Dharamsala, June 15
Succumbing to the pressure generated by the state government, Junior Basic Training (JBT) trainees returned to their classes today. Almost all JBT trainees, who had been boycotting classes and holding protests for the past one month, returned to the District Institute of Elementary Training (DIET).

According to sources, the trainees decided to attend classes after the government threatened to discontinue their courses.

Leader of JBT teachers’ association at Dharamsala, Ishan Rana, when contacted, admitted that all teachers were joining classes. He, however, added that they would continue to press for their demands through other modes.

The JBT trainees have been demanding permanent government jobs. They organised statewide protests to press for their demands. In Hamirpur, a controversy had erupted when cops allegedly beat up female JBT trainees. The act evoked widespread condemnation from people as well as leaders of the opposition. Meanwhile, the Education Secretary had invited JBT trainees for talks but it failed to provide any result.

According to earlier tradition, all students taking admission in the DIET institutions of the state entered into a bond with the government that they would be given permanent jobs in primary schools of the state. Hence, all students passing out of DIET institutions used to get absorbed in primary schools.

The state government, however, maintained the position that it could not provide permanent employment in any category as per the decision taken by the cabinet. It was now offering jobs on contract-basis to JBT teachers

However, the JBT trainees termed contractual appointments by the government as exploitation.

Due to increasing finance, the state government had given an undertaking to the Union government against giving permanent jobs. The undertaking was taken from all those states that were facing increasing financial liability, the sources added.

Due to it the state was in a fix over offering permanent jobs to JBT teachers or any other category.

During their agitation, the JBT teachers also got support from Kangra MP Rajan Sushant who said the state should consider their demands sympathetically.

Manali, June 15
Union Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh and Union Minister of State for Defence MM Pallam today visited site of the 8.8-km-long Rohtang Tunnel at Dhundi near Solang valley prior to the visit of Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

Talking to mediapersons at Circuit House, Pallam said it was a national project which had a great importance from the defence point of view.

Out of 17 projects of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), the Rohtang Tunnel project was the biggest, he added.

He said latest technology and equipment would be used for making the tunnel which would be completed by 2015.

The foundation stone of the tunnel will be laid by Sonia Gandhi on June 28. Defence Minister AK Antony will also accompany the Congress chairperson on the occasion.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Himachal Chief Minister PK Dhumal other BJP and Congress leaders are also expected to be present on the occasion.

Solang ski slopes has been selected as the venue for the function where Sonia will address a gathering of local people of Kullu and Lahaul valley.

Meanwhile, Virbhadara Singh thanked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for giving a go-ahead to the work on the long-awaited Rohtang Tunnel.

Shimla, June 15
The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has sanctioned five more national highways (NHs), two bypasses and a tunnel for Himachal.

This follows a meeting of Chief Minister PK Dhumal with Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Kamal Nath in New Delhi yesterday.

Dhumal pleaded that Himachal, having a difficult topography, deserved special attention of the Centre in the matter of road transport as this was the main mode of communication in the state.

Five 494.875-km-long NHs, two bypasses, one tunnel, two interceptors and one modern driving school have been sanctioned by the ministry.

The Chief Minister said the new NHs approved by the Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways were Hamirpur-Sujanpur-Palampur (59.7 km), Brahmpukhar-Bilaspur-Ghumarwin-Sarkaghat-Lad Bhadol-Baijnath (11.800 km), Bharmour-Chamba-Dalhousie-Pathankot (133 km), Taradevi-Jubbarhatti-Kunihar-Ramshehar-Nalagarh-Ghanauli (106.4 km), and Chandigarh-PGI (Baddi) Punjab Pokhran-Nalagarh-Ramshehar-Arki-Shalaghat (83.9 km).

Shimla, June 15
The state power utility will have to pay dearly for rampant corruption and inefficiency in execution of 126-MW Larji project with the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity rejecting its plea for enhancing the cost of Rs 960 crore fixed by the State Electricity Regulatory Commission.

The board has in its application for determination of tariff pegged the total cost of the project at Rs 1,453 crore as against the estimated cost of Rs 667 crore. The per megawatt cost comes to around Rs 12 crore, almost double the normal cost.

