Solan, April 11
Keeping in view rising temperatures, Chief Minister PK Dhumal today urged the people to suspend for the next three months construction activities that required water.

He was addressing a gathering at Kandaghat today after dedicating a mini secretariat building constructed at a cost of Rs 6.62 crore and laying foundation stones of a water supply scheme for gram panchayats at Sirinagar, Bisha, Mahi, Kawarag and Dwavsha The scheme would cost Rs 471.84 lakh. The CM also laid the foundation stone of a building for government senior secondary School, which would be constructed at a cost Rs 70 lakh.

Dhumal said best marketing infrastructure had been created in the state to facilitate farmers to sell their produce at remunerative prices.

The government had involved private players to impart world-class educational facilities within in the state by opening private universities with academic excellence.

Earlier, Education Minister Ishwar Dass Dhiman stated that a budgetary provision of Rs 2,567 crore had been made for the education sector during the current financial year. It is about 17 per cent of the total budget of the state. He also gave figurative details of the achievements of his department.

Speaking on the occasion, Ravinder Singh Ravi said work on the water supply scheme would be completed in a time bound manner. He said Rs 1,350 crore was spent on irrigation and public health activities during the previous financial year. He also stated that as many as 1,876 hand pumps had been bored in Solan district out of which 275 were bored in Solan Assembly segment alone.

Health Minister Rajiv Bindal said Rs 3 crore were being spent on the construction of a sanskrit college building and another private university would be opened near Solan. Many MLAs, local MP and government officials were also present on the occasion. 

Bilaspur, April 11
Deputy Commissioner Nandita Gupta has ordered all district officers to be ready to face the challenges of drought conditions in this district as rains have completely failed and reports of most of drinking water sources getting seriously depleted or drying up completely are daily pouring in from various parts of the district.

She said the government had already prepared a plan to ensure that people would not be allowed to suffer due to drought conditions.

Presiding over a district-level meeting of officers here today, Gupta said fodder had got scarce and farmers would be supplied full transport subsidy for the fodder through gram panchayats, as earlier also, which would be brought from outside the state from this month itself till July this year.

She ordered that a list of areas facing drinking water scarcity be immediately prepared so that arrangements were made to supply water there through tankers for which tenders had already been invited. She also said all traditional water sources should be restored, cleaned and regularly chlorinated while all hand pumps requiring repairs, should be made functional immediately and all water schemes which were ready, should be pressed into service at the earliest.

The DC said the Pir Bhyanu Drinking Water Scheme had already been pressed into service and the Bhadoli Kalan Water Scheme would be thrown open by April 20 while the Dhani Pakhar Water Scheme would start giving benefit to people from April 30.

She asked all assistant engineers and junior engineers of the IPH Department to remain vigilant in their jurisdictions and not only ensure clean drinking water to all, but also to ensure prevention of any misuse of water. She added that task force committees of officers had been formed at various levels to meet drought conditions.

Shimla, April 11
The Dhumal government has come under fire from various quarters, particularly environmentalists, over the proposed amendment to relax Section 118 of the Tenancy and Land Reforms Act to oblige builders at the cost of people.

The apex body of various non-government organisations promoting environmental issues, the Himalaya Niti Abhiyan (HNA), deplored the proposed amendment Bill to be considered by the Vidhan Sabha on Monday and warned that it would only deprive the locals of their ever-depleting natural resources and destroy the rich hill culture and the fragile environment.

It would alienate farmers and open the floodgate for rich outsiders, who were not interested in agriculture but wanted land for setting up business ventures and bungalows for leisure in the hills.

Himachal would be transformed into a concrete jungle, depriving the local people of their natural resources and means of livelihood.

President of the HNA Kulbhushan Upmanyu and coordinator Guman Singh pointed out that the state was already facing water crisis and the forest cover was decreasing fast.

The influx of population from outside would put an additional burden of already scarce resources and hasten the process of environmental degradation, which, in turn, aggravate the problem of climate change, he said.

The alienation of the Himachali farmers would also create law and order problem. In July, 2009, too, the government had tried to relax Section 118 by empowering tehsil-level revenue officers for the purpose but the move was shelved following stiff opposition.

