Dharamsala, December 23
Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal today took on the Congress on the issue of benami land deals and private universities at a counter-rally organised by the BJP in Zorawar Singh Stadium, the same venue at which the Congress had organised its rally yesterday.

The Chief Minister, while addressing the rally, said the Congress had been levelling allegations against the present government regarding the violation of Section 118 of the Land Tenancy Act in Solan district.

However, he said till date 51 permissions under Section 118 of the Act had been given in Solan district. Out of these 49 had been given by the previous Congress government and just two by the present BJP government.

Hinting at the AICC general secretary and Congress in charge for the state, Birender Singh, Dhumal said certain persons in the Congress had been raising the issue of private universities in Himachal. However, there were 21 private universities in Haryana that was ruled by the Congress.

Dhumal claimed that the present government had provided jobs to 68,000 youth of the state in the past four years.

He said the Congress had no real agenda and was just carrying out false propaganda to mislead the people of the state.

Referring to the achievements of the government, the Chief Minister claimed that no family in the state had remained untouched by government benefits. He said schemes adopted by the government had made youth self-dependent.

Sarveen Chaudhary, Minister for Social Empowerment, said the government had given 50 per cent reservation to women in panchayats.

Khimi Ram, state president of the BJP, said the Congress campaign against the government was merely false propaganda.

The convener of the rally, Minister for IPH Ravinder Ravi, said the BJP rally was just a district-level rally. Still it was bigger than the state-level Congress rally held yesterday. He claimed the BJP rally was a success due to development work carried out by the government.

Independent MLA from Nurpur Rakesh Pathania, who arrived with much fanfare riding on the shoulders of his supporters at the rally venue, tried to raise the issue of giving district status to Nurpur subdivision of Kangra. His supporters carried banners and raised slogans demanding district status for the area.

The Chief Minister, however, did not touch the issue of division of Kangra or the creation of new districts in his speech.

The president of the district Zila Parishad, Pawan Kajal, brought an impressive number of supporters to the rally venue.

Minister for Industries Kishan Kapoor, Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Ramesh Dhawala and all BJP MLAs from Kangra district were present.District president of the BJP Ranjit Singh Pathania was, however, not present at the rally.

Congress spokesperson for the district Kewal Singh Pathania alleged that

the Congress has video recorded the “involvement” of many government officials in the BJP rally. The video would be released soon and the Congress would demand action against the officials concerned.

Shimla, December 23
Refusing to be cowed by the party action of removing certain leaders from party posts, former MP Maheshwar Singh and former Speaker Radha Raman Shastri, heading the Bhrashtachar Mukti Morcha, today launched a counter-offensive by resigning from the state BJP Executive.

Maheshwar Singh, state convener of the morcha, which has been floated by the dissidents to fight corruption, resigned from the state BJP Executive along with Shastri in protest against the action taken by the party against their colleagues.Morcha members, including Shastri, former ministers Mahinder Sofat and Shyama Sharma, former MLA, and Tikku Thakur, were present in sizeable numbers at a function held at Nahan today.

“It is an irony that committed BJP leaders like Navin Dhiman, former MLA, and Tikku Thakur are being shown the door while Anita Sandal, facing serious corruption charges, is still a member of the state Executive,” said Sofat, spokesperson of the morcha. He said Maheshwar and Shastri had resigned over the unjust action against Dhiman and Thakur with the party adopting a soft stand on persons like Sandal and many others.

The morcha members at the meeting also decided that if the party high command did not take action on the issues that they had raised at their meeting with national BJP chief Nitin Gadkari, they would intensify their campaign. “The ball is in the court of the party high command and we cannot wait endlessly as shortly we will be placing all these issues in the pubic domain,” said Sofat.

Maheshwar had been dropped from the national BJP Executive after he along with others did not attend a rally held in Mandi on the occasion of the arrival of Advani’s “Jan Chetna Yatra”. The morcha members had in fact urged Gadkari to reinstate Maheshwar.

Mandi, December 23
CPM leaders today termed the present BJP government’s nearly four-year term under Chief Minister PK Dhumal as the “most corrupt”, saying that the successive BJP and the Congress regimes have failed to get Himachal’s share in forest and water resources from the Centre.

As a result, the people were disillusioned here and the next state government in 2012 would be a “coalition government in which the CPM will play a crucial role”, they asserted.

Addressing the CPM state-level rally here, CPM state general secretary Rakesh Singha said: “The present Dhumal government has pushed Himachal’s 15 lakh families and farmers to the brink of collapse.”

