Shimla, September 9
The local Municipal Corporation (MC) today inched closer to providing round-the-clock water supply to residents of the town as six companies have been shortlisted for undertaking this task along with power generation using treated water from sewage treatment plants (STPs).

A total of 11 companies had sent in their proposals for executing the project and the MC today shortlisted six of these. All these companies have experience in water supply and sewage treatment at a mega scale.

The project, to be taken up in the public-private partnership (PPP) mode, aims at achieving a seemingly difficult task of providing 24x7 water supply to the residents who face water woes, especially during the peak tourist season.

“We will give two months’ time to each of the six companies to undertake a survey of the proposed sites and prepare their project report, objectives and technical study so that we can start work at the earliest,” said AN Sharma, Commissioner, MC. He said the company which would offer the lowest rate of water supply would be awarded the work.

Sharma said the total installed capacity of water in Shimla was 70 MLD and a maximum of only up to 48 MLD was required and that too during the peak summer season when the floating population swells. “The company will not only have surplus water at its disposal but can generate power from the treated water at the eight STPs,” he said.

The regulatory control of the project would remain with the MC and the staff employed for the work now would continue to undertake enforcement work. “By measuring the inlet and outlet of water, we will work out the total treated water that the company will get and it is only after a technical study is undertaken that one can say with certainty the available power potential.

At present the Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) Department is supplying water to the MC at the rate of Rs 42 per kilo lt. It is expected that people will not only get regular supply of water sans any rationing but it can even work out to be cheaper than the preset rate.

Despite the “Queen of Hills” emerging as a major tourist destination, it faces an acute water shortage. While the problem was earlier confined to summer months, now it continues throughout the year, adversely affecting the tourist inflow.

Shimla, September 9
The government today approved the revised guidelines regarding Local Area Development Fund (LADF) for the hydropower projects in which gaps and difficulties being faced by the local people, power producers and district administration have been addressed.

According to the revised guidelines, 1 per cent free power will be made available by the power producers in addition to the 12 per cent free power to be distributed annually as cash transfer to the project-affected families to the extent of 85 per cent.

The balance 15 per cent will be distributed as an addition to all BPL families in the project-affected area. The cash transfer to each family will be based on the receipts from sale of the free power by the Directorate of Energy every year. It will result in life-long benefits to all families in project-affected areas.

The approval was granted by the state Cabinet which met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister PK Dhumal here today. It is expected that this will give a boost to hydropower development by creating a direct interest amongst local stakeholders in the project completion.

The revision of the LADF guidelines also speaks of setting up separate committees under the district administration for each project with the project developer as the member secretary instead of having just one committee for the entire district.

The guidelines enhance the autonomy of gram panchayats with regard to the schemes to be taken up and in the selection of implementation agencies.

The project-affected area and project-affected zone have been clearly defined and provide for a normative allocation of funds for schemes in the project area. For smaller projects, care has been taken to ensure that wards of gram panchayats alone can be defined as project-affected areas so that funds are not spent in other places.

The Cabinet decided to launch Mukhya Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojna (Model Village), aimed at integrated development in two selected villages in each assembly segment. A sum of Rs 10 lakh will be provided for infrastructure development to each assembly segment under the scheme.

It granted approval to the revised service charges under Lok Mitra Project as per which charges for electricity bill collection will be Rs 5 per domestic bill to be shared equally by the consumer and the power board; for Nakal Jamabandi Rs 10 per page will be borne by the applicant; and for redressal of grievances through e-samadhan Rs 10 per page will be borne by the citizen.

Shimla, September 9
With the BJP high command giving the nod to a change of leadership in Uttarakhand, the visit of Chief Minister PK Dhumal to Delhi to attend a meeting of the National Integration Council assumes significance as he will meet party chief Nitin Gadkari and other senior leaders to discuss organisational matters.

Dhumal was scheduled to meet Gadkari and other senior leaders today, but with rain playing spoilsport, he could not fly to Delhi and had to take the Shatabdi, thus cancelling his meetings with the political bosses, scheduled for today.

Incidentally, this will be his first meeting with the high command after some dissident leaders, including party MLAs, met the central leadership with their grouses.

The meeting of the dissident group with the party high command followed by a quick trip by Dhumal loyalists to undertake damage control has fuelled speculation in political circles about rising dissidence and discontentment among party leaders.

With the Assembly elections due in December next year, the dissidents are likely to step up their campaign.

The impending action again defiant party MP from Kangra Rajan Sushant was also one of the major issues which the CM loyalists raised before the central leadership. They tried to impress upon the high command that the inordinate delay in taking action against Sushant was emboldening others to take a similar defiant path, which was harming the party immensely.

