Kullu, October 4
The feud between Kullu BJP’s two factions led by Maheshwar Singh and Banjar MLA and BJP president Khimi Ram today marred the concluding ceremony of the week long Kullu Dussehra presided over by Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhuml at the Lal Chand Prarthi Kala Kendra stage at Dhalpur Maidan here.

Dhumal’s two-day tour here exposed factionalism within the district BJP as Khimi Ram and Kullu MLA Govind Thakur held fort while former Mandi MP Maheshwar Singh, who is also the chief representative of Lord Raghunath, walked out of the stage without attending the concluding ceremony.

The Chief Minister, in his speech, did not miss an opportunity of announcing Rs 50 crore proposal for the development of infrastructure in Kullu-Manali tourist circuit, to score a political point on the stage by claiming that the BJP government had increased “nazrana for devtas” by 100 per cent during its regime while the Congress increased it by just 40 per cent during their time.

Though Maheshwar Singh pleaded an excuse that he had to attend a religious ceremony at Lord Raghunath Shivir in Dhalpur Maidan, it was for the second time that he deserted the stage as he had been sidelined in the district BJP, revealed insiders.

Leaving the Dussehra stage also included Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker K Munde, who had air-dashed here yesterday to witness the world famous Dussehra.

The Congress-BJP intolerance over sharing the stage was more than obvious in Dussehra ceremony as Mandi MP and Union Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh had accused mela committee of not inviting him for the festival.

After president of Dussehra committee Khimi Ram honoured Munde on the stage, he left the stage without waiting for the concluding ceremony and speech of the chief guest. Even BSP general secretary Amar Singh carried BSP’s Sarva Jan Vikas philosophy, marking his presence at the Raghunath temple along with his family members three days ago and went back to Delhi.

It was for the second time that Maheshwar Singh did not share the stage with his BJP rivals Govind Thakur and Khimi Ram. Maheshwar Singh did the same during the centenary celebrations of the government school at Bhuti last month as he made his presence felt before Dhumal, the chief guest, but did not share the stage with Govind Thakur, reveal party insiders.

In fact, Maheshwar Singh has been dumped by Dhumal soon after he lost to Congress veteran Virbhadra Singh during the last Lok Sabha elections.

Shimla, October 4
Illegal and unscientific mining continues to mar the fragile environment and the scenic beauty of the hill state as the state mining department fails to perform its regulatory role effectively due to an acute shortage of technical staff, vehicles and other infrastructure.

The ever-growing number of development projects like construction of new roads, bridges, tunnels and cement plants has increased the workload of the department manifold in the recent years.

The department not only has to regulate mining activities across the state, but also carry out geological investigations for all these projects. Moreover, geological-stability studies have been made mandatory in respect of roads involving forest land.

However, hamstrung by paucity of manpower and lack of mobility, the department is not in a position to carry out the task.

The government had, following the intervention of the high court, framed a policy to regulate mining but it has not served much purpose in the absence of effective enforcement. Apart from mining atop the hills which generated a lot of debris and caused aesthetic degradation, illegal mining in the river beds is causing serious concern.

Worse, instead of providing more staff, the government has not even cared to fill the existing posts. The gravity of the situation could be judged from the fact that more than 50 per cent of the sanctioned posts at the senior level are vacant. As many as six out of the total nine posts of geologists and five out of nine posts of assistant geologists are vacant. All the three posts of technical assistant are vacant and only five mining officers out of eight are in position. The sanctioned strength of manpower has remained unchanged over the past more than two decades during which revenue from mining has increased to Rs 75 crore.

For effective functioning at the field-level, all vacant posts have to be filled and at least three more posts of assistant geologists, four of mining officers, 50 of mining inspectors and 40 of mining guards will have to be created.

The department’s proposal to create 30 new posts of mining inspectors and assistant mining inspectors and 40 posts of mining guards has not been cleared.

Further, the existing fleet of eight vehicles has to be more than doubled to effectively monitor the mining operations being carried out across the state at 260 stone crushers, over 500 slate quarries, riverbed mining and large-scale mining of limestone for cement plants. The revenue will increase to Rs 120 crore when all the seven cement plants being set up in the state become functional.

