Shimla, June 9
Despite the supply of additional water from the Giri Scheme , the thirst of residents of the state capital is still not getting quenched as improper distribution and a blame game between the local Municipal Corporation (MC) and the Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) Department continue.

While tanks in the VIP areas and government buildings can be seen overflowing, people residing in suburbs like Chakkar, Totu, Boileauganj, Karedu, Kachhi Ghatti, Barrier, Bharari and Batta Kufar perpetually reel under an acute water shortage. It is mismanagement and the lack of coordination between the MC and the IPH Department, which often result in the problem.

A huge amount of water is wasted daily due to leakage, which both the MC and the IPH have not been able to plug at their end. Even as water shortage has become a perennial problem with which people have learnt to live, during the summer when a huge number of tourists flock the town, the situation often gets worse.

“As against an escalated demand of 45 million litres per day (MLD), the IPH is providing us 37 MLD, a situation much improved over the last year,” says mayor Narender Kataria. He says water rationing, which was introduced on May 22, barely lasted for two days and now regular supply is being given. There is a complete ban on construction activities during the summer when there is water shortage.

While admitting that almost 5 MLD is lost due to the leakages daily, he says the MC has already deposited Rs 2.60 crore for replacing pipes near Dhalli police station. But as permission from the National Highways is still awaited, the task remains incomplete. With the Giri Supply Scheme finally providing about eight MLD, the situation this summer has no doubt been relatively better.

“However, the residents have been left at the mercy of the keymen who are responsible for giving supply for a stipulated period daily to various areas under their charge. “It is seen that hotels get adequate quantity of water daily even when the rest of the town is reeling under a severe water scarcity as they grease the palms of the keyman,” rues Ajay Sharma.

“We are providing adequate water as per the demand of the MC and the IPH department will ensure that there is no shortage,” assures IPH Minister Ravinder Ravi. He says leakages at most of the places in the scheme have been plugged and the scheme can fulfill the water requirements of the state capital.

Some of the hotels do engage tankers to meet their water requirements, but on most of the occasions they get good supply. “This year has been very comfortable barring a few days’ shortage and this is a healthy sign as reports of scarcity spell doom for the tourism industry,” says Harnam Kukreja, president of the Shimla Hotels and Restaurants Association.

The mayor said certain steps like replacing old pipelines and having a huge storage tank of almost 10 MLD at Jakhu could go a long way in easing the problem.

“We have sent a proposal of Rs 7.20 crore to the Centre for replacing old pipes as the water requirement of the town has increased tremendously,” says Kataria.

The cash-strapped MC owes almost Rs 52 crore to the IPH for the water charges. The government has on several occasions said the MC must enhance water rates substantially to supplement its income.

On the other hand, the MC, which enhanced the water tariff by 10 per cent some time ago, says any move to increase it further is opposed by all councillors, including those from the BJP and the CPM. While the IPH charges about Rs 11 per thousand litres from the MC, it is supplied to residents at the rate of Rs 4.15 per thousand litres.

IPH officials said they were providing sufficient supply to the MC as per their demand and it was for them to ensure that there was proper utilisation and no wastage.

“Out of the total of 18 storage tanks, we have handed over 15 to the MC so the problem of storage in various areas is also sorted out,” claim IPH engineers.

Better coordination between the IPH and the MC could certainly improve the situation. Having functional storage tanks in different localities would ensure even distribution rather than giving supply from the main reservoirs on The Ridge and Sanjauli.

Shimla, June 9
Providing adequate water to the ever-growing population is turning out a big challenge in the hill state where natural sources of water are depleting at an alarming rate due to the sharp environmental degradation.

Come summer, about 25 to 30 per cent of the total 7,989 water supply schemes either completely go dry or get severely hit due to a decline in discharge. Tankers have to be deployed to supply water in affected villages.

In the emerging scenario, the irrigation and public health department has no option but to look for more dependable sources which are located far off and mostly involve lifting of water from rivers and streams down below to hills. In the process, the cost of supplying water has gone up by leaps and bounds and the situation is worsening with each passing year. The electricity bill on account of energy used for pumping water has shot up from Rs 20 crore in 1992 to over Rs 200 crore last year, causing much concern to the government.

The operation and maintenance of the schemes is becoming a problem for the department as it is able to recover only a fraction of the amount spent for the purpose due to low water charges. Worse, the municipalities to which it supplies water are not paying and the arrears are mounting. As against the due amount of Rs 69.49 crore, only Rs 9.94 crore was recovered and the arrears amounted to Rs 59.55 crore as on December 31, 2008. The Shimla Municipal Corporation alone accounted for Rs 49.53 crore, followed by Solan (Rs 5.99 crore) and Palampur (Rs 88.62 lakh).

Despite the policy of the government from 2005 onwards to effect a 10 per cent increase in the water charges annually, the recovery level continues to be very low due to the increasing cost of supply.