Key Dhumal loyalists, including state BJP chief Khimi Ram, Ram Swaroop, Chander Mohan Thakur, Renu Chaddha, Kripal Parmar, Praveen Sharma and Vikram Thakur, met almost all senior leaders to counter the issues raised by the dissident lobby, but the Chief Minister, too, is likely to place his viewpoint. Khimi Ram and others also met Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Shanta Kumar, Kalraj Mishra and Shyam Jaju.

The anti-Dhumal camp, including sitting MLA Khushi Ram Balnahata, former Speaker Radha Raman Shastri and former ministers Shyama Sharma and Mohinder Sofat had met Gadkari and other leaders to express their displeasure over the “organisational functioning”. They had demanded that the state party chief be changed. They had also expressed displeasure over the functioning of some ministers who were facing serious corruption charges.

Manali, September 9
“The Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering and Allied Sports, Manali, is among the best institutes in the country in mountaineering and other adventure-related sports,” said Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Ajay Maken after flagging off a 10-day adventure camp here today.

Addressing trainees and adventure lovers on the occasion, Maken said the Manali institute was the best in the field of adventure sports.

He said as many as 1,40,000 trainees had been imparted training in different adventure courses so far by the institute.

The minister assured thatall efforts would be made to strengthen this institute.

Dharamsala, September 9
A nexus of ruling politicians, contractors and officials is responsible for the poor state of roads in the state. Senior Congress leader and MLA from Nagrota Bagwan GS Bali levelled these allegations while addressing a press conference here today.

Bali alleged that the state of roads in the state had never been so poor. The poor road network in the state was likely to hit tourism that was the “lifeline of thousands of people”.

Many of the contractors responsible for the alleged poor quality of road construction were closely related to ruling party politicians, he alleged.

He said in Una district roads constructed by local contractors had been “washed away” during the current rainy season while those constructed by multinational companies were still intact.

He said the Chief Minister should travel by road in the state instead of a helicopter to gauge the severity of the problems being faced by residents.

Road contractors were forming unions and indulging in political activities to camouflage their poor quality of work, he alleged.

He said there were reports that the contractors constructing roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojna were not maintaining these though according to norms they were supposed to do so for a period of five years.

Kasauli, September 9
The Central Vigilance Commission has imposed major penalties on three officials of Central Research Institute (CRI) after detection of irregularities in cases involving the purchase of machinery by the institute.

The commission, in its letter dated June 27, a copy of which is available with The Tribune, has imposed major penalties on Dr Usha Soren Singh, former Director, Dr Arun Bhardwaj, CMO, and SRS Ambrose, Bio-medical Engineer.

The irregularities pertain to the period when Dr Usha headed the institute and irregularities had come to the fore in the purchase of machine for producing vaccines and infrastructure relating to the setting up a telephone exchange. Even machinery for setting up a printing press had been purchased on a higher rate than the prevalent market price.

A complaint was thereafter made to the CVC, which, after conducting an inquiry, has now imposed major penalties on these officers.

In an earlier inquiry, the disciplinary authority had also detected irregularities in purchases. Dr Usha was transferred from the institute in 2004.

Three other employees whose names had figured in the inquiry had retired; hence only minor penalties had been recommended for them. 

Shimla, September 9
With the poorly paid monkey-catchers losing interest in their job of trapping simians, the plan of the Forest Department to sterilise over 20,000 monkeys during the current financial year has gone awry. So far, only about 3,000 monkeys have been sterilised and with just six months to go, the target is unlikely to be achieved.

With the fourth sterilisation centre becoming functional at Una early this year, the mass sterilisation programme was expected to gain further momentum but instead it has slowed down as the monkey-catchers, who have been demanding higher rates, have not been taking much interest in the job. Their main grouse is that they were being paid a paltry sum of Rs 160 per catch as against Rs 500 to Rs 600 per catch in Delhi and elsewhere in the country.

While the professional monkey-trappers, mostly from Uttar Pradesh, are not keen to do the job, the locally trained villagers lack the requisite skills to carry out the job efficiently. It is a highly specialised skill for which proper knowledge about the social structure and behaviours of the simians is essential and untrained catchers only disturbed the troop, making the members vigilant enough to evade traps. Once a troop is disturbed, it has to be left alone for at least a year before resuming attempts to trap the members.

The issue was discussed at a meeting of senior officers after which a new slab-wise system to encourage catchers to trap more simians has been finalised. As against the existing rate of Rs 160 per catch the remuneration will be Rs 170 per catch up to 250 monkeys per month and Rs 200 per catch for 250 to 300 monkeys per month. Similarly, the charges will be Rs 250 per catch for 300 to 350 monkeys per month, Rs 300 per catch for 350 to 400 monkeys per month and Rs 350 for more than 400 monkeys per month.

