Shimla, August 28
Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has called upon non-government organisations and voluntary agencies to take up afforestation drive in a big way to help combat climate change.

Addressing a public meeting at Nehra in Shimla(rural) subdivision after planting a sapling of 'Deodar' at a plantation programme organised by the State BJP Mahila Morcha he said afforestation programme had to be made a mass movement to achieve the desired objective of slowing down the process of global warming which was leading to climate change.

Dhumal underlined the need for revival of old and ageing plants so that by the time old trees completed their lifecycle there were enough young trees to take their place. He said plants were the most valuable wealth of the state which needed to be protected at all costs.

The chief minister said the state government had raised the matter of providing rights to the people to use the trees in their land for their own bona fide purposes. He said the state government had succeeded in getting the rights restored to the owner of the trees grown on the land of the people.

He said the government had launched a special plantation drive to revive the deodar plantation which lent a special charm to natural beauty of Shimla. The State Forest Department was carrying out the drive with the help of 11 NGOs and local organisations which had come forward to protect the plantations till they matured. He hoped that with the active participation of every section of society, Shimla would regain its past glory and the majestic ‘deodar’ forests for which it was known in the country.

Dhumal said 'Vanmahotsva’ should not be considered a mere formality, it must motivate people to protect the green cover as failure to do so would lead to disastrous consequences like global warming.

Dharamsala, August 28
Though he has not applied for the Congress ticket, former MLA Sujjan Singh Pathania has emerged as the strongest candidate for party ticket in the forthcoming byelections from the Jawali assembly constituency. The fact was also admitted by HPCC general secretary Asha Kumari who held a meeting at Jawali today.

When contacted by The Tribune, Asha Kumari said Sujjan Singh Pathania emerged as the consensus candidate at the meeting. Congress leaders from the constituency had also requested for an election rally by Union Minister for Steel Virbhadra Singh. “We will be sending a request for fixing the date for election rally of Virbhadra Singh in the area,” she said.

Asha Kumari also admitted that Sujjan Singh had not yet applied for the party ticket. Till date, the HPCC had received requests from two candidates, including Dhiman and Nishwar Singh, former HPCC member and youth Congress leader from the area.

The final selection of the candidate would, however, depend on the party president Sonia Gandhi, she added.

Nishwar Singh, however, presented a strong show of strength in meeting today. While taking to The Tribune, Nishwar Singh said he met Asha Kumari along with over thousand supporters. “I have been working for the party since 1982. I have requested that the party should give Sujjan Singh a chance during the current bypolls,” he said.

When asked about the claim of Nishwar Singh, Asha Kumari said, “A small group met separately after the meeting to express their views in his favour.”

She further said the Congress was waiting for the BJP candidate to be declared before chalking out its strategy for the byelections. Defeat margin of the Congress in Jawali constituency had reduced to 1,100 in the last parliamentary elections. “Now, the BJP is a divided house and workers are demoralised. We are hoping that the minor margin will now be converted into victory,” she said.

Shimla, August 28
Daring Union Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh to accept Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal’s offer of getting a probe by a central agency into allegations of phone tapping levelled by him, the BJP today said the former chief minister was trying to get sympathy on the issue.

In a statement issued here today, state BJP spokesperson Ashok Kapatia said the union minister was trying to gain sympathy and get political mileage on the issue with an eye on by-elections. “There is no substance in the allegations levelled by him or else he should seek a probe by a central agency into the phone-tapping allegations which are very serious,” said Kapatia.

The BJP leader said as far as the CD case was concerned it was a former Congress minister, Vijai Singh Mankotia who had made it public. “The Vigilance Bureau is investigating the case as per law and the BJP has in no way tried to influence the investigations,” he said.

He said Virbhadra Singh should reveal the names of people who he felt had hatched a conspiracy to defame him and that he was being falsely implicated.

Kullu, August 28
Taking a cue from the series on drugs in this district published in these columns, Orwan, a state agent from the US, and Mathew Bunt, consulate from the American embassy, have expressed concern over the large number of foreigners missing from the Manali and Parbati valley in the past many years.

They took up the matter with the district police during their recent visit here and called for “investigating the mysterious disappearance of foreigners, particularly American citizens, with the government of India”.

American embassy spokesperson refused to comment on the nature of the visit of the agent from the US here last week, citing the stringent Privacy Act as reasons from not disclosing the matter to the media. But sources reveal that the State agent and American consulate have expressed their desire to investigate the disappearance of American-cum-Israeli backpacker Amichai who went missing from Kheerganga in Parbati valley on July 21.

The team met KK Indoria, SP, Kullu, and questioned villagers at Kalga and Kheerganga. However, they returned to Delhi clueless as was the case with teams from Israel, who also remained clueless about the missing backpacker even after 39 days.

