Kasol/Malana, July 30
The contraband cannabis hybrid crop is flourishing in the remote hidden patches of Ougal Thatch, Tosh Kotla, Pinsu and Malunder forest areas. Mafias were involved in cutting thousands of trees to grow cannabis plants in Tosh Kotla in 2005, but matter had been hushed up.

The unaccounted number of stumps of trees, some of them burnt to hide detection, litter the cannabis crop fields in the hidden patches of forest in Tosh Kotla, a 3-km trek from Tosh village, Ougal Thatch and Malunder and the Pinsu area in Kasol-Malana range, reveal an unofficial field survey.

Tree-stumps are witness to how thousands of trees have been cut to cultivate cannabis to get high-quality hashish. A cultivator can earn on an average Rs 10,000 to 20,000 from hash. But middleman makes most of the kill, ranging from Rs 60,000 to 1 lakh per kg depending where he sells hashish, say experts.

Hashish smugglers-both from Parbati valley and outside-seem to be encouraging “certain needy villagers” to grow hybrid cannabis on forest land. “This is to avoid detection and registration of cases under the NDPS Act against them,” the police revealed.

The opium cultivation emits ultraviolet rays which “satellite imagery” detects, says OP Sharma. “But it cannot detect cannabis as it does not emit any such rays”.

Parbati DFO Ani Sharma says illegal cultivation has been detected in certain forest areas, but illicit felling has not been brought to his notice so far. The hybrid cannabis seeds are thrown in the open areas, and these grow naturally, says a cultivator. “Nepalese labour is involved in sowing, harvesting or rubbing of hashish and fetch a daily of Rs 500”.

The scale of illegal cultivation is vast and growing. “It involves 3,553 villages in 592 panchayats in the state,” observes OP Sharma in his field survey in these areas. Former superintendent, NCB, Sharma headed joint NCB-police anti-cannabis drives in the state from 2003 till 2006.

But the anti-drug drives remain more or less cosmetic exercise after 2006, as teams did not touch cultivation on forest in hard areas. As a result, illegal cultivation has increased to 15,000 bighas, most of it on forest land, observes an unofficial field survey.

Apart from Parbati valley, cannabis is detected in Churah-Tissa in Chamba, Khanag-Bishlidhar areas in Ani subdivision and Mashiar-Glingcha in Batahar belt and Sainj valley in Banjar subdivision, Thatchi-Chamaj-Karsog belt in Mandi, pockets in Chota and Bara Bhanghal in hills of Kangra, the police confirmed. Kullu SP KK Indoria claims that cannabis cultivation has decreased on private land in the district. The joint team of revenue and forest police has been dispatched to destroy cannabis in the Parbati, Banjar, Lug and Malana areas, he claimed.

ADGP, CID, ID Bhandari says, “We will destroy illegal cultivation and educate cultivators to shun its cultivation. Ask forest staff to detect cultivation and report to the police”. Principal chief conservator of forests Vinay Tandon says the department has asked the field staff to report detection of illegal cultivation.

Solan, July 30
With nearly 30 per cent industrial units, located in the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial area, lacking the requisite fire preparedness they have been declared unsafe, while another 5 per cent have been found to be highly vulnerable as they lacked even the basic fire-safety measures.

These findings have emerged after a committee headed by the CEO, BBN Development Authority, comprising Baddi SP, Nalagarh SDM, Labour Officer, commandant Home Guards, Fire Officer and others, inquired into the fire preparedness of nearly 720 industrial units after receiving directions from the Chief Minister on June 6.

The directions followed a sordid fire incident at a Khera-based industrial unit where nine lives were lost in June.

While blaming the units for adopting a casual approach towards this crucial factor, the committee has concluded that a vast majority of over 700 units examined had failed to avail a permanent fire-safety certificate and continued to run on provisional certificates. The Fire Department on its part failed to ensure its compliance due to its staff shortage.

The report, which was concluded today, has recommended filling of all pending posts in the Fire Department, besides making available more staff and equipment in view of the large industrial expansion post 2003 industrial package.