Convener of the Himachal Bachao Morcha Subhash Sharma alleged that the BJP government was in the grip of the builder mafia. It had been obliging outsiders at the cost of the state’s larger interests from day one and with the proposed amendment.

The BJP was running the government like a private company, with leaders pursuing their vested interests, ignoring the larger interests of the state and the people.

Shimla, April 11
The brazen manner in which the BJP government has sought to relax Section 118 of the State Tenancy and Land Reforms Act to benefit colonisers has raised eyebrows of the local people as it is for the first time that the law is being amended to oblige realtors ignoring the larger interests of the state.

The volte face of the BJP on the issue is shocking as it opposed the Himalayan Ski Village Project, cleared during the Congress rule, tooth and nail on the ground that the permission to sell 300 built-up villas would dilute the section, which debars non-agriculturists from acquiring property 
in the state.

The Congress government had also come under pressure from builders for relaxing the section but it did not succumb. If passed by the Vidhan Sabha, the amendment will create a paradoxical situation where a land owner cannot sell his land directly to a non-agriculturist but a coloniser can acquire it, develop plots, build flats and sell 
it to anyone.

The BJP had not been in favour of the State Apartments Regulation Act and as such it was expected to scrap it altogether rather than relaxing the Section 118. It will be a blot on the image of the party which has been taking pride in “not tempering with” the section all these years and lend currency to Union Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh’s charge that “Himachal is on sale on discount”.

The successive governments have made a mockery of the Section 118 by allowing outsiders to acquire land on one pretext or the other. The present regime has made things worse by indiscriminately granting permission for setting up private universities, industries and other projects.

The section meant to protect agriculture land has been abused to facilitate its diversion over 75,000 hectare of farmland over the past 15 years. The law has only helped denying non-agriculturist Himachalis, who have been living in the urban areas even before the state came into being, the right to acquire land.

The Congress governments amended the law more than once but it did not make any effort to insert a saving clause to the Act to protect the rights of non-agriculturist Himachalis, a majority of whom were residents of the areas merged during the reorganisation of states.

Nurpur, April 11
The Himachal Pradesh High Court has taken a serious note of the failure of the state government to install weigh bridges on 11 identified entry points of the state notwithstanding its interim order dated April 11, 2007.

In a recent judgment by the court while disposing of a writ petition filed by a local advocate Sumesh Raj in 2006, the officials concerned were directed to install 11 weigh bridges on identified inter-state barriers by May 31. The HC order also stated that the officials responsible would not get salaries for June if they failed to comply with the order.

It is pertinent to mention that the successive state governments have failed to implement provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act that also prescribes permissible weight limit for public goods transport carriages on the highway. The goods carrying vehicles entering the state usually violate the permissible limit with impunity.

It causes a lot of damage to the road, pollutes environment and even attributes to revenue loss to the state exchequer in the form of value-added tax or other taxes. Apart from this, the overloaded goods transport vehicles are safety hazards to themselves as well as highway users. 

Mandi, April 11
Over 4.72 lakh candidates taking up the joint-entrance test (JEE) IIT in 1,102 centres across the country today faced a harrowing time for 15 minutes when they found that the series of questions paper-I and II did not match the series of answer sheets distributed to them in all centres.

Superintendents from many centres rushed the office of JEE chairman Prof S Arun Kumar throughout the day keeping the entire JEE committee on toes, sources said.

“My daughter was in a fix for 15 minutes when she received the question papers I and II of the JEE-IIT”, rued a parent, while talking to The Tribune on the phone. “All candidates got up and brought this goof-up in questions paper to examination superintendents in many centres”, they said.

The candidates found that the chemistry section has questions from 1-19, followed by mathematics from 20-38 and physics from 39-57. On the other hand, the answer sheet has chemistry from 1-28 then followed by maths from 29-56 and physics from 57-84.

“We were nervous as we didn’t know which answer to tick on the answer sheet”, rued candidates in Palampur and Shimla centres which fall under the IIT Roorki zone.

It was after the instructions from the JEE chairman that the students were asked to mark their choice of answer as per the series on the question papers, an RTI activist, whose daughter also appeared for exams, said.

The director, IIT Mandi, SC Saksena, at Roorki said he had no details so far as he had been sick for the last two days.

