Shimla, November 22
It is after much hiccups and delays that the power saver “Atal Bijli Bachat Yojna” will be launched tomorrow as a pack of four CFL bulbs will be provided to over 16 lakh families all over 
the hill state.

Chief minister P.K. Dhumal will launch the much publicised scheme named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee from Kullu. The launch of the scheme is specially being done from Kullu as the former Prime Minister has a house in Prini village on the outskirts of Manali. The governemnt intends completing the distribution of the CFL bulbs to all the domestic customers in the state by December 25, the birthday of Vajpayee.

Officials point out the use of CFL bulbs is expected to save upto 30 per cent power. “The use of CFL bulbs will result in saving of over 270 million units of power every year which on sale can fetch the governemnt over Rs 100 crores,” said an official. He added that on the other hand the entire expenditure on the scheme is expected to be about Rs 80 crore.

Another interesting fact is that the CFL scheme under the clean development mechanism (CDM) would help in achieving the certified emission reduction targets for the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board. Every family will be provided two CFL bulbs of 20 watts and two of 15 watts.

The state governemnt has had to face a lot of problem in the launch of the scheme as fresh tenders for giving the supply order for the CFL bulbs had to placed. Some of the companies had alleged that the four companies who were initially given the contract had formed a cartel to get the order. As such the government undertook the entire exercise again so that there were no allegations.

In fact, as a mark of respect to the BJP stalwart who has always referred to Himachal as his home, the state governemnt is planning to shortly launch a Atal Awaas Yojna, to provide housing to the socially economic sections of society. 

Manali, November 22
Himachal Pradesh will be open defecation free (ODF) by 2010 and every citizen is to actively involve himself in achieving the target and save fragile ecology by checking forthwith all anti-environment activities.

This was stated by Prem Kumar Dhumal, Chief Minister, in his address he delivered at the Anita Mahajan Saraswati Vidya MandirSchool,Rangri, near Manali, after he dedicated the newly constructed school auditorium to the students of the school here today.

He said that the Himachal Pradesh had launched the ambitious Total Sanitation Campaign in the state to make the state completely ODF. He said that every citizen needed to contribute actively towards achieving the objective and make Himachal Pradesh a heaven in real sense. The chief minister said such a total sanitation campaign would achieve its objective with people’s participation.

He said that environment protection had emerged as top priority with every government all over the world. He said if remedial steps were initiated well in time the coming generations would be in precarious conditions.

Dhumal warned the people of dire consequences if they were not rising to the call of protecting the environment. He said that the young generation needed to be groomed as awakened citizens so that they knew the future problems before hand.

Dhumal gave a clarion call to financially well-off people to contribute towards the social welfare and educational needs. He said that sound education system would ensure secure future of the coming generations.

Gobind Thakur, MLA, said that social and charity services towards the underprivileged sections of the society was a pious service towards them. He lauded the role of Saraswati Vidya Mandir in quality education in Manali.

Kumarhatti, November 22
In another case of benami land transaction in this area, Dhani Ram, a resident of Dhillon village, near here, has accused eight persons of making fake sale deed of land that originally belonged to him.

In a complaint letter to the Chief Minister, Solan DC, and Solan SP, Dhani Ram had blamed that the land measuring 3 bigha and 15 biswa alongside the road under khasra number 262/19 was allegedly sold under fake GPA on July 26 this year.

He came to know about the fraud when some outside person claimed their rights on his land. The confused and harassed Dhani Ram approached the tehsil office and inquired about his land records.

During his investigation he found that the land ownership was put in the name of some other person supported by fake witnesses. A few days later the fake owner of the land sold it to some other person. The land intekaal was done on September 20 by the fake landowner in the name of new buyers of the land.

Interestingly, thumb impression was made in the place of signature on the deed. He had accused the nexus between the revenue officials, middleman and buyers, while questioning on which base the deed was carried out. Interestingly, the fake owner and witnesses photographs were affixed in the sale deed.

