Shimla, August 27
Facing Congress accusations of granting permissions to outsiders for the purchase of huge chunks of land in relaxation of the HP Tenancy and land Reform Act, the BJP during its rule has given maximum benefit to those keen to open educational institutions and tourism units.

The BJP regime has granted permission to 96 educational institutions to purchase 267 hectares in relaxation of Section 118 of the HP Tenancy and Land Reform Act, 1972. The government during its three-and-a-half-year rule has granted permission to 62 tourism units, allowing purchase of 263.18 hectares.

The comparative government data available for which permission was granted by the previous Congress regime during its five-year term indicates that 58 educational institutions were allowed to purchase 141.71 hectares and 85 tourism units allowed to buy 59.64 hectares.

The BJP regime till August 15 this year, has granted permission in 1,370 cases to outsiders to purchase 1229.28 hectares in contrast to 2,398 cases during the five-year Virbhadra regime involving purchase of 1445.54 hectares.

Once the land is bought by outsiders in relaxation of Sec 118, there is no need to seek separate change of land use.

The BJP and the Congress regime indicates that the number of cases during the Congress regime was more but land involved was less, but the BJP with fewer number of cases had already allowed purchase of 1,229 hectares with a year-and-a-half of its rule still to go.

The exhaustive government data also indicates towards the fact that while during the Congress regime, 1,427 industrial units bought 1009 hectares, during the BJP regime so far only 616 permission had been granted for industrial purpose, involving 592 hectares.

This can also be interpreted as a reduced interest on the part of entrepreneurs to invest in the state post the withdrawal of the special industrial package.

The notable land buyers include Bahara Education and Charitable Society, Kandaghat - 120 bighas; Abhilashi Shiksha Samiti, Ner Chowk - 50 bighas; Vinayak Education Society, Kullu - 25 bighas; Shital Mata Education and Welfare Society - 13.19 bighas; Manav Bharti Charitable Trust - 30 bighas; Chancil Education Society - 10 bighas; and Harish Cement Ltd - 987 bighas in Sundernagar.

Shimla, August 27
The coming up of hydro-power projects upstream of the Nathpa Jhakri Project on the Sutlej could help reduce its silt issue, the result of which has led to reduction in profit of the Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN).

Though the Nathpa Jhakri Project has been registering profit year after year since it came into generation, very often the excessive silt levels force the SJVN to halt generation, resulting in reduction of profits.

“The coming up of the Karcham Wangtoo Project will prove to be very beneficial for us as the level of silt will be reduced since they have a power house upstream on the Sutlej,” said RP Singh, Chief Managing Director, SJVN, while addressing a press conference here today.

He said in case the Khab project also became operational, the silt level that had been a major cause of concern at Nathpa would further held reduce the problem.

“The Sutlej has a high level of silt not just during peak monsoon seasons but even otherwise as on July 23 last year the silt level was 1.74 lakh PPM, forcing a three-day shut down,” Singh said.

He said to overcome the issue of silt, hard coating of underwater components had been undertaken and this too by creating the facility along the dam site to avoid transportation cost and hassles.

“High intake of silt by the turbines results in extensive damage to underwater parts of the machines and even parts coated with plasma nitrate cannot be saved, so now we have adopted the HVOF coating of tungsten carbide which has proved to be beneficial,” he said.

“Despite all odds and constraints, the profit of the SJVN was likely to go up by Rs 80 crore over the Rs 912.13 profit generated during 2010-11,” Singh said.

He said during the first quarter of 2011-12, there had been 2,650 million units of generation between April-June as compared to 2,424 MU during the corresponding time last year.

The net profit in the first quarter this year has been Rs 348.21 crore as compared to Rs 290.76 crore, in the same period last year.

The total profit of the SJVN during 2010-11 was 1156.20 as compared to Rs 1017.47 crore in 2009-10.

He said the work on the 412-MW Rampur project was in full swing and it was likely to be commissioned by September 2013.

