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Eve of winter session marred by protests Primary assistant teachers protest at Dharamsala on Sunday. — A Tribune photograph
Khimi to continue as state BJP chief
State to host indoor national games
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Cold wave grips Shimla
BBMB Case
DC for more loans to priority sectors
Fertilisers’ Delivery
Probe into land scam sought
Rs 6 cr okayed for tourism promotion
PSU staff sore over govt policy
Insurance staff seek new pay scales
Teachers’ body holds rally
Roads to face more wear and tear
State lags behind in forest conservation: Report
Ranital-Kangra stretch to have new tunnel
Concern in Manali over swine flu death
Staff rue varsity apathy
Ex-MLA cremated
2 held with vehicle batteries
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Eve of winter session marred by protests
Dharamsala, December 13 They were protesting against the political divide in teaching fraternity of government schools. The agitating teachers were recruited as Primary Assistant Teachers (PAT) by the then Congress government in 2003. They are being paid Rs 3,500 per month since then. However, the reason behind the sudden protest is that Vidhya Upasaks - another category of teachers who were recruited in 2002 by the then BJP government - have been recently given a raise in salary. The PAT teachers have alleged that earlier the Vidhya Upasaks were also getting Rs 3,500 a month, however, recently their salary has been increased by about Rs 8,500. “We have been serving in government schools for the past about six years. While the teachers recruited one year before us have been give a raise in salary, we are still been given paltry salary just equal to minimum wages being earning by daily wagers,” they alleged. Himachal Bachao Front organised a press conference alleging that the government gone soft on corruption. Many officers, including IAS officers who were arrested by the Vigilance Bureau, have been reinstated by the government shaking the faith of the people in the anti-corruption stance of the government. “All the corruption cases that were projected by the BJP in its election campaign have not reached any conclusion since the party came to power,” they alleged. The advocates have also chosen the occasion to raise their demands. They have decided to strike work on Saturdays to press for their demand for separate high court bench at Dharamsala. They have also formed a panel for meeting the Chief Minister to press for their demands. |
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Khimi to continue as state BJP chief
Dharamsala, December 13 This was stated by Satpal Jain, in charge of the party affairs for Himachal, while talking to The Tribune, when contacted on phone. Setting at rest all speculations regarding the decision for the next state party president that was fuelled by the meeting of the core group of the BJP that was held at Dharamsala last night, Satpal Jain said the issue of state president of the party was not discussed at the meeting. There was no question regarding the consideration of names of two Cabinet ministers, including JP Nadda and Rajiv Bindal, for the state presidentship of the party. He said the core group meeting, that was also attended by Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and national party vice-president Shanta Kumar, was a routine meeting. It was to discuss the party election that was being held at booth and mandal-levels in the state. The decision regarding the state president would only be taken after the organisational elections at the lower level are finished. It is likely to take another three months and so there is no point in discussing the names till February, he said. Satpal Jain said the main decision that was taken at the meeting was to draw a strategy for organising a function to commemorate completion of two years of the state government in December end. After the completion of one year in power, the party had organised a rally in Shimla that was addressed by LK Advani. However, this year no big rally would be organised. Instead, the government and the party, at their own level, would organise rallies at constituency-levels to make people aware regarding the achievements of present government and failures of the UPA government. When asked about the decision regarding electing the state president unanimously, Jain said all office-bearers at the district and state-level were likely to be appointed unanimously. He said present state president Khimi Ram was also doing a good job and could be considered for the top party post.
