Mandi, February 27
It is perhaps a big step in government schools to say goodbye to drab and dusty blackboard classrooms.

Like their elite public and convent cousins, now Himachal Pradesh is set to launch two smart classrooms and a lab in each of the 628 Government Senior Secondary Schools across the state under the centrally sponsored Rs 88 crore information communication technology (ICT) project.

Students, teachers and educationists welcome the smart classrooms in government schools. The new-age classrooms will upgrade teaching standards, check the shift of students to public and convent schools and help government school students to keep pace with those studying in privileged elite schools, they say.

The teachers teaching Class 9th to 12th are undergoing training for five days at each district headquarters. Gradually, they will shun the use of chalk and blackboard and switch over to the use of mouse, projectors and LCDs in the classrooms.

The Directorate of Education has already shortlisted 626 topics selected from English, economics, social studies and science. The e-content is developed by HCL and its associated company for which the state has signed an MoU for the ICT project.

Sachin Thakur, spokesperson, Lecturer Association, says that smart classrooms are the need of the hour considering the mad rat race for public schools even if they don’t have the qualified staff. “We welcome this step and it should extend to all schools in the state”.

In the first phase, the state government is launching this ICT project in 628 schools in the state. The rest of 614 schools will be covered in the next phase for which the state awaits the Centre’s nod. Each school will have two smart classrooms and a lab. Each room will have eight computers.

Director, education Dr OP Sharma, said, “The idea behind the ICT project is to enhance learning and teaching skills of both students and teachers. It will enhance computer-aided learning and make students competent in modern education”.

Dr Sharma says that the project is sponsored by the Centre and the state is also contributing 10 per cent of the cost in the first phase. “But in phase-II, the state will pay 20 per cent of the project for three years. Idea is to switch over to modern competent methods of learning”, he adds.

He says the five-day teacher training has started from February 12 and will conclude on March 31. HCL has started installing the computers. The Chief Minister will soon launch the project formally in the state.

Shimla, February 27
The controversy surrounding the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorjee, and details about the benami land properties of the Tibetans is likely to emerge as a major issue during the Budget session of the state Assembly commencing from February 28.

The Karmapa issue, which attracted the attention of not just the national but also international media, is likely to be raised by both the ruling BJP as well as the Congress legislators. Many of them would want to know if the government was planning to come out with a policy on dealing with the benami land deals involving Tibetans who have some major settlements besides McLeodganj at several places in the hill state.

The Budget session will start tomorrow with the Governor’s address and will get over on April 8. There will be a total of 24 sittings in the winter session. The Congress will try to corner the government on the issue of opening of private universities as well as the Opposition has been very critical of the clearances being given by the BJP regime to private universities.

The BJP will try to counter Congress attack by once again raising the issue of discrimination and step-motherly treatment being meted out to the state by the Congress-led UPA regime. This was also evident from the fact that the state cabinet yesterday adopted a resolution to express concern over this discriminatory approach and take it up at the highest level.

Opposition members will try to turn the heat on the government over the conflicting stand adopted by Chief Minister PK Dhumal and Chief Secretary Rajwat Sandhu in giving a clean chit to the Tibetan spiritual leader, heading the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The statement of Sandhu giving a clean chit to Karmapa, especially when Dhumal had adopted a stern and unyielding stance, had caused much embarrassment to the state government.

The Tibetans residing in the state have come in for a lot of criticism for acquiring huge chunks of land, which are under probe as most of them are benami deals. Major Tibetan institutions like monasteries and cultural institutes have come up on these properties.

Congress members are expected to raise issues about paucity of teachers in government schools, shortage of doctors and paramedical staff in health institutions and corruption.

Manali, February 27
Manali and its adjoining areas experienced a fresh spell of snowfall today, renewing the cold wave conditions in the upper Manali region. The sun shone this morning and tourists and local residents got a respite from the cold weather conditions.

The entire upper areas of the Manali region was covered with a white blanket this morning. Snow-covered deodar trees, roofs and both sides of the hills presented a picturesque view to the visitors.

The vehicles could go up to Nehru kund, about 5 km from here, on the Manali-Rohtang road.