He added that the SJVN was executing projects in Nepal and Bhutan and was keen to enter the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir to generate power.

Mandi, August 27
The frequent blockades and landslides on the Chandigarh-Manali-Leh, Pathankot-Mandi and Kalka-Shimla-Kinnaur-Kaurik national highways due to heavy rains have hit tourists and trekking groups arriving in the cold desert of Lahaul-Spiti and Kinnaur district ahead of the Ladakh festival.

The festival is starting in the first week of September as most of the groups have cancelled their bookings in Keylong and Kaza and are instead making a beeline for Leh and Ladakh via the Srinagar-Zozila highway or by cheaper airways, which operate seven flights daily these days.

The occupancy rates in hotels have hit new 10 per cent low in Manali, Kullu, Kinnaur, Kaza, Keylong and even Shimla for the past two weeks as the tourists and travel agents have cancelled their bookings due to the frequent blockades and landslides on highways in July and August, the prime time for trekking in the cold desert.

Though the Rohtang Pass was opened in mid-June and Kunjam Pass in July, the tourists traffic failed to help the tourists much to reach the landlocked cold deserts as they remained stranded at the Rani Nullah blockade between Rohtang-Marhi on the Manali-Keylong-Leh highway for 10-16 hours almost every day.

It has been a lean tourist season in a row in Lahaul and Spiti for the past two years, said Tashi Deleg, a hotelier in Keylong.

Last year tourists cancelled their travelling plans to Leh due to the Leh cloudburst in August.

“The Border Roads organisation (BRO) has failed to improve the road condition on the Marhi-Rohtang stretch for the past two years and tourists taking on the Manali-Leh tour vie Keylong have cancelled their bookings,” he added.

Even the tourists taking the Shimla-Kinnaur-Kaza route have cancelled their trips as the India-Tibet road remained blocked at Jangi and other places together, said Chering, a hotelier at Kaza in Spiti.

“We were expecting that tourism will pick up this year as Ladakh-bound tourists take Manali-Leh route because it has emerged as an adventuresome route as travel agents and the Centre have pumped efforts to bail out the flood-ravaged Leh from its crisis this year,” said Tashi.

Even tourists arrival has hit a new low of below 10 per cent occupancy in Manali for the past three weeks as the frequent road blockades on the highways and The Mall, Manali, remains a heap of debris after it has been uprooted for beautification, said, the president of the Manali Hoteliers Association.

Tourism officials refrain from making statements on tourist arrivals in the state after The Tribune exposed the “exaggerated data on tourist arrivals” in the tribal Lahaul-Spiti areas.

Mandi, August 27
Even as Des Raj, an engineer, continued his fast for the 12th day today, Anna Hazare supporters, including schoolchildren, autorickshaw pullers and traders, staged a protest rally here.

Raising slogans, the supporters asserted that the entire country was with Anna in his crusade against corruption and people of Mandi could not be far behind.

They would continue to support his movement till the Lokpal Bill became a reality, said president, HP RTI Bureau, Mandi, Lawan Thakur.

Dalhousie, August 27
The first-ever trekking expedition, The Kargil Tribute, by the Indian Air Force (IAF) to the Drass Sector was undertaken by a team of 10 Air Warriors of the Air Force Station, Dalhousie, from July 20 to 30.

Before the commencement of the expedition, the team went through a rigorous training session in the hilly terrains in altitudes ranging from 7,000 ft to 9,100 ft, revealed an official communiqué of the Air Force Station, Dalhousie, issued here today.

The aim of the team was to trek up the mountain peaks of the Zozila Pass, Tololing Top, Tiger Hill, Kil Base, Mushkoh Valley and LoC Bhimbat at altitudes ranging from 11,000 ft to 17,600 ft and pay tributes to the Kargil martyrs at the Drass War Memorial on the occasion of Vijay Diwas, 2011.

The team successfully scaled these demanding peaks in the inhospitable terrain. It also visited the LoC Bhimbat and technical headquarters of 56 Mountain Brigade and interacted with personnel on duty there.

