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Tourist influx triggers traffic chaos
Poor upkeep of link roads chokes highways
Officials told to repair Nahan-Paonta Sahib road
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ASI curbs delay work on mini-secretariat
Vivekananda hospital to become functional by year-end
Hamirpur girl assists in designing costumes for ‘Rockstar’
vignettes
Kangra boy realises dream to serve Army
Himachal Diary
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Tourist influx triggers traffic chaos
Manali, June 28 The government too has failed to provide proper parking space and other tourist infrastructure in this town. Besides, the Manali bypass meant to ease out traffic congestion is yet to see light of the day and three bail bridges there pose traffic bottlenecks. “Hoteliers not only overcharge but they also do not provide proper parking space during the summer rush,” charge tourists. Though the TCP Department under its Manali development plan has made it mandatory for each hotelier to keep one floor out of the four allowed for parking. Most of the hoteliers, reveals a survey, have been using the ground floor as a lobby, reception or a restaurant or for other commercial purposes. The hoteliers allegedly use political pressure and manage to get the no objection certificate (NoC) from the TCP Department and get the hotel registered with the Department of Tourism and Civil Aviation (DTCA), reveal sources. And the victims of hoteliers’ lobby and government’s apathy are the tourists. They do not get parking facility despite paying Rs 300 per vehicle as green tax for parking and travelling in Manali circuit for seven days and are not being allowed to travel to Rohtang in their own vehicles, resent Vikramjit and Amit Kumar from Delhi. The situation is even worse in the non-planned areas of Aleo, Vashisht, Prini, Old Manali, Nehru Kund and the Solang valley, all proliferating like a concrete junkyard. The hoteliers are having more than the permissible limit of floors of their buildings and offer no parking space, reveals the survey. The hoteliers target the summer season to make maximum profit mainly from walk-in tourists, rue some tourists here. Gajender Thakur, president, Manali Hoteliers Association, however, claims that old hotels have no parking floor as the area was earlier under the nagar panchayat. “There may be some violations but most of the hotels provide parking and over 1,000 vehicles can get parking at Aklu Ra Galu in the town. We, however, need proper planning for the summer season,” he adds. The plight of the DTCA and TCP Department is understandable. The TCP has just one JE while two posts are lying vacant. It has no vehicle and proper staff to check violations. So is case with the DTCA as it has no district tourism officer and his deputy has an additional charge of Mandi as well. Dinesh Guleria, town planner, Kullu, expressed helplessness, saying the hoteliers show the parking floor at the time of getting the NOC, but they start violating the norms soon after. “The DTCA should bring such violations to our notice as they do the final registration,” she adds. Balbir Thakur, SDM-cum-district tourism officer, Manali, says they will not register new hotels and will take action against the violators who do not offer parking and overcharge from the tourists.
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Poor upkeep of link roads chokes highways
Solan, June 28 A part of the problem arises owing to narrow road in Kalka bazaar where three-wheelers create chaos and traffic policemen have to stop uphill traffic to regulate vehicles coming from the Gandhi Chowk. Since there is a continuous movement of vehicles on the NH, any halt leads to a long queue of vehicles. Despite the presence of an alternative Parwanoo-Jangeshu Road to Kasauli, tourists hesitate to use it due to its poor maintenance. Similarly, even though there is an alternative route to Kumarhatti through Parwanoo-Bhojnagar, its usage is poor again due to lack of maintenance. It is surprising that the state government has been pleading for four laning of the NH-22, but its own highways and link roads have failed to receive even the cursory repair, reducing their utility. Even another alternative route leading to Baddi from Kasauli through Chamiya-Band-Haripur has been awaiting repairs. Though some patch work was undertaken, the part of the road lying in Nalagarh subdivision has not been maintained from Haripur gurdwara onwards. Executive engineer PWD Kasauli said some maintenance works had been taken up and at some places, contractors had done substandard work where their payments had also been withheld. He added that since the rainy season had set in such works would now be taken up after the rains and completed by October.
