Mandi, March 17
The Right to Information (RTI) Act has exposed the misuse of vehicles, shady fund collections and fund bungling in the most of the district Red Cross societies functioning in the state under the chairmanship of the respective deputy commissioners.

The RTI bureau has demanded a thorough probe into the affairs of all district Red Cross societies which claim to champion the cause of poor patients.

Though the societies are run on the basis of “no profit, no loss”, their functioning remain shady as they collect money in cash or by cheques and even pays 10 per cent commission to officers who collect the money, record shows.

The Mandi Red Cross Society, which claims to be the most efficiently run society, spends not more than 10 per cent of its funds on the treatment of poor patients. It spends more on the “wasteful expenditure” than on the assistance to the poor and physically challenged for whom the society seeks donations from the different private and public organisations. The RTI has exposed the misuse of funds by the society in 2007-08.

Most of its income goes into paying the salary bills of its secretary and 16 other lower class employees, expenses of vehicles, and other expenditure. Out of the total revenue of Rs 82.6 lakh, the Mandi Red Cross Society spent just Rs 10 lakh for poor patients in 2007-08, information shows.

Officials of the Red Cross claim that there are no service and conduct rules for the Red Cross societies in the state. As such, they continue to function as per the whims and fancies of their secretaries.

The vehicles are misused in the name of taking patients from Mandi to IGMC, Shimla, and PGI, Chandigarh, and other places. Even new van bought here for poor patients has been deputed at the Kol Dam to earn money, record reveals.

The secretaries go all out to appease district officials and their wives, who are vice-chairpersons of the societies, during the Red Cross fairs and baby shows while children of common man are rarely invited.

Six Red Cross societies i.e. Mandi, Shimla, Bilaspur, Kullu, Sirmaur and Chamba, for which the RTI bureau has sought information, has the same story.

After the revelation by RTI bureau convener Lawan Thakur, the state government has appointed Dr Suresh Kaul, deputy director, health, as an inquiry officer for probing the affairs of the Mandi Red Cross Society. The probe followed after the government rejected the clean chit given by the Mandi DC to the society earlier.

In another instance, the society claimed that it spent Rs 10.4 lakh on four vehicles in 2007-08, “out of which two vehicles are out of service.” The society was also forced to increase the salaries of its employees ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 1,500 per month. Earlier, it used to pay Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,820 to its lower level employees, which was less than the minimum wages, Thakur said.

He claimed that the society had printed 5,000 greeting cards worth Rs 16,640 but they were dumped. “The society secretary is misusing telephones, vehicles and office stationary.” Besides, the Sewa Sadan's (sarai) condition is pathetic as beds stink and patients run the risk of infection.

The RTI bureau claims that the societies are not supplying information to it and hiring chartered accountants to supply the information with back dates. They do not even maintain their accounts, the bureau adds, demanding a probe to make all societies transparent for the benefit of the poor people.

Nurpur, March 17
The residents of Matliyal, a tiny village of the Khatiyar gram panchayat situated on the bank of the Pong dam reservoir in the Jawali subdivision, have been living under constant threat of sinking of land for the past one week in the backdrop of collapsing of one house.

A visit to the village revealed that the remaining 19 houses in the village are under the threat of land sinking due to undercutting by the water of the reservoir. The standing trees in the affected village have also started uprooting and pushing the whole village towards a natural calamity.

Old villagers Savitri Devi and Purn Singh told that before the existence of the Pong reservoir there were a large number of populated villages. “But with the construction of the Pong dam all the surrounding villages were submerged into the reservoir water, resulting in the displacement of villagers but their village remained safe,” they revealed. They are now apprehending their displacement in the wake of sinking of the village land.

House of Amarik Singh, son of Badam Singh, reportedly collapsed due to sinking of land and cracks were also developed in the adjoining two houses. While telling his tale of woes to The Tribune he said his house and cowshed had collapsed, rendering his family shelter less.

“My household items were also damaged in the house collapse,” he rued. SDM, Jawali, ML Sharma told that for the time being, the affected family has been shifted in premises of the local government primary school and gave Rs 5,000 each as the immediate relief.

Recently, a five member technical-cum-inspection committee constituted by the Deputy Commissioner, Kangra, visited the affected villages. The team comprising Xen IPH, SE BBMB, district mining officer, soil-conservation officer, hydrologist was led by SDM Jawali. It identified the sinking areas and advised the villagers not to visit there. Following the recommendations of the district mining officer and the soil conservation officer, it was decided to seek expert opinion of the state geologist, who have to visit the sinking village this week.

The detailed inspection report will be submitted to the state government after his visit in the sinking area of the village. Following the recommendations of the committee the government will ultimately decide either the remedial measures or rehabilitate the inhabitants from landslide prone village.

