Dharamsala, February 9
The tourist destinations near Dharamsala, including Mcleodganj, Dharamkot, Naddi, and Bhagsunag, received snowfall after a span of two years. The tourist destinations and headquarters of Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, wore white mantle throughout the day today.

The snow in Mcleodganj was just about two inches. However, in adjoining stations like Dharamkot, Naddi, and Bhagsunag, it was about one feet.

The snow was continuing in the region till the filing of this report. The locals were of the view that if weather continued to remain cloudy through the night, snowfall might also reach the lower regions of Dharamsala. It has been five years since Dharamsala received the last snowfall.

The tourists and locals rushed to Mcleodganj to enjoy the snow flakes. The youths and children were seen playing with the snow along the roads. The entire forest in the adjoining areas wore a white mantle. The road to Dharamkot was also blocked due to snowfall. According to sources, the famous trekking destination, Triund, also received heavy snowfall.

The tour operators, who were witnessing a lean period, were buoyed by the snowfall. They started informing their counterparts in the plain areas about the snowfall. If the weather continues to be cloudy for another day, the region is expected to witness an influx of tourists from adjoining Punjab areas.

Due to rise in temperature and deforestation, the snowfall has become a rare phenomenon in the region. Earlier, the Dhauladhar mountains facing the Kangra valley used to have snowfall throughout the year. 

Manali, February 9
The icy winds and two-and-a-half feet of snowfall in the tourist town not only spelled a disaster for the five-day long winter carnival but also plunged the town and surrounding villages into darkness stranding tourists in buses and private vehicles at Kalath, 10 km from here, for the whole last night.

The avalanche-cum-landslide that blocked the NH-21 at Kalath last night was restored around 5.30 pm today by the NH authorities, Kullu DC BM Nanta said.

The snowfall damaged the ill-maintained 33 KV HPSEB-run transmission line at 12 different points between Naggar and Manali plunging the entire region into darkness for the last two days.

Additional SE (HPSEB) PL Masoom said they restored six points today, but three trees fell and damaged the 11 KV line in the Nehru park forest in the town. “Sixty persons are on the job to retrieve the wires and restore electricity by today or tomorrow if weather permits,” he added.

President of the travel agents association Anil Sharma said the sudden snowfall had exposed the poor availability of infrastructure in this hill station to conduct the programmes indoors.

Manali SDM-cum-president of the carnival Rajeshwar Goel said all roads in the town have been restored and carnival activities were being organised indoors in the exhibition hall of the Forest Department and Government Senior Secondary School. “All artistes and tourists are comfortable as generators are being used to keep them warm,” he added.

Over 151 skiers from Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Army Gulmarg and teams from Himachal would compete in the skiing championship at the Ski Resort at Solang Nullah, which has received five feet of snowfall.

Meanwhile, normal life was disrupted almost in the entire upper Kullu valley as the tourist town of Manali and adjoining areas experienced season’s heaviest snow and traffic was hit on the Kullu-Manali Highway-21, near Kalath, about 8 km from here, due a massive avalanche since yesterday.

All Manali-bound buses suspended their journey at Patlikulh, about 20 km from here, since yesterday, causing inconvenience to passengers. Only light vehicles were plying between Manali and Kalath. The traffic between Manali-Kullu was diverted via the Naggar-Patlikulh road.

But due to a fresh spell of snow all Manali-bound buses between Manali-Naggar and Kullu-Manali also suspended their journey since yesterday, causing inconvenience to residents of the entire left bank areas.

Tourists staying in hotels shivered from cold as heating arrangements failed to work for want of power breakdown.

Dharamsala, February 9
Marred with factionalism, the BJP is getting ready to start agitation against the UPA government for price rise. The party unit in Kangra, which is dominated by the Shanta faction, will organise district-level protest against price rise on February 15.

However, the fissures created in the party due to the installation of Khimi Ram as state president, which was unacceptable to the Shanta faction, is likely to have an impact on the protests. The Shanta faction is likely to show its strength in most populous district of the state through the protest. Instead of being a full- blown attack on the UPA government for failing to curb price rise, the protests might also display who dominates in the region.

Since the installation of Khimi Ram, the mood among the supporters of Shanta Kumar has been very aggressive.

“We won’t take it lying down in future. If the party wants to take our resignations, it can, but we would not tolerate any bullying in the future,” said a senior leader of the Shanta faction while speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“Wait and see,” said another senior leader when asked about their future course of action. But, for the IPH minister Ravinder Ravi and minister for social justice Sarveen Chaudhary, majority of other BJP MLAs from the district, including the two ministers Kishan Kapoor and Ramesh Dhawala, are perceived to be in the Shanta camp.