On the other, Anita Sandal, a BJP member of the Youth Against Corruption, which is launched by CM’s son Anurag Thakur, has been running a recruitment racket charging Rs 1.5 lakh to provide jobs for the youth, Singha charged.

The government was running its anti-farmers, anti-employees polices through private contractors, who are paying paltry Rs 4000 per month as it has cut down its clerical cadre from 3 lakh employees drastically.

Singha further said the Dhumal government had failed to deposit Rs 166 crore to the HP Electricity Regulatory Commission and the board, which had outsourced its billing service, has slapped hefty bills on domestic consumers.

He also charged that patients do not get allopathic drugs in hospitals as Health Minister Rajiv Bindal, who allegedly runs an ayurvedic factory, was supplying drugs for “anaemic women” in the state. Vivekanda Trust Hospital at Palampur had been given to the JP company, which is a profit-oriented move, he added.

Dharamsala, December 23
A close aide of Anna Hazare, Prashant Bhushan, bought 4-68-28 hectares (122 kanals) of tea garden land in the Palampur area in the name of an educational society.

The information came in response to a question raised by the Congress MLA from Baijnath, Sudhir Sharma, in the Himachal Assembly today.

Sharma had sought details from the government regarding the number of permissions given by the present government under Section 118 of the Land Tenancy Act to purchase tea gardens in the state during a period extending from 2008 to November 2011.

While replying to the query Minister for Revenue Ghulab Singh informed the House that just one permission, to buy tea garden land, had been given during the said period. He said the Kumud Bhushan Educational Society, Kandbari, through Prashant Bhushan, son of Shanti Bhushan, resident of Noida, had been given permission to buy 4-68-28 hectares of tea garden land.

The sale and conversion of status of tea garden land in Himachal is strictly prohibited under the revenue laws. The status of tea garden lands, most of which are located in Kangra district, cannot be changed without permission from the state government.

Dharamsala, December 23
Ten power projects that have delayed inordinately have caused a loss of Rs 9,851.3 crore to the nation and the state.

The information was laid on the table of the House on a question from Rajesh Dhirmani, Congress MLA from Ghumarwin.

Dhirmani has sought information from the state government regarding the hydro projects that have not been commissioned on the due date.

In the reply filed, the Chief Minister, informed the House that the commissioning of 10 major power projects have delayed inordinately in the state.

The power projects include, 100-MW Malana-II that has been delayed by 20 months, 9- MW Fozal power project - delayed by 24 months, 6-MW Baner project -delayed by 16 months, 24-MW Paudital Lassa - delayed by 36 months, 520-MW Parbati-III - delayed by 15 months, 231-MW Chamera-III - delayed by 18 months, 15-MW Neogal - delayed by 15 months, 800-MW Kol Dam - delayed by 47 months, 800-MW Parbati-II - delayed by 59 months and 192-MW Allain Duhaugan - delayed by eight months.

The government has stated that virtually all the hydel projects were subject to delay against the initially visualised completion dates. This was due to natural reasons, local protests, work stoppages and inclement weather.

The Chief Minister said in case of private sector, the government had taken steps to check loss to the state due to delay in commissioning of power projects.

He said Rs 10,000 per MW per month of delay in start of construction for all projects was being charged. Besides, disincentive at the rate of 0.2 per cent additional free power for delay of every 73 days for projects above 5 MW has also been imposed.

Dharamsala, December 23
PTA teachers today finally got some relief as Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal gave an assurance that they would not be removed from their jobs.

An assurance was given by him to a large number of PTA teachers who had gathered at the main gate of the Vidhan Sabha.

The Chief Minister, while addressing the PTA teachers, alleged that they were recruited by the previous Congress government without any proper policy. The present government would make a provision for PTA teachers in the Budget session of the Assembly in March next year. By that time no PTA teacher would be removed and they would keep working in the schools where they had been posted, he said.

The previous Congress government had recruited about 10,000 teachers through Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) of various government schools. The present government had held that PTA appointments were illegal. Many PTA teachers were removed from service and regular teachers were appointed in their place.The PTA teachers carried out a sustained agitation to save their jobs. — TNS

Solan, December 23
HP State Electricity Board (HPSEB) Limited today ordered an inquiry into the power bill embezzlement scam where two clerks had failed to deposit the billed amount deposited by consumers in the board’s account for almost a year now.

Board’s Secretary MP Sood told The Tribune that chief engineer (South) RK Sharma had been directed to visit the Baddi office tomorrow and submit a fact-finding report after conducting an inquiry.

He added that since the scam pertained to the tenure of assistant engineer (AE) Anil Sood, he had been placed under suspension.