The gravity flow schemes are giving way to energy-guzzling lift schemes, the operational cost of which goes up annually with the revision of power tariff. The average cost of bulk water supply in case of lift water and irrigation schemes is Rs 18 per kilolitre as against just Rs 5 per kilolitre in case of gravity flow schemes.

In case of Shimla, the cost of bulk water supply is Rs 36 per kilolitre, but the municipal corporation charges less than one-third of the cost. The department spent Rs 138 crore on rural supply, but the income was only Rs 4.96 crore during 2006-07. The situation was slightly better in the case of urban supply with an expenditure of Rs 59.75 crore and income of Rs 5.80 crore. The amount of subsidy came to Rs 154.44 crore, including Rs 133.53 crore for the rural supply.

In the following year, the total subsidy increased to Rs 175.03 crore even as the subsidy for rural supply came down by about Rs 12.50 crore to Rs 121 crore. Similar is the case of Solan and Palampur municipalities.

Global warming apart, water sources in the hill state are depleting more because of man-made factors like large-scale deforestation and haphazard construction, which have transformed once verdant hill slopes into veritable concrete jungles. Faulty land use and wrong afforestation policy have led to a situation where water sources are not being recharged due to declining percolation and surface run-off is increasing, causing flashfloods and destruction. Poor water retention is the main reason for the drying up of traditional sources.

The problem could be effectively tackled only by addressing the environmental issues which call for radical changes in development and afforestation policies. Forests should not be seen as the source of timber and other produce, but of water and pure air which sustain all life. The crown of conifers, oak and other species over the mid and high hills, which helps in maintaining the hydrological cycle, has to preserved and expanded to arrest surface run-off and recharge the natural sources of water. The best way to achieve this is to declare the areas above the altitude of 5,000 ft as eco-sensitive to severely restrict all construction activity.

Only the local people should be allowed to raise need-based structures. No big building projects should be permitted as the high hills do not have the carrying capacity to support more population. The focus should be on eco-tourism projects, cultivation of medicinal plants and other minor forest produce to boost the local economy.

Dharamsala: Former Congress leader Vijay Singh Mankotia who has quit active politics has now taken on the BJP government on the issue of Ski village.

His recently formed organisation, Court of People, has alleged that the village is not tourism, but a real estate project.

He has alleged that one of the key recommendations for the project came from former RSS chief KS Sudershan. The main allurement for the project was that the promoter of the village had promised to build one of the biggest Hindu temples. Initially, he made one such proposal for constructing a temple in Mayapur near Kolkota with an investment of $ 250 million.However, the project was turned down by the West Bengal government.

Mankotia further alleged the village project has been involved in controversies since the beginning. The MoU for the project was signed between the Himachal government and HPV Pvt Ltd in December 2005. It was projected as the country’s single largest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) promoted tourism project. It was planned in three stages for a total investment of about $ 1.6 billion. The initial investment was about $ 300.

It was claimed that Alfred Ford, the grandson of legendary automobile giant Henry Ford, was main player in the project. As per the certified copy of Form 32 of the Companies Act, 1956, as signed by the Registrar of Companies for the Punjab, Himachal and Chandigarh regions, Alfred Ford was one of the directors of HPV Pvt Ltd. However, after two months, Alfred had resigned as director of the company. The fact was suppressed from the public and the reasons for the resignation of were never made public.

Mankotia alleged that the name of Alfred Ford was associated with the project just for giving it credibility. He alleged that the Ski village project instead of being a tourism project was turning into a real estate project where schemes were being formulated to settle about 10000 people of foreign origin. On the one side, the government was making rules to restrict Indians from other states from buying land in Himachal, on the other hand, it was allowing foreigners to buy land in the state through the Ski village project. He has demanded a high-level probe into the project.

The project is also being planned along the strategic defence road being planned through Rohtang Ppass by the union government. Therefore, the project should also be cleared by the ministry of defence, he alleged.

Roaming on the Newport Festival Park along the Ohio Riverbank at Cincinnati, USA, recently, I found a giant cottonwood tree with its history recorded under the words,”Rooted in History” engraved on a cement slab. The account reads that it was an 80 to 100-year-old tree that had weathered the devastation of the 1937 floods when the river crested 24 feet into its branches. The tree had survived many natural disasters and urban development, including the construction of Newport on the Levee and new pavement for festival space.

