Shimla, June 16
The warden of the hostel whose inmates had been charged with ragging, resulting in the death of Aman Kachroo at Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College, Tanda, could face charge sheet while the remaining 39 persons who had been served a show-cause notice by the Health Department could be let off with a simple warning.

The Health Department, after going through the replies sent in by 40 persons, including serving and former wardens and principals at Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College have recommended the action. It was on the basis of the 10 incidents of ragging cited by ADM (Kangra) in his inquiry report that the department had issued a show-cause notice to these 40 persons who had held various positions at the college over the years.

In their replies filed on April 23, all 40 persons who were principal, warden or member of the disciplinary committees, have tried to prove that they had taken action either by suspending the students guilty of ragging, or imposing a fine on them.

“There is no doubt that directly or indirectly they have contributed to the development of pro-ragging culture in the college over the years,” said a senior official. It has been observed that the warden of the hostel, from where the senior students left on March 6 night to rag the first-year students, cannot be absolved of the responsibility.

“The warden should have known about the movement and whereabouts of the inmates of the hostel. The fact that it was due to the intense physical ragging in the wee hours of the morning of March 7 that resulted in the death of Aman Kachroo, makes the lapse unpardonable,” said a senior officer.

Even though senior health officials are of the opinion that the 39 other persons cannot be absolved of the responsibility for not taking stern action, they could be let off with a simple warning that no such incident should take place in future.

Mandi, June 16
Aggrieved parents of wards who could not make it to the HPCPMT-2009 raised strong apprehensions over the CID inquiry into the alleged HPCPMT paper leak and formed a 10-member sangharsh samiti demanding that the state government should order a CBI probe or they would move the High Court for justice as “the inquiry team has upped its ante against the complainants rather than getting to the bottom of the paper leak”.

The 10-member association, which was formed today, charged that the inquiry team had started targeting the complainants rather than getting to the bottom of the paper leak in the HPCPMT. “Our faith in a fair inquiry has eroded now as they, including the government, have given enough impression that they would punish the complainants, which defy all law of land and denial of right to complainant in a democracy,” they charged.

The parents’ association charged that the inquiry team, as per law, had to keep each details of the inquiry, including names of complaints, a well-guarded secret, but it was leaking each detail to the media.

After holding a meeting at Jahu today, they constituted the 10-member association with Roop Upadhayaya (Mandi) as its convener. Other members included Ashwani Thakur (Sarkaghat), Shambhu Raj, BR Rana, Surinder Singh (Hamirpur), Kulwant Singh (Hamirpur), Subhash Chand (Sarkaghat), Rajpal Singh, Rajesh Kaundal (Sarkaghat), and Narender Patial (Sarkaghat). Other parents from different parts of the state had pledged their support to the samiti and would join them soon, they claimed.

ID Bhandari, ADGP, CID, when contacted, said there was no question of any pressure from anybody or threat to the complainants. He, however, assured that he would look into the matter.

He clarified that the Chief Minister had asked to conduct a fair inquiry and the CID was doing the same. 

Kangra, June 16
A four-member team of Dr R.P. Government Medical College, Tanda, today decided to take blood samples of suspected swine flu patient Ashok Kumar, who has been quarantined, to Delhi for further investigation.

The team took the decision after it visited his village today.

Chief Medical Officer of Kangra Dr Anil Mahajan said two medical teams were rushed to the village and some health workers had been stationed on the spot.

District Health Officer Dr GR Kaushal said two sons of Ashok-Master Sahil and Rohit, had been asked to remain at home for at least 10 days.

However, when this correspondent visited the residence of the suspected swine flu patient, it was found that Ashok was interacting with visitors even mediapersons.

Ashok arrived in Delhi on June 12 from Bahrain by the same aircraft in which some students of Jalandhar were travelling and some of them tested positive for the disease.

Isolation wards have also been identified for any possible infected patient and arrangements have been made for sending the blood samples to NICD for analysis. Sanan said if required, a helpline would also be set up. A toll free number 1,075 is already available at the national level.

Shimla, June 16
The state electricity board ceased existing today with the vesting of its functions, properties, interests, rights, obligations and liabilities in the state government to set in motion the process of its restructuring.

A notification has been issued under Section 131(1) of the Electricity Act, 2003, after prolonged discussions with engineers and employees of the board who had been opposing the unbundling. The employees and the state government had no option but to take steps to comply with the Act as the Union Ministry of Power had made it clear that no further extension would be granted beyond June 15, 2009, to allow the board to continue in the unbundled form.

The government has also constituted a managing committee headed by a special officer (chairman of the board) and comprising five members (the existing members) to administer affairs till the functions, properties and assets are re-vested in a government company or companies to be incorporated as part of the restructuring exercise.

The scheme to re-vest into company or companies will be notified within six months. They will be government companies and as such there is no element of privatisation of the board.

An official spokesman said it would be ensured that the service conditions of the employees were protected and pension and other benefits of existing and retired employees would be completely secured. While preparing the scheme to re-vest the property and rights into the new government entity or entities, the proposal of joint front of employees and engineers would be examined from legal point of view.

He said the objective behind reorganisation of board as envisaged in the Electricity Act, 2003, was to create a congenial environment of reforms in the power sector by bringing efficiency and growth in the sector where, apart from various electricity boards, Central and state public sector undertakings and private sector players were engaged in generation, transmission, distribution and trading. By reorganising the board into government companies, necessary institutional framework would be available to stimulate investment and growth in an equitable manner in the sector.