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State to host indoor national games
Shimla, December 13 He expressed his gratitude to Kalmadi and Randhir Singh, general secretary, IOA, for allotting the next edition of indoor national games to the state. He said the required infrastructure would be created by spending Rs 50 crore. It would go a long way in promoting sports in the hill state and provide requisite facilities for the youth for improving their skills, he said. The games would also give an exposure to youth of the state and put Himachal on the sporting map of the country. |
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BBMB Case
Dharamsala, December 13 In the said affidavit, the Union Ministry of Power had stated that Himachal was not entitled to 12 per cent royalty in the BBMB as enactment for the purpose was brought in the 1990s whereas the said project was brought in sixties. The BJP is of the view that they can take on the Congress as the affidavit has gone against the interests of the state. They are also likely to blame the Congress in the state for delaying the central university project and failure to get the industrial package increased in the state. The Congress legislative members would hold a meeting under the stewardship of Vidya Stokes tomorrow. Meanwhile, Sukhwinder Sukhu, while talking to The Tribune, said the Congress would try to expose the BJP government on the issue of non-implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in the state. The state has failed to provide minimum wages to labourers under NREGS. The state government has also failed to take benefit of various Union government schemes, he added. The Congress is also likely to take up the issue of ouster of PTA teachers during the Assembly session
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DC for more loans to priority sectors
Bilaspur, December 13 Nandita was presiding over the district-level review meeting of the Advisory and Coordination Committee of banks of the district here the same day. She said all targets in the priority sectors must be met before end of the financial year, as up till now only the target of 45 per cent has been achieved in this, while target of 90 per cent has been achieved in non-priority sectors up till now set for this year. Gupta said the total target of 50 per cent has been achieved in loaning in district totaling Rs 120.44 crore against total annual target of Rs 242.37 crore. She said the targets of 54 per cent in agriculture, 43 per cent in small and medium industries and 37 per cent in service sectors have been achieved up till now during the year. UCO Bank Regional Manager SK Jain said 25,356 kisan credit cards have been issued to the farmers in the district by various banks. District manager KC Sharma said 1,443 self-help groups of women have been formed here and these have been given bank finances of Rs 4.73 crore for giving boost to their economic activities. —
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Fertilisers’ Delivery
Shimla, December 13 With the farmers and fruit growers threatening to launch an agitation if they are not provided timely and sufficient fertilisers, the Chief Secretary, in a written communication to the Chairman of the Central Railways Board, had on October 9 said despite repeated requests for declaring four rake points to ensure smooth delivery of fertilisers, there had been no headway. The Department of Agriculture had earlier on August 12 written a letter to the Union Ministry of Chemicals to declare four rake points at Shimla, Kullu, Hamirpur and Dharamsala, even though most places in the state did not have rail connectivity. In fact, the issue has also been discussed with the Planning Commission so that a way can be found out to solve the problem. Delivery of fertilisers to the state is made by the Railways only uptill Chandigarh, which delays the process of it reaching Shimla and later being distributed to the farmers and fruit growers. Officials point out that since the entire expenditure for delivery of chemicals till the rake point is borne by the Centre, declaration of four rake points in Himachal will help in its smooth transportation. “The Central Railways Board has recently declared a rake point in Srinagar which does not have rail connectivity, so state’s case could be considered sympathetically,” he said. In case four rake points are approved for Himachal, Centre will have to bear the entire expenditure for transportation of fertilisers to the state. At present, only IFFCO is delivering the fertilisers till the Himfed godowns. The state has also urged the Centre that in case the ministry of Chemicals and Central Railway Board agrees to make the delivery till Himfed godowns, it will solve the problem to a great extent. Dr JC Rana, director, Agriculture, said the Planning Commission had been urged to include the state in the list of special fare category states. This, he added, will entitle the state to seek special grants from the Centre and help in solving fertiliser shortage being faced by farmers and fruit growers.