I was impressed and thought why not we in Shimla could have such history-plates about the trees. The first tree that came to my mind was the Aesculus hippocastanum or Horse Chestnut tree that stands on the Ridge under which sits Ratan Lal Gautam of Bilaspur. Such trees in North America are called buckeyes but the Eurasian species are horse chestnuts not because these are fodder for horses but because of their strength; the word horse originally meant strong or powerful. The age of this tree on the Ridge is not known but it is old and has seen me growing and graying. The folk-estimate is that it has hit a century. I bobbed my hat to the media for drumming in the issue of the loss of natural heritage when recently the MC tried to chop off its roots trying to solve the everlasting “sinking of the Ridge” problem. The tree was saved. Then there is a 30-year- old rare tree Chinar (Platanus Orientalis) at Daulet Singh Park, the park built in memory of Lt- General Daulet Singh who was chief of the Western Command and had died in a helicopter crash in 1963. The dwarf cedrus deodara tree at the Scandal Point raises many questions to be answered by the foresters. How is it that it has not grown beyond its present height of 25 feet whereas on an average deodar or “timber of the Gods” touches 250 feet? Cedrus Deodara is pyramidal tree but the one at the Scandal Point is flat-topped. Why and how? When was it grown? Is it the gift of A. Parsons, one of the Kew gardeners, who was ordered to come to Shimla in 1881 to be appointed in-charge of the gardens and orchards by the municipality? Kew Garden in Richmond, Surrey, is England’s national garden presented to the people by Queen Victoria in the year 1840. Parsons did much to improve roadside arboriculture of Shimla. He served here for 15 years and then was “unwisely” fired in 1896.

Tejinder Singh of SAGES took me to Annandale where the only tree in Shimla of Cinnamomum Camphora, commonly known as camphor tree, stands about 20 metres tall. I brought a branch of it to home. Its leaves gave a smell of camphor when crushed. The history of the tree is shrouded in the garb of time and tide. I like the two trees within the complex of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study; one is liriodendron tulipifera, a heritage tree of 1895. The other is the Himalayan Oak which is probably the most voluminous of Oaks in the town and Mela Ram, in-charge horticulture, IIAS confers,”The branches of the trees just touched the windows of the English Viceroy’s room but they never considered chopping these off”.Mela Ram, who has superannuated after serving the Institute for long, is a living storehouse of the history of several trees within the complex. It will be lost to posterity unless he writes it down.

The Weeping Willow or Salyx Babilonica is my favourite tree. It was introduced to Shimla around 1821 when a dentist O Meara lived in Ravenswood. This cottage has now been dismantled to construct the present High Court building. His uncle,Dr Barry O Meara, was medical attendant to Napoleon on exile to St. Helena. When the exiled emperor died there, the doctor knowing his liking for the tree planted one near his grave and sent cuttings of that to O Meara here. Those cuttings are said to be the mothers of all Weeping Willows in Shimla and around. It is my attempt to speak for a few trees for they have no tongues but have a history to tell. Dig it out please.

The “Queen of Hills” could be an ideal laid-back holiday location for many, but life for the locals and especially those from the lower income group is not particularly easy.

It is this aspect of the city that lensman Neeraj Sharma has tried to capture through his camera. He has tried to show it in a different light and how the people face difficulties in their day-to-day lives.

It is a collection of such real-life situations captured on camera that have been displayed by him at a photo exhibition put up in the Rotary Town Hall.Renowned photographer Raghu Rai inaugurated the exhibition here recently.

“The first images that come to mind about Shimla are British-time buildings, snow-capped peaks in the backdrop and deodar trees, but the day-to-day life here is far more stark than this postcard scenic beauty,” he says.

He says the exhibition is the result of his two-year work to capture the ‘‘real’’ Shimla unknown to most who visit the town briefly.

Nurpur, June 9
The announcement regarding regularisation of services of daily wagers who have completed eight years of service made by the Chief Minister on August 15 last year has not been implemented by the Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) Department.

The delay by the department in making any provision to absorb as many as 1,700 daily wagers on regular posts has created resentment among the latter. According to information, other departments like public works, education and forest have regularised the services of the daily wagers. A delegation of the IPH department’s daily wagers had met IPH Minister Ravinder Ravi a few months ago, but so far no step has been taken to ensure the regularisation of their services.

Inquiries reveal that 175 out of 1,715 daily wagers are working in the Shah Nehar Irrigation Project being constructed in Jawali subdivision of Kangra district. Apart from this, 42 daily wagers had filed an appeal in the State Administrative Tribunal which had directed the government to regularise their services in an order passed in February 15 last year. But so far, they have not been regularised. Most of the daily wagers in the IPH department have been working since 1997-98.

The state Congress general secretary, Ajay Mahajan, has urged the government to regularise the services of the daily wagers, who have been meted out step-motherly treatment by the department.

I would like to highlight the pathetic working of the SBI, Dharamsala. Going to the bank is a nightmare. There is always a long queue in front of the lone cash counter. The daily transaction of the bank is more than Rs 1 crore.

For depositing or withdrawing money, one has to wait for at least an hour at any time of the day. No entries are made in the passbooks.

It takes at least two-three hours for depositing challans etc. Commotion has become a daily affair in the bank premises.

This has been going on for the past one year, but the bank authorities are not bothered about the harassment being faced by the public.

Ashok S Mankotia
Naddi village, PO Dharamsala Cantt

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