The common worker is even more disheartened. They are expecting that the change of guard in the state leadership would provide them some place to vent out their ire at being ignored in their share of power. However, with the Dhumal faction retaining control even upon the state leadership, they are restive and waiting for signal from their senior leaders.

The Kangra district, which sends 16 MLAs to the Himachal Assembly, has always been at the centre stage of political upheavals in both the Congress and the BJP. In Congress, the revolt against the former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who has been dominating the party since decades, also started from the district. The prominent Congress leader from Kangra, Vijay Singh Mankotia, launched a tirade against Virbhadra Singh from the district.

During the previous stint of Prem Kumar Dhumal also, three ministers from Kangra had resigned from the Cabinet and initiated an unsuccessful revolt.

Now, once again the political leadership of the BJP in the district is sulking. 
However, it remains to be seen if the experienced CM is able to tackle the situation dexterously.

Shimla, February 9
Alleging large-scale corruption in setting up of private universities and other educational institutions, the state unit of the Youth Congress has demanded a CBI probe into the multi-crore scam.

President of the unit, Manmohan Katoch said the CD featuring BJP MP Virender Kashyap had made it clear that permission was being granted for setting up educational institutions on monetary consideration even though there was no need for such a large number of private universities in a small state like Himachal Pradesh. The workers of the Youth Congress had staged state-wide protests on the issue and burnt effigies of Chief Minister PK Dhumal.

However, instead of taking action into the matter, the BJP government had registered cases against the protesters. Not only this, no cases had been registered against the BJP workers who tried to counter the stir by burning effigies of the Congress leaders, exposing the double standards of the government.

Katoch said the issue of private universities would be taken up with the Union Minister of Human Resources through Rahul Gandhi to safeguard the future of students.

The government had completely failed in ensuring 70 per cent jobs to Himachalis and the persons from outside the state had been employed in industrial units owned by favoured companies. The state was undergoing “Punjabikaran” under the BJP regime, which was selling off the interests of the state to the outsiders.

National general secretary of the Youth Congress Amarinder Singh Raja said members of the Youth Congress would be encouraged to contest panchayat polls in the state to be held later in the year. The state unit has been asked to identify suitable candidates for the purpose well in advance.

Shimla, February 9
The State-Level Single Window Clearance and Monitoring Authority has approved the setting up of two industrial units with a total investment of Rs 18.15 crore and employment for 84 persons.

The authority which met here yesterday under the chairmanship of Chief Minister PK Dhumal granted approval for setting up of two new units, including M/s Him Fresh Produce which would be setting up integrated cold chain in the Kotkhai area of Shimla district and M/s Growell Agro System at Paonta Sahib in Sirmour district for producing insecticides and fungicides.

A decision was taken at the meeting to maintain and conserve environment polluting, low employment and high power consuming new industrial units by discouraging arc and induction furnaces.

“Environment protection remains a major area for the government and an exhaustive campaign has been launched to make the state polythene free by involving NGOs and other voluntary organisations engaged in such activities,” he said.

He said high polluting industries had been responsible for causing immense carbon emissions disturbing the ecology in the area and adding to global warming. “It would be in the best interest of the state if the high polluting industrial units
are discouraged,” he said.

He added that the existing polluting industrial units had been advised to incorporate modern anti-pollution implements into their plants so that emission of green house gases was minimised and completely checked in the near future.

Dhumal directed the authorities to motivate entrepreneurs to invest in Himachal in units based on local raw material and generating employment and self-employment opportunities for the locals.

He emphasised that the Industrial Policy required be implemented in letter and spirit, especially with regard to the employment condition of 70 per cent to the local educated unemployed youth at all levels.

The Chief Minister said the state had the most industrial friendly environment where interests of the investors were being protected, besides extending them all basic clearances through the State-Level Single Window Clearance and Monitoring Authority. He added that the government had simplified the cumbersome procedure for registration of new industrial proposals so that no time was wasted in observing codal formalities.

Hamirpur, February 9
For the alleged duping by a Ropar-based travel agent on the pretax of sending abroad on an employment visa, four youths of Rohlien Patta village have approached the police demanding legal action against the agent.