The most alarming fact was the blatant violation of the Town and Country Planning (TCP) norms where building designs had been violated so much so that it left little scope for fire fighting in case of a mishap. The cluster of industrial areas developed by government agencies like HPSIDC, Industries Department, etc, topped the list of violations where virtually no setbacks had been left. Units set up on private plots were found better as far as building norms were concerned. The committee has therefore recommended adoption of national building code as a mandatory provision in the TCP norms.

It was also observed that the older industrial units, which existed prior to the 2003 central industrial package, had failed to get fire certification, as it was not enforced earlier.

The committee also pointed out that in view of the multiplicity of agencies involved in granting various permissions to an industrial unit the crucial area of regulating the fire certification had been ignored. In a bid to rope in more industries what had taken shape was an unregulated rush of units where the crucial factors like fire safety norms had remained sidelined.

Shimla, July 30
The Forest Department will appoint three DFOs at Shimla, Kullu and Rampur to exclusively look after encroachment cases on forest land and ensure speedy eviction, as these divisions have been detected with the highest number of such cases.

Disclosing this here today while addressing a press conference, Nadda admitted that stricter measures would have to be adopted not only to ensure eviction but also to ensure that precious forest land is not encroached. “It is in consultation with other government agencies like the revenue that we will have to take certain steps to ensure speedy implementation of the eviction orders,” he said.

Nadda said a total of 8,893 encroachment cases had been challaned since 1994. Out of this, 4,497 cases had been decided and eviction orders passed while in 2,137 cases the land had been evicted, he added.

While stating that preservation and protection of forests had been given added priority, he said under the “Van Sarovar” scheme ponds and other water bodies would be created from wildlife protection point of view and also as a means to check forest fires. “To begin with 200 such ponds will be created and all divisions had been asked to identify sites so that the scheme can be implemented within this year,” Nadda added.

Under the innovative initiative to link villagers with traditional tree conservation measures, over 8,000 pipal and banyan trees will be planted in 3,057 panchayts in the state. “Under the Jan Jan Sanjivini Abhiyaan this year, we intend to plant 15 lakh saplings on August 3 so that people can be encouraged to take to commercial cultivation of medicinal plants and herbs,” Nadda said.

The forest minister said a Rs 9.6 crore project had been approved by the National Afforestation and Eco-Development Board for undertaking plantation in nine divisions of Nurpur, Parbati, Ani, Dharamsala, Nalagarh, Shimla, Rajgarh, Dehra and Una.

He added a Rs 4 crore project was already under implementation in Kangra and Kullu where 1.96 crore plants would be planted over a period of five years till 2013.

He said besides six van thanas that had been opened last year, 10 new would be started this year as they would help in preventing, detecting and taking action against offenders in a more effective manner.

Shimla, July 30
There is no provision in the Constitution or any other rule defining duties, responsibilities and Members of Parliament and state legislatures through which their accountability can be fixed.

This interesting information has been provided by the Lok Sabha secretariat and various state legislatures in response to the information sought under the Right to Information Act by Dev Ashish Bhattacharya, an RTI activist.

In his application filed on February 2, 2009 he had sought to know the duties and responsibilities of MP’s and MLA’s and whether there was any provision or rule through which their accountability could be fixed for failure to perform their legal duties.

In response, Lok Sabha Public Information Officer Harish Chander, has said, “There is no provision either in the Constitution or the rules of procedure and conduct of business in the Lok Sabha defining duties and responsibilities of MP’s through which accountability can be fixed on non- performing MP’s”.

Replying to another query he has stated that provision of basic amenities and law and order in the respective constituencies of the members was the responsibility of the state governments and no record was maintained in the secretariat in this regard.

Similar replies have been received from various Vidhan Sabha secretariats, including Bihar, West Bengal, Manipur, Goa and Pondicherry.

For instance the PIO of Bihar assembly has replied “It is important to state that provision or rule pertaining to duties, responsibilities and accountability has not been specifically framed by the law makers”.

