Mandi, March 27
Thousands of passengers today remained stranded at various bus stands in the state as drivers and conductors went on “mass Sunday leave” in protest against the failure of the Himachal Pradesh Roadways Transport Corporation (HRTC) to implement their long-pending demands like recruitment of over 600 drivers and 500 personnel in the top-heavy corporation.

The HP Parivahan Karamschari Samanvay Samiti (HPPKSS), which is spearheading the agitation in support of their demands, has threatened to gherao the Vidhan Sabha on April 5 if the HRTC and the government do not resolve the issues with them.

In the Kullu-Mandi region, only 10 long-route buses plied between Mandi-Delhi, Manali-Delhi and Mandi-Chandigarh, while rest of the 142 bus routes remained suspended due to the mass leave taken in protest by the HRTC’s drivers and conductors.

Similarly, the drivers and the conductors also took a mass leave in all 23 HRTC divisions across the state in support of their demands. Also, almost all local bus routes in Mandi, Kullu and Bilaspur remained suspended due to the mass leave taken in protest by the HRTC operating staff.

The HRTC drivers and conductors have declared Sunday as a mass leave day to lodge their statewide protest against the government.

President, HPPKSS, Jasmer Rana and its general secretary Umesh Sharma, Mandi president Ashok Kumar said they had no option other than proceeding on a mass leave in support of their demands. “We work like slaves for 40 hours round the clock, get no pay for overtime and imagine we have 5 lakh holidays pending as the corporation does not give us leave,” they resented.

Not only this, the HRTC-run 23 workshops face an acute shortage of mechanics, helpers and fitters, while the HRTC management remains top-heavy. “Each workshop needs 23 personnel to run workshop like a workshop. The HRTC has not recruited over 600 drivers and the present staff is made to work overtime paying them nothing,” they rued.

“They have met the top HRTC management and the government over the years. But their arrears pending since 2006 have not been paid despite assurances,” they protested.

Transport Minister Mohinder Singh Thakur said the issues were being taken up with the HRTC management and with the government to solve the matter.

Shimla, March 27
Tardy implementation of the Rs 31 crore Central-funded IT billing and energy accounting package project is causing a loss of the much-needed revenue to HPSEB Limited which has already accumulated losses to the tune of over Rs 383 crore.

Under the project being executed by HCL Infosystems after implementing a pilot project for the Shimla circle (covering 10 subdivisions), the e-billing system was to be rolled out in 122 more subdivisions across the state by September 2010. However, the project fell behind schedule as the company failed to remove the glitches in software which came to the notice during the pilot project.

The Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification (STQC), a Central Government agency which carried out the third party testing of the software in August last, had pointed out several shortcomings and found it vulnerable on over 12 counts.

The company promised to carry out the necessary improvements to rectify the faults in the software within a month and get the software tested again. However, more than six months have passed, the final testing of the software has not been carried out so far. Even if the final testing is carried out by the next month, the rollout will not be possible before September and as such there will be a delay of one year or even more in completion of the project.

The switchover to e-billing under the pilot project in the city division alone led to a net increase of a whopping 30 per cent in the revenue. The gross increase came to over 55 per cent and after taking into account the 3.5 per cent rise in number of consumers and 8.3 per cent hike in tariff, the annual impact was worked out to over Rs 9 crore.

However, the project ran into rough weather due to malfunctioning of the software which could not take the load of even 10 divisions and slowed down the entire system. On one occasion, the database server crashed as a result of which the cash counters had to be closed for 5 days.

The main reason for slipshod implementation is that despite being heavily overstaffed, HPSEB Limited does not have any qualified staff to effectively oversee the implementation of an information technology project. There is a clause under which a penalty at the rate of 0.5 per cent per week up to a maximum of 10 per cent of the project cost could be imposed for delay but it has not been invoked. The penalty works out to Rs 3.10 crore.

The HPSEB has 49 divisions and 258 subdivisions in the state catering to about 18 lakh consumers and the domestic and commercial power alone fetches about Rs 500 crore annually. Even a nominal increase of 20 per cent will bring an additional revenue of Rs 100 crore. Similarly, a 5 per cent increase in the revenue from industrial and bulk consumers will fetch an additional Rs 65 to Rs 75 crore annually. Thus the additional revenue will more than offset the amount of Rs 163 crore being provided as subsidy by the government.

Shimla, March 27
The Rs 85-crore Apple Rejuvenation Project is being seen as a great opportunity to promote organic orchards in the hill state. While a large number of farmers are switching over to organic farming, only a few progressive fruit growers have shown interest in it.

However, a leading orchardist Gopal Mehta, who started experimenting with the environment-friendly mode of farming in the late 1990s in view of the rising cost of inputs and poor returns, feels that it is time for apple growers to embrace organic farming.

In all, over 5,000 hectare of orchards is to be rejuvenated by removing old trees and planting new improved high-yielding disease-resistant and self-pollinating varieties of apple over the next five years.

The old trees will have to be cut and the new ones will take 5 to 7 years to come into bearing and the period is long enough to switch over to organic framing. Normally, a field has to be kept free from chemical fertilisers and other such inputs for at least three consecutive years for organic certification.

Mehta, who is also the chairman of the Himachal Organic Farmers’ Association, has explained the long-term benefits of organic horticulture to growers to motivate them to shed the use of chemical fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides. He maintains that the continuous use of chemical fertilisers and chemical sprays is doing more harm than good to orchards.

Mumbai agri-biotechnology group Credent Organics, which has joined hands with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s the “Art of Living” to develop alternative products that are safer, more effective, less invasive and more economical than conventional crop, has already made plans to make foray into the hill state.

