Shimla, July 15
State returning officer for the Congress organisational poll Rajani Patil today stayed the election to Sulah block after hearing views of main leaders and delegates who were called for a meeting here.

The action was taken on the complaint of former MLA Jagjivan Pal who forced the party authorities to take cognisance of the alleged irregularities in enrolment of members and conduct of election by observing fast at the Congress Bhawan two days ago. The matter would now be settled after conducting an inquiry into the charges.

Besides election to Kutlehar, Hamirpur, Jhanduta and Indora blocks have also been stayed following complaints. Election process in Kangra, Rohru, Kullu, Jwalamukhi and Dehra blocks, for which assistant returning officers were appointed only two days ago, will be completed over the next two days, while the process has not taken off in the two tribal blocks of Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti.

The state returning officer has declared the schedule for elections to district Congress committees. Election in Solan, Una, Sirmour, Chamba and Hamirpur districts will be held on July 18 and in Mandi, Shimla, Kangra, Bilaspur and Kullu on July 20.The electoral college will be constituted by July 24 to pave for election of the state party chief on July 25.

Normally, the Pradesh Congress Committee leaves the matter to the party high command by passing a one-line resolution authorising party supremo Sonia Gandhi to decide the new incumbent. 

Shimla, July 15
The Congress and the CPM have condemned the decision to increase Value Addition Tax (VAT) from the existing 12.5 per cent to 13.75 per cent and said the step would further fuel inflation.

The CPM maintained that an additional revenue of Rs 60 to 70 crore to be raised by the step would actually hurt the common man as prices of domestic household goods and building material would further increase.

The government could not justify the hike harping on fiscal crisis. The BJP has not even once raised the issue of Centre-state relations and devolution of the tax structure to get a larger share in the taxes. Instead, it had just raised the bogey of industrial package which did not mean much in terms of tax generation and resource mobilisation in the state, the CPM said.

The basic financial imbalance in the Centre-state relations arose from the fact that states had been given major responsibilities in the sphere of developmental and administrative expenditure and the more important powers of revenue-raising had remained concentrated in the hands of the Centre. For example, in 2004-05, the total development expenditure of the states at Rs 3.62 lakh crore was more than 1.5 times that of the Centre. However, they received only 38 per cent of the total revenue collected in the country.

The devolution of central taxes and grants as a proportion of total revenue receipts of the Centre fell from 32.7 per cent in 1990-91 to 29.5 per cent in 2004-05. The problem had been exacerbated by the neoliberal economic policies, which included sharp reduction in import duties and reluctance to enhance the rate of direct taxes for the richer groups.

As a result, the actual collection of central taxes fell significantly short of the amount recommended by the 11th Finance Commission.

Om Prakash Sood, general secretary of the Congress Beopar Cell, said the step was against the assurance given in 2005 while introducing VAT. It also exposed dual face of the BJP which observed a “Bharat bandh” against price rise last week and within no time increased VAT to further fuel inflation, he added.

Mandi, July 15
With the Himachal Pradesh High Court’s Single Bench of Justice Surjeet Singh quashing the “de-notification” of Government Primary School, Churu Ka Balh at Dharampur in Mandi, the Congress and the CPM has demanded resignation of Dharampur MLA and Transport Minister Mohinder Singh Thakur on “moral grounds” as the minister made an alleged bid to make room for the stone crusher nearby to be set up by his close relative.

The government has issued the notification on April 27, 2010, to de-notify Government Primary School, Churu Ka Balh, and shifting school to Government School at Bhatiyar, about 10 km from the present school. However, local residents, most of them Schedule Castes, took the matter to the high court challenging its de-notification.

CPM general secretary Bhupender Singh and Congress additional chief Seva Dal Dharampur Chander Shekhar charged that the Transport Minister had de-notified the school in a bid to make room for Ganpati stone crusher at Balayana khud, which belongs to his close relative.

The crusher was inspected by a joint committee team recently and the report of inspection had been sent for approval to the government.