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Probe into land scam sought
Shimla, December 13 The sabha has decided to start a statewide agitation on the issue by organising a rally at Daralghat on December 21. Vice president of the Sabha Tikender Singh Panwar said it was perhaps the first scandal of its kind in the state in which revenue record was tempered with to favour the Ambuja Cement Company and defraud the poor framers of the state. It was intriguing that an employee of the company joined the Revenue Department as patwari and after serving for a few years again joined the company. The tempering of records that took place in between to facilitate acquisition of land spelled doom for the landowners, who received compensation at the rates of one-tenth of the prevalent rate. They were virtually robbed of over Rs 20 crore. He said the company initiated proceedings to acquire land measuring 246.16 bighas in Ghyana on November 30, 1999, the value of which was to be calculated on the basis of ratio of “maal”. An employee working as patwari with the company till 1998 got recruited into the government service as a patwari. He was posted at Manju, but soon transferred to Mangoo, the place where the land was to be acquired. The revenue record was tempered to change the “maal” of the agricultural land from three paise to eight paise and the non-agricultural from zero paise to
eight paise. The inspection report of tehsildar of Arki, dated February 21, 2009, has corroborated the fact that record had been tempered with as a result of which the value of “aabi awwal” land had come down from Rs three lakh to Rs 37,500 per bigha. It had put landowners to heavy loss and given undue advantage to the Ambuja
Company. Tikender said the farmers got only Rs 37,500 per bigha in place of Rs three lakh per bigha for agricultural and Rs 7,125 per bigha instead of Rs 38,000 per bigha for non-agricultural land. However, if one took the prevalent rate on based on last registration the actual award should have been Rs 7,50,000 for agricultural land and Rs 75,000 for non-agricultural land on the basis of value of land as mentioned by patwari for Mauja Gyana, dated March 31,1999. The company intended to acquire another 896.14 bigha of land in the adjacent Chola, Rauri and Sanghoi, where more than 2,500 people would be uprooted. So far, the farmers had refused to handover the land because of low compensation awarded.
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Rs 6 cr okayed for tourism promotion
Chamba, December 13 He said with a view to promoting religious tourism at the famous destinations of Manimahesh, including the historic town of Bharmour, various works such as landscaping, development of itineraries and walkways with railing alongside, bathing ghats as well as trekking paths had been planned to be executed. Rs 2 crore has been earmarked for conservation and preservation of religious heritage of famous shrines of Manimahesh, including improvement of holy lake and ancient temples of Bharmour, the DC added. Rs 2.85 crore has been released by the Union Tourism Ministry and the process to undertake execution of different works has been initiated under the supervision of district tourism development officer Kishori Lal.
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PSU staff sore over govt policy
Shimla, December 13 The worst victims of the policy are employees of PSUs like the State Agro-Industries Corporation, the State Handloom and Handicrafts Corporation and the HPMC. In contrast, employees of the State Electricity Board, which is running an overdraft of over Rs 700 crore, besides accumulated losses of over Rs 260 crore, do not face any such problem. The 218 employees of the state agro-industries corporation, deployed in 29 branch offices across the state, have not been paid salaries for the past five to 11 months. The corporation has sought an assistance of Rs 7 crore from the government which is not forthcoming. The situation in the state handicrafts and handloom corporation is similar with a large number of employees in various branches awaiting payment of salary for the past over five months. The salaries are delayed by two to three weeks in the HPMC and there are several other corporations which have not paid the additional dearness allowance and revised pay scales because of financial crunch. The employees are at a loss to understand why the government is treating some PSUs as the privileged ones while treating others as their poor cousins. They want the government to frame a uniform policy and ensure that the employees of all the PSUs were treated on par and paid various benefits at the same time. More so, because even after a decade of fiscal reforms, there has been no improvement in the financial health of PSUs which continue to accumulate losses year after year. Out of the total 23 state public undertakings, 15 are deep in the red. The state road transport corporation tops the list with a cumulative loss of Rs 478 crore, followed by the State Electricity Board (Rs 262 crore), State Financial Corporation (Rs 95 crore), Agro-Industrial Packaging India Limited (Rs 73 crore) HPMC (Rs 43 crore) and State Forest Corporation (Rs 50 crore). The total losses of the PSUs, on which the government has invested Rs 929 crore, amounted to Rs 936 crore as on March 31, 2008.
