Dharamsala, May 22
War of words over essentiality certificate for a proposed five star hotel near Gaggal continued today. District Tourism Development Officer (DTDO) JR Katoch maintained that he had denied the essentiality certificate on grounds that none of the company directors or authorised signatory approached him at his office.

According to the written clarification, a letter of resolution passed on January 11, 2008, was attached in the file that was presented in the DTDO office on November 1, 2008. While scrutinizing the file, a number of shortcomings were found, including the lack of authorisation letter in the name of Nishant Sharma, the DTDO alleged.

He further alleged that Nishant approached his office and senior assistant Sanjay Sharma told him about the shortcomings verbally. Nishant assured to remove them. However, he just submitted an affidavit to run the company for a period of 10 years, whereas he was neither a director nor a partner of the company.

He also claimed that a letter was written to GTV Company’s office regarding the shortcomings on January 28, 2009. The signatories of the original agreement for sale of land for the project never visited his office, the DTDO alleged.

He also said Nishant on May 18 entered into altercation with his senior assistant Sanjay Sharma and demanded the file back. However, since the file has been a government property, it could not be returned to him.

Nishant, countering the charges, alleged that the DTDO office has admitted of interacting with him, but they are alleging that I am not an authorised signatory. He also provided The Tribune a letter, issued in his favour by the GTV Company for procuring the essentiality letter.

“The behavior of the DTDO office was utterly bureaucratic. Its officials wanted that the head of the multinational company should visit their district office to get a file processed,” he alleged.

Interestingly, the DTDO officials told Nishant regarding the shortcomings in file verbally. It was just one letter written to the GTV office at Noida that the company official’s claimed was received just a month ago. 

Shimla, May 22
Governor Prabha Rau and Chief Minister PK Dhumal congratulated Dr Manmohan Singh on taking over as the Prime Minister for a second consecutive term today.

In his congratulatory message Dhumal wished him a successful tenure and expressed hope that the people of Himachal Pradesh would benefit from his patronage, liberal and generous attitude.

The country would achieve new heights under his leadership and further raise its stature to secure its rightful place in the comity of nations.

He also felicitated Anand Sharma on his elevation as a cabinet minister in the central ministry.

Dhumal also congratulated Pawan Chamling, Naveen Patnaik and YS Rajasekhara Reddy on assuming the office of the Chief Minister of Sikkim, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, respectively.

Mandi, May 22
Two women were burnt to death- Sunita (27) and Indira (30)- while fighting the forest fire in Mehari forest in Jogindernagar and burn injuries suffered by other four villagers in two recent separate incidents have exposed the lack of fire-fighting equipment and training on part of the Forest Department, which involve villagers in firefighting operations when things go beyond their control.

According to family members of the two women victims, seven women volunteered to fight the flames in the remote Mehari oak forest yesterday as the forest guards or two members were no match to fight the fire. But two were burnt to death on the spot, as they did not have protective masks or gears to save them from the flames, they rued.

Demanding proper compensation for fire victims and firefighting gears for village volunteers, the CPM said the village firefighting committees are neither trained nor given any protective gears or masks for fighting the forest fires.

Conservator of forests BD Suyal said, “We first ensure the escape routes when we enter the fire-prone areas. But the storms flared up flames and five of them escaped safely, but two of them were trapped in the smoggy fire. Sunita went back to save Indira but she rolled down and died on the spot.”

He said that the main problem is that protecting gears do not work in hill terrain as they are meant for fighting fire in urban areas. “We do give fire beaters and use traditional bush beaters to quell the fire, but it is unfortunate that two women volunteers died. They will get due compensation from the government as per relief manual.”

Suyal said the department provides training to the villagers’ groups from time to time. “We have forest guard in each beat and we involve local villagers in fighting fire,” he added.

Shimla, May 22
The elevation of the local man Anand Sharma to a Cabinet minister has elated his supporters but left followers of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who won the solitary Lok Sabha seat for the Congress in the state, demoralised.

