Dharamsala, February 24
The Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education has decided to hire the services of 32 ex-servicemen to keep a watch over the sensitive examination centres in the forthcoming board examinations for classes X and XII, beginning on March 2. Chairman of the board Balram Sharma gave this information while talking to newspersons here today.

He said the ex-servicemen would be hired as observers. They would help check copying during the board examinations along with flying squads. They would be deployed at examination centres where copying had been reported earlier, centres that had a very high pass percentage and centres where the number of private students was more.

To be hired as observers 32 ex-servicemen will be hired as observers Will help check copying during the board examinations along with flying squads Will be deployed at examination centres where copying has been reported earlier, centres that have a very high pass percentage and centres where the number of private students is more

The board had identified 121 sensitive and 90 very sensitive examination centres, the Chairman said.

He said though the board examinations for classes XI and VIII had been abolished according to the Right to Education Act, the board would keep a watch on the internal examinations being conducted by the respective schools.

The board would collect samples of question papers being adopted for internal examinations for Class XI by the schools. The schools would be advised to maintain the required standards of question papers in the internal examinations.

In case these did not abide by the standards prescribed by the education board, their recognition by the board could be reviewed, he said.

The Chairman said 1,46,278 students were appearing for the Class X board examinations this year while 1,08,774 students were appearing for the Class XII examinations.

The results of all board examinations would be declared simultaneously, he said.

Mandi, February 24
Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal today said the state government had put in place the HP Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission to regulate private universities and other institutions in the state, whereas the previous Congress government had opened vocational training institutions even in “sweetmeat shops”.

Referring to Union Minister Virbhadra Singh’s allegations that the present government was playing with the future of students by opening private varsities, the Chief Minister said the government’s regulatory commission example had been followed in other states as well.

The allegations against the government were baseless as technical education and vocational training courses were recognised, he claimed.

Addressing a gathering after laying the foundation stone of a Rs 10-crore Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme under the JNNURM at Sundernagar today, he said 208 dwelling units would be constructed at a cost of Rs 10 crore and retaining walls, roads, culverts, drains, electrification, a community centre and market facilities would be provided to residents.

He said a sewerage system and mini-secretariat would soon be dedicated to the residents of the town. The Chief Minister said Jawaharlal Nehru Government Engineering College would be developed as an excellent engineering college.

He blamed the Congress for allowing a cement plant near Sundernagar. Dhumal said his government had provided land on

token money to the Centre for the ESI Medical College and Hospital at Ner Chowk. Seats had been reserved for Himachali students in this college, he added.

Talking about the development made by the state in all sectors, he referred to the 57 awards bagged by the state government during his term.

Transport and Urban Development Minister Mahender Singh Thakur and Sundarnagar MLA Roop Singh Thakur also spoke on the occasion.

Six towns, including Mandi, had been recommended for inclusion in the Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojna, he added.

PWD Minister Gulab Singh Thakur, Rural Development Minister Jai Ram Thakur and Chairman of the State Finance Commission Dile Ram were among those present on the occasion.

Kangra, February 24
Six of the 20 vintage cars from Chandigarh broke down on the way to this town during a rally today. The remaining 14 beauties arrived here this evening. The vintage car rally, the first of its kind in the Kangra region, was received warmly by the sub-divisional authorities, local residents and students on its arrival at the local government polytechnic here.

Bhupinder Sharma, chairman of the Dev Bhoomi Group of Institutes, who is the coordinator of the rally, said Austin Cummy, an English model car of 1925 owned by Balbir Singh, was the oldest car participating in the rally that broke down on the way and could not reach here today.

He said Col JS Phoolka, president of the Vintage Car Club, was driving his 1932 model Ford Toerer in the rally, which was now the oldest car, and Sunbeam-Tabol, a 1936 model, was the second oldest car that reached here today.

Dr Suraj Pathak, Director, Dev Bhoomi Group of Institutes, said some of these cars found it difficult to reach here because of the difficult hilly terrain. He said last year such a rally was organised from Chandigarh to Una but for this region it was for the first time.

