Shimla, December 13
The decision of the Dhumal government to give political parties the option to contest elections to the urban local bodies has enlivened the political atmosphere with both ruling BJP and the opposition Congress carrying out elaborate exercise to search candidates.

It is for the first time that elections to the 48 municipal councils and nagar panchayats is being contested on party symbols and, thus, the stakes have gone up for the major parties as the outcome of the poll scheduled for January 3 will reflect on their popularity.

The BJP will be completing three years in office on December 30 and the poll will also give an indication about the success or otherwise of the policies being pursued by it. The stakes are also high for the Congress which lost power in the 2007 Vidhan Sabha poll winning just 23 seats in the 68-member House and managed to secure only one out of the four seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha election. The result will reveal whether or not the party had started regaining the lost ground.

In the past, there was no provision for contesting polls on party symbols, though most of the candidates in the electoral arena were supported by one party or the other. After declaration of results, both BJP and Congress claimed victory and there was no way to ascertain their claims. The state Election Commission had not made it mandatory for the political parties to contest the polls on party symbols and only allowed it as an option. However, both parties have decided to opt to contest elections on party symbol.

Further, it is also for the first time that president and vice-president will be elected directly by the voters. There will be, thus, little room for horse trading, even though the anti-defection law as applicable in case of MLAs and MPs will not be in force.

The two parties involved in the organisational units, right from the constituency to the state level, in finalising the candidates and also obtained feedback from the workers. The Congress even appointed observers who have submitted a panel of candidates in consultation with the district units and the final decision was taken by the state-level committee, headed by the PCC chief Kaul Singh.

The Congress released the list of candidates for all municipal bodies and the BJP has also completed the exercise except for six municipal councils.

Filing of nominations for election to 48 presidents and as many vice-presidents and a total of 406 ward members in 25 municipal councils and 23 nagar panchayats started today and the process will close on December 15. The scrutiny of nomination papers will take place on December 16 and the last date for withdrawal is December 18.

As many as 3,04,645 voters, 1.60 lakh males and 1.40 lakh females, will exercise their franchise during the one-day poll. For the first time, electronic voting machines will be used and in all 457 polling stations will be set up.

Shimla, December 13
The seven-member committee headed by the state Pradesh Congress Committee chief Kaul Singh has cleared the list of candidates for elections to the 48 municipal bodies here today.

The candidates for the posts of president and vice-president are as follows:

Rampur- Deepak Sood & Pankaj Sharma

Theog- Kapil Joshi & Sunil Sharma

Narkanda- Chander Mohan & Naresh

Sunni- Shyama Devi & Pradeep Sharma

Jubbal- Rajender Singh & Man Singh

Kotkhai- Ravinder Singh & Sandeep Chauhan

Rohru- Surinder Retka & Navjot Kalta

Chopal - Gulab Singh & Kirshna Chandel

Bilaspur- Renu Kanwar & Kamlendra Kashyap

Talai- Saroj Kumar & Pawan Kaushal

Naina Devi - Pradeep Kumar & Rajendra Singh

Ghumarvin - Geeta Mahajan & Dhani Ram

Chamba- Meena Dhal & Jitender Surya

Dalhousie - Manoj Chadda & Bishan Lal

Chawari - Anjna &

Hardeep Ohri

Kangra - Suman Verma & Vikas Verma

Palampur - Balwant Thakur & Yash Mahajan

Nurpur - Krishna Mahajan & Yash Pal

Jwalamukhi - Anil Prabha & Anish Sood

Dharamsala - Subhash Nehria & Rajeev Mahajan

Nagrota- Kanta Mehra & Arun Mehra

Solan- Kul Rakesh Pant and Renu Sethi

Nalagarh - Alka Verma & Dinesh Sharma

Arki- Seema Sharma & Gaurav Thakur

Parwanu - Chunni Lal & Rajesh Sharma

Baddi- Chaudhari Madan Lal & Bant Singh

Hamirpur- Prakash Chand & Manoj

Sharma

Sujanpur Tira - Mnoj Kumar & Raj Kumar

Bhota- Sarvjeet Kaur & Chhesraj

Naduan - Reena & Ramesh Nayar

Kullu- Gopal Krishna & Maneesh Sharma

Manali- Vijay Thakur & Subhash Thakur

Banjar - Kumbh Das & Kunj Lal

Bhuntar - Anil Sood & Nain Prakash

Nahan - Shabnam & Yogesh Gupta

Paonta- Rajender

Sharma & Tejpal Singh

Rajgarh - Dinesh Arya & Sunil Sharma

Mandi- Sushila & Tosh Kumar

Sarakaghat - Nirmala Thakur & Ashwini

Jogindernagar - Pratima & Bhag Chand

Riwalsar - Pawan Gupta and Sagar Kamal

Sundernagar- Dinesh

Sharma & Naresh Sain

Gagret- Vimal Devi & Gurcharan

Singh

Daultpur - Anita Rani & Kailash Kumar

Santokhgarh- Ashok Kumari & Narinder Saini

Mehatpur- Karnail Singh & Naresh Chand

In Una, Jaswinder Kaur has been given the ticket for the post of president, but the candidate for vice-president is yet to be decided.

Bilaspur, December 13
The Congress and the BJP have declared candidates for Ghumarwin nagar parishad in Bilaspur district here.

Reports said from nagar parishad, Ghumarwin, the BJP has selected Sunita Devi of Patta from the Baddu ward as its candidate for the post of president, while Ashwini Ratwan, the outgoing vice- president, has once again been selected for the same post.

Ghumarwin Mandal BJP president Krishan Singh Thakur said for ward No 1 (Baddu) Rajnish Mahajan, ward No 2 (Indira Market) Nirmala Devi, Ward No 3 (Ambedkar) Mira Devi, ward No 4 ( Kalyana) Sardar Prem Singh, ward No 5 (Bajoha) Rita Sharma, ward No 6 (Tikkari) Rama Devi and ward No 7 (Dakkadi) Gyan Chand Sharma would be the candidates, respectively.

Congress Mandal president Nand Lal Sharma said later in the evening that the party had declared Gita Mahajan and Dhani Ram Sharma as party candidates for the posts of president and vice-president for Ghumarwin nagar parishad.

The other selected candidates are - ward No 2 Sita Devi, ward No 3 Rita Devi, ward No 5 Vinod Sheela, ward No 6 Nisha Sharma and ward No 7 Ramesh Mehta. 

Solan, December 13
With both Congress and BJP declaring their candidates for the posts of chairman and vice-chairman in the four municipal committees and one nagar panchayat in the district, campaigning has gained momentum.

With the Congress holding four of the five civic bodies, it was a tough task for the BJP to establish its supremacy.

Apart from the Solan municipal committee, the BJP had failed to put up an impressive show elsewhere thus forcing it to sit in the opposition in the other four civic bodies.

Expecting to repeat the performance in Solan, it had fielded the sitting MC chairman Devinder Thakur while announcing Pawan Gupta as its candidate for vice-chairman in Solan.

The Congress has, however, sprung a surprise by fielding an old timer Kul Rakesh Pant, who was chosen against the sitting councillors Ajay Mittal and Ajay Chauhan. Since Pant had failed to hold any elected post and forfeited his security while contesting for the post of an MLA in the past, his choice had disappointed a section of party men who opined that tickets had been allotted at the behest of leaders sitting in Delhi.

In Baddi, the Congress has again fielded Madan Chowdhary for the post of chairman, thus restricting the leadership of the municipal committee to a single family. This post was earlier held by Madan and wife Bhupinder Kaur in the past two polls. While denying others a chance to represent the civic body, this favouritism had disheartened other aspirants. Bant Singh had been nominated as the candidate for vice-president.