The commission had taken a serious view of the huge cost overrun and ordered an independent probe to investigate the abnormally high cost of the project and determine its prudential cost. The two-member expert committee had pointed out glaring irregularities and instances of corruption which led to registration of vigilance cases.

The committee worked out the cost of projects after taking all factors responsible for delay and escalation at Rs 960 crore almost Rs 300 crore more than the estimated cost. However, the final completion cost filed by the utility makes it the costliest hydroelectric project to date with cost of generation coming to Rs 5.60 per unit as against the average sale price of Rs 3.60 per unit for 2009-10.

Interestingly, the state utility had been averse to purchase power from small projects at the rate of Rs 2.87 per unit, fixed by the commission, even as the cost of generation from its own project was more than double. It had challenged the order of the commission increasing tariff for small projects but the Appellate Tribunal not only rejected its plea but also further increased the tariff to Rs 2.95 per unit.

However, now that the appeal of the utility had been rejected it was obvious that the commission would go by the cost determined by its own expert committee for fixing the tariff which would be around Rs 3.50 per unit at the cost of Rs 960 crore.

The tribunal had also upheld the decision of the commission to disallow an amount of Rs 17.9 crore claimed to bridge the gap on account of lower returns on the invested amount against the interest of 8 per cent the utility was paying to the employees. The tribunal held that the claim for the interest on GPF could not be allowed as it would burden consumers for a cost which should have been easily avoided by prudent methods of managing the GPF corpus.

Solan, June 15
With frequent shutdowns in the Pinjore and Panchkula feeders investors in the region are forced to face the brunt of power scarcity despite no shortage of power in the state.

Since power was routed through these feeders to the industrial areas of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) and Parwanoo, any shutdown in these feeders directly impacted the industry in Himachal.

Though it was a normal practice to shutdown feeders for maintenance, its increasing frequency was disturbing the industry. The Parwanoo industrial area had to go without power for several hours today and similar situation was faced by Barotiwala and Baddi industry. Though the state electricity board tried to bridge the gap by diverting supply from Solan, the presence of old limited capacity conductors reduced the power availability from the requisite 25 MVA to 18 MVA thus forcing shutdowns.

Officials of the board rued that some supply lines were damaged due to the ongoing digging up of the Kalka-Shimla highway for its widening and since its restoration took time it caused trippings in the power supply.

Rakesh Bansal, an investor, said till today around 34 trippings have occurred in June alone and it was a routine to face four to eight trippings per day.

Prem Sharma, president, Nalagarh Industries Association, said power cuts had reduced the viability of their industry as the amount of wastages had surmounted and no off could be planned in the absence of any schedule.

Officials of the board opined that though the Pinjore and Panchkula feeders did take such shutdowns, increase in their frequency which was seven to eight times in the past one-and-a-half month had made matters worse. Since little information was available in advance they failed to alert the industry causing inconvenience.

While power remained disrupted for several hours at Parwanoo today, another shutdown in its four feeders, including water supply, Kasauli, second feeder and fourth feeder will be affected from 11 am to 1 pm tomorrow, confided officials.

Dharamsala, June 15
The state government has no information regarding Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) getting funds from the Union government. The recent cases in which a few NGOs were found to be involved in illegal cases were a surprise to the department.

It was only after later inquiries that the State Department of Social Security found that some NGOs of the state, accused on various counts ranging up to rape charges, were being funded directly from the Centre.

This was stated by Minister for Social Security Sarween Chaudhary while talking to The Tribune. She is the only woman minister in the Himachal cabinet

She said the state government had requested the Centre to at least provide details of funds being provided to various NGOs working in the state to the State Department of Social Welfare. It would have helped the department keep a track on utilisation of funds that were meant for people of the state.

“The recent cases have illustrated that a few persons with dubious credentials have been running NGOs with direct financial aid from various government departments of the Centre. The department is now planning to keep a check on their activities. However, it is only possible with the help from the Centre,” she said.

The minister also alleged that the state was being discriminated in terms of various projects meant for welfare of the poor. Many pilot projects for social welfare schemes were started in the state in the past two years. However, the projects were transferred to other states, especially those being ruled by the Congress.

The minister also expressed concern over the declining sex ratio in border districts of the state like Kangra and Una. She said to motivate the downtrodden towards having girl child, the present government had increased the grant for every girl child in the state to Rs 5,100. The amount has been increased from Rs 500.