He said the rally was meant for people in general but for students of technical institutes in particular to apprise them about the old automobile technology. He said most of the cars were from Chandigarh and Mohali but some were from Delhi too. German made Volkswagon model 1960 nicknamed as Beetle was driven by Balvinder Singh, Deputy Manager, SBI, Chandigarh, who said that this car was used during the World War II.

Balvir Singh (67) of Mohali, a automobile mechanic, was the soul behind the vintage car rallies. He said he started at the age of 12 to organise such rallies and organised nearly 40 rallies during the past 55 years.

BS Manco, secretary of the Chandigarh Vintage and Classic Car Club, said students learn better with visuals than by books so these cars were brought at their doorstep and this effort would be an eyeopener for the young generation.

A large number of people of the town, including students, gathered in the polytechnic college to enjoy the event. The cars would start for Palampur tomorrow on its last leg.

Shimla, February 24
Diverted from their natural course and buried in tunnels to generate power, major rivers in the state are bound to go nocturnal during the lean period with the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) allowing independent power producers to “over-design” power projects to facilitate “hydro-peaking”.

As the maximum demand for power is during the evening hours, the projects will be used to meet the peak-load requirement. However, as the discharge in rivers declines to about 20 per cent during the lean winter months, the “run-off-the-river” projects will have to store water during the day and operate at full capacity during the peak evening hours. If the implementation of the hydropower plan goes as planned, each major river will have a cascade of six to 10 big projects and if all of these are used for peaking during evening, the rivers will go nocturnal as there will be no discharge during the daytime. For instance, it takes about six to eight hours for water from Sumdoh to reach Bilaspur and if the projects stop generation after four hours of peaking at 10 pm, the water will have passed into the Gobind Sagar by the morning.

The CEA has recently allowed a lower plant availability factor (PAF) of 40 per cent to enable independent power producers (IPPs) to increase the capacity of the allotted hydroelectric projects on the condition that they will be used for meeting the peak load requirement. It has, in principle, granted approval for raising the capacity of the Seli project from 320 MW to 404 MW and the Miyar project from 90 MW to 120 MW. Karcham-Wangtu has already installed machines of 1,200 MW capacity against the approved 1,000 MW.

With projects storing water for peaking, the condition of maintaining a minimum discharge of 15 per cent will become meaningless after three or four projects become operational on a river. The first project will release 15 per cent of the total discharge and the next project downstream will allow only 15 per cent of the 15 per cent and so on and that too if these strictly adhere to the norm. As such the discharge will not be more than a trickle for most part of the day during the lean period.

Further, when a cascade of projects, set up virtually one over the other, start peaking simultaneously, the rivers will be virtually in spate for a few hours every evening and remain dry during the daytime.

Hamirpur, February 24
The assertion of Hamirpur sitting BJP MLA Urmil Thakur to contest the next Assembly election from the Hamirpur constituency may widen further differences in the “faction-ridden” state unit of the BJP.

Thakur had been in dilemma for quite some time since speculation had been rife about Chief Minister PK Dhumal’s choice of the Assembly constituency.

Making her choice clear, now, Thakur has decided to stick to the Hamirpur constituency and forcefully plead her case with the BJP leadership to field her from this constituency in the next election.

Thakur’s assertion is definitely going to sharpen differences in the BJP since rumours had been rife here about Dhumal’s choice of contesting the next election from the Hamirpur Assembly constituency.

BJP Hamirpur Mandal had also passed a resolution requesting the Chief Minister to contest from here. Even Dhumal has submitted his life membership subscription of the BJP with the Hamirpur Mandal.

The CM, who is representing the Bamsan Assembly constituency in the present Vidhan Sabha, would have to opt for a new Assembly constituency as this Assembly constituency had ceased to exist after the last delimitation exercise.

