Shimla, August 23
A central team is likely to visit the state within a week’s time to assess the drought situation and scrutinise the memorandum submitted by the state to seek funds for carrying out relief measures.

Apart from the normal relief admissible according to the calamity relief fund (CRF), norms for crop loss, supply of drinking and fodder in the drought-affected areas, the state had sought funds for providing foodgrains to 5.50 lakh APL (above poverty line) families at the highly subsidised BPL(below poverty line) rates.

The plea of the government is that 85 per cent of people, mostly small and marginal farmers, are dependent on agriculture and with more than 50 per cent crop ruined by drought, they will not only be deprived of their income, but will also have to procure their own requirements from market.

It is for the first time that funds are being sought under drought relief to provide subsidy on foodgrains.

The proposal is to supply foodgrains at the BPL rates for the next eight months to the APL families. Additional subsidy the government would have to provide for the purpose, works out to Rs 68 crore.

The government has also demanded Rs 86 crore on account of the expenditure incurred on supplying water through tankers, installing and energising hand pumps in the drought affected areas.

Besides, it had also demanded Rs 108 crore for augmentation of irrigation facilities and Rs 172 crore for providing drinking water to 1,118 non-covered and partially covered habitations.

The total loss on account of damage to agricultural and horticultural crops had been estimated at Rs 872 crore and a relief of Rs 609 crore had been sought.

The maximum loss amounting to Rs 288 crore had been reported in respect of vegetables, followed by maize (Rs 274 crore), apple and stone fruit (Rs 248 crore) and paddy (Rs 29 crore).

Rainfall in all 12 districts has been deficient by more than 50 per cent as a result of which kharif crops suffered damaged ranging from 5 per cent to 80 per cent.

Dry fodder and cattle feed was procured from neighbouring states for which transport subsidy of Rs 43 crore was sought.

The central team will visit various parts of the state to make assessment and recommendations on the basis of the memorandum which will be put before the central empowered committee.

Shimla, August 23
The government will formulate a new transport policy to effectively regulate the functioning of private operators and the state road transport corporation will make efforts to secure agency of the Tata Motors for supply of chassis and spare parts.

Stating this, while replying to the discussion raised recently in the Vidhan Sabha by Mukesh Agnihotri under Rule 63, Transport Minister Mohinder Singh said the policy would address all issues like proper training of drivers, preventing drivers from using mobile phones, playing of music and videos in buses which distracted the driver and other related matters to ensure passengers’ safety.

The regulation had become important as the fleet of private buses was growing fast. There are 2,708 private buses as against the state’s fleet of 1,953 buses.

The government would consider increasing the duration of training of drivers and introduction of digital driving licence, besides taking steps to ensure that the passengers were not fleeced with the connivance of crew at ‘dhabas’, particularly outside the state.

He said the corporation would try to get the agency of Tata chassis and spare parts for buses to eliminate the middlemen.

Various truck operators’ unions and private bus operators had expressed willingness to procure chassis from the corporation if it succeeded in securing the agency.

He also appreciated the suggestions of the members for securing distribution agency of major tyre-manufacturing companies.

Earlier, initiating the discussion, Mukesh Agnihotri expressed concern over the mounting losses of the corporation which were touching Rs 500 crore. Its fleet had not kept pace with the increasing road-density in the state.

In fact, the corporation was burdened with over 550 buses of zero value which had completed their life and it was not surprising that there were frequent breakdowns.

The corporation had its own workshops but still bus bodies were being fabricated from builders outside the state.

He made a strong plea for corporation securing distribution agencies for chassis, spare parts and tyres to bring down cost and ensure quality.

He also expressed surprise that old registration numbers were still in use in the state in violation of the Motor Vehicles Act.

Sudhir Sharma suggested that global positioning system should be made mandatory for all buses for effective monitoring. Besides, digital licence should be introduced for bus drivers to weed out fake licences.

Shimla, August 23
The state government has come up with a novel afforestation programme “Sanjha Van-Sanjivani Van”, a community driven scheme, to make Himachal Pradesh a “herbal bowl” of the country.

The scheme envisages large-scale plantation of medicinal plants across the state through the joint forest management committees (JFMCs).

Last year, every household was motivated to plant at least one medicinal plant as part of “Jan Jan Sanjivani” programme under which over 16 plants were distributed.

The main aim of the programme was to create awareness among the people about the need to preserve the environment, particularly medicinal plants, many of which have been endangered due to indiscriminate exploitation.

Forests play a vital role in maintaining ecological balance and the socio-economic development of the country. The state has a vast reserve of forest wealth, valued at about Rs 1.5 lakh crore.