Kuldeep Singh, Payar Chand, Rajinder Kumar and Suresh Kumar in a written complaint made to ASP said,

“Ranjit Singh of Nangali village, who was running a travel agency at Ropar, had assured them jobs with salaries of Rs 50000 per month and visas to Afghanistan on payment of Rs 2.5 lakh each.”

“On this assurance we had paid Rs 10 lakh to Ranjit Singh some time back,” they added.

In their complaint these youths said, “After this they were sent fraudulently on travel visas to Afghanistan, which they came to know after reaching Kabul only and deported back to India by the Afghan authorities after expiry of travel visas.”

During their stay in Kabul in this period these youths failed to get employment, besides they had to seek shelter at a camp for which they had to shell out five dollars each daily for about a month.

“Since we had been left with no money with us we had to seek money from our homes and paid the money to people at the camp,” the youths said.

After reaching back in Hamirpur all these youths approached the ASP Gurdev seeking legal action against the travel agent for the alleged duping.

The ASP said, “We have received the complaint in this regard and are making preliminary inquiry.” 

Solan, February 9
Truckers have stiffly opposed the unwarranted grant of 30 per cent transportation work of JP Cement to transport societies of Bilaspur on the plea that they had not given their consent to this unfair division.

Nathu Ram Chauhan, one of the members of the 13-member committee constituted to resolve the issue, said they had given their consent to grant mere 15 per cent work to the land losers of Kharsi panchayat in Bilaspur district as they had surrendered 150 bighas of land for setting up of JP cement plant. No consensus had been arrived at to grant any work to the other transportation societies of Bilaspur, he confided.

Chauhan said the decision was arbitrary and taken under political pressure. He lamented that it was a sorry state of affairs that the truckers of Bilaspur dictated terms by threatening to harm their trucks if they were not given a share in the transportation work. He added that since they had surrendered 4,500 bighas of land they wanted 85 per cent work share. He also demanded that ex-servicemen should be given an adequate share in work all across the state and the government should begin by allotting work share at the Darlaghat-based cement plant.

Officials said initially the truckers of Bilaspur district were demanding 40 per cent share and their MLA had acceded to 30 per cent work share reluctantly and even this share had led to some protest among the truckers of Bilaspur district. The decision had also drawn flak from the opposition Congress. Secretary PCC Sanjay Awasthi said it was unfortunate that the MLA of Arki had failed to defend the genuine rights of the land losers. While 90 per cent land had been surrendered by the people of Arki how 30 per cent work had been allotted to Bilaspur district belied all logic. The manner in which politicians failed to protect the interest of the villagers showed that they had some vested interests and had bowed to the illegal dictates of the truckers who threatened to stop the trucks coming from Arki if their unjust demands were not agreed to.

Mandi, February 9
The police yesterday registered two separate cases of murder under Section 302 of the IPC at Gohar and Karsog police stations. Both victims had died under suspicious circumstances and the police corroborated charges after getting the medical report in one case while cross-checking the circumstantial evidence.

According to the police, in the first case, one Chandu Lal, a resident of Nidhani under the Gohar police station, had succumbed to his injuries after one Narain Singh of the same area hit him on head.

The duo had picked up fight at Narain’s house on the intervening night of February 6 and 7. Narain hit a brass utensil on the head of Chandu due to which he bled and died the next morning.

In the second case registered on December 16, 2009, at the Karsog police station, the police had found that Kubja Devi, wife of Tek Chand, a resident of Madholoa village, died after she was beaten up by her husband.

Earlier, her husband had tried to hush up the case. But Khidu Ram, father of Kubja Devi, had charged that Tek Chand beat up his daughter before she died.

The police received the medical examination report yesterday and found that she died after her husband beat her up on December 16, as there was a local eyewitness to the beating incident.

Bilaspur, February 9
The police at Suharghat, near here, has arrested Kaale Khan, son of Bashir Khan, of Cheli village in Tanbol gram panchayat, for threatening members of his own family and for mercilessly beating and maltreating his wife and children.

According to reports, Kaale Khan had developed a habit of coming to his home in an inebriated condition and used to beat his wife and children without any reason.

The matter was reported to the police by the panchayat president and the police arrested Kaale Khan after verifying the facts. — OC

Kullu, February 9
One Sanjeev Kumar, son of Jagdish Chand of Khalait Thakudwara village near Palampur of Kangra district, was arrested today under the NDPS Act as 1.7 kg of charas was recovered from his possession.

The charas was being carried in a Maruti car having a temporary number (HR-99DL-30-9565), which was also impounded by the police. The Superintendent of Police said the seizure was made during a routine naka.— OC