The man, who masterminded the land deed, was a local relative of the victim. The question remained unanswered that how the outsiders managed to buy land in the state, how photo of the fake owner on the GPA was approved by the lambhardar and how the Revenue Department okayed the deed.

Meanwhile, the police has started investigation in the matter.

Shimla, November 22
As many as 332 “Panchayat Yuva Krida aur Khel Abhiyan” (PYKKA) centres will be set up in different gram panchayats with financial support of the Centre to give fillip to sports activities in rural areas of the state during the current financial year.

Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal who took up the matter with the Government of India said here yesterday that the state government had been raising the issue with the concerned union ministry from time to time and had also sought relaxation in the population and other criteria fixed by the Centre for sparsely populated hill states like Himachal.

He said the Centre agreed to relax the norm of population of 4,600 for setting up of PYKKA and sanctioned 332 such centres for the state. Out of these 324 would be established as the Village Panchayat PYKKA and eight as the Block Panchayat PYKKA centres. An amount of over Rs 4 crore would be spent for setting up the centres, which would be shared in the ratio of 90:10 by the Centre and the state.

Dhumal requested the Union Ministry to revive the scheme under which grant was provided for creation of sports infrastructure. He sought increase in award money to “Krida Shri” from Rs 500 to Rs 1,550 at the panchayat level and from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 at the block-level.

The Chief Minister informed that the National Service Scheme (NSS) had an enrolment of over 72,000 students in three universities, 83 degree colleges and 543 senior secondary schools of the state. Activities under the NSS needed a boost and would be in the interest of the youth if 150 more units were further added.

He urged the ministry to provide funds for laying international standard artificial synthetic tracks and astroturf in grounds for different athletic and sports activities so that the youth could practice to compete at national and international level sports events.

Hamirpur, November 22
As many as 15,381 families of weaker sections have been benefited under various programmes launched by the welfare department in the district during the current year.

This was stated by deputy commissioner, Hamirpur, Abhishek Jain while addressing mediapersons here today. Giving details of these programmes, he said Rs 4,88,73,113 had been spent on these schemes for the development of weaker sections till now and Rs 2.25 crore more are being spent. Jain further said Rs 2 lakh was given to them to solemnise eight marriages and Rs 2,20,028 for the computer education of these categories. He said Rs 51, 57,500 had been distributed as a housing grant to 226 families and Rs 12, 39,500 spent under the Harijan Basti Sudhar programme.

He said: “For providing training and computer efficiency, Rs 1.53,009 have been given to 30 persons, while 15 families given another housing grant to the tune of Rs 8,12,500.”

“Under other schemes like rehabilitation grant to 10 leprosy affected persons, Rs 25,890 had been spent and scholarships amounting to Rs 1, 63,500 were given to 62 handicapped persons,” he added.

He said Rs 4, 62,042 had been distributed under the Chief Minister Kanyadan Yojna to 42 girls and four girls were given Rs 10,000 under the widow remarriage scheme.

He said, apart from this, Rs 2,69,45,480 had been given to provide pensions to 9,804 persons under the old age pension scheme and Rs 1,18,28,695 given as pension to widows. 

Shimla, November 22
The Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation has been awarded excellence award by the Institute of Economic Studies, New Delhi, for its activities for the development of power in the hill state.

The award was received by C.M. Walia, Director (Electrical) of the Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd at New Delhi recently. A loan of 800 million $ has been sanctioned by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as part funding under ADB Loan Assistance for execution of four hydro-power projects.

The four projects to be executed by the Corporation include Sawra Kuddu (111MW), Kashang- I and II and III project (195 MW), Sainj Project (100 MW) and Shongtong-Karcham Project (402 MW). The combined capacity of all these four projects is 808 MW.