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Insurance staff seek new pay scales
Hamirpur, December 13 Addressing a press conference here today, regional secretary of the federation KC Sankhayan said the field workers had strongly opposed amendment in the Act and rejected the recommendations of the Swaroop Committee. He said the Swaroop Committee had recommended stopping of payment of the commission to the field workers and to do away with the present agent system for carrying the insurance work. Opposing privatisation of the insurance sector by allowing the FDI through amendment in the Insurance Bill, he said the federation would not allow this and 15 lakh field workers were with development officers in opposing this move. He said the north zone unit of the federation would not hesitate from holding dharnas and resorting to other methods of agitation to oppose this move. The organisation has also demanded implementation of the new pay scales for the insurance employees. |
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Teachers’ body holds rally
Mandi, December 13 Leader of the sangh Madan Thakur alleged that the government was only making false assurances for the past two years. We have put in six years of service in remote areas of the state in vain, he said. The leaders claimed that the government had assured them that it would make a policy for them, but nothing had been done so far. “We get a paltry sum of Rs 3,500-Rs 4,000 a month, whereas we put in more hours than our counterparts in schools,” they claimed. They warned that they would resort to a state-wide protest if their demand was not fulfilled.
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Roads to face more wear and tear
Solan, December 13 The situation, which was already dismal on these crucial roads due to the presence of two cement plants, will further deteriorate with the commissioning of two more cement plants. JP Associates is setting up a 2MT plant and the Gujarat Ambuja Cement is also setting up another plant of 2MT, which take their total capacity to 4MT per annum. Both plants would be commissioned early next year. Even the National Mineral Development Corporation recently signed MoU with SAIL to extract high-grade mineral from the Arki area, which will further add to the traffic inflow. According to an estimate, for every MT of cement about 1,000 trucks were required and cement production would reach 6MT from the Darlaghat area alone in the next two months. The area also housed ACC cement plant at Barmana. Still worse, two more cement plants were coming up at Sundernagar and Chopal which would further enhance the capacity of cement production by about 4MT. The six plants would be in close proximity in the Darlaghat-Bilaspur-Karsog belt and would create unmanageable traffic on both NH-88 and NH-21A where mobile pollution owing to trucks would will also impact tourism. It was surprising that though the successive governments had been granting permissions to set up these plants, little had been given to augment road connectivity or set up parking places for these hundreds of trucks. Though multi-axle vehicles would be used to transport cement and clinker for these plants, it was worth mentioning that these heavy vehicles having eight to 10 tyres would not only choke the existing roads but also make commuting difficult for common man as well as tourists. DC AS Rathore, while agreeing to the problem of traffic influx, said some better traffic management plan should be worked out to handle the expected rise in trucks in the area. |
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State lags behind in forest conservation: Report
Shimla, December 13 This has been brought out unambiguously by the latest report of the Forest Survey of India on the status of forests which provides comparative data for very dense forests (VDF), moderately dense forests (MDF) and open forests (OF). The state, with a geographical area of 55,673 sq km, has only 14,668 sq km (26.35 per cent) of forests whereas the neighbouring Uttarakhand, which is spread over 53,483 sq km, has 24,495 sq km (45.80 per cent) under forests. In Arunachal Pradesh, 67,353 sq km (80.43 per cent) area was under forests. In smaller states like Mizoram, forests accounted for 91.27 per cent of the total area and it was on the higher side in Nagaland (81.12 per cent), Meghalaya (77.23 per cent) and Manipur (77.40 per cent). Worse, open forests (with a low density ranging between 10 to 40 per cent), accounted for over 34 per cent of the total forest area in Himachal Pradesh as compared to just 24 per cent in Uttarakhand and 20 per cent in Arunachal Pradesh. Even Jammu and Kashmir, which has just 10.21 per cent under forests, VDF (density of over 70 per cent) and MDF (density ranging from 40 to 70 per cent) accounted for 13,275 sq km as against 9,607 sq km in case of Himachal Pradesh. The trend over the past 15 years indicates that forest wealth is not being managed on sustainable basis as evident from the fact that dense forests, with over 40 per cent canopy cover, are fast degenerating into open forests. The area under dense forests has come down mainly on account of removals under the TD, construction of roads, hydroelectric projects, transmission lines, cement plants and other development activities. The latest data reveals that since 1980, when the Forest Conservation Act came into force, 8,528 hectares of forest has been diverted for non-forestry purpose and another 800 hectares was in the pipeline. Hydroelectric project devoured the maximum green cover with a diversion of 3,814 hectares, followed by transmission lines (2,157 hectares), roads (1,316 hectares) and mining (817 hectares). Over six lakh trees have been axed for hydroelectric projects over the years, on an average about 45,000 trees were being given to right holders under the TD rules until the HC imposed a ban on allotment of trees in 2006 and asked the government to come out with a sustainable policy.
