Shimla, August 18
The state government has decided to provide better facilities and enhanced scholarship, vocational training and marriage incentives to persons with disabilities under the integrated scheme “Sahyog.”

The decision was taken at a state Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister PK Dhumal here today. Funds shall be provided for research and development projects on disability down to the block level through various organisations and NGOs, besides universities and medical colleges.

It has been decided to enhance the scholarship amount to the eligible disabled and provide day scholars with scholarships ranging between Rs 350 and Rs 750 per month and to boarders between Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000 per month. The income limit to avail scholarship benefits has also been enhanced from Rs 60,000 to Rs 2.50 lakh per annum.

Marriage incentives of disabled persons have also been enhanced substantially. A person who gets married to a disabled with 40 to 74 per cent disability will get Rs 15,000 instead of Rs 8,000 and others with 75 to 100 per cent disability an enhanced amount of Rs 25,000 from the present Rs. 15,000. In case of a couple with disability, both of them will be eligible to get the incentives. An NGO doing commendable job in the field will also be awarded a cash prize of Rs 10,000 and a citation.

The Cabinet granted permission to recruit 1,293 junior basic trained (JBT) qualified teachers from 12 District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) and 20 Teachers Training Course qualified candidates from St Bede’s College of the 2008-10 batch.

It also granted approval for the construction of bus stands at Rohru and Palampur with multi-storeyed parking facilities and a shopping mall under the PPP Mode. In future the concession period in such projects will be 40 years.

The Cabinet approved the proposal to exempt aerial ropeways for five years from payment of entertainment duty and to reduce entertainment duty from the existing 25 per cent to 15 per cent, besides bringing DTH under the ambit of Entertainment Duty.

Mandi, August 18
Apart from suffering an extensive damage worth Rs 23 crore to the “substandard road”, the Chandigarh-Manali (NH-21) and the Pathankot-Mandi (NH-20) have developed seven major hazardous bottlenecks - five on NH-21 and two on the NH-20 - due to the recent spate of rains and landslides.

According to the PWD, the Chandigarh-Manali highway has suffered damages worth Rs 20 crore developing five major hazardous traffic bottlenecks - the 50-m-long Dadour, 10-m-long Sambal culvert and 100-m-long Duwar stretch, 100-m-long stretch at Nau Meel, 660-m-long stretch at Duwada between Sundarnagar and Manali.

This highway bears the brunt not only of the tourists and the local traffic, but also of over 10,000 cement trucks operated by ACC cement, Ambuja cement and now the JP cements, respectively, from Barmana, Bilaspur, Darlaghat, Solan and Bagha, border of Bilaspur and Solan everyday.

The influential BJP leader in Balh has put the crushing plant near the Dadour bridge across the Rati khud, which allegedly has been plundered by “mining mafias” feeding this plant.

The flow of the Rati khud, earlier checked by boulders, is now angled towards the approach of the bridge that, in turn, has been damaged, charged locals.

The Sambal culvert is blocked by debris with the nullah water flowing on the 10-m-long road that becomes risky and uncrossable for the traffic during rains.

The 90-m-long stretch at Duwar, 5 km from Pandoh, almost “hangs in the air along the loose hill strata making it risky for the traffic as boulders continue to fall there.

The 80-m-long road stretch at Nau Meel, 12 km from Mandi, has sunk as the Beas banged the retaining wall that rises right from the riverside.

Besides, the menace of falling rocks from the steep hill side looms over the moving traffic.

The surging Rangri Nullah had damaged the 5-m-long culvert as debris blocked its passage.

The Pathankot-Mandi highway has developed two major traffic bottlenecks. The massive landslide in the Khani Nullah washed away the 200-m-long road there and about 100-m-long road at Hara Bagh, both spots between Mandi and Joginderngar.

The PWD has laid a new track to keep the road open for the one-way traffic as landslides are still active, engineer said.

Meanwhile, executive engineers of national highways told The Tribune that they had sent the estimate of damages worth Rs 23 crore to the government to remove these bottlenecks.

Shimla, August 18
With barely two days left for the elections in Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) and 97 colleges across the state, students are engaged in hectic lobbying on the campus, along with a door-to-door campaign in the town, to garner support. The exercise of filing of nomination papers was completed today as scrutiny, withdrawals and final display of names of candidates were done. Department representatives (DR) in nine HPU departments were elected unopposed.

With the Students Federation of India (SFI) claiming that a majority of the unopposed posts of DR were won by them, there is a possibility that the organisation could once again sweep the polls in its stronghold of the HPU.

On the other hand, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is putting in all its might to make a dent into the SFI stronghold in the HPU.