Dharamsala, June 15
Institute of Himalayan Bio-resource Technology (IHBT), Palampur, a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has designed and developed a mobile essential oil distillation unit. The unit will be used for creating awareness and training farmers on the production of essential oil from aromatic plants.

The spokesperson of the institute, while talking to The Tribune, said the unit was successfully demonstrated to farmers in the tribal areas as Pritmas (Tissa) in Chamba district by distilling lavender crop being cultivated in the region.

Conventionally, the essential oils are distilled in stationary distillation units, which are generally installed away from the fields, where the crops are being cultivated. Hence, farmers have to transport the harvest to the central processing facility to distill their crops, which incurs cost and also damages the harvest during transportation thereby yielding low quality essential oils. The farmers in the hilly region possess small land holdings hence it is not feasible to invest large capital for installing distillation unit for processing their crops.

The mobile distillation unit, developed by the IHBT, can be transported to the remote areas where raw material, water and agro-waste fuel wood are available to distill the aromatic crops at the site itself.

The unit consists of a truck mounted with an essential oil distillation unit having a capacity to distill 2 quintals of raw material per batch and the system has a built-in furnace, water-head tanks, transfer pumps and generator set. The distillation unit can be easily loaded and unloaded from the truck by a hydraulic system. Once the distillation unit is unloaded, the truck can be used for other purposes during the distillation period.

The provision exists to distill aromatic crops by different hydrodistillation techniques as per need such as water distillation, water-steam distillation and steam distillation, to produce good quality of oil that fetches higher price in the market. The whole system is very light in weight and designed to suite the requirements of farmers, IHBT scientists said.

Shimla, June 15
Former legislator from Chopal and eminent environmentalist and wildlife expert Yogendra Chander today said ‘vote bank politics’ was the main reason for widespread encroachments on forest land in the hill state.

Chander today refuted government claims that encroachments had been detected on 20,000 hectares of reserved forest land in the state. “The extent of encroachments is far higher in Himachal and the government is misleading the public by presenting wrong information,” he alleged.

He lamented that the callous attitude of the government towards protecting forests was also evident from the fact that it had failed to comply with High Court directives with regard to encroachments. “Despite court directives that FIR be registered against all those who had encroached on forest land so that the issue could be decided in a time- bound manner, the government had failed to take the necessary action,” he said.

Taking the government to task, he said the BJP regime was indulging in vote bank politics, which was why they were not registering FIRs against the encroachers despite court directives. “In fact during its earlier tenure the BJP regime had promised to the people that encroachments on government as well as forestland would be regularised, which resulted in a sudden increase in encroachments,” he said.

The leader was also highly critical of the policy of the government with regard to undertaking plantation. “The forest department is still carrying on with pine plantation which is not suitable as it makes the land arid and moreover, the survival rates shown by them are far higher than the actual figure,” he said.

Hamirpur, June 15
The alleged assault on a physical education teacher at Government Senior Secondary School (GSSS), Matahni, by a fellow teacher on Monday on the school premises took a new turn today when about 100 women and members of the HP DPE (director physical education) Association reached the school, demanding action against the guilty.

Physical education teacher Shankar Raj, who was allegedly assaulted on Monday in the teachers’ staff room, also made a written complaint to school principal today, alleging assault by a fellow teacher Hans Raj in front of the staff which was signed by 18 of his colleagues.

Enraged relatives of the victim and villagers of Brahaldi and Nalti panchayat, accompanied by about 100 women, reached the school this morning. They were later joined by members of the DPE Association.

Talking about the incident, school principal Ashok Kumar Soni said, “I was informed at about 9 am on Monday that two teachers were involved in a scuffle in the staff room. I later called a meeting of teachers and heard versions of both the teachers. While Shankar Raj alleged assault by Hans Raj, the latter complained of nasty remarks by the former against his wife, who also teaches in this school.”

Refuting the allegation and vouching for the character of Shankar Raj, his relatives and Nalti panchayat president Simpal Sharma said, “Shankar Raj has been teaching for the past 17 years in different schools and there has not been a single complaint against him.”

Meanwhile, district president of the state DPE Association Sunil Kapil has demanded action in this matter.