According to Rajan Balighate, director (Commercial), farmers and growers are enthusiastic about organic farming. The initiatives of the government in this direction, particularly the Japanese-aided crop diversification project, apple rejuvenation project and establishment of an organic certification agency, will go a long way in providing fillip to organic farming.

Credent has so far opened 50 farm development centres to create a sense of awareness towards organic farming and provide organic seeds, organic fertilisers and organic pesticides. Technical representatives at these centres would also help agrarian class to take care of soil and crop resistance to help enhance the yield.

Kangra, March 27
Kingfisher Airlines introduced a second daily flight between New Delhi and Dharamsala from today as part of the new Summer 2011 schedule.

Prakash Mirpuri, vice-president - Corporate Communications, Kingfisher Airlines, in a statement here today said the new flight would be a daily flight and would leave New Delhi at 3 pm and arrive at the Kangra airport at 4:25pm.

He said on the return leg, the new flight would leave the Kangra airport at 4.55pm and would reach New Delhi at 6.25pm.

Mirpuri further said that the new flight was also being operated with an ATR aircraft.

The passenger traffic on the New Delhi-Dharamsala route is quite impressive as many international tourists visit here as Dharamsala being the seat of the Tibetan temporal head and the spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Resentment prevailed among the people here that the airfare between Kangra and New Delhi was very high and pinching. The concessions given in the airfare to the hill states of Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast were not given to this hill state.

Frequent air travellers demanded that the airfare should be reduced on this route and some more flights be introduced.

Shimla, March 27
The Union Ministry of Power has enhanced the generation target of the public sector Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN) to 6,900 million units for 2011-12 in view of the good performance of the Nathpa Jhakri project in the current year.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between P. Uma Shankar, Union Secretary, Power, and R.P. Singh, chairman-cum-managing director of the SJVN, at New Delhi, yesterday. The target has been raised from the current year’s target of 6,700 million units as the project was set to achieve all-time high record of over 7,100 million units by March 31. The new target has been set under excellent parameters to help generate revenue of Rs 1,718 crore during 2011-12 from the country’s largest hydroelectric project.

The MoU also includes targets in respect of the under construction 412-MW Rampur project, which is slated for completion by September, 2013, and the 775-MW Luhri project and the 66-MW Dhaulasidh project in Himachal Pradesh. Besides, the 60-MW Naitwar Mori and the 51-MW Jakhol Sankri projects in Uttarakhand also figure in the MoU. Other projects include the 900-MW Arun-III in Nepal and 650-MW Kolongchu and 600-MW in Bhutan for which detailed projects reports were being prepared. Targets in respect of corporate social responsibility, corporate governance and sustainable development have also been included.

The ministry will support the SJVN in obtaining speedy clearance for its projects from various statutory authorities as well as obtaining more projects. It will also provide necessary help to it for full and timely realisation of its dues from its beneficiary bulk consumers and the state electricity boards.

R.P. Singh expressed his confidence that the company would achieve the targets set by the Union Power Ministry. 

Shimla, March 27
The HPSEB Employees Union has expressed concern over the failure of the government to appoint a regular CMD to manage the day-to-day affairs of HPSEB Limited as a result of which its functioning had been severely affected.

The company is responsible for supplying power to almost 2 lakh consumers and any lapses in planning and failure to perform its function will hamper the interest of public. Besides a vast distribution network, the company is managing assets of worth Rs 5000 crore, including powerhouses of aggregate generating capacity of 466 MW, but the government seemed least concerned about such an important organisation.

The post of director (Personnel) had not been filled since long and now the post of CMD was also not being filled. Not surprisingly, its growth was declining and financial position deteriorating.

In the situation, the employees were also being affected as a headless management had miserably failed to protect their interest in HPPCL, the State Transmission Utility and the Energy Directorate, which had been created after transferring the assets and offices along with personnel from the erstwhile HPSEB. Their service conditions had not been finalised and they were facing discrimination in these organisations.

Shimla, March 27
The BJP has appealed to the Congress not to politicise the stray incident of violence which claimed three lives in Paonta keeping in view its sensitive nature as it can create tension between local communities.

Party spokesperson Ganesh Dut took exception to the statement of Pradesh Congress Committee chief Kaul Singh and other party leaders blaming the government for the incident and asserted that the clash took place on the spur of the moment. The administration swung into action immediately as a result of which normalcy had been restored.

He said political leaders should exercise restrain while reacting to such incidents as scoring political points could aggravate the situation.

He claimed that overall law and order situation under the BJP rule was far better than under the Congress regime. It had become a habit with the Congress leaders to use “deteriorating law and order situation” as a plank to whip the government, ignoring the ground realties.

He defended the government on the issue of private universities and said it would enable people to pursue higher education within the state.

Regarding the fake certificate scam in the board of school education, he said it was continuing since the Congress regime and the present government detected it and took corrective measures. He also defended closure of schools and said rationalisation had to be carried out as some institutions did not had enough students to justify their existence.

Regarding the naming of government schemes after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpyee, he said criticism was misplaced and asserted that successive Congress governments had been coming out with schemes in the name of members of the Nehru family. 

Shimla, March 27
Industry Minister Kishan Kapoor has urged the Centre to sanction an assistance to the tune of Rs 15 crore for strengthening the industrial infrastructure in the Baddi-Barotiwala area of Solan district.

In a letter to Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma, Kapoor sought Rs 11 crore for development of truck parking at Sandholi-Baddi, and an additional amount of Rs 3.21 crore for the construction of approach road to Inland Container Depot at Baddi.

Kapoor said these projects were important for the development and promotion of exports from the Baddi region. He pointed out that these proposals had been listed twice in the meeting of the empowered committee held in September, 2010, and January, 2011, but were deferred on both occasions.

He also requested the Union Minister to ensure approval of the proposal in the next meeting of the committee.