There are 2,808 voters enrolled in the HPU with girls outnumbering boys, as their strength is 1,533 as compared to 1,255 boys. However, it is the Rajkiya Kanya Maha Vidyalaya (RKMV), which has the maximum number of 3,643 voters. There are 1,053 student voters in Government Evening College and 1,622 voters in Sanjauli College. Polling will take place on August 20 and the results will be declared on the same day.

Most of the student outfits, including the SFI, the ABVP and the NSUI, continued their campaigning till late in the night as they went around seeking the support of day scholar students by visiting them at their homes.

They are raising demands like three more hostels, two for girls and one for boys, better transportation facility for day scholars, better internet connectivity and filing up of vacant posts of teacher.

The police and the university authorities were keeping their fingers crossed to ensure that there is no poll-related violence.

Hamirpur, August 18
Candidates for election to Central Students Association (CSA) in Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Postgraduate College, Hamirpur, were finalised today after completion of the nomination process.

Contestants and student organisations have started the campaign focusing mainly on local issues related to the college. The SFI, the ABVP and the NSUI have fielded their candidates for the CSA poll being held on August 20.

The SFI, which had won majority seats in the past two elections, is raising the issue of lack of facilities in the newly constructed boys’ hostel, besides others.

Campus president of SFI Vikas Thakur said: “SFI candidates are raising issues of filling of vacant posts of lecturer, improving toilet facilities, starting professional courses in the college, expanding the canteen and providing separate classrooms for the BCA course and other basic facilities.”

“The SFI is also focusing on other issues like privatisation of education and regulating functioning of private universities,” he said.

However, the ABVP, which has been making efforts to snatch CSA posts from SFI, has also been raising local issues.

District organising secretary of the ABVP Rakesh Walia said: “Our main focus is on the local demands of the college like allotment of boys’ hostel, starting of professional courses, renovating college roofs to stop water leakage etc.”

Meanwhile, NSUI candidates are also focusing on local issues of the college like improving facilities in the college canteen and toilets, starting new professional courses and opposing opening of a large number of private universities in the state.

Shimla, August 18
Confusion over admissions and academic schedules will continue with private universities not agreeing to follow a common academic calendar and have a common entrance test as provided in the law under which these institutions had been set up.

The issue was discussed at a meeting of Vice- Chancellors of private universities convened by the Principal Secretary, Education, recently regarding compliance of the norms laid down by various regulatory bodies and the instructions of the government. There was a consensus that if the universities had to sustain, the norms of the regulatory bodies had to be adhered to, but there was no agreement on a common academic calendar.

The issue of common entrance test was also discussed, but the Vice-Chancellors were reluctant to have admissions on the basis of a test.

There was also no unanimity on the issue of fixing credit hours for awarding diploma and degrees but after the discussion it was decided that the universities should follow the norms of the UGC and have minimum 90 working days in each semester.

They should also upload their respective academic calendars on their website before the beginning of the new academic session. Registrars of all the private universities would be the nodal officer for all concerns.

It was also made clear that norms of the regulatory bodies for various courses were mandatory.

No approval will be granted to continue or start a course in the university, unless norms were complied with.

In case of the PhD programmes, the UGC regulations will be enforced.

Violation of procedures right from admission will attract strict action and every university will be required to submit a report to the government about the step-wise procedure being adopted for admissions.

Thereafter the state government will consider the case and inform the university accordingly about its decision.

It was also decided that the board of management will submit its annual report to the sponsoring body and ultimately to the government by September 30 every year.

The annual accounts and the balance sheet will be prepared under the directions of the board and a copy of the audited accounts will be submitted to the governing body and with its observations to the government by December 31.

Shimla, August 18
Even though 40 per cent of the total hashish seizure by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) emanates from the Kullu-Manali area, with the fund allocation not being proportionate, law-enforcing agencies have not been able to undertake physical mapping of the area under cannabis and poppy to enable their accurate satellite mapping.

The police is receiving satellite images of the entire area under illegal cannabis and opium cultivation, but in the absence of any physical mapping of the area, at times problem is faced in pin pointing the area whenever a destruction campaign is to be launched. In case, an exhaustive physical mapping of the area is done, the police action can be very effective.

Even though the Rs 100-crore labour assistance received by the police department under MNREGA for destruction of narcotics has helped the law-enforcing agencies in getting labour assistance to reach remote areas, more funds will be required to contain the problem.

“We have sent a proposal to the NCB for allocating Rs 94 crore to the state for gaining better accessibility to these remote areas with the help of the GPS, satellite phones, high-altitude mountain trekking equipment and other gadgets so that we are successful in eradicating the problem,” said Vinod Dhawan, SP, CID, looking after narcotics control.