Meanwhile, hundreds of tourists who have come to Kullu-Manali from the plains rushed to Nehru kund to see the fresh snowfall. Due to the fresh spell of snowfall, the road beyond Nehru kund was slippery because of a thick layer of fresh snow on and it was difficult to drive their vehicles between Nehru kund and the Solang valley.

The Rohtang Pass also experienced a heavy snowfall. The entire higher reaches in the Kullu valley experienced moderate to heavy snowfall.

The famous ski slopes of the Solang valley also experienced a fresh snowfall and on the ski slopes, it brought cheer on the faces of winter sport lovers.

The moderate to heavy snowfall in the higher reaches between Kothi and the Rohtang Pass also brought smiles on the faces of hoteliers, taxi operators and luxury bus operators. They felt that it would boost the winter and summer tourism in Kullu-Manali.

The entire Manali region was in the grip of severe cold conditions leading to further decline in the day temperature.

Palampur, February 27
The sudden increase in the number of stray animals in Palampur town and its adjoining areas has become a matter of concern as hundreds of stray animals can be seen roaming in various parts of the town and on highways.

Despite repeated requests made by citizens of the town to the local SDM and the Municipal Councillor, no steps have been initiated to check the menace. Stray animals were not only causing inconvenience to the common man and local shopkeepers, but also resulting in fatal accidents.

Recently a youth riding a two-wheeler lost his life near Paror when his vehicle hit with a cow on the Pathankot-Mandi national highway. Last year, over 12 youths lost their lives in different road mishaps caused by stray animals in the district.

Garbage dumps in different parts of the town have become a centre of attraction to these animals as they can be seen languishing on heaps of garbage, waste fruits and vegetables. The state government has yet to come out with a policy to check the stray animal menace not only in Palampur, but also in other areas of the state.

Thakur Balwant Singh, president, Palampur, Municipal Council, said he had no budget to set up a gau sadan where stray animals could be kept.

He added that the government should provide funds for setting up such shelters to stray animals in municipal councils in the state.

Kangra, February 27
Senior Congress leader Nardev Kanwar criticised the Food and Civil Supply Minister Ramesh Dhawala for not fulfilling his promise to set up a government degree college in Jwalamukhi.

Talking to reporters at PWD rest house in Jwalamukhi yesterday, Kanwar accused Ramesh Dhawala of betraying the people of the temple town by starting a degree college under the management of the Jwalamukhi Temple Trust.

Kanwar recalled that during Ramesh Dhawala’s election campaign, Dhawala had made a promise to the people of the area that he would endeavour for a government degree college in Jwalamukhi.

Kanwar alleged that it was merely a gimmick of the BJP leadership to get political mileage by exploiting a longstanding demand of the people to open a government degree college.

He said the educational atmosphere of the degree college in Jwalamukhi was vitiated because of the anti-people decisions of the state government and its failure to take over the college.

He demanded that the state government should come forward with sincerity and take over the college in the larger interest of the students.

Mandi, February 27
The Forest Department is yet to order the suspension of three field officials of Thatchi forest range who were found conniving in the illegal felling racket unearthed by the Vigilance in the area by seizing a fresh lot of 448 deodar sleepers worth Rs 35 lakh last week.

ACF Nachan Ashwani Kumar, inquiry officer, found three field officials - range officer, Balichowki, Dalip Kumar, block officer Thatchi, Sham Lal and the beat guard, Duni Chand - directly responsible for the illegal felling. The illegal felling in Thatchi range took place under the garb of construction of Banchanodi-Kanda PWD road. They neither lodged an FIR nor did they report the forest damage to the department, said the inquiry.

DFO Nachan SS Patial claimed that the department has served a show-cause notice to them. “We have asked them to file reply as to why they should not be chargesheeted or suspended in connection with the case”.

SP Vigilance, Mandi, Virender Sharma said the investigation revealed that the illegal felling took place in the Thatchi area in connivance with the forest officials.

On this, Patial said there are no trees on the stretch. “The tree stumps have been removed or dumped in the road debris by the JCB machines or manually to avoid detection”, he added.

He said probe was still on and eight villagers had been arrested in the case so far. “We will fix accountability in the case and submit chargesheet in the court”, he asserted.

Conservator of Forests, Mandi, CB Pande said they were combing the entire forest and inquiry officer would submit a complete report. “We will take action against the concerned officials”.