Apart from this the Power Corporation has also been awarded implementation of Chirgaon-Majhgoan (42 MW) hydro-power project in Shimla district. The Corporation is also implementing the 40 MW Renuka dam project which will also cater to the water requirement of the national capital.

Bharmour, November 22
The building of the Industries Department which houses the wool carding centre at Holi here has been facing official neglect for a long time, but it appears that officials concerned have not bothered to pay attention towards its upkeep.

A visit to this centre revealed that the building, which houses the wool carding centre of the Himachal Pradesh Khadi and Gramodyog Board is owned by the Industries Department and leased out to the board. The building is in a bad shape. Windowpanes are broken and the paint on the walls is peeling off. Walls outside the tin roof are crumbling due to rainwater where the green grass is growing up.

Only three employees of the board, including a master craftsman, a helper and a safai karamchari are looking after the ‘carding plant’ installed more than 10 years ago, says Ravi Katoch, assistant development officer, Chamba, of the board.

The objective of setting up of this centre was to benefit the shepherds who rear sheep and goats for their livelihood producing wool and come to take help of this centre for carding wool. Meanwhile, the general manager of the District Industries Centre, Chamba, was not available for comments.

According to official sources, three Integrated Sheep Development Programme (ISDP) centres and two sheep and wool extension centres are being run in Bharmour subdivision, which had the onus of caring for about 1,70,000 sheep  and goats.

On the other hand, the Animal Husbandry Department had installed two shearing machines of its own worth Rs 6 lakh at Bharmani to facilitate the shepherds to get their sheep and goats sheared at nominal rates. Previously, shearing of sheep was carried out by the Himachal Pradesh Wood Federation, but this year it is carried out by the state Animal Husbandry Department.

Since the wool carding centre at Holi is far from the reach of many areas of shepherds, there is a demand to restore the wool carding centre at Lahal in the Bharmour area, which had been closed some time ago.

Prini (Kullu), November 22
Corporate war has erupted between the LNJ Bhilwara group and its Norwegian partner company, Statkraft and Norfund Power Investment (SN Power), over the increasing rate of fatalities in the 192 MW hydropower project here in which over “12 workers and a subcontractor” have been killed while four workers were injured since 2006.

This issue of increasing fatalities has created a stir back in Norway as it will be taken up in the Norwegian Parliament as majority owner of the LN Power is the Norwegian government while LN Power owns 43 per cent stake in the ADHL project and 49 per cent stake in 86 MW Malana-I already in production.

The SN Power’s team led by executive vice-president, organisation and corporate social responsibilities, Nadia Sood, and the audit team led by Halvor Fossum Lauritzen have expressed their concern over the high rate of fatalities, working conditions and living conditions of children of the workers living on the project site.

Talking to The Tribune here today after inspection Nadia Sood said, “ADHL has reported nine fatalities to us that took place in the project, but the actual number of fatalities is 11 and can be more. I will report to the SN Power Board the findings of the audit team in a few days time. The company will take action 
in this regard.”

The president (projects), Bhilwara group and project in charge, ADHL, Ashok Joshi said, “There has been a communication gap as ADHL reports all accidents to the Noida office. But we have reported all deaths and injuries to the workers to the head office and put up their cases for compensation at the court of Subdivisional Magistrate, Manali. I personally will ensure that each victim gets compensation as per labour laws in India.”

Nadia informed that 11 workers killed in the project included Mohamad Taj in 2006, Kunwar Singh, Sukhdev Chaudhary, Desh Raj and Bharat Kumar Singh (all in 2007), Sher Bahadur Kharka, Khambu Rawat, Narinder Singh, Tilak Raj, Des Raj, Tilak Gharti (all in 2008).

Solan, November 22
The broadband services provided by BSNL have been hit due to occurrence of a snag in their system. The problem, which developed early this week have failed to be rectified despite lapse of almost five days.