With the BJP having failed to even open its account in the Baddi MC, these polls will be a litmus test for the local MLA Vinod Chandel who was the lone BJP MLA to have won this seat. The BJP also failed to make a rational choice of candidates with Jaswant Rai and Dinesh Kaushal being fielded as the respective candidates for chairman and vice-chairman, both of whom had failed to get elected even as a councillor in the past.

Palampur, December 13
The higher reaches of Dhauladhar received fresh snowfall this afternoon, while the lower areas of the Kangra valley are in the grip of severe cold for the past 24 hours, disrupting normal life here.

Chilly waves made the lives of people miserable. Most of the towns of the valley had been giving a deserted look after 6 pm as no one was seen in the streets.

There had been a considerable fall in the night temperature as compared to the previous years.

Experts in HP Agriculture University told mediapersons that the state would experience unusual winters and biting cold conditions this year.

Kinnaur, Lahaul Spiti, Shimla, Kulu, Kangra, Chmaba and parts of Mandi district would be the worst affected. Most of the local streams which supplied drinking water in the state could go dry in January and February. Unusual winters would also adversely hit the fruit, vegetables and other crops.

An acute shortage of essential commodities like LPG, kerosene and fuel wood has further multiplied the problems of the resident here. Despite tall claims of the government, most of the government-owned depots had no stock of kerosene and fuel wood. The HP State Forest Corporation had already discontinued the sale of chalcoal in its retail outlets which had made matter worse.

LPG is also in short supply. The Indian Oil Corporation, which supplies LPG to over 80 per cent consumers of the region, has failed to meet the requirement.

Hamirpur, December 13
Another irregularities related to admission to its employees as internal candidates under the career improvement programme in different courses of Bachelors of Technology (BTech) without clearing the AIEEE and approval of the Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) or the Board of Governors has surfaced in Hamirpur National Institute of Technology (NIT) during the tenure of former director of the institute Dr IK Bhatt.

Dr Bhatt, who had a “controversial term” in the NIT here for alleged irregularities in the recruitment of few faculty members, is still facing a public interest litigation petition in the state high court after a CBI raid on the NIT campus about two 
years back.

In the case, the NIT Senate, at the initiative of Dr Bhatt, had admitted seven of its employees, having diplomas in these subjects, to Electronic Communication and Computers (ECE) and Computers Engineering departments for BTech courses.

The entrance to all BTech courses in the NITs and other institutions throughout the country is made on the basis of ranking in the All-India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE) and without clearing the test, no candidate can be admitted to these courses as per admission rules framed by the Ministry.

Not only employees had taken admission without clearing the AIEEE, they had also been admitted directly to the second year and allowed to complete their courses in 7 years instead of a normal period of 4 years, besides charging nominal fees.

Interestingly, one candidate having Diploma in ECE had been admitted to BTech course in Computers.

The Supreme Court of India had objected to such admissions in the NIT a few years back in a similar case.

The Director and the Registrar of the NIT, Dr RL Sharma and Dr AS Singha, respectively, said, “We cannot comment as to how these admission were made since these are made during the term of former Director.”

Shimla, December 13
Admitting that destructive methods of extraction of herbs and medicinal plants in the state had created an imbalance, Vice-Chancellor of Horticulture University Dr KR Dhiman today called for proper conservation and protection of the biological wealth of the state.

He was speaking at an awareness workshop on “Intellectual Property Right and Biotechnology” organised here today by the State Council for Science, Technology and Environment.

“It is high time we realise the gravity of the issue as 57 species have been declared endangered while 14 are critically threatened on the verge of extinction so we need to identify tools and take corrective measures,” he said.

Dr Dhiman said the destructive methods of extraction of herbs and medicinal plants had created an imbalance between regeneration and its exploitation.

“The state has a huge biological wealth and is perhaps the richest state in terms of biodiversity so we need to protect this through unscientific exploitation,” he said.

He also stressed the need for bio-prospecting of some of the medicinal herbs and plants especially in view of diverse climatic conditions. He added though a number of products like Kangra tea and Chamba rumal had been registered under the Geographical Indications Act, several other traditional products especially in the remote Pangi and Bharmour areas need to be identified.