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Officials told to repair Nahan-Paonta Sahib road
Solan, June 28 The court directed the SE to look after the maintenance work on the Nahan-Paonta Sahib road and the road from the Bata Bridge to the Yamuna Bridge and complete the urgent works within three weeks. Various organisations of Paonta like Sirmour Nagrik Kalyan Samiti, Paonta; Sirmour Vichar Manch, Paonta; Sirmour Truck Operators Union; Himachal Chamber of Commerce and Industies, Petroleum Dealers Association and Jan Ekta Samiti, had filed the petition after they failed to get the road repaired despite pursuing the matter with the authorities. The petition highlighted the callous attitude of the authorities in discharging their constitutional and statutory duties in maintaining NH No. 72, 72B, 73A, in and around Paonta Sahib, which they asserted was a major pilgrimage site as well as an industrial area of the state. The petitioners stated that for the last more than five years, the roads had been severely damaged.
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ASI curbs delay work on mini-secretariat
Nurpur, June 28 The Centre had amended the Ancient Monuments and Archaeology Sites and Remains Act and enforced it over a year ago. As this building is being built within 300 meters’ radius of the old Nurpur fort, hence permission is required from the National Monument Authority of India before undertaking any further activity. The construction of the mini-secretariat having capacity of accommodating around 18 government offices was almost complete, barring boundary wall and furnishing of the building. The mini- secretariat had been proposed fifteen years ago by former minister and local MLA Sat Mahajan and the then CM Virbhadra Singh laid its foundation stone on the old civil hospital premises on August 13, 1996. But the construction did not begin during 1998-2003. In January 2004, Virbhadra Singh, the then Chief Minister, again laid the foundation stone of this project with new name ‘Combined Office Building’ near Bachat Bhavan. But local residents demanded the construction of the building at the site proposed in 1996. The construction started there but at a snail’s pace. As the building was near completion, the pending permission of the ASI authorities has become a bottleneck in its commissioning. BS Thakur, superintending engineer, PWD, Nurpur, revealed that the department had applied for permission for completion of the remaining work of the mini- secretariat to the authority about a year ago, but permission had not been granted so far. He admitted that furnishing of the building had been stalled for the want of requisite permission.
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Vivekananda hospital to become functional by year-end
Dharamsala, June 28 The hospital building, that is being constructed by the Jaypee Sewa Sansthan, a trust run by the Jaypee Group of Industries, is likely to be completed soon. The management of the hospital will be run by a trust of 15 members, including nine members from the Jaypee Sewa Sansthan and five members from the Vivekanand Trust, while the Principal Secretary, Health, will be the nominee of the government. The management also plans to set up a medical and nursing college in the area. Shanta Kumar, president of the Vivekananda Trust, said a few super-specialities would be started in the hospital by the end of the year. He said they had planned to set up facilities in the land allotted to the Vivekananda Trust in two phases. “In the first phase, we set up a kaya kalp centre in the form a health resort. In the second phase, the super-speciality hospital is being set up,” he added. He said since the trust did not have funds to set up the hospital on its own, it had handed over the project to the Jaypee Group of Industries, which had been entrusted with the task of setting up and running the super-speciality hospital. However, the decision of the Vivekananda Trust to hand over the hospital project to a trust of the Jaypee Group is all set to evoke criticism from the opposition Congress. Sources told The Tribune that the Congress was already planning to target the alleged favours extended by the present BJP government to the Jaypee Group in its proposed charge sheet. Congress leaders maintain that the government caused a loss to the state exchequer by imposing less penalty on the Jaypee Group for a delay in the execution of its power project. It would also highlight the issue of allotment of land by the state government to the Jaypee Group free of cost to set up the hospital. The Congress leaders said if the state government was ready to provide land free of cost for the hospital project, it should have invited “expression of interest”. Many corporate houses might have shown interest in the hospital project. Meanwhile, the project is likely to develop Kangra district as a medical hub. Already the government-run Tanda Medical College is set to get six super-speciality wings. The Fortis group is coming up with a branch at Kangra and with the completion of the Vivekananda hospital at Palampur, there will be three hospitals in the area.
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Hamirpur girl assists in designing costumes for ‘Rockstar’
Hamirpur, June 28 Sarita Bhogal, born and brought up in Hamirpur, has recently finished her job of assisting famous Bollywood dress designer Dolly Ahluwalia in designing costumes for a Hindi movie “Rockstar”. The film, directed by Imitiaz Ali, has Ranbir Kapoor, Diana Penty and Nargis Fakhari in the lead roles. The film is now ready for its release soon. Sarita joined the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Mohali, for a three-year degree course in fashion designing. After her degree, she worked for an interior designing company and also did freelancing for a few embroidery books. Sarita, who is here and would be teaching at a fashion designing institute PINNACLE for the next six months, said: “It is like a dream come true to get a chance to assist famous fashion designer Dolly Ahluwalia in designing costumes for the film. It’s my wish to design costumes for more Bollywood movies.”