This has caused inconvenience to a large number of cyber café owners, newsmen, bankers, stockbrokers, etc., who have to daily use Internet for their work. Ruing the sorry state of BSNL broadband a cyber café owner said, “BSNL services have become so erratic that we have to avail Internet connections from private companies like Tata, Reliance, etc., so as to keep our business going. We are forced to depend on GPRS connections of Airtel, Tata, etc., as BSNL has seized to remain a dependable option.”

What had added to the poor services was the lack of proper information available to the subscribers about any breakdown. It was often noticed that whenever a user complained about erratic broadband services the officials fail to acknowledge the fault and asserted that the services at their end worked well, narrated a broadband user.

It was, however, interesting to note that while more and more private players were launching their broadband the lone public sector enterprise BSNL instead of improving its services was going from bad to worse.

The users complained that even the GPRS services of BSNL were erratic and it often failed to work. This further brought disrepute to BSNL, which prides itself for having the best services with the widest connectivity.

Chief general manager Anil Kaushal when quizzed said the broadband services were facing a snag due to some major problem at the Bangalore based server. While efforts were afoot to rectify the problem, they were hopeful of getting the services restored soon. He added that the problem in GPRS was due to a switch over from the Nokia BTS to Ericsson BTS and this was just a teething problem, which would be normalised soon.

Chamba, November 22
BSNL has launched a campaign for the recovery of outstanding revenue of Rs 3.92 crore due towards its defaulter telephone subscribers falling in the Dharamsala Telecom District, which comprised two revenue districts- Kangra and Chamba.

According to Deepak Chaturvedi, general manager, BSNL, Dharamsala Telecom District, legal notices were being issued to the defaulters for clearing their pending bills within the stipulated time. Simultaneously, BSNL had also kept a provision of providing discount from 10 to 25 per cent to its defaulter subscribers varying to their duration of telephone bills, he said.

In order to mitigate the problems of phone subscribers with regard to telecom services, four ‘telephone adalats’ were held and four open house sessions were held, the GM informed; adding that two special adalats for telecom revenue were also held in this telecom district.

The GM said 22 new WLL BTSs (wireless local loops based transmission stations) were planned for installation in Kangra district and 12 in Chamba district by the end of this fiscal year.

“Total capacity of 17,500 lines will be added after the commissioning of these WLL BTSs in both revenue districts,” the GM claimed; adding that five new WLL BTSs had been commissioned recently which included Harchakian, Naddi, Panjpiri in Kangra district and Ghattoo and Singhadhar in Chamba district.

He informed that BSNL had planned to provide broadband to about 80 service locations by the end of this year. He said that out of 5,354 revenue villages, 4,584 villages of this telecom district had so far been provided with VPTs (village public telephones).

The GM admitted the scarcity of staff in the telecom district as out of the total staff of approximately 750 personnel, strength of hardly 450 personnel belongs to technical staff.

Nurpur, November 22
Irked over posts of lecturer lying vacant in the local Government Arya College, the Students Central Association (SCA) today gave an ultimatum to the state government to lock the college premises on November 26 if three lecturers of Government College, Dharamsala, who had been sent on deputation, did not join duty here with immediate effect.

SCA president Sham Singh said principal of Government College, Dharamsala, Narinder Awasthi, in that case would be held responsible since he had not relieved the lecturers even 10 days after the department order.

According to sources, enquiries revealed that Government Arya College had only two regular lecturers in English and economics and two additional lecturers for sociology and physical education in the backdrop of an annual notification of 634 sanctioned posts. The posts of lecturer in Sanskrit, political science, history, and Hindi have been lying vacant since the beginning of the academic session.

The college has only arts faculty with eight subjects for teaching. Interestingly, the state government has recently notified 16 posts of science and commerce faculties, which do not exist in the college. Moreover, with ban on PTA appointments, no temporary arrangement has been made in this regard. Meanwhile, Awasthi has clarified that he has not relieved three lecturers because the college SCA has submitted in writing that if any teacher is shifted from the college, students would launch a stir.