Shimla, July 9
Finding itself on a sticky wicket on the issue of appointment of chief parliamentary secretaries (CPSs), the BJP today said it would welcome any move by the Congress to move the court on the issue so that a uniform law could be enacted for the entire country.

Addressing a press conference here today, Satya Pal Jain, in charge of party affairs in Himachal, vehemently justified the appointment which he had himself opposed as a lawyer when a writ petition had been filed in the high court when the Congress had made the appointments.

He said the position, with regard to appointment of CPSs and PSs, was different in various states. “The BJP is open on the issue and since the Congress is in power at the Centre, there is a need for either Parliament or the Supreme Court to come out with clear-cut directives on the issue,” he opined.

He said another amendment could be made to earlier amendment on limiting the size of the Cabinet.

“We had opposed the appointment of CPS and PSs by the Congress on the ground that administrative approval had not been taken and there was no provision for the appointment,” he said. He added that after the Act had been enacted by the Congress in 2006, there was no hitch in making these appointments.

When asked that the BJP had opposed the very Act on the basis of which the CPS appointments were made today, Jain defended by saying that an Act was for everyone once it was passed by the Assembly. He clarified that the writ petition against the CPS and PSs’ appointments had not been filed by the BJP but by the Citizen Rights Protection Forum and he was their senior counsel.

Ironically, Jain sought protection to defend the appointments by extensively quoting from the speech made by the then Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, defending the posts of CPS and PSs. 

Shimla, July 9
Chief Minister PK Dhumal today inducted Jai Ram and Mohinder Singh, both from the Mandi district, to fill the two vacant berths to complete his ministry. He also appointed three chief parliamentary secretaries (CPSs) from Una and Sirmour, the two districts which had been unrepresented so far, turning a volte-face on the issue of parliamentary secretaries (PSs).

While the ministers were administered oath by Governor Prabha Rau at the Raj Bhawan, Dhumal administered oath to the three CPSs at the Secretariat.

With this the total number ministers, including the Chief Minister, has risen to 12, the maximum permissible for the state with a 68-member Legislative Assembly under the law limiting the size of ministry.

Five-time MLA Mohinder Singh was administered oath after Jai Ram. As such he will be the junior-most member of the Cabinet, unless ranking of ministers is notified. It is worth mentioning that some senior leaders like HN Singh and Ram Lal Markandey, who were ministers in the BJP-HVC government, refused to accept the office of CPS.

With the latest inductions, the number of representatives from the Rajput community has gone up to 15, including CPSs. There is one Brahmin minister, one from the Scheduled Caste and three from backward classes.

Dhumal said the law limiting the size of ministry was indeed a big constraint in providing representation to all sections of people and regions of the state. He said in his view, the law should be amended so that aspirations of people in a democratic set up could be fulfilled.

He conceded that appointment of CPSs would put extra burden on the state exchequer but maintained that it would be useful expenditure and help serve people better. The government could save money elsewhere by taking the required measures, he said.

The previous Congress government had appointed CPSs and PSs without creating the posts or seeking financial and administrative approval. These were the main grounds on which the high court had quashed appointments.

Shimla, July 9
Jai Ram Thakur, the newly inducted minister, has been allocated the portfolio of Panchayati Raj and Rural Development.

However, there has been no change in the departments held by the earlier eight ministers in the Dhumal Cabinet except that of Transport Minister Kishan Kapoor. He has been allocated the departments of Industry, Labour, Inquiry and Sainik Welfare.

The other newly inducted minister, Mohinder Singh, has been allocated Transport, Town and Country Planning (TCP), Housing and Urban Development. All these portfolios were earlier held by Kapoor.

Chief Parliamentary Secretary Satpal Satti has been attached with the Chief Minister to look after the affairs of the Power and Sports Department.

Vikram Kanwar, CPS, has been attached with Gulab Singh Thakur to assist in the Public Works Department (PWD). He will also assist Education Minister ID Dhiman in Elementary and Secondary Education.