The inclusion of Sharma in the first lot, ahead of the five-time chief minister and five-time MP, has indeed come as setback for veteran leader. Obviously, the win in the elections has failed to raise his stock with the high command.

However, his supporters have still not given up hope and they are waiting for the next swearing-in ceremony. The die-hard believe that lady luck will smile on their leader and he would find a place in the Cabinet in the next lot.

Anand Sharma has been indeed rewarded for his performance, competence and loyalty. He has been a member of the Congress think tank for the past quite sometime and was among the handful of national campaigners who addressed election meetings across the country.

More importantly, he proved his mettle as the minister of state for external affairs and his role and the diplomatic efforts put in by him in ensuring smooth passage for the Indo-US nuclear deal could not be overlooked. He is only the second Cabinet minister from the state after Shanta Kumar of the BJP and the first Congress leader to get the honour.

An impressive orator and articulate debater Anand Sharma has reached the top going through the hard grind rising form the party ranks. Starting as one of the founders of the state unit of the NSUI, the frontal organisation he ultimately headed, Sharma became national general secretary of the students wing of the Congress and went on to head the Indian Youth Congress in 1985. He also remained spokesperson of the party for six years.

The supporters of Anand Sharma maintain that he had not been elevated at the cost of Virbhadra Singh. Sharma was already in the ministry and he could not be kept out of the first lot because of his performance. 

Hamirpur, May 22
The Nagar Parishad, Hamirpur, has decided to annul its decision of increasing licence renewal fee from Rs 30 to Rs 150 for small shopkeepers of the area. The decision to this effect was taken at the meeting held here today.

As per the new decision, the licence renewal fee for the small shopkeepers would now be Rs 50. It is notable that the small shopkeepers had been resenting manifold increase in the license renewal fee that was highlighted in these columns sometime back.

The shopkeepers, who had been paying Rs 30 as licence renewal fee for many decades had taken up this issue at the various levels.

The main contention of the shopkeepers was that this drastic increase in the fee was not prudent on part of the authorities.

They were also pleading that the recession in the market had reduced their margins to quite low and some of them were even finding it difficult to pull on.

Shopkeepers had expressed their concern on this issue during the Parliamentary elections and had taken up this issue with Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.

While Nagar Parishad president Deep Kumar had been justifying the increase in licence renewal fee saying that last revision of the renewal fee was undertaken decades ago and with an increase in the price index this increase was quite justified.

Confirming the reduction in the licence fee, Deep Kumar said, “Since there was persistent demand from the shopkeepers to reduce the renewal fee, we have reduced it to Rs 50 from Rs 150 for the small shopkeepers.

However, it would remain the same for the big establishments.” 

Bilaspur, May 22
The state has lost forest wealth worth Rs 80,86,540 in total 666 cases of forest fires up till now in this hot season, apart from losing lives of wild animals, rare birds species, herbs and other medicinal plants due to negligence of somebody residing alongside these forests or adjoining to it.

This was stated by Forest Minister JP Nadda while presiding over a meeting of top officers of the Forest Department regarding steps to prevent and control any such fires in future here today.

Nadda said these fires have engulfed 7,029 hectares of forest land and 90 per cent of these fires were the result of negligence of some villager and the remaining 10 per cent were cases of mischief and the department must not spare anybody found guilty of this mischief.

The minister was categorical that next 45 days would be crucial for the department when more such fires could be expected due to unprecedented hot weather. He said the local officers have been authorised to appoint more fire watchers and provide vehicles to the staff to keep a 24-hour watch on the condition of forest while mobile phones would be provided to the field staff for this period.

Palampur, May 22
Not only private chemists but also medical stores owned by the HP State Civil Supply Corporation are selling all generic drugs in their medical stores and earning high margin of profits ranging from 500 per cent to 700 per cent.