Bilaspur, April 11
The state government is taking special interest in the development of famous shrines and several schemes have been finalised and are being implemented for the popular pilgrim centre of Markandeya, which got its name from Rishi Markandeya.

This was said by state Forest Minister and BJP national general secretary JP Nadda, inaugurating the Rs 4.50-lakh Markandeya Samiti Hall at Markandeya, 30 km from here, today.

Nadda said all villages, having population up to 500, had been connected by road in the Bilaspur Sadar constituency and now efforts were being made to connect all villages having population up to 250. He said Rs 15 lakh would be spent on the Markandeya shrine road while Rs 8.50 lakh had been spent on providing facility of toilets there.

The minister said earlier this shrine was under a trust but it was later handed over to the local management on popular demand of the area. He said Rs 45 lakh would be spent on providing drinking water on the Thaudu-Mangrote Drinking Water Supply Scheme while a hand pump would be set up in Kathpur village. Earlier, Markandeya Temple Committee president Pandit Sukh Ram Joshi welcomed the minister and brought several problems of the shrine to his notice.

Solan, April 11
Faced with high interest liability on account of availing loans for buying fertilisers, the HIMFED has demanded a revolving fund of Rs 10 crore from the state government.

This fund would provide working capital to the fund-starved federation to purchase fertilisers without raising loans.

The HIMFED distributes various fertilisers to the agrarian community in the state and since the supplying agencies, including the IFFCO, Rashtriya Chemicals Limited, National Fertilizers Limited, demand advance payment from the buyers, the HIMFED was forced to take loans worth crores from the banks to meet this requirement.

Earlier, the federation had an arrangement whereby the manufacturers directly sold the fertilisers to the states on credit. However, with the decrease in supply and increase in demand, the agencies prefer to sell fertilisers to those states who make advance payments.

Even the earlier available three-month off-season rebate on purchase of fertilisers has been discontinued, adding to the trouble.

The HIMFED has been bearing interest liability of Rs 2.38 crore, Rs 3.33 crore and Rs 4 crore for the financial years 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10, respectively. It supplies almost 34,000 to 40,000 MT of nitrogen and 25,000 to 30,000 MT of complex fertilisers every year to the farmers.

Officials, however, rue that the distribution margin has remained unchanged since 1978-79 and despite drastic changes in the quantity and prices of fertilisers, their profit margins have not been revised. This has added to financial burden on the federation.

HIMFED managing director MP Sood said this revolving fund would help them procure fertilisers well in time for both rabi and kharif season as procurement was a time-consuming process. Since funds worth Rs 3 to 4 crore were incurred on fertilisers for each season, this fund would help ease out the undue interest liability worth crores as it added to the federation’s losses.

Shimla, April 11
The Himachal Pradesh State Corporate Sector Workers Coordination Committee has urged Chief Minister PK Dhumal to restore the notification issued on October 29, 1999, regarding the grant of pension to employees of the corporate sector, who have been denied the benefit.

Representatives of the committee led by chairman Harbans Rana met Dhumal in this regard and submitted a memorandum, pointing out that the previous Congress regime had partially repealed the notification in December, 2004, as a result of which the scheme was nullified for the serving employees.

It also drew attention to the fact that the BJP had in its election manifesto promised to restore the pension notification, however, more than two years have passed since it came to power, no action had been taken in the matter.

Rana also brought to his notice that the state high court had, vide its orders dated March 6 and March 23, 2009, asked the government to implement the scheme and made it clear that unavailability of funds should not come in the way of corporations and boards owned by it.

Funds had been made available by the finance department in compliance of the court order for the release of pension benefits in accordance with the original notification.

A number of employees had approached the high court for the restoration and implementation of the notification and it would be appropriate that the government take a prompt decision in the matter and fulfil its election promise.

Moreover, crores of rupees were deposited as contribution of the employees with the provident fund commissioner and the scheme was not likely to put much financial burden on the government, he pointed out.

Chamba, April 11
The three-day-long historic Suhi Mata fair started here today.Legend has it that the fair was celebrated to commemorate the sacrifice of Rani Sunayana, popularly know as Suhi, who brought water for her subjects and quenched their thirst when there was drinking water crisis in the town during the days of the town’s establishment.

All possible arrangements for the fair had been made and officials of the municipal council had been deployed to ensure facilities to the people visiting the fair.