With the success of the expedition, the Air Force flag was flown high on Tololing Top, Tiger Hill, Mushkoh Valley, Kil Base, Zozila Pass and LoC Bhimbat for the first time in the history of the IAF. On July 26, the team also visited the Drass War Memorial and paid tributes to the Kargil War martyrs. The team returned safely to Dalhousie on July 30, the communique added.

Nurpur, August 27
Incessant rains in the area over the past fortnight have caused extensive damage to public and private property in Nurpur. Apart from this, a large number of link roads in the sub-division have been damaged and some have developed big potholes.

The Khushinagar-Raja Ka Dera link road has also been damaged. In some areas, public and private properties suffered heavy losses due to landslides. Big potholes can also be witnessed on the Pathankot-Mandi National Highway from Niazpur to Bhadwar.

The flash floods in the Chakki rivulet have damaged the supporting pillar of the railway bridge near Kandwal, snapping railway connectivity on the Pathankot-Jogindernagar single gauge railway line. The railway authorities have, however, restored rail traffic from Baijnath to Nagrota Surian in Jawali sub-division. Daily commuters from the Jawali and Nurpur areas visiting Pathankot (Punjab) are facing a lot of inconvenience. They have demanded the extension of the rail service up to Kandwal or at least till Nurpur (Jassur) railway station. Meanwhile, the local revenue authorities have so far estimated a loss of Rs 2 crore to the crops and private property in Nurpur sub-division comprising Nurpur and Indora tehsils. 

Kangra, August 27
Judicial Magistrate First Class (II) here today remanded two persons to police remand till August 30, 2011. They were arrested by the Kangra police for tampering with an ATM machine of the State Bank of Patiala (SBoP) main branch and had withdrawn money fraudulently from ATMs here earlier, the police said here today.

Additional SHO Budhi Prakash Singh said yesterday that Chief Manager, SBoP main branch, VP Gupta on Thursday found two persons tampering with the ATM machine. He nabbed the them with the help of two security guards and informed the police.

He told the police that the two persons were allegedly involved in duping three bank customers who identified them. He showed the CCTV footage of August 7 and 8, 2011, to the police, when two bank customers were duped of Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000 each, and the two suspects figured in the footage.

The Additional SHO said the duo had confessed the crime and the police recovered Rs 44,500 from them. A case under Sections 379, 511 and 34, IPC, had been registered the accused identified as Ravi Kumar and Munish, both from Bihar, but living in Delhi.

A local businessman, who was also deprived of Rs 40,000 allegedly by the duo one and half month back, identified them during an identification parade conducted by the police. 

Solan, August 27
With the management of JP Cements agreeing to enhance the freight to Rs 7.12 per tonne per km from the earlier Rs 6.53 for clinker, the 18-day-long stalemate between the management and truckers finally came to an end last evening.

The breakthrough was arrived at a meeting held between the two at Shimla last evening where DCs, SPs of Solan and Bilaspur districts, MLAs of Arki and Ghumarwin constituencies, truck union leaders and management of JP Cements.

Vice-president, JP Cements, KP Sharma said they had agreed to hike the rates and bring them at par with the rates of Ambuja Cements as per the last demand put forth by the truckers. The rates for cement have been fixed at Rs 7.31 per tonne per km.

He said this hike would put an additional burden of Rs 6.90 crore on the plant per annum. With the plant having remaining closed for 11 days, the JP management has incurred a loss worth crores.

Rattan Mishra, a truck union leader, while expressing satisfaction over the decision, said it was arrived at after a series of meetings. He conveyed that the major problem relating to delayed unloading had also been solved as the management said a truck would be unloaded within 12 hours as against the earlier period of four to five days. He said the revised rates would be applicable from April this year.

Shimla , August 27
HP High Court has directed the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Solan, to conduct inspection of industrial units and submit a report to the High Court as to whether these complied with the provisions of Labour Laws, particularly with regard to the welfare of labourers.