He admitted that undertaking physical mapping would help gain high level of accuracy as sometimes mixed identification in some species was received through satellite imagery. “Weeding out of other species in these remote areas can help us in pin pointing the real poppy cultivation and make our destruction campaign more effective,” he said.

The police department was able to get ample amount of labour under MNREGA to undertake campaigns to destroy cannabis and poppy cultivation in the districts of Kullu, Mandi, Shimla, Sirmour, Solan Chamba and Kangra. A total of 143 fresh cases had been registered for undertaking this illegal cultivation and this included 70 against private individuals.

“We have registered a total of 396 cases with destruction of poppy cultivation on 461 bighas and cannabis cultivation on 54,230 bighas,” said Dhawan. He added that efforts had been made to reach out to the remotest corners so that the problem could be checked.

Hamirpur, August 18
The district unit of the BJP today held a demonstration at the Gandhi Chowk here in support of Anna Hazare’s campaign against corruption and also burnt the effigy of the UPA government.

BJP activists carrying party flags and placards marched from the Bhota Chowk to the Gandhi Chowk through the bazaar raising slogans against the UPA government. They also condemned the police action against the social activists.

The demonstration was led by district BJP president Desh Raj Sharma and other party leaders.

Meanwhile, students of HHIM also marched to the Gandhi Chowk, where activists of the Jago Bharat Jago Manch are continuing their dharna for the third day today in support of Anna.

Dharamsala, August 18
Teachers from Government College, Dharamsala, wearing black badges raised slogans against the state government today to protest against the implementation of the UGC regulations, 2010, in government colleges of the state.

The Himachal Pradesh Government College Teachers Association had given a call for the protest.

After the implementation of the UGC regulations, the state government has made it mandatory for lecturers to stay on the college campus for at least 7 hours in a day.

They said UGC regulations had come along with the implementation of the new pay scales for college teachers.

The association has, however, alleged that the condition was not acceptable to them. They alleged that college lecturers were performing odd-hour duties like examination, culture and sports activities and conducting competitive examinations. If all these activities were taken into consideration, lecturers were working 8 to 10 hours a day.

They demanded that the rule, which mandates lecturers to stay on the college campus for at least seven hours a day, should be reduced to 5 hours and just four lectures a day.

They also alleged that the government had implemented the UGC regulations with retrospective affect from January 1, 2009. This would put promotions of a lot of college lecturers in the dock.

Hundreds of teachers working in government colleges have been waiting for promotions since 2007-08. They have not been promoted, as the government has failed to conduct the meeting of the Departmental Promotional Committees in time.

They said it was not possible for college lecturers to fulfil the conditions for promotion as laid in UGC regulations 2010 with retrospective effect.

The government should implement the UGC regulations from the date they were notified in state i.e. June 6, 2011. The promotions of lecturers that had been pending should be conducted as per the old rules.

The new UGC guidelines also made it mandatory for the lecturers to carry out research work. However, the lecturers body was alleging that the prevailing condition of infrastructure in government colleges was not ideal for research activities.

The conditions for research should be modified as per prevailing infrastructure in government colleges, they added.

Teachers further alleged that the UGC guidelines had recommended a teacher-student ratio of 1:80.

However, at present the teacher-student ratio in government colleges of the state was 125 to 150 that decrease the efficiency of the teaching staff and injustice to students.

Though the teachers are resenting the increase in duty hours and other responsibilities given to them under the new UGC guidelines, government officials are maintaining that that have come with the new pay scales and the guidelines have to be implemented.

Shimla, August 18
The government has decided to give social security pension to the aged, widows, handicapped and leprosy patients through the bio-metric system.

An official spokesperson said every eligible pensioner would be issued a smart card, which would have the photograph, bio data and finger impression of the beneficiary, besides opening of a saving account 
in a bank.

He said the bank would appoint customer service providers at a fixed service delivery point in a group of villages according to the number of pensioners in those villages, who would distribute the pension as per the fixed date.

He said the pension to those unable to walk would be given at their doorstep and if the pension was not delivered on the fixed date the money would be deposited in the saving account of the concerned person.

At present a social security pension of Rs 330 per month was being given.

The pension would be given through Punjab National Bank in districts of Mandi, Kullu, Hamirpur, Kinnaur, Kangra, Chamba and Lahaul-Spiti and by UCO Bank in Shimla, Solan, Sirmaur and Bilaspur.

Shimla, August 18
A one-day Organic Stakeholders’ Workshop to develop an organic policy for Himachal Pradesh was held here today.