The private Indian and Israeli insurance company had also scanned the Kheerganga-Bhunbhuni area from where Amichai went missing by a “secret helicopter recce” that raised security concerns in the sensitive valley notorious for hashish smuggling.

The Centre also pulled up the state government for not providing adequate security for travellers from across the globe, sources said. Israel also deputed two “Israeli military climbers”, who searched the area around Kheerganga early this week, the sources added. Meanwhile, Indoria said the American team met him here and asked about the missing foreigners. He assured them of all possible help.

Solan, August 28
Power crisis in Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring Punjab appears to have impacted the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial belt as packagers are unable to get the requisite quantity of paper.

While the production has declined due to lack of power in the two states, which house the majority of paper mills, packagers are facing paper shortage in the BBN belt.

According to an estimate, the BBN industrial area consumed about 10,000 to 15,000 tonnes semi-craft paper every month but ever since the power supply was reduced to 24 to 30 hours in a week in these two states, production of paper too had declined by almost 30 per cent.

The BBN area houses 80-90 packagers who supply corrugated boxes and other packaging material to hundreds of industrial units. There are about 150 packaging units in various industrial areas, including Parwanoo, Kala Amb and Poanta Sahib.

With reduced power, the paper mills are finding it hard to meet their supply orders. The packagers are forced to wait for weeks together to procure the requisite quantity of paper, confided Shailender Jain, president, BBN Packagers Association. He added that to make matter worse, the paper mills had, in an unprecedented move, hiked the price of paper by Re 1 to Rs 1.50 per kg. As against the earlier price of Rs 19 per kg, the paper was now being sold at Rs 20 to Rs 21.50. While this had offset their economics, they failed to recover this added cost from their clients.

Since the power supply was inadequate and the paper mills had to generate captive power with the help of diesel-run generator sets, the cost of production had gone up in the mills. This had forced the mills to hike the price of paper.

The abrupt price hike had also forced apple growers to purchase apple cartons at hiked prices. With a lean apple season in the state owing to inclement weather, farmers were forced to shell out more for packaging material, confided Mukesh Jain, vice-president, Himachal Pradesh Corrugate Box Manufacturers’ Association.

Shimla, August 28
Harvesting of apple has picked up belatedly with over 500 fruit-laden trucks leaving the state for various markets over the past two days.

The drought-like conditions prevailing for most of the year had severely affected the crop and growers had delayed harvesting in the hope that rains during monsoon will help increase the size of the fruit. As a result the plucking of fruit in the mid-hills and higher hills is taking place almost three weeks behind schedule. The number of trucks crossed the 500-mark for the first time yesterday in the season and in all 40.28 lakh standard boxes had been exported so far. Last year 84 lakh boxes, more than double, had been sent out over the same period.

Officers of the horticulture department feel that delayed harvesting will help salvage some of the crop and the total output still may cross the 1.50 crore boxes. The state had a bumper crop last year with an output of 2.56 crore boxes. The only redeeming feature is that the market has remained high and the growers have been getting attractive returns all through the season.

The superior grade fruit of varieties like Royal Delicious is still being sold at Rs 1,400 to Rs 1,500 per box in the Delhi market as against Rs 1,000 per box last year. Similarly, Rich-a-Red is fetching Rs 1,000 to Rs 1050 per box and the Golden variety Rs 550 per box, 60 to 70 per cent higher than last year. Even the upcoming markets in the state like Rohru and Narkanda are fetching good returns. Royal Delicious is being sold at Rs 1200 per box at Rhoru.

Even lower quality fruit is giving good returns and as a result the procurement under the market intervention scheme is almost negligible so far. Till yesterday only 112 tonnes of fruit had been procured as against 5642 tonnes last year. The state-owned HPMC is not likely to get enough fruit for processing this year. The entry of multinational companies in marketing of fresh fruit in the past couple of years has also helped in ensuring remunerative returns to growers. Private players like the Adani Group, the ITC and Reliance Adanis procured about 25 lakh boxes of good quality fruit last year at rates ranging from Rs 29 to Rs 32 per kg. 

Dharamsala, August 28
The Council of Boards for School Education (COBSE) has outrightly rejected the idea of abolition of class X board examination as proposed by the Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal.

The chairman of the Himachal Board of School Education Chaman Lal Gupta who has returned recently after attending the meeting of COBSE gave this information while talking to The Tribune here today. He said that chairmen of 21 school education boards who debated the issue were of the view that suggestion to abolish the class X examination was a political idea. It should be debated upon by the academics before implementation. If the examination for X is abolished it would create a disparity among the students passing the examination from different schools as there would not be single evaluating agency.

The school boards have decided that they would observe for three years the results of abolition of examination system for X class in the CBSE before taking any decision on the matter, he said.