Refuting the charges, Mohinder Singh Thakur said he had not closed down the school, but shifted it to Bhatiyar where the school strength had gone up to 20.

Shimla, July 15
Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal today urged students to maintain academic atmosphere in educational institutions in the interest of the student community.

He was addressing students at the Centre of Excellence, Government Degree College, Sanjauli, after dedicating the newly constructed science block and auditorium constructed at a cost of Rs 4.61 crore and boys hostel, constructed at a cost of Rs 1.75 crore here today.

He said unlawful activities in the university and college campuses would not be permitted and academic atmosphere should be maintained at all costs. Dhumal also advised the teaching fraternity to enforce discipline in their institutions so that students could carry forward on their academic pursuits. “Himachal is poised to emerge as a knowledge hub of the country with the active participation of competent private players,” he said. — TNS

Tandi/Sissu (Lahaul), July 15
A high-level joint team from the state and the Centre has come out with an alternative site for the proposed 160-m-high Tandi dam near here on the Chandra river to store 0.5 million acre feet of water under the Indo-Pak Indus Water Treaty. The team comprised chief engineer from the Central Water Commission (CWC), senior geologist from the Geological Survey of India, chief engineer from the Directorate of Energy and others.

The Ministry of Water Resources had moved upstream of the Chandra-Bhaga basin into Lahaul valley to store 1.5 million acre feet of water under the Indo-Pak Indus water treaty as “it is not getting this capacity in Jammu and Kashmir that falls in the Indus river system”, sources said.

The government finalised a 200-m-high storage dam of 1 million acre feet capacity at Ispa on the Bhaga river and assigned it to the state-run HP Power Corporation. The team surveyed two sites, one at Chota Dhara-Batal and other at Tandi, the confluence of the Chandra and Bhaga rivers.

It found that the Batal-Chota Dhara site located on the high-altitude region of Bara Shigri and Chota Shigri glaciers was still active. The site could store 0.5 million acre feet of water. However, it was prone to avalanches, the sources revealed.

Keeping in view impending dangers that the Batal-Chota Dhara site could pose to the proposed dam, the team surveyed the Tandi site downstream of the Chandra river. However, it found that this site would store 0.4 million acre feet of water, the sources added.

The dam will submerge the lower cultivable land in Raring, Tarling, Gondala, Sissu and other 16 small villages. There are just four houses at Raring and helipad of the Sissu tourist village that will submerge in the proposed dam.

The team has recommend the Tandi site as Mosaerbear company, which had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government for the Gondla power project on the Chandra river, has backed out.

CWC’s chief engineer SC Gupta, who headed the team, said an alternative site at Tandi had been recommended for the dam and the report sent to the state government for further action. However, he refused to give details of the report.

Shimla, July 15
Taking serious note of illegal felling of trees near 100 MW Malana-II power project in Kullu district, the HP High Court has summoned the principal chief conservator of forest and member secretary of the State Pollution Control Board on August 6 and also directed him to file an affidavit explaining what action had been taken by the board to protect the environment.

While passing this order, a Division Bench comprising Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjay Karol further directed the additional chief secretary (forest) of the state to file an affidavit explaining what action was taken by the department against persons awho had caused the damage.

This matter had come to notice of the court through a news item published in these columns.

The news item reported that the Forest Department had not lodged an FIR against Everest Power Private Limited (EPPL) that axed 364 trees and destroyed 115 bighas of forest area in the lush green Malana valley. The court observed that such large scale devastation could not have taken place without active support of forest officials. 

Shimla, July 15
Not willing to take any chances, the Wildlife Department is going in for DNA sampling of eggshells and chicks of western tragopan at its aviary in Sarahan where the highly endangered bird is being bred in captivity as part of a conservation programme.

The eggshells of the western tragopan laid at Sarahan, near Rampur, have already been sent to the Biotechnology Department of JP University of Information Technology at Vaknaghat to look into reasons which could have led to morality of a chick that hatched. The reasons which prevented the hatching of other eggs would also be looked into by way of DNA sampling.