Shimla, March 17
While the government has put carbon credits policy high on the political agenda to fight climate change, the very basic issues responsible for the environmental degradation of the hills are being ignored.

The lack of snow during winter and irregular monsoon are being attributed to the global warming, but the main concern like faulty and ecologically destructive planning responsible for a host of phenomenon like the receding snow line, inadequate rains and shrinking green cover at the micro-level is not being addressed.

The unregulated expanse of the concrete jungle is making the eco-sensitive high hill ranges impervious. Not only the main towns but also the rural areas that are undergoing rapid but unplanned urbanisation have been affected. The “queen of hills” and its surrounding areas have been losing green cover in every possible way.

However, the most undesirable aspect is the abject lack of concern of the government agencies involved in development activities for saving trees. Not only are the trees being axed to make way for concrete structures but they are also drying up due to the insensitive attitude of the authorities. In high hill areas, rain and snow are the only source of water that not only sustains all vegetation but also the surface and groundwater sources.

Unmindful of the need to conserve every drop of water, the unbridled concretisation of the hills is also blocking the natural phenomena of recharging of the water sources. Every inch of land is being covered with concrete, making vast stretches of high hills completely impervious, leaving no scope for rain and melted snow to percolate down to the drying aquifers.

In such a situation, the surface runoff has been increasing, even though the average rainfall and snow has been declining. The environmentally fragile hills are being virtually starved of water as a result of which trees have been drying up all over the place.

In the pre-Independence era the environment-conscious British preserved the lush green mount Jakhu that also has the highest peak of the city, as an eco-sensitive zone and did not allow any construction on it. They dug up several wells in which snow, received during the winter season was stored for the summer.

Until 1880, when the population of the town was 16,000, the water supply to the town was provided by tapping the numerous springs sprouting from the Jakhu hill. A large part of the immaculate green cover on the hill has been destroyed by mushrooming concrete structures. To cap it all, a ropeway project has also been allowed in the already congested and overbuilt area that will only make the things worse.

Of late, the highest peak itself is also being made impervious by the Jakhu temple committee that has not only constructed some concrete structures but also paved most of the area with stones, irrespective of its consequences on the majestic deodars and other vegetation that will starve due to water shortage.

Stone masonry has been raised around the deodar trees, as if to ensure that not a drop of water seeps into the soil. The well by the side of the temple in which the snow was stored for the summer has vanished. Rain and snow are the only sources of water and moisture on high hills. With no percolation, the water table and soil moisture will go down gradually and ultimately affect the trees and other vegetation.

The lack of moisture affects the intake of nutrients that in turn weakens the immune system of the trees that becomes susceptible to the plant diseases. But the Forest Department blames global warming for drying up of the trees and even maintains that Shimla’s environment is no longer suitable for the deodar that is far from true, as the species has been vigorously regenerating in much lower elevations like the Annandale forest.

The cobbled drains and the environment-friendly dry masonry retaining walls erected during the British era, also called the good old “breathing structures”, have been made with cement and concrete. The reinforced concrete walls, unlike the crevices of the dry masonry walls, have no crevices for planting flowering creepers, which were planted particularly on the Mall. Not a single blade of grass grows on the cement masonry.

It is high time that the government takes steps to check the concretisation of the high hills, particularly above the altitude of 5,500 ft, which is the natural habitat of the deodar coinciding with snowline. There is also a need to prescribe the ratio of impervious and pervious surface under the building laws and encourage landlords to maintain the large green areas by giving carbon credits in the shape of rebate in the municipal taxes.

Come October 31 and Lord Auckland’s ghost roams in the Auckland house in the evening. Why this particular evening? In the West, the day is associated with the Halloween activities of horror and scary ghost stories.

Here in the Auckland house, a school established in 1866, a myth has travelled to date from the days unknown that the ghost of Auckland, Governor-General of India 1836-42, who had lived here 1838 onwards, awakes from eternal slumber and strolls.

The seniors say that he wanders about to tap on the head of the child that neglects studies. To avoid that limp touch, the girls stick to books. The seniors enjoy it and the juniors feel creepy.

Auckland accompanied by his sisters Emily and Fanny Eden had reached Shimla on April 8, 1838. Emily was a versatile writer and a gifted painter. She had written two novels and a diary ‘Up the Country’, besides painting portraits mostly of the princes.