The third CPS sworn-in today, Sukhram Chaudhary, has been attached with the Chief Minister to look after Agriculture and Animal Husbandry.

Shimla, July 9
The government today decided to set up a Cabinet sub-committee to consider proposals for setting up of medical colleges in private-public partnership in Una and Hamirpur.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the state Cabinet chaired by Chief Minister PK Dhumal here today.

The sub-committee after scrutinising the project will recommend the same to the Cabinet for its approval. It also decided to frame stream-wise distribution formula for admission to BEd courses in private educational institutions in the state. Once counselling has been started, no change in the distribution of seats will be allowed. Change, if any, shall be applicable for the next academic session.

It also sanctioned an additional Rs 10 lakh for Aman Kachroo Memorial Trust, which has been formed to strengthen anti-ragging measures in educational institutes, following the death of Aman Kachroo, a student of Tanda medical college, due to ragging.

The Cabinet decided to withdraw the Himachal Pradesh Education Department (Exemption from applicability of maximum age limits for direct recruitment in class-III teaching services) Rules, 1987. It approved stamp duty and registration fee, chargeable on the instruments of assignment of debt by financial institutions, chargeable as conveyance executed in favour of Asset Reconstruction Company constituted under Section 3 of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002, (Act No. 54 of 2002) and registered under the Companies Act, 1956 (Act No. 1 of 1956) by the Department of Non-Banking Supervision, Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai, be reduced and fixed to a maximum of Rs 1 lakh as stamp duty and a maximum of Rs 25,000 as registration fee.

It has been decided to create engineering cells under Rogi Kalyan Samitis initially in the IGMC, Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College, Kangra at Tanda, and all district hospitals of the state for the maintenance and upkeep of hospital buildings.

Shimla, July 9
Khimi Ram, representing the Banjar Assembly constituency in Kullu district, has been appointed as the new state BJP chief in place of Jai Ram Thakur who was inducted in the Cabinet today.

Keeping in line with the “one-man, one-post principle”, Thakur had sent his resignation to BJP national president, Rajnath Singh. His resignation was accepted and in his place Khimi Ram has been handed over the reins of the party.

Khimi Ram was the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly before he was assigned the party chief post. He took over as party president at the state BJP office, here today.

He is a two-term MLA, who won the last two elections from the Banjar constituency in Kullu district. He was also the Kullu district BJP chief which he resigned from after he was appointed the Deputy Speaker.

Shimla, July 9
The Congress has termed the appointment of chief parliamentary secretaries (CPSs) as a moral defeat of the BJP and urged senior party leader Satya Pal Jain to quit as in charge of the party affairs for making a U-turn on the issue.

Chief spokesperson of the party Kuldeep Rathore said Jain had spearheaded the party’s legal battle against the appointment of CPSs and PSs during the Congress regime. He had termed these appointments as “unconstitutional” and a ploy to facilitate “back-door entry” into ministry, bypassing the law and limiting the size of ministry.

More importantly, he had categorically stated that the BJP would not make any such appointments after coming to power and if this happened, he would quit as in charge of the party affairs.

Obviously, it was time for Jain to fulfil his commitment by resigning from the party position he was holding, the Congress leader said.

The action of Chief Minister PK Dhumal had exposed dual personality of the BJP which had been changing stand after coming to power on various issues.

If the party had been sincere about the law enacted by the Vajpayee government to limit the size of the ministry, it would have repealed the law passed by the Congress government to facilitate appointment of CPSs after coming to power. However, showing utter disregard to political ethics and moral values, the party was using the law to make appointments to which it was opposed in principle, he alleged.

The BJP had not learnt any lesson from its defeat in the recent Lok Sabha elections and was pursuing politics “devoid of morality” to suit convenience which brought its downfall at the national level, he added.

Solan, July 9
A 1988-batch senior IAS officer, Sanjay Gupta was caught red-handed with an amount of Rs 2 lakh which he had allegedly received from the manager of General Industries Corporation (GIC), Ashok Sehgal, at a private hotel in Parwanoo, by a team of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau this morning.