The AE concerned, Anil Sood, was at present working with the transmission wing and had been transferred from Baddi a few months ago.

The initial probe conducted by board officials have assessed that as much as Rs 2 crore had been embezzled from the bi-monthly power bills pertaining to about 250 domestic connections and about Rs 1.5 crore from commercial connections.

Officials said since the billing cycle was bi-monthly, more such cases could come to light next month. It was intriguing to note that the AE had not ordered disconnection of power connections despite the official records showing non-payment of bills for months together. The police has registered an FIR under Section 409, IPC, in this regard.

Baddi SP Gurdev Chand Sharma said other sections of the IPC would be added once more facts would emerge following scrutiny of the records.

Usually, the board disconnects power connections after 90 days following non-payment of bills, but here no such action was initiated against consumers despite their bills having remained unpaid for almost a year.

Both clerks, Jeet Ram and Sohan Lal, had also been placed under suspension.

The embezzlement of funds came to light when executive engineer AS Dhillon detected that the number of defaulters was exceptionally high and despite continuous default by them, their connections had not been disconnected.

Shimla, December 23
With chances of a White Christmas being completely ruled out, the hotel industry and others associated with the tourism sector are a disappointed lot as the Queen of Hills, which used to be buzzing with festivity at this time of the year is yet to witness the same fervour.

Unlike previous years, when hotels used to be booked to capacity even before Christmas, this year the occupancy in most hotels has barely touched 60 per cent. With the local Meteorological Centre forecasting a bright and balmy Christmas, the hope of snow attracting tourists is also ruled out. It was way back in 1991 that locals as well as tourists woke up to a White Christmas.

The minimum temperature in the “Queen of Hills” rose to 4.5°C as compared to 1.2°C yesterday. The temperature is almost 1.5°C higher than normal and with a western disturbance being nowhere in sight, Christmas will be warm and bright,” said Manmohan Singh, Director of the Meteorological Centre.

Hotel Holiday Home and Peterhoff, the two units owned by the HP Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC) also have occupancy of about 70 per cent.

“The bookings are picking up and we are hopeful that we will have a good rush of tourists as several people make up their mind at the last minute,” said Vijay Sharma, Deputy general manager, HPTDC. He added that for the New Year they had descent bookings which were picking up gradually.

President of the Shimla Hoteliers Association Harman Kukreja said at present occupancy in most hotels was barely 60 per cent.

“We too have failed to understand why this year there are hardly any tourists here as generally this time the hotels are used to be jampacked with tourists,” he said.

He said the government needs to take steps to attract tourists to Shimla by having amusement parks, night clubs and other such attractions, which will help prolong stay of visitors.

Majority of the shop owners on the Mall here said there were hardly any visitors resulting in a slow business.

In fact, this year the state has been adversely affected as tourists, especially those coming from West Bengal, Maharashtra and Gujarat, chose to visit Kashmir.

Travel agents too admit that their counterparts in these states have said majority of tourists wanted to visit Kashmir and not Himachal.

Shimla, December 23
The HP High Court today quashed and set aside notifications issued by the state government regarding the appointment and absorption of Dr Jogi Ram Gaur, Director, State Forensic Science Laboratory,Himachal Pradesh.

Justice VK Sharma passed this order on a petition filed by three officers of the laboratory challenging the notification issued by the state vide which the present Director was permanently absorbed in the FSL, Himachal Pradesh, on the post of Assistant Director on a notional basis from the date when he was taken on deputation, from April 2,1990, from Haryana on the grounds that his initial appointment as Assistant Director on deputation was illegal as he did not fulfil the requisite educational qualifications and eligibility conditions at the relevant time.

As per the averments of the petitioners that as the incumbent for the post of Assistant Director was required to hold a Master’s degree in chemistry/ physics/ botany/ zoology/ biochemistry/ forensic science/mathematics from a recognised university or equivalent, Dr Gaur, who was holding a degree of MSc (Anthropology), was not eligible/qualified for the post and his subsequent permanent absorption against the said post on a notional basis from the date when he was taken on deputation from May 5,2003, was violative of the Recruitment & Promotion Rules (“R&P Rules”) governing the post of Assistant Director, FSL, Himachal Pradesh.

Justice VK Sharma observed that the cumulative effect of the order was that the notifications pertaining to his appointment “cannot be sustained and are accordingly quashed and as a result the notification whereby he was promoted as Director, FSL, Himachal Pradesh, on an ad hoc/regular basis, respectively, can also not stand on the principle that when the foundation goes, the superstructure can also not stand”.