Speaking on the occasion, E Vikram, joint member secretary in the State Council for Science, Technology and Environment, said the workshop had been organised to create awareness about Patenting facilities and create awareness about the Intellectual Property Right among scientists, technologists, industrialist and policy makers.

“Himachal was the first state in the country to formulate a policy for registration and protection under geographical indications.

Dr R Saha, director, Patent Facilitation Centre; Dr Sangeeta Nagar, principal scientific officer, Department of Science and Technology, Delhi; and Rekh Chaturvedi from Institute of Genomics and Integrated Biology, New Delhi, also spoke.

Shimla, December 13
The government has decided to hire consultants for designing and preparing detailed project reports for the three major road tunnels to be constructed in the state.

The process of evaluation of bids of the four multi-national companies, which are in the race for the consultancy contract, is on and a final decision will be taken by the Infrastructure Development Board, the nodal agency for private public partnership (PPP) projects.

The companies in the race include Austrian joint venture Geoconsult Secon, Euro Studios, Bernard Ingenieure and US-based AECOM.

The successful bidder will be given one year for preparing the detailed project report for the three projects which are likely to cost over Rs 400 crore.

As per the pre-feasibility report prepared early this year, the tentative cost of the 2.80-km tunnel, to be constructed under the Bhubu Jot from Shilh Badahani to Telang on the Jogindernagar-Ghatasani-Telang Kullu road, was Rs 85.75 crore. It will reduce the distance between Jogindernagar and Kullu by 71 km.

The 1.2-km tunnel to link Bangana and Dhaneta is estimated to cost Rs 35.40 crore and it will shorten the distance between the two places by over 7 km.

The longest 4.9-km tunnel will be bored through the mighty Dhauladhar ranges from Uttrala to Holi to connect Kangra and Chamba districts. It will cost about Rs 150 crore and the overall reduction in distance will be 200 km.

Another tunnel is being constructed by the National Highway Authority of India on the Chandigarh-Manali highway at Kenchi ka Mor, near Swarghat, in Bilaspur district. The Rs 360-crore project is viable for implementation of the Design Build Finance Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) basis in the public-private partnership (PPP) mode. As per the project document, the project will involve new alignment to help reduce distance between Chandigarh and Bilaspur by 22 km.

Besides, the 1,760-m long main tunnel, it will also have a small 200 m tunnel, four bridges and about 19 km of new road on both sides.

The highway will take off from Kainchi ka Mor and join the existing road near Mehla, short of Bilaspur town. Besides two big bridges, one of 400 m span across the Gambar Khad and another of 250 m span near Gambrolla, and two small bridges will also be constructed. The project will help avoid the steep climb to the Swarghat hill top, saving wear and tear of vehicles, besides curtailing travel time by an hour.

Shimla, December 13
As many as 2,968 out of the total 3,243 gram panchayats in the state have been provided road connectivity with the construction of 2,786 km of new roads and 185 bridges over the past 35 months.

Stating this while reviewing the performance of the Public Works Department at a meeting here today, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said there were 18,946 habitations in the state out of which 10,541 habitations had been connected with motorable roads.

The state had a total 31,507 km of roads and 1,700 bridges, including 18,835 km metalled and tarred.

He said the government was sensitive towards the protection of environment and it had directed the executing agencies not to dump debris on the roadside and ensure its disposal for which 1,025 sites had been identified in different parts of the state.

He said 65 stretches had been identified for creation of wayside amenities out of which six sites were more than a kilometre long.

A double-lane tunnel was proposed under the Swarghat hill at Gara Moura to shorten the distance between Chandigarh and Manali. The four-laning of Kalka-Shimla road was in progress and a few tunnels had also been proposed to shorten the distance between Kalka and Shimla under the project.

Dhumal directed the authorities to remove the abandoned and condemned vehicles from roadsides and take action against their owners for unauthorised dumping.