He said the PWD has availed sanction for the 15 km long Banchudi-Kanda road in Thatchi range on May 11, 2010, for cutting down over 632 trees from the MoEF.

But PWD’s Executive Engineer Thakur Das denied that they deviated from the road alignment and damaged the trees. “The work has been stopped on the road for the time being”, he added.

Shimla, February 27
An RTI (Right to Information) query regarding the status of unsolved murders has spurred the government to set up a high-level committee to monitor the progress of these cases some of which are more than 60-year old.

The committee, headed by the chief secretary, will have the principal secretary, Home, the director general of police and the director, prosecution, as members. It will carry out an elaborate exercise to ascertain the status of cases and evolve a mechanism to have focus on the “real” unsolved cases.

The government took a decision after RTI activist Dev Ashish Bhattacharya sought information about the number of unsolved cases and wanted to know what steps were being taken to solve these cases, particularly those over five-year-old.

“The Home Department had sought a detailed information on murder cases from all district police chiefs and it revealed that there were very old cases, including one of 1947 and others pertaining to 1950s”, informed Ajay Mittal, principal secretary, Home. Obviously, in many cases, some culprits would have died but they figured in unsolved cases. Legally, it might not be possible to close the cases of murder but some mechanism could be evolved to distinguish live cases and the very old ones, he explained.

The idea behind the entire exercise was to have a register of such cases for proper monitoring and put the old ones on the list of suspended cases. Further, there also cases which are not real murder cases but registered under public pressure. Similarly, in some cases, the accused have escaped to Nepal.

All these cases would have to be distinguished to arrive at the real untraced or unsolved cases. Mere figure of the untraced cases did not reveal the true picture.

If the exercise proved worthwhile, the committee would focus on other heinous crimes to ensure proper monitoring of the cases, he added.

Bhattacharya was informed in response to his RTI query that there were in all 189 unsolved murder cases in the state out of which 108 cases had been over five years old.

The Shimla district accounted for the maximum number of 31 unsolved cases, followed by Kullu (28 cases), Kangra (20 cases), Solan (24 cases) and Bilaspur (20 cases). Out of the 108 unsolved cases, which are over five years old, Kullu has the maximum 21 and Shimla 20.

Nurpur, February 27
Led by Jagdev Thakur, Kangra district president of the Patanjali Yog Samiti, members of the local unit of the samiti today held a protest demonstration in front of the office of the SDM and raised slogans against corruption and black money.

Agitating samiti members came in a procession and held rally during the demonstration. Later on the call given by yog guru Baba Ramdev, they submitted a memorandum to the President through the local SDM, along with signatures, about 3,700 persons supporting the memorandum.

In the three-page memorandum, the samiti has demanded to eliminate the black money economy prevailing in the country and to recover huge money deposited in foreign banks.

Besides, the demand for enacting a law giving death penalty as punishment for rapists and corrupt persons was also raised in the memorandum.

Shimla, February 27
The Congress has blamed the BJP government for the woes of apple growers who suffered losses of over Rs 700 crore due to road repairs during the peak season.

Secretary of the party Rohit Thakur alleged that the growers had to suffer because of the ongoing work of widening the Theog-Hatkoti road being carried out by a Chinese company. The government did not enforce the conditions of the Rs 228-crore contract and allowed the company to sublet over 70 per cent of the work. It not only affected the quality of the work but also delayed the project.

The hills were cut along the entire road length making them prone to landslides which frequently blocked the road.

Almost 90 per cent of the land acquisition and forest clearance work was completed during the previous Congress regime but the present government failed to complete the remaining work which also hampered the timely execution of the project, said Thakur.

He warned that in case the road was not repaired within a month, the party would resort to gherao of ministers and stage dharnas. The issue would also be raised in Vidhan Sabha, he said.

Further, the government had not paid Rs 60 crore to growers from whom fruit was procured under the market-intervention scheme.

Shimla, February 27
The state transmission utility (STU) has come out with an innovative financing scheme to develop transmission infrastructure to find a workable solution to the problems being faced by upcoming hydro power projects in evacuation of power.

Under the scheme, the STU will raise equity for construction of transmission lines by way of advanced wheeling charges from the independent power producers (IPPs) which will spare them the trouble of creating their own transmission infrastructure.