“We are undertaking DNA sampling to find out reasons which could have been a handicap in the successful breeding of the bird and to avoid the problem of inbreeding which may confront us at a later stage,” said AK Gulati, Principal Chief Conservator, Wildlife. The results of the DNA sampling would be received only after a month.

Conservator (Wildlife) Rakesh Sood informed that samples from the tail of the birds would also be sent shortly to Vaknaghat university to establish the parentage. “Though the birds have been ringed to establish their parentage, we are not willing to take a chance with the newly hatched birds which could be from another parentage,” Sood said. This would help check the problem of inbreeding in birds during the conservation and breeding programme.

Even though the Wildlife Department had made a beginning with DNA sampling in western tragopan, it intends to cover Chir pheasants also under the initiative. Two separate breeding and conservation programmes were being run for western tragopan and Chir pheasants at Sarahan and Chail, both in Shimla district.

As a part of the protocol for breeding programme, seven pairs from the wild were required to undertake the project for a period of five years so that there was no breeding among birds of same parentage. Though several eggs were laid by the birds, only one chick was born which too did not survive.

Though it had been established that it was basically due to e-coli infestation that mortality occurred, efforts were being made to ensure that the eggs were healthy and not thin-shelled as was the case this time.

Special care would be taken of the diet and calcium supplements of the birds at the aviary to ensure better success.

Shimla, July 15
Cases of gastroenteritis continued to pour into the Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) and Hospital and Ripon Hospital with 34 new cases being reported during the past 24 hours.

Chief Medical Officer K.K. Ratan said 22 new cases had been admitted to the IGMC and 12 at Ripon Hospital. While majority were from the Dhingu Bowri area in Sanjauli but sporadic cases had come in from Cemetery and New Shimla.

IGMC sources said the condition of most of the patients was stable and some had also been discharged as their condition improved. About 22 patients were admitted to the IGMC since last night as all of them are from the same Dhingu Bowri area where the water contamination led to outbreak of gastroenteritis.

Reports of the water samples collected on a regular basis is yet to be received. All the Block Medical Officers (BMO) have been directed to remain alert against the outbreak of diarrhoea and gastroenteritis.

Following the death of a 12-year-old boy, son of a Nepalese labourer in Dhingu Bowri, teams of the Health Department have warned people not to consume water from the bowri as it could be contaminated. 

Shimla, July 15
The state electricity regulatory commission (serc) is considering to switch over from the ‘cost to serve’ to ‘average cost to serve’ model for determination of power tariff to help contain the growing burden on domestic consumers due to sharp increase in industrial consumption.

The average cost of supply has escalated from Rs 3.60 to Rs 4.42 per unit mainly on account of increase in industrial consumption which has trebled over the past six years with the government allowing a large number of power intensive steel units. As a result the state utility is forced to purchase costly power and supply it at lower rates to industries as under the ‘cost to serve’ model the tariff for large industrial consumers is much lower than domestic consumers.

The cost to serve for large industries comes to only Rs 2.95 per unit for the above 66 kv and Rs 4.04 per unit for 11 kv and above. However, for voltages below 11 kv, under which the category of domestic consumer falls, it is as high as Rs 5.88 per unit. The main reason for it is that transmission cost at high voltage (above 66 kv) was only 27 paise per unit. In contrast the distribution cost for 11 kv and above 87 paise per unit and for voltages lower than 11 kv Rs 1.58 per unit.

As per the tariff policy, cost for any category could be cross-subsidised only to the extent of 120 per cent as a result the tariff for all the categories is moving up due to increasing industrial consumption. The government has pegged the quantum of subsidy for domestic consumers at Rs 140 crore which means any further increase in tariff will have to be passed on to the consumer. The ‘average cost to serve’ model will help increase the industrial tariff by up to 60 paise per unit within the framework of national tariff policy, though it is against the spirit of the Electricity Act 2003 as per which cross subsidies are to be phased.

Apart from increasing expenditure on purchase of power, exorbitantly high employee cost is the main factor responsible for high power tariff. The employee cost of Rs 1.43 per unit as per the 2010 tariff order is the highest in the country.