The flora of the state consists of around 3,500 species of plants, out of which about 800 species are rich in medicinal value, and 165 other species are collected for various commercial purposes.

The state is the largest supplier of chilgoza, kuth, dioscoria, dhoop, picrorrhiza, valeriana and ephedra in the country.

Till now there has been no systematic plantation of medicinal species by the Forest Department. It will be for the first time that more than one crore medicinal plants will be planted by involving 525 JFMCs under the scheme.

Committees will plant herbal plants on 2,500 hectare under different afforestation components. On maturity, 75 per cent of the income generated from the plantations will go to the committee and the remaining 25 per cent to the panchayat concerned.

To make the programme a complete success, the Himachal Pradesh State Forest Development Corporation will assist the JFMCs for developing skills for handling the medicinal plant produce, including marketing.

The state Medicinal Plant Board has recently signed a MoU with Patanjali Yog Peeth, Haridwar, for marketing of medicinal plants and herbs.

The medicinal plants are able to provide 80 per cent raw material to the herb-based industry in the country and can earn huge profits if they can be exported.

Palampur, August 23
Increasing encroachment on government land, particularly on state and national highways, has become a matter of concern.

Long traffic jams on the Mandi-Pathankot National Highway have become a daily affair because of encroachment which hinders smooth flow of vehicles.

The Himachal Pradesh Roadside Land Control Act prohibits any construction within five metres of the state highway on both sides, but it seems that officials are ignorant about the law.

Despite instructions from the state government and orders of the Himachal Pradesh High Court to remove encroachments from the highways, the local administration and national highway authorities are unconcerned with the situation and waiting for a major road tragedy to happen.

Over 50 fruit vendors and vegetable sellers have encroached the Mandi-Pathankot National Highway, which is one of the busiest roads of the town.

As the vendors have occupied one-fourth portion of the highway, it becomes difficult for heavy vehicles to ply.

Local municipal council and the administration, well conversant with the situation, have not initiated any steps to remove the encroachments in the past two years.

Most of the vendors enjoy the patronage of local leaders, therefore, no one dares to ask them to shift.

Information gathered from sources revealed that the municipal council was illegally charging Rs 50 from these vendors daily despite the fact that the land being used belonged to the NH division of the state Public Works Department (PWD).

Another area of concern is Ghuggar where the width of the road has reduced to just two-and-a-half metres because of number of shops on both sides of the road.

The PWD has even failed to serve a simple notice to these encroachers. Most of the shops here had come up on the government land.

This was happening under the nose of senior state government officers who passed by this road daily but hardly bothered to initiate steps to remove encroachments.

Dharamsala, August 23
Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has expressed concern over the decreasing female birth rate in the state, especially in border districts.

Kangra and Una --- both border districts of the state --- have the lowest sex ratio
in the state.

He appealed for the cooperation of the people in checking female foeticide in their respective areas.

They should inform the local authorities about any such incident taking place in their areas, he added.

To encourage people in giving information against the malpractice, the government has decided to give cash awards to individuals and additional developmental grants to gram panchayats helping in the cause.

To extend due honour to women in society, the state government has decided to give 50 per cent reservation to women in coming panchayati raj elections, he said.

He gave this information while talking to mediapersons at Kathgarh today. He was here to preside over a state-level function organised by the Rajput Kalyan Sabha.

While addressing the Maharana Pratap Adarsh Sammelan organised at Kathgarh, the CM said the state would be extending all cooperation for organising functions connected with historical events.

He also announced a grant of Rs 11 lakh to start construction of Maharana Pratap Bhawan at Kathgarh.

Remembering the historical icon, the CM said history remembered people who had rendered exemplary services towards society.

Maharana Pratap had abdicated comforts of the princely life and carried forward with his fight against the Mughals. He never compromised with the interest of the state he ruled, Dhumal said.

The CM announced a grant of Rs 21,000 to the schoolchildren who presented an impressive cultural programme on the occasion.

He also released a music album titled “Talwar” produced by Sunny Salaria on the
occasion. Earlier, Dhumal visited the historic Kathgarh temple to offer obeisance to
Lord Shiva.

IPH Minister Ravinder Singh Ravi, while speaking on the occasion, said Maharana Pratap had dedicated his life to eradication of social vices from the society. Teachings of the leader were more relevant in present day context, he added.

Kangra MP Rajan Sushant, MLAs Rakesh Pathania and Desh Raj, former MP Kripal Parmar, former MLAs Harbans Rana and Vikram Katoch, former State Women Commission chairperson Malvika Pathania, Deputy Commissioner RS Gupta, Kangra SP Atul Fulzele, were among others present on the occasion.