Bhattacharya asserts that as per rules, public servants cannot be paid salary, pension and other allowances without any duties, responsibilities and accountability. The same should be the case with elected representatives and no exception should be made.

Hundreds of crores of rupees are being spent on MP’s and MLA’s annually without any accountability. There is need to frame a law to fix their duties and make them accountable.

The application was originally filed with the Election Commission of India, which maintained that it was not concerned with any of the information sought in the application. Bhattacharya filed an appeal to get the application transferred to the Union Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and the Ministry of Law and Justice. They also maintained that it was not administratively concerned with the subject and the application was finally sent to the Lok Sabha and various state legislatures. 

Dharamsala, July 30
Residents of ward number 1 of the Yol Cantonment Board have boycotted the elections consecutively for the seventh time. They are demanding exclusion from the cantonment board since decades without any result.

The residents alleged that areas of Chatair, Lehsar, Bonardu, Bani and Nirwana villages are rural in nature. The primary vocation of most the inhabitants of the said villages is agriculture. However, due to inclusion of these areas in the Yol Cantonment Board in papers, the residents are suffering, as the area does not come under rural area.

They are neither getting the facilities of rural areas or urban areas as being given by the government. The agriculturists of said the villages do not get seeds, agriculture implements, fertilizers and money for repair of kulhs from the Panchayati Raj Department of the state just because in paper they form a part of an urban area. Besides, they are also not getting the benefit of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) that is providing employment to unemployed in other rural areas of the state.

The villagers alleged that they were not being excluded from the cantonment board area despite various letters and notifications by the government at various levels.

They alleged that initially in 1984 then Union Minister for State Vikram Mahajan informed the state government that the proposal to exclude 12 villages from the Yol Cantonment Board Area had been accepted.

In July 1991, the Panchayati Raj Department of the state issued a notification that Chatair village had already been excluded from the limit of the cantonment board. However, despite the notification it is still under the cantonment board.

In October 2000, the elected members of the cantonment board had also passed a resolution regarding excision of rural areas from the limits of the board. After protests by the locals the state government once again issued a notification excluding Theru and Chatair villages from the cantonment board area. The villagers were also intimated that military authorities had given no objection certificate to the DC, Kangra, for exclusion of the said villages.

However, nothing moved in papers and villagers are still left protesting.

The cantonment board authorities have been maintaining that they are providing urban facilities to the area included in their limits.

However, the problems of the villagers residing in the area are genuine as they are being deprived of facilities being provided to agriculturists and rural poor by the Union and the state government.

Mandi, July 30
The Right to Information (RTI) Act has brought to light a “widow and old-age pension scam” in the Bijni sub-post office, near here, involving a postmaster who allegedly forged signature of “seven recipients- six of them dead and seventh one in government job- pocketing their pension”.

President of the RTI Bureau, Mandi, Lawan Thakur today lodged a written complaint with the Mandi SP demanding penal action against all those involved in the “pension scam”.

According to RTI documents, the Bijni postmaster allegedly forged the signatures of seven persons- six of them died over a period of two years while the seventh pensioner got a government job. “The Welfare Department continues to send pension to seven pensioners at Bijni till now, the RTI revealed.

The pensioners involved in the case have been identified as Relu Ram, Chipnu village, who died on October 7, 2008 and Chet Ram, Maigal village, died on January 26, 2008. Aanghnu, Maigal village, died on November 21, 2008; Tej Ram, Bijni, died on July 22, 2007; Ram Singh, a resident of upper Bijni died an year ago and Bali Devi, wife of Shanker, Neri village, died on March 7, 2009, the RTI information revealed. The seventh pensioner, Jhechi Devi, ceased to be a pensioner as she got a government job in the Education Department two years ago. The postman, Thakur Singh, has reported in writing to the Bijni postmaster that the six persons have died and the seventh one is in government job. MS Thakur, welfare officer, Sadar tehsil, said it was the duty of the postmaster to send back pension to the department