The Auckland house then was single-storied with a flat roof composed of thick coating of earth well beaten down to make it rain-resistant. The rainwater, however, used to seep in and the diners had their dinners with umbrellas over their heads. Despite this, Emily writes in her diary, “Our house, that everybody has been abusing, only wanting all the good furniture and carpets we have brought, to be quite perfection. Views are too lovely, deep valleys on the drawing-room side to the west, and the snowy range on the dining-room side, where my room also is. Our sitting rooms are small, but that is all the better in the climate, and the two principal rooms are fine. We have fires in every room, and the windows open, red rhododendron trees bloom in every direction and beautiful walks like the English shrubberies on all the sides of the hills. Good! I see this is the best part of India.”

Today, the rhododendrons are missing from the scenery, beautiful walks have been replaced by vehicular roads and the concrete all around has eaten up the valleys and the Himalayan oaks full of dirt and cry for the season’s ditched rain and snow. The Auckland house, among all the crowd and squalor, is elegant and arranged ‘seeking the higher things’ with motto ‘Altiora Peto’.

The plot of land where the Auckland house stands today was purchased by one Doctor Blake in 1836 and was sold to Lord Auckland, who got the house built here. It was named the Government house then and remained the home for two other Governor-generals- Ellenborough and Hardinge- before dwindling from its proud position when Dalhousie in 1848 preferred to stay at the Strawberry Hill.

A French couple running a boarding house prior to an Indian converting it into a hotel was its unkempt period. General Peter Innes of the Bengal Army purchased it in 1858 and after 10 years sold it to the Bishop and Archdeacon of Kolkata as trustee for the Punjab girls school, which was running since 1866 for the European girls at the Holly Lodge in Jakhu with Mackinnon as headmistress.

A storey was erected in the building to accommodate the school. Although founded in 1866, yet the actual beginning of the Auckland house school here was on the 6th November, 1869. Its headmistress in 1904, Strong, brought teachers from Cheltenham, a town in Gloucestershire, UK and the school gained instant popularity as the Cheltenham College of India. The earthquake of 1905 badly damaged the school building and the girls had to study in tents while the boarders were sent to the nearby Sterling Castle.

Principal from 1915 to 1936 Pearce enjoined with the architectural skill of Hotz and raised a totally new and commanding building in January 1921. It is prospering here since then and the adjacent Belvedere was purchased in 1960 for the junior section. The present Principal since 1998 Sunita John got raised in the complex in 2006, a handsome auditorium accommodating 1,000 spectators. She and the devoted staff handles 1,200 plus students including 240 boarders at present and are proud of the student-exchange programmes that the school follows with schools at Johannesburg, South Africa and Giessen, Germany since 2006. This shining star on Shimla firmament is a veiled tribute to Lord Auckland.

Solan, March 17
Even as the apex court imposed a ban on tree felling, numerous permissions granted to the large-scale axing of the trees in Solan district itself indicates the true reality.

At least three such cases have come to the fore in the Kumarhatti area in the past less than a year, in which permission to raise buildings on the lush green mountainous tracts have been granted by the state government to the non-Himachalis.

It has been lamentable that the government had paid little heed to the fact that the trees on a mountainous tract of over 5,000 feet, which is an eco-fragile zone, would prove detrimental to the ecology. A sharp decline in the average rainfall with each passing year and inclement weather in the form of a little or no snowfall and above average temperatures experienced in the winters has been a manifestation of the changing weather cycle.

According to the state forest report 2005, the open forest cover has declined from 2,974 sq km in 1987 to 5,431 sq km in 2005 as per this report. Based on a biennial survey, the report also points out the reduction in the dense forests to nearly one-ninth from 9,908 sq km in 1987 to 1,097 sq km in 2005. Notably, the very dense forest cover has a canopy cover of 70 per cent and above.

An area of 54 sq km of the open forests has been added in 2003-2005. While quality forests comprising very dense forests have shrunk in size. This was the 10th such survey undertaken by the Forest Survey of India. The total area under forests was thus 25.81 per cent of the total geographical area of the state.

It had been the responsibility of the state government to at least ensure that such a large-scale clearing of the forest cover had not been allowed now. However, the government had shown little care to even retain the existing forest cover and that too with a High Court ban. Clearly, the politicians chose to look askance and it was no coincidence that several cases of special permission to the non-Himachalis for buying land in the state had been granted in the past couple of months. Not only the politicians lacked the will but also often facilitated such large-scale deals.

One could estimate the lack of inaction even in the cases of illegal tree felling in the state after considering the facts of a Vidhan Sabha reply given by a former Forest Minister, wherein, it had been stated that as many as 3,248 cases of the illicit felling had been detected till March 2007 in the state, out of which FIRs had been registered in merely 84 cases.

Even as the Congress remains undecided about its candidate from the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat, talk of the Congress being a loyal opposition who is pleading the case of the BJP within its party by backing weak candidates is doing rounds in the town.

