Shimla, August 14 PWD minister Thakur Gulab Singh said here today that the state had prepared a detailed report on the extensive damage caused by rain. “Orchard owners and farmers have been the worst hit by the ongoing downpour,”
he said. The damage caused to roads, bridges, public and private property was worth Rs 911.64 crore. “Rain claimed 146 lives this year. Around 2,780 cattle also perished due to the same reason,” he said. Rain damaged crop on 91,238 hectares and fruit plantation on 2,226 hectares in the state. This caused a financial loss of Rs 35,547.4 lakh. Shimla district was the worst hit. The damage due to rain was around Rs 23.53 crore, followed by Rs 15.93 crore in Kangra, Rs 14.66 crore in Hamirpur, Rs 12.05 crore in Kullu, Rs 6.59 crore in Mandi, Rs 5.49 crore in Chamba, Rs 2.8 crore in Kinnaur and Rs 1.17 crore in Bilaspur. He said all deputy commissioners in the state had been directed to expedite and properly
implement relief and rehabilitation work. The PWD was fully prepared to ensure uninterrupted flow of traffic and road connectivity by making alternative arrangements. He said all departments had been directed to keep strict vigil on relief and restoration work being undertaken all over the state. |
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Highway blocked in Mandi
Mandi, August 14 No vehicle was damaged and no passenger was hurt in the landslide, officials said. The residents of Mandi, Kullu, Manali, Banjar and Bilaspur went without newspapers, vegetables, milk, and other essential commodities for the entire day. The highway was opened one way for traffic at 6 pm. But due to heavy traffic it took hours to normalise the situation. As a precautionary measure, the police stopped the traffic at
Swarghat, Bilaspur town and others spots. “This was done to avoid congestion and manage the traffic when the highway was opened”, said SP Bilaspur K.K.
Indoria. The landslide blocked the Manali-Mandi-Ropar National Highway near Ghambrola yesterday from 7 pm to 4 am, he added. “We ate nothing and spent the night in our vehicles, rued Anup Malhotra and Harish
Khare, tourists, who remained stranded for nine hours. Executive engineer, NH-21, B.S.
Barbal, said, “Five JCVs machines, including one from the ACC cements, worked round the clock and cleared the highway at 4 am. “But the rain re-triggered a massive landslide at the same spot at 10 am, blocking the highway. We worked round the clock and re-opened the highway in the evening,” he said. |
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Bio-carbon project gets Centre’s approval
Shimla, August 14 This was stated by Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal at a state-level review meeting of the Forest Department here today. He said the Mid-Himalayan Watershed Development Project was examined by the Ministry of Forest and Environment. “The broad objective of the bio-carbon, clean development mechanism project is to sequester greenhouse gases through reforestation on degraded forests, community and private land,” he said. Dhumal said the sates government was taking effective steps to check the damage arising out of forest fires. “The Forest Department must gear up before the onset of the summer season so that the forest wealth can be saved from devastating fires,” he said. He added the involvement of local people was a must to check forest fires. He said about 6,288 sq km of land could be brought under forest cover. The government had planned to bring 15,000 hectares under forest cover every year, he added. “In view of the grave effects of global warming, it is essential that we involve NGOs in afforestation by framing a policy so that concrete results can be obtained,” he said. Dhumal said the Forest Department could support the plantation campaign of the PWD by providing them fruit and ornamental plants to be planted along the roadsides. “The department will be providing 15 lakh saplings under the Jan-Jan Sanjivni Van Abhiyan during the current year so that herbal and medicinal plants can be grown on a large-scale,” he said. He said the department could also contribute significantly in boosting eco-tourism in the state. “The home-stay scheme along with identification of trekking routes could attract a large number of tourists, especially those into adventure tourism,” he said. He asked officials to take stern steps to check illicit felling of trees so that nobody could damage the forest wealth. It must be protected at all costs as it was providing direct benefit of Rs 7,740 crore annually, he said.
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…not a drop to drink
Shimla, August 14 With silt level being very high, there is no possibility of resuming pumping over the next two days. With no water being received at reservoirs of the local municipal corporation, water supply in the town is likely to remain affected for the next few days. MC engineer Mukesh Hira said pumping would be resumed only after the silt level came down. He said this was bound to affect water supply in most parts of the town. The water level in most of the reservoirs of the MC had gone down considerably, he added. The water supply in the localities of Lakkar Bazar, Sanjauli, Chhota Shimla, Khalini, Bharari, Chakkar, Benmore, Lower Bazaar, Sabzi Mandi and Bus Stand remained affected. The residents have been advised to undertake rationing of water stored in their overhead tanks.
