Shimla, January 28
The election of the state BJP president scheduled for January 31 has been postponed due to failure of the top state leaders to reach a consensus on the choice of the next incumbent.

The decision to defer the poll was taken after the last-ditch effort of the core group, which met at Chandigarh this evening, failed to evolve a consensus on the issue.

According to party sources, national party president Nitin Gadkari had made it clear to the state leadership either to select the next president by consensus or the poll would be deferred. A fresh date would be announced by the high command for election in consultation with the state leadership.

Consensus had been eluding the leadership as Dhumal had been pushing for continuation of Khimi Ram in the post and the rival camp pressing for a change. Forest Minister JP Nadda had emerged as the front runner in case the high command favours change.

However, the stalemate had thrown up a third contender for the coveted post - Khushi Ram Balnatah, the MLA from Rohru, who is currently the general secretary of the party.

Consensus is important for the party, which is only on the back foot following the surfacing of the CDs, as election of president will only fuel factionalism. Much will depend on new president Nitin Gadkari who has given indications for including Nadda in his national team. In fact, the name of Balnatah cropped up only after this development.

Shimla, January 28
Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has expressed concern over the inordinate delay in execution of road projects and urged the forest and public work departments to work in tandem to ensure timely forest clearance.

Presiding over the first meeting to review the progress of ongoing road projects here last evening, he said the Forest Department should ensure timely clearance for road projects from the Government of India, especially under the PMGSY and the RIDF funded projects. At present 83 cases were pending under the PMGSY and nine under national highways. After submission of projects for forest clearance the concerned executive engineers should reply to the queries raised by the Forest Department immediately.

He stressed that early completion of codal formalities would ensure timely execution of the projects. The Union Ministry for Rural Development during a meeting held in Shimla last year fixed a month’s time limit for all clearances which needed to be adhered to by the respective authorities. The territorial divisional forest officer needed to start process of enumeration of trees as soon as approval in principle was granted for specific projects. Additionally, the concerned deputy commissioners also needed to complete the mutation process within a fortnight.

He said NABARD had agreed to include NPV (net present value) of the forest land involved in the cost of the road projects to pave for their speedy execution.

Dhumal said the utilities such as electric poles, water supply schemes, irrigation channels and pipelines needed to be shifted well before starting construction work so that beneficiaries of these schemes were not put to inconvenience. He said the state electricity board authorities should shift the poles without causing disruption of electric supply to consumers.

There was need to work in close coordination by all the departments for timely completion of the project. He appealed to the people in rural areas to provide their land well in time for construction of roads.

Earlier, presiding over the 44th meeting of the State-Level Single Window Clearance and Monitoring Authority, Chief Minister said all new industrial proposals needed to be scrutinised closely at the initial stage before placing them before the authority.

Shimla, January 28
At least one concrete road stretch will be constructed in each division of the PWD in the state to provide better road connectivity to the people.

This was stated by Public Works Minister Gulab Singh while presiding over the meeting of senior officials of his department, here today.

He said concrete roads had added a new dimension to road engineering. He said a total of 17 roads had been taken in hand for converting them into concrete roads, out of which six roads were in Palampur circle, three in Solan circle, two each in Mandi and Kullu circle and one each in Nurpur, Una, Nahan and national highway circle in Shimla.

The minister said work of cement concrete pavement for the Kala Amb-Trilokpur road had been completed at an estimated cost of Rs 30 lakh. Work on one kilometre stretch of the Mallokpur-Saloli road in Una had been executed under the NABARD fund. The work for concreting of road stretch near Chamakhripu on the Shimla-Ghumarwin-Mataur-Dharamsala national highway has been awarded recently, he added.

He said there was no dearth of funds for construction of cement concrete pavement roads and several projects were under pipeline.

Dharamsala, January 28
With the Forest Department now allowing farmers to sell bamboo, its market price has crashed. The farmers, while talking to The Tribune, said traders and contractors were giving them just Rs 10 to Rs 15 per fully grown bamboo. This meant they were likely to earn just Rs 1,000 by selling 100 bamboos.

A large number of farmers, especially in the arid areas of Kangra and Una district, had grown bamboo after being motivated to do so under the national bamboo mission. However, now the bamboo crop is not yielding the desired results for them.

In the absence of government agencies, private contractors were exploiting us, they said.

While talking to The Tribune, a few educated farmers alleged that the amount being paid to them was so less that it was better that they used their crop as firewood. Applying their layman’s economic formula, they maintained that if they used bamboo as firewood in their houses, they were likely to save about Rs 10,000 per annum as they would not require LPG gas cylinders.

Experts, when contacted, said bamboo plantations could not be successful till the industry affiliated with it was not developed in the state.

The Institute of Himalayan Bio-resource Technology (IHBT), a CSIR centre at Palampur, had in the recent past developed charcoal from bamboo. They had also developed a kiln that could convert bamboo into charcoal.

IHBT scientists claimed that the charcoal produced from bamboo by technology developed by them had combustion value equal to charcoal produced from any other wood. They had also claimed that activated charcoal that was used in pharmaceutical industry could also be produced from the bamboo charcoal.

The technology developed by the IHBT has, however, not percolated to the farmers as yet. Charcoal is in great demand by Army authorities positioned in higher reaches. If farmers growing bamboo can convert their crop into charcoal, it can fetch good market price from them.

The other major forest produce for farmers of lower areas is khair (Acacia catechu) trees.

The government had recently claimed the credit for allowing farmers to sell their khair trees. However, here also farmers alleged that forest contractors, who were unofficial but open middlemen in the katha (a valuable extract of khair trees) trade, were giving them meagre price for their produce they got from their land after a period of about 10 years.

The farmers had demanded that since khair trees were scarce these days, the forest corporation should fix a minimum support price for these trees so that the farmers were saved from exploitation at the hands of middlemen.

Dharamsala, January 28
The accused transporter in bitumen scam case, Mukesh Kumar, the proprietor of the MK Enterprises transport company, has finally surrendered in the court of the district and sessions judge, Una.

The sources available here told The Tribune that the accused surrendered in the Una court yesterday. He also moved an application for bail that was, however, not entertained by the court. The court remanded him into police custody for three days.

The vigilance and anti-corruption bureau had been trying to arrest him in the bitumen scam case for a long time. Many cases have been registered against him in various districts of the state for allegedly swindling bitumen meant to be delivered at the stores of the Public Works Department.

In Una district alone 900 bitumen drums were allegedly swindled. After it failed to arrest him, the police had recently initiated proceedings to attach properties of the accused transporter in cases registered at Una. In another case registered at Dharamsala, proceedings had been started to declare him a proclaimed offender.

The vigilance had been maintaining that it required custodial interrogation of the transporter to further investigate the case.

Though the vigilance had registered cases in various districts of the state, including Una, Kangra and Chamba; in bitumen scam case just one PWD official has been made the co-accused in the case.

The vigilance and anti-corruption bureau has made just a junior engineer level officer of the PWD as party in the case.

The junior engineer was in charge of the stores where the 900 bitumen drums allegedly swindled from Una were to reach. He was earlier arrested by the vigilance.

The vigilance had also collected data from various check posts of the Sales Tax and toll-tax barriers to ascertain if bitumen came to the state or was swindled midway.

However, it is interesting to note that at other places no other PWD official has been made a party to the case.

It is hard to believe that the officials who did not report that fact that bitumen had reached their stores at other places also where they were not having the knowledge of the scam.

Now that the main accused in the scam has surrendered and remanded into police custody, it remains to be seen how the investigations unfold.