Sanjay Gupta is former MD, GIC, and present MD, Financial Corporation

According to sources, the team had a tip-off that Gupta was going to receive money from Sehgal, which led the team to nab them.

It was learnt that the duo had checked in room number 201 of the hotel and Gupta had asked his driver to bring his briefcase upstairs. He then stacked Rs 2 lakh which Sehgal had given him. He then sent the briefcase back with the driver while he 
and Sehgal came down through the hotel’s lift.

The police team intercepted them as soon as they sat in the official car (HP-07-B-0149) and nabbed them with the cash. They were later brought to the Parwanoo police station.

It was learnt that Sehgal failed to explain where the money had been procured from and why it was being handed over to Gupta in a private hotel.

A case under the Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered and the two were arrested.

The Bureau team later left for Panchkula to raid the house of Gupta’s father and his father-in-law. Information about various bank accounts in his and his wife’s name were recovered from his father’s residence located at Mansa Devi Complex.

It is worth mentioning that Sehgal was on deputation from HIMFED and was looking after the GIC’s plant at Parwanoo which had been handed over to the GIC a few years back.

He was designated as the plant’s manager.

His tenure at HIMFED had remained controversial as he was embroiled in various irregularities, including grant of undue rebate amounting to Rs 64 lakh to a defaulter liquor contractor on a credit sale of Rs 86 lakh in the year 2000. The arrest of these two officers has left the entire bureaucracy shocked.

No officer was, however, available for comments as all of them had conveniently switched off their cell phones.

Bilaspur, July 9
Four persons, Ashok Kumar Mishra, Mohammed Ali Ul Rehman, Krishan Kumar Yadav and Narander Kumar, all residents of Delhi, were sent to judicial custody yesterday.

They were nabbed by the police at Ghagas, near here, after they allegedly kidnapped an ASI, Mohan Lal, from Aut in Mandi while he was on his duty and fled in their Santro car.

However, later they were arrested by a police team.

Constables Ramzan and Raj Kumar received injuries during this as their vehicle overturned while they were chasing the vehicle of the accused.

SP Kuldip Sharma said all accused had criminal background and a police party had been sent to Delhi to know more about them.

Meanwhile, the police has registered a case under Sections 307, 336 and 337, IPC, against them for breaking police barriers and causing injuries to police personnel.

The SP said the case of kidnapping a police officer had been registered against them at Mandi disrtrict as the incident took place at Aut.

He said the incident took place when the ASI stopped them to show papers of the vehicle, which was without number plate.

They failed to show him the papers following which they were challaned by the ASI.

However, they told him that they could not come again here to attend the date of the challan and paid a fine of Rs 1,000.

Solan, July 9
Upset at his “ignorance” in the Cabinet expansion, Nalagarh MLA HN Saini said today that the criteria of performance in the elections had failed to serve as a criterion for being inducted as a minister, as Chief Minister PK Dhumal himself failed to retain winning margin in own booth.

He said though the criteria was being touted as the most crucial prior to the elections, Samirpur, which was the home booth of the CM, registered a decline of 34 per cent in the voter per cent.

He added that the winning lead had also declined in his home district of Hamirpur from around 80,000 to 23,000.

Peeved at being left out from the Cabinet, he said this expansion was not only “lopsided” but had further widened the regional chasm.

As many as nine ministers were confined to Mandi, Kangra and Hamirpur districts while the Shimla parliamentary constituency had merely two ministers.

He said: “The CM chose to benefit his family members as one of the two ministers inducted today is a close relative while another close relative was already a minister and his son was an MP,” adding that “This has upset regional and caste factors as the Sikh community failed to be represented while majority of the ministers were from the Rajput community.”

Saini said he would put his grievance before the high command.

Dharamsala, July 9
The authorities today moved in a lukewarm manner against the centre working on behalf of nursing colleges in Punjab who were selling degrees to students of Himachal.

However, on intervention of health secretary Deepak Shanan, the district police authorities today sent a team to the centre running on the Civil Lines road.