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Health centres in poor state
Mandi, August 14 Out of 447 primary health centres in rural Himachal, over 30 per cent, have no doctors to take care of patients.Some of them are run by the class 1V employees and are closed most of the time, like the Tarmeher and Kotighor health centre, located in the Chota Bhangal area in Kangra. In fact, local politicians have opened these centres just to grab the votes. But the victims are none other than over 60,000 villagers of of Chohar valley, as they don’t have even a single doctor to take care of their heath. Even in the apple belt of Shimla, three panchayats of Deot, Shilikayan and Tipra-Mushroana and Pabaas don’t even have a single functioning dispensary. Doctors allege that the government doesn’t give them adequate incentives and facilities in the rural areas. Director health services Dr Sulakshna Puri said the government had decided to appoint 200 doctors.. Heath minister Rajiv Bindal blamed the previous Congress government for not appointing doctors in these centres.
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Gyspa to be national project
Shimla, August 14 The project has already been put to competitive bidding along with 16 other projects and the state electricity board is in the process of evaluating technical bids. However, the Centre has included it in the 14 national water resource projects and it will be now taken up as a storage project. It was necessitated to tap the 1.7 MAF (million acre feet) water storage allowed to the country under the Indus Treaty with Pakistan. The main storage of 1.1 MAF will be provided by the Bursar project in the adjoining Jammu and Kashmir and the remaining 0.6 MAF will he stored at Gyspa. With a storage dam, the generation capacity of the project will also go up significantly. As per the proposal, 90 per cent cost of the irrigation and drinking water component of these projects will be provided as Central grant after the techno-economic appraisal of the detailed project report. The mode of financing will be finalised in consultation with the ministry of finance and the planning commission.
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Farm produce rots
Nahan, August 14 More than 10 buses were stranded on different roads in the district, including two buses on the Rajgarh-Nohra Dhar-Punnar Dhar road, two buses on the Rajgarh-Manua road. Traffic on the Nahan-Rajgarh road via Kheri had been suspended for the past five days. The Nahan-Renuka road remained closed for almost whole day today as heavy landslides blocked the road near the Badolia bridge. Traffic could be restored on the road only in the evening. A number of other roads, including the Dadahu-Panar road and the Dadahu-Gata Dhar road, were also blocked.
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Attempt to kill neighbour; 1 held
Kangra, August 14 Sub divisional police officer Kangra Omapati Jamwal said there was some land dispute between two neighbourers Preetam Chand and Babhu Ram. Babhu attacked Preetam with a sharp edged weapon last night and left him injured. Another neighbourer Subhash Chand rushed in to the conflict to save Preetam. Babhu then attacked Subhash also with a sharp edged weapon on his head leaving him seriously injured. Jamwal said Subhash was rushed to R.P. Government Medical College at Tanda.
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Nandi drinks milk in Kangra temple
Kangra, August 14 The villagers thronged the temple to pay obeisance and offer milk to Nandi. Asha Sharma, a local resident, said, “I offered milk to Nandi ji with a spoon and it drank it.” Vijay Sharma, resident of the village, said he was surprised to see that Nandi was drinking milk. “I offered milk with a spoon and Nandi ji accepted it,” he said. Sudharshana Kumari, the village pradan, said during this holy month of Lord Shiva, this miracle took place in their village, which was a good omen. There were long queues of devotees to offer milk at the temple. |
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Doc arrested for abetting suicide
Dharamsala, August 14 The doctor has been charged with abbetting a pharmacist Naveen Kumar posted under him to commit suicide. Naveen committed suicide on August 9 and in the suicide note, he had alleged that he was being forced to commit suicide due to ill-treatment by
the doctor. On August 12, the deceased’s wife had also lodged a complaint against the doctor at Dehra police station. The police authorities admitted that they received a police complaint against the doctor, in which she had levelled various allegations. |
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Brakel wants independent probe
Shimla, August 14 Principal secretary (power) Ajay Mittal confirmed that the reply had been received. He said it was a voluminous document running into around 3,000 pages that would take some time to go through. In its detailed reply, the company has asserted that the show-cause notice contained mostly the same points that had already been replied to in response to the first SCN and subsequent letters to power department and the Chief Minister. |
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Campaigning gains momentum
Tribune News Service
Shimla, August 14 These outfits declared their panels today. With the SFI making a clean sweep on all four posts on the HPU campus last year, the ABVP, backed by the ruling BJP, is making all-out efforts to gain control over the campus in the state capital. The panel declared by the SFI includes Shikha Chauhan for the post of the president, Chand Kumari (vice-president), Virender Sonu (secretary), Surender Kumar (joint secretary). The ABVP has fielded Amit, Daleep Negi, Manish Chandel and Seema Thakur for the four posts. Those who will contest for the four posts from the NSUI side include Ankit, Anup Thakur, Rajeev and Munish. The three student outfits have also declared the panels in the four colleges in Sanjauli, Rajkiya Kanya Mahavidyalaya, Court Shera and Evening College.
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