Shimla, June 16
There has been little expansion of the rail network in Himachal Pradesh since Independence and almost all projects, except the Nangal-Talwara rail link, being pursued by the state government, have not gone beyond survey work.

Work on the 86-km Nangal-Talwara rail link has been progressing at a snail’s pace and over the past 38 years, only about 30-km track has been laid. There is hope of work actually taking off on ground on the Rs 1,047-crore Bhanulpali-Bilaspur-Beri broadgauge, which has been hanging fire for the past two decades, and acquisition of land has been started. Work on the Rs 350.33-crore to lay 20-km track in the first phase of the 66 km section will commence thereafter.

However, the state’s most urgent Chandigarh-Baddi rail project has hit a roadblock. The 34-km track to link the regions’s fastest growing industrial hub, ran into problems as the line was to pass through a mega housing project coming up at the Chandigarh IT Park and also involved some forest areas.

The state has now urged the Railways to conduct a survey for an alternative route to link Baddi to Ghanauli on the Punjab side. As such, work on the project, which was to get underway last year, will be further delayed.

The state’s interest will be better served if the Ghanauli-Baddi link is extended to join the Chandigarh-Kalka track at any suitable point as it will not only link Chandigarh to Baddi, but will also help join Nangal-Talwara and Bhanupali-Beri sections with the Kalka-Shimla section, vastly improving rail connectivity in the region.

The state’s first and most vigorously Kalka-Parwanu broad-gauge extension was finally abandoned after repeated surveys over a period of 30 years. The proposal for upgradation of Pathankot-Jogindernagar narrow gauge section has also been rejected and instead the Railways propose to secure World Heritage Site status for it on the pattern of the Shimla-Kalka toy train.

A preliminary feasibility survey has been carried out for the 498-km Bilaspur-Manali-Leh link and the tentative cost has been put at Rs 22,000 crore. The state hopes that it will be included in the rail budget for carrying out detailed feasibility survey.

The proposal for linking Dehradun with Paonta Sabhib, Kala Amb and Ambala, has been low on the state’s priority and has not been pursued seriously.

The region has large migrant population from Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh who have been demanding Chandigarh to be linked to Dehradun via Kala Amb and Paonta Sahib. It will provide a convenient link to the most frequented pilgrim centre of Haridwar. 

Mandi, June 16
Taking a U-turn over the demolition of “288 unauthorised houses” in Mandi town, the 13-member house of the Mandi Municipal Council (MMC) today unanimously passed the buck on the revenue authorities and decided that “council owns no land in the town and has no authority to remove the encroachment as directed by the high court”.

Considering its political fallout, the house unanimously made a U-turn on the demolition order served on 57 owners and 231 others, pleading that they had no proper documentary evidence and no authority to issue the demolition order as land belonged to the revenue department.

The house decided that they had no “revenue details of each case like its khasra number on which the violator has built his/her house”.

“We do not know whether the encroachment is old or new or on private or government land,” the councillors stated, expressing their helplessness over the issue of unauthorised structures.

They unanimously decided that each case out of 288 cases should be sent to the revenue authorities, who would identify their proper khasra numbers, maintain file of and investigate each case to examine its nature of violation as the “council has no revenue details of all cases and no land in its name in the town”.

Ironically, the municipal council has given no objection certificates (NOCs) to house owners for water and electricity connections over the years. The decision has come as a relief to the violators, who have been up in arms against the council, pleading that the council had no system of sanctioning of map when they had built their houses. But it could incur the wrath of the high court, feared insiders.

The emergency meeting was called by the EO, MMC, here today after director, urban development, had directed the council on June 12 to file a compliance action report on all 288 cases to the department within two days. 

Dharamsala, June 16
President of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Board (HPCB) Anurag Thakur, in a statement issued recently, said lack of five-star hotel was a basic shortcoming for holding international cricket matches at the Dharamsala cricket stadium.

He also stated that ample land was not available for bringing up such hotel here.

However, a proposal for bringing up a five-star hotel has got stuck in district tourism office of Dharamsala. The proposal was submitted for bringing up a hotel near Gaggal domestic airport by GTV company. The company is already running hotels in Chail and near Jim Corbett National Park.

Sources available here told that the company was already in the process of acquiring land for the hotel. It had moved a file for clearance of project with the district tourism and development office (DTDO) in November last year. The office was supposed to forward the file to the directorate of tourism in Shimla.

However, for the past six months, the file has been lying in the office of the DTDO. In the recent past, controversy erupted over the file after authorised lawyer of GTV company Nishant Sharma and the DTDO traded charges.

The DTDO officials maintained that none of the directors of the company had approached their office. They are also maintaining there were certain discrepancies in the file that were not redressed.

The authorised advocate for GTV company, on the other hand, has maintained that if there were certain discrepancies, the office of DTDO should have informed him. The office should have returned the file with objections, he added. He has also filed a police complaint in the matter.

However, in this entire imbroglio, the fact remains that five-star hotel project, that is vital for holding international cricket matches at Dharamsala, is stuck in bureaucratic procedures.

Officials of DTDO office were not available for comments despite repeated attempts to contact them on phone.