Kangra, August 23
A procession was taken out from Ujjain, on the outskirts of this town, to the Donga Bazar locality here today for the installation of the Ganesh idol in connection with Ganesh Chaturthi.

The idol, which was made by artisans from outside the state and which took them nearly one month to complete it, was shifted to a pandal.

The procession of Lord Ganesha started from Ujjain locality and passed through new general bus stand, Dharamsala road and main bazaar of the town before it was installed at the pandal, in the vicinity of Bajjreshwari temple.

The site is one of the 52 shakti peeths, where a part of goddess Sati’s body had fallen when her husband Lord Shiva took her consigned body to the Himalayas.

Devotees of the lord recited Vedic hymns and the air resounded with “Ganpati Bappa Morya”. The week-long celebration in this town attracts people from all over the district. Prasada was distributed all along the route of the procession to devotees.

Kangra, August 23
Residents of Kachiari village last night caught five Army vehicles and a JCB allegedly being used for illegal mining in the Sukot khud.

However, tension prevailed in the area for more than two hours before an amicable settlement was reached.

According to Kachiari village pradhan Rajinder Kaur, five Army vehicles and a JCB arrived at Sukot khud last evening and started mining illegally, which is strictly banned in view of environmental degradation.

She said local residents assembled and gheraoed the vehicles and called the police. She alleged that it took more than one hour for the police to arrive on the spot.

Later on, the residents and Army personnel in presence of Army officers who too arrived on the scene and the police negotiated.

The Army personnel assured that the ditches made in the khud would be filled up and such activity would not be repeated any more.

Following negotiations, the Army vehicles were allowed to move from the spot. The pradhan said today the Army filled up the ditches made in the khud last night.

The police confirmed the incident and said the issue was mutually settled between Army personnel and local residents.

Meanwhile, the pradhan alleged that illegal mining was continuing unabated at nights by local mining mafia without any check by Mining Department and local authorities.

They have demanded that the government should take immediate action to make this national highway worthy of plying all types of vehicles and order repair of potholes and depressions.

Tarring work was only done on 8-km stretch of this road from Sungal to Berry this year, they alleged.

Mandi, August 23
Consumers are an irate lot in this temple town as the top-heavy HP State Electricity Board has been slapping bimonthly-inflated bills on them as the board is facing shortage of clerical staff to disburse monthly bills and shortage of linemen to take care of their complaints.

Residents resented that the board had been slapping hefty electricity bills for two months at one go without even taking meter reading.

“The bills range from Rs 500 to 1,100. When we complain to the board, it says that it will take care of it next month, which never comes,” they rued.

Though the board had outsourced the billing of one of the six subdivisions in this town to the private contractor, the contractor did not show any interest after his contract expired on March this year.

There is none interested in taking up the tedious billing job. “The contractor first has to take the meter reading from each house and disburse bills to consumers at their doorsteps at the rate of Rs 2 per bill given by the top-heavy board,” they revealed.

The visit to the board office in the town was an eye-opener. “Engineers were gossiping, one of the seniors was reading an autobiography and higher ones were busy in some routine meeting in the chief’s office.”

In fact, there are six divisions in the town, each has a SDO and four JEs, but the four posts of clerks and linemen are vacant.

There is nobody to take “meter reading and then disburse bills to over 1 lakh consumers in this town”, revealed insiders.

Superintending engineer Amar Singh, while facing queries, said they would put the billing system back on the track.

“I have joined recently and settling down, but we will disburse all bills every month and look into consumers’ complaints within two months time,” he added.

However, the SE refused to comment on as to why the board was top-heavy and why there was shortage of staff taking care of consumer services.

Mandi, August 23
The Communist Party of India (CPI) said today that party workers would gherao the Vidhan Sabha tomorrow at Shimla, charging that the state government had failed in providing relief to drought-hit farmers while labourers were bearing the brunt of industrialists and project companies as the Labour Department had failed to check violation of labour laws in the state.

CPI state general secretary Des Raj said the state government had done nothing for drought-hit farmers except declaring the state drought-hit.

Even labour laws violation by private companies was rampant and the Labour Department had become a useless tool in their hands dumping labour complaints in the dustbin, he charged.

He further said NREGA implementation remained scanty and thousands of applications were pending as the needy villagers were neither getting employment nor unemployment allowance as provided under the NREGA Act.

District officials were dumping complaints in connection with NREGA and the administration had collapsed, he charged.

Des Raj further alleged that prices of commodities were going through the roof, but the UPA government was appeasing industrialists on the directions of the World Bank and the IMF.

He said the CPI would gherao the Vidhan Sabha tomorrow to lodge its protest. Central CPI leaders Dr Joginder Dayal would address the workers coming from all over the state on the occasion, he added.