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Ranital-Kangra stretch to have new tunnel
Dharamsala, December 13 PWD Minister Gulab Singh said the government had cancelled the old tender and sent a fresh case to the Ministry of Surface Transport. The ministry is likely to sanction Rs 5 crore for the bridge. The present bridge is over 100-years-old. The minister also stated that a new tunnel was being planned on the Ranital-Kangra stretch of the national highway. Bigger vehicles cannot pass through the present tunnel. It also risky during monsoon as water seeps through the hills into the tunnel. The minister also said Rs 1,365 crore was being spent under for the roads in the state. The 91-km stretch of the Nagrota-Ranital-Dehra road was being converted into a national highway. A project has also been launched to develop strip forest along the roads. About 1.5 lakh trees were planted last year and another three lakh trees have been planned for the next year. Rs 100 crore has been spent for the improvement of the roads in Kangra district.
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Concern in Manali over swine flu death
Kullu, December 13 District surveillance officer and district swine flu officer of the regional hospital Dr Sushil Chander Sharma here said the department had found that about 73 persons were in contact with the deceased patient, for which comprehensive checks had been initiated to avoid further spread of the disease. He called upon the people to cooperate and take medicines only if advised by the doctors after tests. He emphasised that there was no need to panic, as 10 to 15 per cent people do suffer from normal flu during this time of the year. He, however, said the precautions should be taken if one suffered bad cold, cough, and respiratory problem besides nausea, as these were symptoms of swine flu. District health officer OP Ghandwal said awareness campaign has been initiated. Being tourist destinations, all hotels in Kullu-Manali have been advised to display pamphlets on entry and also to distribute handbills to the tourists to be cautious about the fatal disease. He said the department had been fully equipped and there would not be any dearth of medicines. He advised the people, who were in contact with the patient and who died of swine flu, to get their blood tested and to use anti-viral medicines.
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Staff rue varsity apathy
Solan, December 13 The Vice-Chancellor, while issuing a notification for accepting its recommendations both for the teaching and non-teaching categories, stated that they would be given these scales as per the UGC scales and the state government guidelines, respectively. What had, however, disheartened the non-teaching employees was the fact that it was a conditional acceptance and was subject to ratification by the board of management and provision of funds by the state government. The employees rued that the university authorities had merely adopted the Sixth Pay Commission while even the basic demand of granting the revised pay scale had not been met. The university employees have constituted a coordination committee to look into the issue. Its president OP Thakur said they had rejected this notification and had given the university authorities 15 days’ time to implement the revised pay scale. The non-teaching employees were supposed to get 100 per cent grant from the state government while for the teaching community, the arrears were supposed to be paid by the Indian Council of Agriculture Research and the expenditure of salary was to be borne by the state government. Sources in the university, however, said since the university was going through a severe financial crisis, they could ill-afford the revised pay scales to its staff of about 1,500 employees. Further, it had failed to reflect any such hike in their annual budget which should have been hiked by 25 to 30 per cent, especially in lieu of regularisation of employees and new appointments.
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Ex-MLA cremated
Hamirpur, December 13 village. Chaudhary represented Nadaun and Jawlamukhi constituencies in the state Assembly from 1982 to 1985 and 1990 to 1992, respectively. Chief Minister PK Dhumal, in his condolence message, lauded the commendable work done by Chaudhary during his tenure as the MLA and said people would always remember him for his sincere work. He is survived by his wife, a son and three daughters |
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2 held with vehicle batteries
Solan, December 13 The duo was arrested during a routine patrolling and investigations revealed that they worked in a Zirakpur-based battery manufacturing unit, Armaan Batteries, which had its godown at Parwanoo. The unit MD told the police that they had managed to procure the keys of the godown and had stolen the batteries.A case under Section 379 of the IPC has been registered. |
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The eve of winter session was marred by protests with various organisations seeking fulfilment of their demands.
Mandi, December 13