Taking a tough stand on the violation of labour laws by the industries, the Bench comprising Chief Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rajiv Sharma also directed the Labour Inspector, Parwanoo, and the Occupier/ Manager, Crown Technologies, Parwanoo, to be present before the court on September 14.

The court passed this order on a suo moto proceedings taken up by the court after getting an inquiry conducted on an anonymous letter addressed to the CJ pertaining to unfair labour practices in one of the industrial units at Parwanoo. The CJ had directed the CJM, Solan, to conduct a discreet inquiry in the matter.

The CJM had pointed out in his report that the record of workmen under the Factories Act, 1948, adult workers register, festival holidays, leave books, humidity, accident and compensatory holidays registers etc, proper cleanliness was not maintained. Washing facility was not provided to the workmen, wages slips, identity and ESI cards were not being issued and the provident fund not being deducted in the said industrial unit.

The HC observed that it was shocking that the employer had not cared to respect any of the welfare measures and mandatory provisions of employment of labourers.

R Bhaskar, cyber security expert, in Shimla. Photo: Amit Kanwar

Shimla, August 27
“Global recession is only a transient phase, the real threat to India’s economic growth comes from the increasing cyber espionage, which is exposing Indian corporates to unfair competition,” said R Bhaskar, a leading cyber security expert from the USA.

“Cyber espionage is a global issue, but the stakes are high for a country like India that has to consistently maintain a growth rate of 9 to 10 per cent for the next two decades or so to join the developed world,” he said.

“The country’s economy may be derailed from the chartered path of speedy growth, unless the government responds promptly to the threat and puts in place an effective cyber defence mechanism,” he pointed out.

Bhaskar, who was in the city to deliver a lecture on cyber defence at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, maintained that the scale and speed of cyber attacks was increasing with advanced computing machines and, hence, the urgency to tackle the menace.

A major problem is that the government and the companies, which were the victims, preferred to keep the instances of cyber mischief under the wraps as it tarnished their image and exposed their vulnerability.

However, such an attitude could spell doom in the long run as the vital information gathered about Indian companies through cyber espionage was being used by rivals to secure contracts.

In the emerging scenario, leading companies are being exposed to unfair competition and they would gradually lose out on global contracts, despite being more efficient.

In some countries like China, Russia and even France, the respective governments had stakes in competing companies, making the threat all the more potent.

The cyber world could be considered virtual, but the threat to economy from the digital warfare was real and this had to be accepted, said Bhaskar, who had worked with computer giant IBM and also remained technical adviser at the Federal Trade Commission in the US.

It was high time that the government built a cyber defence system in partnership with the private sector, which had an army of IT experts required to handle the cyber warfare. The issue has to be brought in public domain and discussed openly to create awareness and beef up cyber security. At the very outset the government should incentivise companies to report cyber attacks and ensure secrecy so that their image was not hurt.

The next step was to set up a cyber army, the structure of which had to be very different as a cyber war consisted of heterogeneous cyber battles, each having its own independent political objective.

Consisting of computer experts, the cyber army would be summoned by an email, and would have to fight the war at the desk, quite possibly at home. Boot camp for such a soldier would consist of extended technical education and training. Since it was not feasible to have a permanent cyber army, its members would have to be drawn from the private sector for brief periods of time.

Baddi, August 27
With paucity of skilled labour being an issue of major concern in the nation, the Ministry of Labour and Employment has planned to provide 50 crore skilled workforce in industries by 2022.

PC Chaturvedi, Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, stated this while interacting with mediapersons after inaugurating the regional office of the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) here today.

He said to achieve this, 1,500 ITIs and 5,000 skill development centres would be opened across the country as skilled labour availability was the focus of 12th Five-Year Plan. Since these institutes faced paucity of instructors, 25 training institutes would be opened in the states which provided free land.

Lauding the cooperation shown by Himachal, he said the state government extended maximum cooperation and made land available whenever required.