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Revisiting Shimla Summer Festival
by Shriniwas Joshi Shimla Summer Festival is called International Shimla Summer Festival although there is nothing “international” about it, except that the likes of Gurdas Maan and Abhijeet (see photo) also sing in countries other than our beloved motherland. Puritans ask, “Does ‘international’ qualify Shimla or festival? Should it not be called Shimla-Summer’s international festival?” I reply, “Punctuation marks are actually the traffic signals of a language and in Shimla, there are only a couple of signals, so we worry not.” And then I seek shelter in Shakespeare, “What’s in a name?” Revisiting an established and continuing event is the most difficult task for government organisations. They are unwilling to tread on new grounds unless the civil society raises hue and cry. They are afraid of any change because they want calm and peace to prevail in their lives whereas change requires mental and physical re-arrangements, a tough job. They always follow the beaten path - open the last year’s file, make a few alterations here and there and you are done! The plan for the festival is ready. The festival in Shimla started in the late 1960s after the merger of the town in Himachal Pradesh. Television then was not an every household item. Only the stage used to satiate the cultural hunger of the people. Law and order conditions were better and so the families from the peripheries did not mind walking back in dark after seeing their favourites live on the stage. The programmes were dainty, the festival used to open with a classical dance from a reputed artist - Yamini Krishnamurthy, Uma Sharma, Sanyukta Panigrahi - top dancers of the era. If it rains on a particular evening, the programme was held in the hall, presently the roller skating rink in Regal building. The festival, today, is about 40 years old. The venue of the so-called major attraction of cultural feast has changed from near the statue of Mahatama Gandhi to the space adjacent to Ashiana, but it remained The Ridge. The city has expanded, peripheries have developed since then, hotels are everywhere but for the organisers of the festival, The Ridge - the central open space - is Shimla. They raise an unaesthetic stage, cordon the open space to make audience-enclosures, it being the main way to the new and the old town, aam aadmi has to jostle his way out (see photo), install high-voltage sound system to deafen the ears; then the anchors cut moth-eaten jokes and at the ‘prime time’ comes the celebrity to regale the audience. The celebrity, generally, is one who is the recent gift of TV channels to the nation. The close-by inhabitants treat Shimla Festival as Halloween days and propitiate God when it gets over. A few tourists refused when I asked them to meet me on The Ridge during the Festival days. “The free-flow on open Ridge gets caged for five days,” they say. The foreigners wanting to acquaint themselves with Himachali culture felt bad that the locals performed during the day-time when sitting under the bright sun was prickly. All this needs revisit to the event. For Heaven’s sake, leave The Ridge as the lung of the town, it is charming and attractive without your “make-up”. Think of locality level Shimla Festival - Lakkar Bazaar, Sanjauli, Boileauganj, Summer Hill, Bharari, Vikas Nagar, New Shimla, Kusumpti - let all these places hum with activities during the festival days. And that will be the ideal Shimla Festival. Give prime time and money to the local artists; let folk groups, jhamakara, giddha, dandaras, ghurai, hirnattar, naati, dhaja, kayang etc. come from all the districts and perform. I believe that the tourists and the natives will prefer festivity in their vicinity to the frozen TV-cooked meal unwrapped for the people on The Ridge. The two functional theatres at The Gaiety on The Ridge - an open air theatre and a multipurpose theatre with a capacity of 400 plus - need to be made use of. Let the second line of classical and modern dancers and musicians perform here, if the shining stars are unaffordable.
