|
|
|
|
|
Setting Up of Treatment
Plants
Jaypee University Convocation
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Forest Dept to go ahead with
map digitisation
Cong stages dharna against
fund misuse
Polish man without valid
papers held
Demand for narco test flayed
|
|
Setting Up of Treatment
Plants
Shimla, May 2 It is indeed a sad state of affairs where the state is placing the cart before
the horse. Normally, the infrastructure should be first put in place and then people should come and start living there. Here thousands of migrants, industrial workers and management officials have joined, but there is no infrastructure worth the name. This observation was made by the Himachal Pradesh High Court on a public interest litigation where the demand of the public is that the CETP, MSWP and STP were to be set up at Baddi and Barotiwala. The court observed that the State Pollution Control Board had produced a list of 12 industries giving dates on which power disconnection orders were issued by it and the dates on which the power was actually disconnected by the electricity board. A perusal of this document reveals a shocking state of affairs. The electricity board in some cases had taken more than six months to disconnect power. A
Division Bench comprising Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjay Karol
observed: “In our earlier orders we had indicated that in case we find that
the state is lax in fulfilling its statutory obligations we may consider
passing an order stopping the setting up of any fresh industry till proper
infrastructure is provided. We do not want to come in the way of economic
development of the state, but the state must also realise its obligations to
the public at large.” Expressing its annoyance, the court said, “Before
passing any order directing that no new industry be set up in the area, we are
again giving the state government another opportunity to come up with a
complete time frame on every aspect of the matter and directed the Chief
Secretary to file an affidavit explaining that when will the project study be
completed and detailed project report be prepared and how long it will take to
invite tenders and construct and operate the plants.” The Bench directed
her to file an affidavit within three weeks and listed the matter on May 20. The court also directed the member secretary, HP State Pollution Control Board, to file on or before the next date an affidavit along with a tabular statement in which the list of offending industries shall be given indicating the name of the industry and number of times it had been found to be causing pollution along with reference to the date of notice. |
|
Jaypee University Convocation
Waknaghat, May 2 She was addressing students, parents and teachers of the Jaypee University of Information Technology, during their fourth annual convocation on their campus at Waknaghat today. Chief Minister PK Dhumal, who was the chief guest, gave a clarion call to the young minds to come up with new concepts for ensuring better implementation of information technology and become partner to the state in bringing about e-Revolution. He said a 64-acre IT Park was coming up in the state, while a BT Park was also proposed to be set up in the near future. He congratulated the university for being rated Best Institution in Bio-Technology in the country. The
CM later presented the Chancellor’s gold medal to Jayant Rajpurohit for
obtaining the highest rank in electronics and communication engineering and the
V-C’s gold medal to Deepak Bharti, Gaurav Kumar Srivastava, Shivangi Pathak,
Ankush Jamwal, Anukriti Sharma, Sharad Sharda, Seneha Santoshi and Amit Kumar
Aggarwal, for obtaining highest ranks in their respective branches. |
|
Forest Dept to go ahead with
map digitisation
Shimla, May 2 The finalisation of the catchment area treatment plan has been delayed by more than six months for want of permission to digitise the maps of the restricted areas close to China border upstream Wangtu. Pune-based Nayak Environment Research Institute Limited (NERIL) was assigned the World Bank-funded project for the preparation of catchment area treatment plan based on geographical information system (GIS) for the Sutlej catchment upstream Kol Dam. It has completed the field work and collected all the required data and prepared the GIS module for the computerised monitoring of progress. The Forest Department has now decided to give the go-ahead for completing the project without digitising the sub-watersheds falling in the restricted areas. The plan has been prepared for 210 sub-watersheds covering the entire catchment upstream, but 31 large sub-watersheds upstream Wangtu encompassing the environmentally sensitive high-altitude areas, including the cold desert of Spiti, will not be digitised. It will not be possible to effectively monitor the progress of works in the non-digitised sub-watersheds. The digitisation catchment area treatment plan for the 179 sub-watersheds has been completed and the department has asked NERIL to make some changes in the software to make the application user-friendly so that lower functionaries right down to the panchayat-level can use it. Additional Chief Secretary, Forests and Environment, Sudipto Roy said the master plan would provide the basis for all catchments rehabilitation measures to be taken in the long run. However, for geological events like landslides which were common in the fragile hills, the field staff would make necessary modification at the time of implementation to take care of such eventualities. The evaluation of performance in the implementation of the catchment area treatment plan will be carried out by independent agencies. The Forest Department has already invited tenders for the evaluation of the catchment area treatment plan for the Kol Dam project for which four companies submitted bids, out of which RS Enviro Links and Jaypee Associates have qualified. The catchment area treatment plan cannot be completed without the digitised maps as it involves incorporation of remote sensing data and global positioning system technology to ensure effective implementation and monitoring. The matter is being pursued for the past more than a year and the department is considering finalising the plan without the sub-watersheds close to China border falling in the restricted zone. |
|
Cong stages dharna against
fund misuse
Mandi, May 2 The Congress held this protest in front of the hospital for over an hour and accused the state government of misusing the funds being availed from the Centre under the National Rural Health Mission. Though the protest was to show the government in a poor light, the show exposed the Mandi Sadar Congress as a divided house. The local Congressmen fought among themselves to address the gathering to show their presence. Puran Chand is considered to be the stooge of state Congress president Kaul Singh Thakur. The protest was also joined by Youth Congress leaders, the NSUI, the Seva Dal and the women cell of the party. |
|
Polish man without valid
papers held
Dharamsala, May 2 The police then arrested him. He was today produced before the local court that remanded him to judicial custody. SP,
Kangra, Diljeet Thakur, said though Wktor knew English, he did not provide any
information regarding the place of his stay or how long he had been staying in
the area.
— TNS |
|
Demand for narco test flayed
Hamirpur, May 2 He
should also clarify whether he had sought any mandate from the public to take
up development activities in the area or create sensation by making such
demands”. — TNS
|
|
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