Urmil Thakur, who was reportedly “assessing” the better option out of Sujanpur and Hamirpur Assembly constituencies, has now staked her claim for the Hamirpur constituency.

Talking to The Tribune, Thakur asserted “I had contested three elections from the Hamirpur Assembly constituency and represented this constituency in the present Assembly, besides working here for over 25 years.”

“After the delimitation process, out of the 90 polling booths, 49 are still intact and about 60 per cent constituents still remain within this constituency,” she added.

Emphasising her claim further, she said, “If I opt to switchover to the Sujanpur Assembly constituency I would put a tag of an outsider; moreover I had been nursing the Hamirpur constituency during the present term and the party had entrusted the task of working in 42 polling booths of the Sujanpur constituency to Rajinder Rana, who is all set to contest as an Independent from this constituency.”

Nurpur, February 24
All revenue work relating to the execution of sale, mortgage, power attorney and will deeds has come to a standstill in the office of the Sub Registrar at the tehsil headquarters here, thanks to the obsolete server installed under the e-governance system by the Information Technology Department of the state.

A large number of visitors coming from far-off places are experiencing hardship and harassment when they have to return without getting even their emergency revenue related work done.

According to information, the defective server has stopped all activities in the registration and procurement of computerised land in the tehsil office. Apart from this, the software of e-praman is also out of order causing a lot of hardship to the applicants seeking certificates to be issued from the office of the tehsildar.

In this connection local Tehsildar Kavita Thakur confirmed that almost all office work had been affected due to the failure of the server and e-praman software. She also admitted that there was no alternative arrangement in the execution of deeds or issuance of copies of revenue record.

The district informative office authorities, Dharamsala, said the existing servers installed at the tehsil headquarters needed to be updated and replaced with new versions. There were persistent demands in the area to make alternative manual arrangement in the execution of deeds to ensure the smooth functioning of the office of the Sub Registrar-cum-Tehsildar.

Kangra, February 24
A team of doctors of the Government of India yesterday visited Dr RP Government Medical College Tanda in connection with the establishment of a burn unit, a first of its kind in the country.

Prof Vivek Adhish, Head, Hospital Administration, and Prof Utsak Dutta, Assistant Nodel Officer, Burn Cell, Director General of Health Services Government of India, yesterday inspected DRPGMC Tanda, along with Dr PK Sharma, Joint Director, Health Services, Himachal Pradesh. The team inspected the site of the burn unit which had been scheduled to be functional by December 31, 2011.

The HPPWD authorities have assured the team that construction work would be completed by March 31, this year. The team was told Rs 80 lakh was already disbursed to the PWD for the purpose.

The Central Government had already sanctioned Rs 2.37 crore for this project.

Dr Anil Chauhan, Principal of Tanda college, said the process for the purchase of the equipment was in progress and doctors from the Department of Surgery, had already received training for dealing with burn cases.

The team said the state government should expedite the process of appointment of staff, including plastic surgeons, general surgeons and specialised nurses for this burn unit.

Under this pilot programme Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Haryana were selected in the first phase. In this hill state two more burn units would come up at Hamirpur and Mandi.

Nodal officers Dr Sanjeev Sharma, Dr Atul, Medical Superintendent Dr DB Sood and Ramesh Gandohtra, ARO, GOI, were also present during the inspection.

Shimla, February 24
Retired diploma engineers of the state electricity board are running form pillar to post for securing the benefit of revised pension despite the high court having directed the management to pay the undisputed and admitted amount on the basis of the Rs 15,800-21,000 pay scale with effect from January 1996. The court had given six months’ time to the board for the purpose, which expired on February 18.

Convener of the HPSEB Retired Diploma Engineers Forum SS Mehta said payment had not been made to a single engineer so far. As a result, 116 engineers were facing financial hardship. Of these, 12 were widows and four had already died during the court case.

Of the remaining, 15 were heart patients and 60 suffering from hypertension and diabetes. He said the forum would be left with no option but to initiate contempt proceedings against the erring officers.