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Kangra boy realises dream to serve Army
Kangra, June 28 Lt Shivek Sharma, was brought up by his parents in such a way that he started dreaming about his future in the Indian army since childhood. Shivek, a resident of this temple town, is son of Sudharshan Sharma, an employee of the Punjab National Bank, and Kusum, a government teacher. He had his schooling from the GAV Public School here and completed B.Tech in electronics from the MMEC Ambala in 2008. Initially, he joined the corporate sector, but he always dreamt of joining the Army. “I like ethos of the Army and besides living a disciplined life, I wanted to serve the country in uniform,” said Shivek. Shivek cleared the Service Selection Board examination and was selected for one-year training in the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. He completed his training at the IMA and during the passing out parade on June 11, where President Pratibha Patil was the chief guest, the dream of his parents came true when Shivek was in uniform. Lt Shivek joined 228 Medium Regiment of Artillery and has been posted at Talebhat Cantonment, Lalitpur in Uttar Pradesh.
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Himachal Diary Taking “Walk Shimla Walk” campaign a step further, the local NGO Ashadeep has decided to promote the use of bicycles to help reduce the carbon footprint by motivating the residents of Shimla to discard polluting vehicles and revert to the old pedestrian ways. In the first phase, it organised a painting competition (See photo) early this week on the theme “Eco-ride, Smooth tide”, in which as many as 232 students from 23 schools participated. The idea was to create awareness among the children about preserving the environment and also to know their view about the problem. “We decided to promote the use of bicycles after viewing the works of the participants, a majority of which included bicycles,” says Susheel Tanwar, president of Ashadeep. The children felt that bicycles could help protect the environment as evident from the paintings showing a green tree riding a bicycle. In another painting, one of the wheels was replaced with the globe. There were numerous such imaginative paintings which provided an idea about the possible solution. The Ashadeep has now decided to organise a bicycle rally on July 9, during which participants, bagging the first three positions in the painting competition, will be given mountain bikes as prizes. Susheel maintains that the use of bicycles potentially offers a multi-dimensional solution to issues like fuel price hike, unhealthy heart, time-mismanagement, smothering bus-crowd, eternal traffic jams and a host of health concerns. It can also become the major mode of transportation locally as nowadays light-weight multi-gear convenient mountain bikes are available in the country. His organisation has secured the support of Amit Sports, a local sports dealer, in its endeavours to encourage pedalling. Women demand property rights
The women of tribal Kinnaur district, where polyandry was common until recently, are now coming forward to assert their rights. The age-old custom was devised to avoid division of land, which is scarce in the propitious hills, but with the spread of modern education and employment opportunities, the situation has changed. Some tribal women have approached the state commission to seek its help in amending the patriarchal tribal laws so that they could claim and inherit their share in the property. The commission proposes to convene a meeting of the tribals before taking up the matter with the government. The campaign for women rights is being led by the chairperson of the Mahila Kalyan Parshad, Raattan Manjari, who maintains that these rights are essential for the survival of tribal women, particularly those deserted and unmarried.
Campaign against drugs
Concerned over reports of increasing sale of illicit drugs and other psychotropic substances in Hamirpur district, the district police launched a special campaign against the drugs and arrested 12 peddlers and registered 16 cases during the past four months. The police has also recovered smack, charas, opium and other illicit drugs from the peddlers during the raids. Most of the arrested belong to the age group of 20-35 and were themselves addicts. It has been revealed that a majority of them turned peddlers after becoming addicts. SP, Hamirpur, Kuldeep Sharma, said many of these peddlers were operating near schools, colleges and other educational institutions to trap youths for selling drugs. He appealed to the people to keep a close watch on the activities of their children as the police alone could not contain this growing social evil. The police has also started an awareness campaign in the educational institutions. He has appealed to local people, social and religious organisations, students and youth to help the police in the campaign against drugs.
(Contributed by Rakesh Lohumi and DP Gupta)
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Traffic mess in this tourist town is partly created by traffic bottlenecks like poor roads, and a lack of planning, and partly by hoteliers as over 90 per cent of them do not provide parking on the ground
floor.
Dharamsala, June 28
Shimla Summer Festival is called International Shimla Summer Festival although there is nothing “international” about it, except that the likes of Gurdas Maan and Abhijeet (see photo) also sing in countries other than our beloved motherland. Puritans ask, “Does ‘international’ qualify Shimla or festival? Should it not be called Shimla-Summer’s international festival?” I reply, “Punctuation marks are actually the traffic signals of a language and in Shimla, there are only a couple of signals, so we worry not.” And then I seek shelter in Shakespeare, “What’s in a name?”
Kangra, June 28