Shimla, October 4
Seeing a stately 91-year-old Narottam Sehgal, a retired ICS officer, intermingle with the alumni at the sesquicentennial celebrations of Bishop Cotton School (BCS), one is reminded of the words of the Viceroy of India, Lord Chelmsford, that a school stands or falls by the attitude of its old boys.

Sehgal, who passed out of the BCS in 1934 to join Trinity College, Cambridge, is the senior most alumni to be attending the function. True to the words uttered by Lord Chelmsford at the BCS Speech Day on September 9, 1919, most of the old boys have carved a niche for themselves in every field world over.

“Most of my batchmates at the BCS, including a close friend Ramesh Chandra, who rose to be a prominent Communist leader, are no more,” he said with moist eyes as he is filled with nostalgia. He was hoping to meet Lt Gen M Batra, his two-year junior at the BCS, who could not attend the function.

He said there was a lot of stress on character building, discipline, team spirit and, of course, the school motto--- overcome evil with good. “In our days, education was knowing about things and not facts, the way it is today when education is more rounded,” he opined.

Even though both his sons studied at Doon School, he feels BSC has come a long. “While most of the Indian boys studying here wanted to be senior government, police or Army officers, the British boys thought working for the railways was a great idea,” said Sehgal.

Having spent his childhood here what he misses the most today is fresh air, openness, quiet walks with no traffic.

“In those days it was only the Viceroy and the Governor who had cars and the town was so impeccably clean and disciplined that it was a joy living here,” he said, missing the good old days.

Even though it has been 75 years since he left the school, he still remembers the only occasion when he was caned for being callous with his studies.

“Something has to be wrong with our education system when students, who score 90 per cent, do not get admission in good colleges,” he said about the present system.

The fact that neither his sons nor grandchildren followed in his footsteps by joining the civil services, he is more than happy. “Government service these days is not what it was in our days when it meant serving the people and not oneself,” he said.

Shimla, October 4
Using the holistic ayurvedic “panchkarma” treatment, the government plans to develop the hill state into a leading destination for health tourism.

The salubrious climate of the hills is ideal for promoting health tourism and such rejuvenating traditional therapy fits well into the scheme of things. The state tourism development corporation has already introduced panchkarma at its major complexes in Shimla, Palampur and Chail.

Basically, panchkarma offers a five-fold therapy consisting of specialised bio-purificatory measures, namely vamana, virechana, anuvasana vasti, niruhana vasti and nasya karma.

According to ayurveda the root cause of diseases is in the imbalance of vata, pitta and kapha. Panchkarma employs “shodhan chikitsa” to purge the body toxins and cleanse all microcirculatory channels.

At Hotel Tea-Bud in Palampur ‘abhyangam’ is being performed as a pre-process of panchkarma to increase body metabolism through massage which leads to better tissue respiration, increases circulation, causing the body to flush out its impure minerals more efficiently. It improves concentration, intelligence, confidence and retains youthfulness.

It helps in alleviating ‘vata’ caused aliments. A special treatment in which the eyes are bathed in pure medicated cow’s ghee, called ‘netra tarpan’ relieves of strain, refractive errors, chronic conjunctivitis, corneal ulcer, dry eye syndrome and other eye diseases.

‘Sarvakaya Abhyangam’ therapy available at the local Hotel Holiday Home helps ease away stress and strain of urban hectic life.

The therapy, if undertaken regularly, delays wrinkles, imparts glowing skin, and improves flexibility of joints and mental clarity. Another ayurveda therapy Kizhi Herbal Bon removes toxins to provide relief to patients of arthritis, while Kati Vasti is a special herbal treatment for chronic back ache and slip disc.

Similarly, the Palace Hotel in Chail, under the “sarvakaya abhyangam and shirodhara” therapy massage of head and face, legs and feet, head and shoulder provides relief from a host of disorders. Further, kati vasti, shiro vasti, triposha, nalikerodakm, karkatika leapam and herbal steam bath are rejuvenating people from far and wide.

The therapy is to be extended to more complexes in due course.

Palampur, October 4
Residents here have been hit as there is an acute shortage of LPG in the town and its adjoining areas for the past 10 days as the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has failed to meet the requirement.

The HP Civil Supply Corporation and Saurabh Kalia Gas Service were 
providing LPG to Palampur town. It may be recalled that the IOC had suspended the supply of LPG to local distributor Palam Gas Service.

Before suspending the supplies to it, the IOC had not made alternative arrangements for the supply, which had made the matter worse.