Despite HPCC chief Kaul Singh Thakur and former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh backing the candidature of Narender Thakur, son of former minister Jagdev Chand, some Congressmen are opposing him tooth and nail. “Despite knowing that Narinder is undoubtedly the strongest candidate we can field, a former Congress minister from Kangra and some MLAs are opposing him as part of their tacit understanding with the Chief Minister,” said a senior Congress leader.

Shimla, March 17
Concerned over the decline in the maize production in the state and disinterest shown by the farmers, the government has decided to give a boost to its cultivation by introducing high yielding hybrid varieties, including baby corn and popcorn maize, along with better marketing channels.

Despite large parts of the state being climatically suited for the maize cultivation, the farmers are giving up its cultivation owing to the various factors like low returns, dependence on rains, absence of the marketing channels and extensive damage to the crop by monkeys.

As part of its diversification plans and to ensure better returns to the farmers, the Agriculture Department plans to bring at least half of the total maize growing area under the high yielding varieties.

“Our endeavour is to bring about diversification and introduce high yielding hybrid varieties so that the farmers get better returns and at the same time can venture into high return crops like off season vegetables,” said director of agriculture JC Rana.

Despite a huge demand for the maize, existing in the industrial sector, the farmers are not getting good prices for the crop as no proper marketing channels are in place in the state. To address this problem, the Agriculture Department plans to hold a face-to-face farmer-industry interaction in Una in April so that marketing channels can be created.

Interestingly, the various maize processing units are wiling to provide a better minimum sale price (MSP) between Rs 880 to Rs 1,000 per quintal as compared to Rs 840 being given by the state government.

There is already a baby-corn processing unit in Sundernagar, while three other maize processing units are proposed in Bilaspur district. “Cultivation of baby-corn variety will ensure much better returns and at the same time will enable the farmer to grow a third crop as baby-corn has to be harvested at the grain formation stage,” said Rana. Along with this the cultivation of popcorn variety will also be encouraged among the farmers.

It was almost two decades back that the HPMC had started to produce baby-corn, which was earlier being imported from abroad. As such there is a great scope for baby-corn production, provided the farmers have an assured advanced tie-up. For this the Agriculture Department will educate the farmers and facilitate a face-to-face interaction with the industry in all parts of the state.

Out of a total maize production of 7.5 lakh tonne in the state about 4 lakh tonne is market surplus. Besides, being a cereal for human food, maize is also used for cattle and poultry. It has now found industrial use in the production of starch and ethanol.

Being considered as the crop of the future, the state Agriculture Department intends bringing 50 per cent of the total area under the high yielding hybrid variety of maize by the end of this five year plan in 2011-12. This year itself 85,000 hectare of the area under maize will be brought under the high yielding varieties.

The PHD, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has also taken an initiative to open up channels by which they can directly have a tie-up with the farmers either by way of contract farming or other methods. They have also approached the Agriculture Department to facilitate in holding of interaction sessions with the farmers so that a link can be formed and both industry as well as farmers benefit from it.

Dalhousie, March 17
The distant tribal village of Kuleth in the Bharmour tribal area of Chamba district, which was under the threat of sliding down into the Ravi, would now be saved with the implementation of a rehabilitation scheme sanctioned recently by the government with an outlay of Rs 6 crore.

The villagers had been waiting for the scheme for the restoration and protection of their village for a long time.

The work for the restoration of cultivable land and the village precincts in the sliding zone has already been planned and designed to be undertaken in a big way. Though a few retaining works have already been taken up in the recent past, the scheme cleared lately would go a long way in stabilising the hill slope on which the village stands.

It may be mentioned here that a huge landslide had occurred about four years ago along the village on the right bank of the Ravi resulting in the formation of an artificial lake posing a hazard to Kuleth village located on the hillside and the hydroelectric projects downstream the Ravi as well as to the people living in the low-lying areas.

Later, water of the lake was released through a narrow river course created by blasting the debris of rocks, but the danger continued to loom large on the village since then.

According to SC Dhiman, superintending engineer, Dalhousie Circle of the Himachal Pradesh Public Works Department, the scheme envisaged restoration and protection of the hill slope on the top of which the affected village is situated.

The chief objective of the scheme is to stabilise the hill slope and rehabilitate the village, he narrated, adding that the road leading from the headquarters of an interior tribal sub-tehsil of Holi towards the far-flung belt of Nayagran would simultaneously be saved from washing away by the recurring problem of landslides even during a little spell of rain.

“After the hill slope is stabilised, not only the Kuleth village will be safe but also the road from Holi to Nayagran passing through this stretch of landslide prone hillside would become an all-weather road”, the engineer asserted.