Kangra SP Atul Fulzele said it was found that people running the centre did not have any permission from the health department of the state for educating nursing students here. Kangra CMO was also questioned in this regard.

“We are sending the report to the health secretary who will take further action,” the SP said.

Secretary health, when contacted, said the entire operation of educating students here enrolled in Punjab-based nursing colleges was illegal.

“We have asked the district authorities to take an action in the matter.

A case could be registered against the people running such centres,” the secretary said.

The police is looking for a legal complainant in the matter.

Police officials, while speaking on the condition of anonymity, alleged that ideally the health department officials should have checked the illegal activity and reported the matter to them for further action.

However, till date we have received no complaint from the district health authorities, they alleged.

Meanwhile, it is ironical that the centre was being run right under the nose of district health authorities, just about 200 yards from the office of Kangra CMO.

Students in nursing uniform used to commute on the road regularly but nobody cared to take notice of the illegal activity. As reported, nursing colleges of Punjab had set shops here.

Inquiries by The Tribune revealed that the colleges had appointed certain agents in the area to rope in students.

The students, though on regular rolls of colleges located in Punjab, never went there to attend classes but only to appear in examinations.

Classes of nursing students were, in fact, held here and they were trained in local private nursing homes. 

Mandi, July 9
Thanks to “poor maintenance and installation of hand pumps at non-feasible sites”, their installation has turned out to be a big scam as its “mortality rate in the state remains as high as 45 per cent for the Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) mantra is, more the merrier”. Inquiries made by The Tribune revealed that installing of hand pumps had turned out to be a multi-crore scam as each pump cost Rs 1.5 lakh or more.

These were not being installed where they were hydrologically feasible, but set up at places at the “whim and fancy of local politicians”.

According to experts, out of over 18,000 hand pumps installed by the IPH in the state, their mortality rate remained as high as 45 per cent.

“Even hand pumps in running condition yield ‘red water’, thanks to high iron content that makes pump water unfit for human consumption,” they revealed.

“Most of the hand pumps between Bajaura and Kullu town are out of order,” rued residents.

The story is no different in other parts of the state, including the Mandi-Sundernagar belt, where hand pumps mortality remains over 40 per cent.

“The hand pump mortality in Kullu district remains as high as 70 per cent,” experts revealed.

IPH experts, hydrologists and contractors associated with installation of hand pumps revealed that the “mortality rate is higher not because water table is deeper as compared to the plains, but because there is no maintenance budget for the same”.

Hydrologists said the success rate could go as high as 90 per cent, but the IPH was more concerned with its installation than maintenance.

“Even now, contractors are called from outside the state as each hand pump allegedly involves a commission to the tune of Rs 20,000,” they charged.

On the other hand, IPH top engineers said out of over 18,000 hand pumps installed in the state, only 800 of them were either out of order or under repair.

Dismissing the charges, DK Gupta, engineering-in-chief, IPH, claimed that the mortality was not as high as 45 per cent. Hand pumps were only installed at sites recommended by hydrologists, he claimed.

Kullu, July 9
A woman, who was reluctant to deliver triplets when her pregnancy was diagonised, was elated after she was blessed with three bonny boys on Tuesday in a private hospital here.

Sneh Lata (34), a resident of Bhutti Colony, said she was apprehensive during her initial pregnancy period as her husband lived in Phillipines. She later strengthened her mind on the advice of the doctor who motivated her to go ahead with the pregnancy. She said she was happy to have three sons who were hale and hearty.

Doctor Sumedh Kaul, who did the Caesarean, said the infants weighed 1.9; 1.8 and 1.6 kg. Kaul said the surgery was done after completion of 34 weeks due to pre-term indications and expressed satisfaction over the improvement and adoption by the new arrivals who did not need any incubator or any artificial medical respiratory aids.

Doctor Kaul further claimed that he had done the first ever successful abdomen pregnancy surgery in the year 1995 at Government Hospital, Kullu, without the required medical and surgical support — OC