Gupta further said Sibal while addressing the COBSE meeting proposed the setting up of regional and national boards and making 10th class examinations optional. He also stressed that the national curriculum framework worked out in 2005 should be implemented across the nation, at least for science subjects. This would create identical syllabus for science education in the entire country.

The minister also proposed the implementation of comprehensive evaluation system in place of numeric evaluation of examination in schools.

However, after deliberations over the issue the representatives of school education boards have also rejected the idea of formation of regional and national boards. They have strongly recommended that the education boards of states should not be weakened.

The state education boards cannot accept the CBSE as a role model as many education boards as that of UP and Bihar are running more schools than the latter. Instead, a national board of school education should be set up that acts as guidance and financing agency for the school boards, the representatives of various school boards have opined.

The state education boards were, however, positive to the idea of implementing the comprehensive continuous evaluation in the schools. The Himachal board has already implemented the same up to class V.

The chairman also said the board might have to abolish board exam for 8th class after the implementation of right to education Bill. As per the provisions of the Bill giving education till 8th class to each student would be responsibility of the state.

However, final decision over the matter would be taken after going through the provisions of the new Bill, he said.

Shimla, August 28
The Himachal Pradesh High Court today granted interim anticipatory bail to suspended IAS officer Sanjay Gupta in the disproportionate assets case registered against him by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau.

Justice Kuldip Singh while granting bail to Gupta directed him to join investigations and present himself before the bureau tomorrow by 11 am. The matter will come up for hearing now on September 1 when the bureau will produce the entire record of the case.

It was on August 20 that the Special Judge (Forests) had rejected the bail plea of Gupta. He had eversince been evading arrest by sleuths of the Vigilance who had been on the lookout for the suspended bureaucrat.

Gupta came in the vigilance net for the second time in his career when he was nabbed by the bureau which recovered a sum of Rs 2 lakh from him in Parwanoo. Some time later the bureau also registered a disproportionate assets case against the officer.

Gupta contended in his bail plea since the bureau was already in possession of his 20-year income tax returns, there was no need for his custodial interrogation. He added it was during the raid on his house that the bureau had got hold of the income tax documents. 

Kangra August 28
The Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board is heavily in debt and laxity on the part of officers seems allegedly responsible as defaulters go untouched and regular paying customers are put to harassment by disconnecting electric supply without any prior notice.

In the HPSEB subdivision of Kangra I alone, 1,672 defaulters owed Rs 38.05 lakh to the SEB. The SDO concerned refused to divulge details regarding the defaulting amount and number of defaulters in his area of activity despite three visits to his office. AB Raajbansh, a social activist, who sought details from the SDO under the RTI, was refused under the pretext that senior executive engineer was supposed to provide such details. It was through the RTI that details of the defaulting amount was received from the engineer.

Till June end this year, 1,042 domestic defaulters had to pay Rs 14,57,016 as defaulting amount, 595 commercial defaulters had to pay Rs 23,06,360 and 35 others had to pay Rs 41,693. The officials disconnected 177 domestic and 193 commercial connections in the town recently, most of them without prior notice, and recovered Rs 1.8 lakh from domestic consumers and Rs 3.32 lakh from commercial consumers.

It included Rs 3.20 lakh from one consumer alone and Rs 12,270 from rest of the 192 consumers. Connections of 35 others were not scraped as was done in case of common consumers despite they paying regularly. 

Hamirpur, August 28
While educational qualification of all ex-servicemen retiring after serving 15 years in the armed forces is considered equivalent to graduation in most of the states, the Himachal government is yet to recognise it, leaving a large number of them disappointed.

Many of them do not get re-employed on class III posts as they are not considered qualified for these jobs due to problem of equivalence since minimum qualification for such posts is 10+2 now.

Since the Army recruited even class V or VIII pass as soldiers a few years back, Army regiments issued graduation certificates to armed personnel completing 15 years of service on the basis of experience and qualification improvement.

These graduation-equivalence certificates called regiment certificates are recognised by the personnel department of the Government of India and most of the states, including Punjab.

The central government has issued specific notification treating all armed personnel completing 15 years of service equivalent to graduation.

Though the Himachal Pradesh government has been adopting the Punjab government rules in service matter, it is overlooking this fact.

Since a large number of people from the state are serving the armed forces and are keen to get re-employed after retirement in the state, they find the law disappointing.

Talking about the problem, Col BC Lagwal, chairman, Ex-servicemen department of Congress, said, “Since Army education units take education improvement courses, all Army personnel are issued graduation certificates after 15 years of service. As this is not recognised in the state, many ex-servicemen are deprived of class III government job here.”

Many other ex-servicemen also rued this fact and demanded that the state government should also recognise regiment certificates equivalent to graduation.

Meanwhile, secretary personnel DS Dogra said, “If this certificate is recognised by other states, we would also consider it.”