Under the mass sterilisation plan, 6,000 monkeys are to be operated annually in each of the four centres at Shimla, Saster, Gopalpur and Una for a period of five years to contain the menace caused by 3.19 lakh monkeys in various parts of the state. So far, 34,500 monkeys have been sterilised till date. The maximum of 13,685 monkeys have been sterilised at the centre in Shimla, the first to be set up, followed by 10,882 in Saster and 9,144 in Gopalpur. The centre at Una started functioning only in the current year.

Hamirpur, September 9
The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) has registered a criminal case against office-bearers of a herbal association over non-payment of lakhs of rupees of crop insurance to herbal growers of the state.

The scam pertains to non-payment of insurance claim by the Himachal Organic Herbal Growers Association (HOHGA) to growers. The association had received the money from the insurance company on behalf of the growers.

The scheme of crop insurance was started by the Central government to promote herbal cultivation like stewia and white mulsi in a few districts of the state through the Ayurveda Department a few years ago.

After this, a few herbal growers formed a society called HOHGA and insured the crop of white mulsi cultivated in several districts of the state with a national insurance company.

Later due to several factors, the crop of white mulsi was damaged and farmers submitted an insurance claim through HOHGA to the insurance company.

Though HOHGA had received the insurance claim from the company amounting to about Rs 21 lakh but the same was not paid to many farmers after which the matter was reported to the VACB.

The VACB has recorded the statements of growers of Hamirpur, Kangra, Bilaspur, Solan and Una in this connection. The VACB office in Hamipur has confirmed the registration of an FIR against the office-bearers of the HOHGA under various sections of the IPC for cheating the farmers.

Shimla, September 9
The Himachal Pradesh High Court today sought a response from the state government on a petition filed by Union Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife, seeking quashing of an FIR along with all subsequent proceedings arising therefrom and transfer of the investigation of the CD case to the CBI. The court also directed it to place on record the material relating to the case in the court.

The Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice VK Ahuja passed these orders on the petition of Virbhadra and his wife Pratibha Singh.

The state Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau had registered a case against the Union Minster and his wife on August 3, 2008, under the Prevention of Corruption Act on the basis of an audio CD released by his political adversary Vijay Singh Mankotia in 2007.

According to the Vigilance Bureau, Virbhadra Singh was allegedly heard referring to some monetary transactions on the phone with Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Mahinder Lal, who is now dead. The CD also “contained the voices of his wife and some industrialists”.

Petitioners have submitted that the case registered against them was politically motivated. They have alleged that the government has not verified the authenticity of the CD.

Dharamsala, September 9
The state government has cleared Indrunag as a new paragliding site. It is the second site that has been approved by the state Tourism Department for paragliding in Kangra district. The other site at Bir Billing is now internationally famous and attracts paragliders from across the world.

The Bir Billing site was also used for hosting the pre-world cup paragliding tournament two years ago. However due to a tiff between the local paragliding association and state tourism officials, the event could not be hosted here last year.

Though foreign tourists have been using Indrunag site for paragliding off and on, now after its recognition by the state government some infrastructure might be developed to promote the adventure sport. This would be an added attraction for foreign tourists who come to Dharamsala. The paragliding at Indrunag can be carried in summers or in the months of October and November when the region has sufficient currents.

District tourism officer RS Rana said that since the Indrunag site had been registered by the state government, only authorised operators could carry out paragliding activities there. Since Indrunag was at lower altitude, it could only be used for joy rides of 10 to 15 minutes, he added.

Indrunag is 3 km from Dharamsala. The small plateau located at the hilltop is used by paragliders as a launching pad. After taking off from Indrunag, the paragliders land in open grounds of Dharamsala.

Though the paragliding adventure is picking up in the district very few registered operators are available to conduct the sport in a professional manner.

At present, there is just the Himalayan Adventure Club registered with the state government for conducting paragliding activities.

Three other clubs, Golden Eagle Club, Extreme Flying Club and Bir Billing Club, have been cleared by the technical committee of the state government but certain formalities have to be completed before these can get registered.

The registered paragliders have to hire the services of a pilot who has at least five years of experience in flying.

Due to lack of trained experts to control the paragliding events, two foreign paragliders lost their lives last year. Two Russian paragliders lost their way while paragliding over the Dhauladhars and got trapped in the higher reaches. The district administration had to make special efforts to retrieve their bodies from gorges in Dhauladhar mountains.

The state tourism department is planning to hold a paragliding tournament in Bir Billing in mid-October.