Giving details about the new ESIC endeavours, he said they aimed to start 1,250 courses pertaining to 50 sectors where anyone could take admission. Successful candidates would be given NSBI certificates which would enable them to procure jobs.

He said street vendors, bidi workers, domestic helpers and people who had worked for at least 15 days under the MNREGA scheme would be brought under the ambit of health insurance. He said the ESIC was proposing to include taxi drivers, coolies, rickshaw operators, postmen and mining labourers under its purview.

Chaturvedi said they would soon launch a 24-hour helpline in Baddi. Taking strict note of a recent case where an injured labourer was referred from Baddi to ESIC Dispensary, Nalagarh, and further to Bhud and then again to Nalagarh, he said the matter would be looked into as it tantamounted to negligence. He later paid a surprise visit to the ESIC Hospital at Baddi. Others present on the occasion included Rohit Zambal, Director, Health Safety Regulation, BK Sahu, Commissioner, Insurance, BS Negi, Regional Director, ESIC, Baddi. 

Shimla, August 27
The government has not followed a uniform policy in granting permission under Section 118 of the Land Reforms and Tenancy Act to private universities for acquiring land.

While some institutions like Arni University have been allowed to purchase huge chunks of land, some others do not fulfil even the minimum required quantum, making it evident that the entire process was arbitrary and not based on legitimate requirement.

In all 11 private universities have been set up by the state government and of these seven are in Solan district.

Arni University in Kangra district has been allowed to acquire 624 bighas and Sai University, Palampur, only 52 bighas. Some universities do not fulfil the norms as per which a private university must have a minimum of 50 bighas of compact land at one place for setting up an institution.

A recent inspection carried out by the Education Department revealed that Manav Bharati University had only 30 bighas at Sultanpur in Solan district. It had another 45 bighas and 10 biswas at Kaunihat in Sirmaur district.

The Baddi University of Engineering Sciences was allowed to acquire 131 bighas, Maharishi Markandeshwar University 232 bighas and Bahra University 120 bighas. Chitkara University (67,835 sq m) and the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India University (1,97,790 sq m) purchased land from HIMUDA. Indus University, Una, was allowed to acquire 57 bighas.

The Kalighar Trust, which sponsored Eternal University, Badu Sahib, is already in possession of 102 acres.

The Congress says there was no justification for opening so many private universities in a small state like Himachal, that too in a particular district. The objective was not to make the state an education hub but to allow outsiders to acquire land in the state.

Shimla, August 27
Chief Minister PK Dhumal while presiding over a state-level meeting here today said elaborative arrangements had already been started for a smooth conduct of the International Kullu Dasehra Festival to be organised from October 6 to 12, this year.

He said the festival had international importance and endeavours should be made to uphold its sanctity by organising it in a traditional manner.

Dhumal said Kullu was known for its rich cultural heritage and Manali for its scenic beauty and attempts should be made to attract more tourists to the Valley.

A Syrian ambassador during his visit to the state had consented to sponsor troupes of his country for the festival while Brazilian and Russian troupes were also likely to participate in the event, he added.

Shimla, August 27
In order to provide proper connectivity to commuters, the government has drawn out a new traffic plan for operation of buses from the Inter State Bus Terminus (ISBT), Tutikandi, which will be inaugurated here on August 29.

Chief Minister PK Dhumal chaired a meeting here today to finalise the traffic plan of the buses, which will operate from the ISBT, Tutikandi. He said the ISBT had been completed with parking facility for 150 small vehicles, a crew rest room, a canteen and an office-space besides two floors for shopping mall, two multiplexes, a hotel and a food court.

He said the new bus terminus would have no passenger-vehicle conflict as the movement of private vehicles and buses would be segregated. He said the arrival and departure of the buses would be at different levels.

Dhumal said the traffic plan of buses in Shimla town would be modified to suit the requirements of the commuters visiting and leaving the town from the ISBT. He said the old bus stand would henceforth function as a local bus stand for operating within Shimla town as well as for peripheral locations within a radius of 30 km.