As per the arrangement worked out by the STU, the IPPs will provide 20 per cent of the project cost to enable it to raise the remaining 80 per cent funds as loans from financial institutions to execute transmission projects.

The STU will pay 6 per cent interest to the IPPs on the amount from day one and it will be adjusted against the wheeling charges once the project is commissioned. Not only that the IPP will be given full return on the equity as per the regulations of the electricity regulator. In case the regulator allows 15.5 per cent return, the remaining 9.5 per cent will also be adjusted as wheeling charges.

“The principal amount, interest and return of equity will be paid back to IPP over a period of 12 to 15 years which means that the IPP will not be required to pay any wheeling charges for the period,” managing director of the STU Tarun Kapoor explained.

The arrangement will enable the STU to put a well-planned transmission system in place in absence of which every project is being forced to construct its own transmission line to evacuate power. It was creating a plethora of problems due to multiplicity of lines for which there was no space in the narrow valleys and arrangements for sharing were leading to disputes.

The latest instance was the dispute between Allain Duhangan Hydro Power Limited (ADHPL) and Everest Power Private Limited (EPPL), with the latter approaching the Central Regulatory Commission to sort out the matter. Had PowerGrid Corporation built the required transmission line as planned, the ADHPL would not have to spent Rs 375 crore to build its own 168-km line up to Nalagarh to evacuate power from its 192-MW Allain Duhangan project.

The EPPL would also have used the same infrastructure for wheeling power from its 100-MW Malana project and not forced to share the line built by the ADHPL.

Deepak Sanan, principal secretary, Power, said all IPPs, particularly those whose projects were at an advanced stage of construction, had been asked to come forward so that the STU could built the transmission lines promptly. Some companies like the Nuziveedu Company which is executing three projects, including the 100-MW Tidong-II, have already expressed willingness to contribute funds for the purpose.

Kangra, February 27
‘Vibration 2011’ concluded here today with a call to sustain the enthusiasm of Red Ribbon Clubs for empowering youths to “make right choices” as according to the UN World Youth Report, AIDS is one of the five new priority areas which is affecting the youths and over half of the new HIV infections and sexually transmitted diseases occur among youngsters aged between 15 to 24.

Dr RK Sood, District AIDS Programme Officer, Kangra, said today that youngsters were more vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections than adults. Lack of access to correct information and tendency to experiment adds to their vulnerability. He said almost 73 per cent of youths had misconceptions about modes of HIV transmission.

He said ‘Vibration 2011’ had equipped over 200 young boys and girls with knowledge and life skills that help prevent the spread of HIV.

The youths participated in the personality and knowledge contest, besides the Mr and Miss Vibrant contest. SP Kangra Daljeet Thakur IPS distributed prizes among the winners. The two-day fest was inaugurated by Priyatu Mandal, ADC, Kangra, and presided over by Dr KS Dogra, CMO, Kangra. — OC

Nurpur, February 27
Following an order of the Judicial Magistrate, Nurpur, the police yesterday lodged a forgery case under different sections against six officials, including store keeper and accountant, of the Irrigation-cum-Public Health (IPH) Department, who were posted in the Nurpur division in 2004.

According to the police, Shameer Puri of Jassur, near here, had filed a complaint under Section 156, CrPC, in the court of Judicial Magistrate alleging that the IPH Department had illegally encroached upon his land and he had filed a civil suit against the department in 2004.

The court had granted interim injunction restraining the IPH Department officials for raising any construction over the said land. But the department officials allegedly constructed a wall on that land and violated the court’s injunction order. In order to escape from punishment of the court, they allegedly hatched a conspiracy and forged documents and said in the court that the wall had been constructed before receiving court’s injunction order.

The complainant took copies of alleged forged documents from the IPH Department under the RTI Act and found that a conspiracy had been hatched to cause financial loss to him.

According to SHO Rajiv Atri, a case under Sections 166, 167, 217, 218, 219, 465, 468, 471, 409 and 120 (B) has been registered against LS Thakur, the then executive engineer; Arun Prashar and RP Dhiman, assistant engineers; Gurbax Dhiman, junior engineer; Sat Pual Southa, accountant; and Manoj Kumar, store keeper of the IPH department.

He said further action would be taken after completion of investigation into the allegations.