Hundreds of LPG consumers can be seen daily on the roadside in all parts of the town, waiting for the LPG vehicles. Many a times, consumers had to go disappointed. Besides, home delivery of LPG had also been discontinued by the present suppliers.

Both the dealers were charging Rs 15 extra from consumers as home delivery charges but LPG cylinders were supplied on the roadside.

UC Verma, general secretary of the Palampur Welfare Forum, said he had written in this regard to Kangra Deputy Commissioner RS Gupta last month but no efforts were made to streamline the supply of LPG.

Meanwhile, six panchayat pradhans of the area today urged the state government to intervene and provide regular supply of LPG to the residents of Palampur.

Hamirpur, October 4
IPH Principal Secretary Narender Chauhan held a review meeting of works undertaken by all departments of Hamirpur district during the current financial year here on Thursday.

Addressing the meeting, he said under NREGA the district had created 37,900 man days and 58,724 job cards had been issued to eligible people under the scheme and Rs 715. 57 lakh had been spent.

He said in the IPH Department total 79 projects were undertaken out of which 54 have already been completed and works on 15 projects were under progress.

Talking about the progress made by the Agriculture Department, he said the department had set a target to establish 120 poly houses out of which 109 have already been completed and 169 families have been benefited. The farmers were also being imparted training at the Agriculture Centre Bada and Agriculture University Palampur.

He said under NABARD project 10 lift irrigation schemes were sanctioned and three have already been completed and work on seven other schemes was on.

For the PWD department a target of 93 projects was set and 83 have already been completed, while all projects under the national highway have been sanctioned and work was in progress on these projects.

He said out of total 229 panchayats in the district 164 have been brought under the total sanitation programme and made open defection free (ODF).

All panchayats would be covered under this programme by December 31, 2009, and Hamirpur and Sujanpur blocks have completely become ODF, he added.

Chauhan asked all heads of departments to complete their targets and bring transparency in their working.

Bilaspur, October 4
Kaam Dhenu Sanstha is providing a commendable service to a large number of consumers. It provides fresh and pure milk daily to hundreds of people apart from collecting it in the morning from cattle breeders.

This was stated by Forest Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda while addressing a gathering of prominent kisan leaders, consumers, senior citizens, industrialists and traders here at the Government Industrial Area this afternoon after inaugurating a sweets unit of Kaam Dhenu which would prepare and provide sweets made of desi ghee by modern and clean methods.

Nadda said very few cooperative ventures have achieved such achievements in such a short time. He assured all help to the society for the cause they were working for and said the government had already provided it with Rs 44-lakh milk-pasteurisation plant.

Society president Nanak Chand Thakur said Kaam Dhenu Sweets was being set up so that the requirement of getting fresh desi ghee sweets was met and also help the society to involve waiting kisan families supply their milk supply.

Palampur, October 4
Over 300 residents of Baijnath today lodged a protest against the failure of the state government in filling vacant posts of doctor at Baijnath Civil Hospital for the past more than a year.

They alleged that the government was extending step-motherly treatment to Baijnath because the area was being represented by opposition MLA Sudheer Sharma.

Kishori Lal, senior Congress leader and Baijnath Panchayat pardhan, said, in the past two years the state government shifted one-by-one all doctors from this hospital.

He said the hospital had a capacity to admit 50 patients but in the absence of doctors all wards were vacant. He said earlier over 200 patients visited the hospital and today the strength had come down to 10 only.

He said the ultrasound and x-ray facilities had also been discontinued in the hospital.

However, the residents of Baijnath threatened to resort to direct action if the government failed to post doctors here within a month.

Chamba, October 4
The state Animal Husbandry Department has drawn a ‘special strategy’ to combat animal diseases by organising multipurpose clinical camps on the doorsteps of farmers and cattle rearers in the far-flung corners of the state.

Disclosing this here today, Assistant Director (Extension) of the Animal Husbandry Department Dr DK Soni said in a series of this strategy, 10 multipurpose clinical camps would be organised by the veterinary polyclinic in distant areas of Chamba district from October 12 to 24.

A team of specialists would treat infertile animals, surgical cases and other animals, which are suffering from various ailments, Dr Soni said; adding that the farmers would also be imparted knowledge about treatment of animals and scientific animal husbandry practices by the specialists.