Inaugurating the workshop, Ram Subhag Singh, Secretary of Agriculture, said the government was laying a special emphasis on organic farming and some innovative schemes were being adopted to promote it. He said farmers could benefit immensely from economically and ecologically sustainable organic farming practices. It would also enhance production besides making pesticides-free products available.

He said a mass awareness campaign needed to be devised to popularise organic farming. He added that to standardise organic farming, suitable varieties of existing crops must be identified so as to ensure good production, quality and pest resistance.

Shimla, August 18
The State Electricity Regulatory Commission has disallowed the expenditure incurred by the State Power Utility on providing compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) to domestic consumers free of cost.

HPSEB Limited had included Rs 28 crore for the first two years of the 2012-14 control period in the aggregate revenue requirement (ARR) and Rs 14 crore in the true-up for the past year.

However, the commission has declined to pass on the expenditure to consumers taking into consideration the fact that the CFL scheme was envisaged to availing the benefits of the clean development mechanism (CDM).

It directed the power utility to pursue the matter for availing the carbon credits for which the process was started earlier.

Moreover, the initiative for providing free CFLs to domestic consumers was taken by the HPSEBL on the direction of the state government and as such the commission urged the state to bear the cost of the scheme.

The government had provided interest-free loan of Rs 70 crore to the state power utility for providing four CFLs each to the nearly 17 lakh domestic consumers free of cost.

Besides availing the benefit of carbon credit, the state utility was to gain due reduction in energy consumption which would in turn bring down its power purchase cost. The amount was to be returned in five instalments of Rs 14 crore each.

HPSEB Limited maintains that the sales to the domestic category have shown a declining trend in the past two years which could be due to increase in usage of CFLs in the state.

Citing this, it projected an increase in sales to this category at 5.48 per cent and also projected an increase of 48,435 domestic consumers in 2011, which is an increase of about 3 per cent over the base year of 2010.

The commission has acknowledged the contribution of CFLs as an energy conservation initiative.

Nauni (Solan), August 18
With employees of the Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, failing to get revised gratuity despite the state government announcing it in September 2009, the issue today echoed in its 13th senate meeting which was presided by Governor Urmila Singh here today.

The issue was raised by non-teaching employees representative RS Thakur before the Governor. Principal Secretary, Horticulture, VC Pharka, terming it as a just demand, assured the employees that they would get their due. Thakur stated that since the liability of revised gratuity for non-teaching employees was less than Rs 5 lakh and the state government had allowed bureaucrats this benefit, whose liability was as high as Rs 10 lakh, their demand should be considered. This was especially so as their counterparts in Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) had already got it.

Another crucial issue regarding unnecessary expenditure in lieu of having multiple auditing system was also raised where the members stressed that either the Local Audit Department (LAD) or the Internal Audit Department should be retained, as there was a severe paucity of staff and resources. It would be sufficient to strengthen one of the two audit departments as the university was also under the ambit of Accountant General’s audit.

The Governor directed the senate that a copy of the agenda should be circulated among the members so that they could take up issues of concern from their areas.

While addressing the senate, she said the diversification of crops in agriculture and horticulture was the need of the hour for farmers. Advocating the need for undertaking continuous research she said research should reach the farm from the lab. The university should modify their extension programmes so that knowledge of the latest research could percolate down to the farmers.

Earlier, the Governor laid the foundation stone of a girls’ hostel which would be constructed at a cost of of Rs 1.50 crore.

Vice-Chancellor of university Dr KR Dhiman dwelt upon the university’s achievements in developing human resource and transfer of technology.

MLA Gagret Balbir Singh, Principal Secretary, Horticulture, VC Pharka, Secretary to the Governor Anita Tegta, Director, Horticulture, Dr Gurdev Singh, DC, Solan, C Paulrasu were also present.

Shimla, August 18
Tension gripped the Jadera panchayat in Chamba, where the 4.5-MW Hull Project is being set up after members of the agitating Sal Ghati Bacaho Sangarsh Morcha and officers of Hull Power Company clashed during the Independence Day celebrations.

The incident took place when nearly 15 officials of the company had an altercation with the members of the morcha who were celebrating Independence Day in which Man Singh, a local pradhan, and an official of the company sustained minor injuries.

Later, with the intervention of the local police, both parties reached an agreement and agreed not to file any complaint against each other.

The manager gave a written assurance that the company would not start any construction activity without the consent of the people.

However, villagers feel that the brutal attack on protesters carried out in February 2010 might be repeated.

Ratan Chand Sharma, convener of the morcha, blamed the government for the issue and said it had allotted the project without any survey and the people would suffer as there was not enough water in the stream.

The Irrigation and Public Health Department had accepted this and still the government was not taking any action in the matter.