Enquiries made by The Tribune revealed that the corporation had over 40 retail medical stores situated in key locations inside the hospitals and medical colleges in the state. Patients always prefer to buy medicines from these shops with a general impression that they would get standard companies drugs on reasonable rates.

A senior officer of the corporation said the corporation allowed 5 per cent discount on the sale of such medicines. In reality, it has been a cruel joke with the consumer that the corporation was allowing discount of 5 per cent to its consumers after earning huge margin profits.

Claims made by the State Civil Supply Minister Ramesh Dhawala that the corporation was selling cheaper medicines in its stores are only confined to his speeches.

A senior professor posted in Government Medical College, Tanda, said the state government should come out with a legislation imposing complete ban on the sale of generic drugs.

Shimla, May 22
The inquiry into the allegations of bullying and beating up of two students at Bishop Cotton School (BCS) here has revealed that nothing cognisable was found against the seniors as the two aggrieved boys were having adjustment problems in the boarding.

Deputy Commissioner Amar Singh Rathore today handed over the report of the inquiry conducted by the school authorities to the chief minister’s office. “Nothing cognisable has been found in the inquiry report so there is no question of taking action against anyone,” said a senior official in the CM office.

“I have yet to receive the report from all three house masters but as per preliminary inquiry it was learnt that the two boys were having adjustment problems, following which they made these charges against the senior boys as an excuse to leave school,” said Principal Roy Christopher Robinson.

Two class IX students Avtar Singh from Jalandhar and Akashdeep Singh Turna from the UK had left school early this week following alleged beating and bullying by seniors. The parents, however, did not report the matter to the police or any other government officials and only brought it to the notice of the school principal.

Meanwhile, the parents of the two students have approached the school authorities to issue them a transfer certificate (TC) so that they could seek admission in some other school. “The parents have asked for the TC and even sought my assistance to help them get admission in another school,” said Robinson.

It was only a month back that a class VII student at BCS too had levelled allegation of bullying by seniors with the matter being reported to the police. Later, the case was resolved between the parents and the school.

The school authorities said indiscipline would not be tolerated at any cost.

Kangra, May 22
Educational Experts have expressed shock over considerable deterioration in the number of admissions in class XII (science stream) under the HP Board of School Education (HPBSE) and lacking concern of the state government on this issue.

Retired deputy director (Education) and president of the HP Education and Consultants Forum Dr RD Sharma said it was unfortunate that students of class XII were not opting for schools affiliated with the HPBSE and this number was considerably reducing.

He described it as a matter of serious concern and said the state government authorities and the educational experts should put their heads together to devise ways to bring the education system on right track.

During a survey conducted by The Tribune it was revealed that crores of rupees were spent for setting up science laboratories in 16 schools of this region and in most of the schools the number of science students in class XII did not even crossed two figures.

In Government Senior Secondary School, Kachiari, science laboratory at a cost of Rs 65 lakh was constructed under NABARD plan in 2007 but there were only two science students in class XII for the year 2007-2008 and during 2008-2009 there was only one student.

In Government Senior Secondary School, Nagrota Bagwan, Rs 43 lakh were spent on the laboratory construction and there were only five non-medical and four medical students in the year in 2008-2009.

Sources from the deputy director’s office said there were 237 senior secondary schools in the region and only 225 schools were functional. Sixteen laboratories each costing Rs 44 lakh were either completed or were under construction.

They, on the condition of anonymity, confessed that the number of science students was touching the lowest ebb in the state board-affiliated schools.

Experts said the main reason for this deterioration was that the HPBSE conducts board examination for class XI. Principals of the government schools said classes for class XII were yet to start for the current session as class XI board results were awaited. They said in CBSE-affiliated schools classes have already started from April 1.

Dr Sharma suggested that if the state government was serious about improving the standard of education it should follow the CBSE pattern in right perspective by not conducting board examinations for class XI and VIII.

Chairman of the HPBSE Dr CL Gupta accepted that there was a marginal decrease in the number of students opting for class XII with the schools affiliated with the board.