Kangra, February 28
A bridge on the Banner Khad, connecting Kangra town to Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College (DRPGMC), Tanda, the construction of which was completed last year at a cost of more than Rs 1.90 crore, is awaiting a VIP for the inauguration.

The 40-m-long and 7.5-m-wide bridge, located at Kangra bypass near Kangra Mandir railway station, was completed in December last year.

Executive Engineer (XEN), PWD, Vijay Kumar said the bridge was ready for inauguration after it was completed last year, but there was a tree on one side of the bridge which was a major hindrance.

He said the PWD had requested the Forest Department a few months ago for permission to cut that tree. He said they had not got any response from the Forest Department in this regard so far and that is why it could not be inaugurated.

However, DFO Basu Kaushal said her department had not received any request from the PWD authorities till date seeking permission to cut that tree.

Meanwhile, PR Agnihotri, a retired XEN, PWD, and member, Indian National Road Congress, said the tree was technically not causing hindrance and even two trucks could pass at the controversial point if the bridge was opened to traffic.

Nalinder Ghautam, state chief of Shiv Sena, described the situation as unfortunate that the bridge could not be opened to traffic as a VIP was not available for its inauguration. He said patients had to suffer a lot as they had to pass through the old bridge.

He threatened that if the state government failed to open the bridge soon, the Shiv Sena would be forced to remove the barricades of the bridge and open it for public.

Panchrukhi (Palampur), February 28
Over a lakh residents in the Panchrukhi area of Kangra district are concerned over the rise in the incidents of thefts and burglaries. In the past three months over two dozen cases of thefts were reported from this region. In most of the cases the police failed to trace the culprits and recover the valuables worth over Rs 15 lakh stolen.

The local residents called mediapersons to the area and narrated their woes. They said the deteriorating law and order situation had become a matter of concern. They were feeling insecure even during the day.

In the first two months of the year, one dozen cases of theft and burglary were registered at the Panchrukhi police post and Baijnath. Till date the police could not solve even a single case. On January 6, at Andreta village Rs 80,000 was snatched from a supplier in broad daylight. In another incident one bike was also stolen from the area. The police registered a complaint, but no one was arrested.

On February 22, a burglary was reported from Bacitar Singh’s house at Rajot village. Likewise, an Angan Bari Kendra at Karori village was also looted this month. On February 18, three houses were burgled at Rakkar Bheri village and goods worth lakhs was stolen. Here too complaints were registered, but no one was caught.

In yet another incident on February 25, ornaments worth Rs 2 lakh were stolen from Trilok Chand’s house at Chathammi village. Besides, on February 26, two shops and two houses were looted at Majerna village.

Deteriorating law and order situation has become a matter of concern in the Panchrukhi region. In many villages people have stopped venturing out of their houses after sunset. The mediapersons tried to contact the DSP, Palampur, in this regard, but his mobile phone was switched off. However, SHO, Palampur, Dandu Ram said shortage of police force and lack of vehicles were the main reason for the deteriorating law and order situation.

Bilaspur, February 28
Youth have a important role to play in developing and carrying forward society and the country. They should channelise their activities in the right direction leaving little space for modern evil trends to creep into their lives, said MP and president, HP Cricket Association, Anurag Thakur.

He was addressing a district-level youth conference organised by the Nehru Yuva Kendra (NYK) here.

He said the youth should lead reform movements and should be on their guard against evils like alcoholism, drugs, etc.

Thakur urged parents to keep vigil on their children so that they take keen interest in studies, sports and other activities.

The MP said drug addiction was the biggest threat that the youngsters were facing today. This evil was making the youth mentally and physically handicapped and were being considered a curse rather than an asset by society and their families.

“A youth lost to drugs is actually a family lost to society and we must ensure that this evil trend is reversed,” he said.

He said the youth should propagate development schemes of the government like 50 per cent reservation for women in all local bodies, free ‘108 emergency’ Atal Swasthya Yojna and subsidy of Rs 150 crore every year to ration depots.

He said government schemes and facilities had succeeded in changing the face of the hill state.

Thakur distributed sports kits among 39 yuva mandals of the district on behalf of the district Nehru Yuva Kendra (NYK) for encouraging sports activities in villages.

Nehru Yuva Kendra Regional Director Dr KH Khan said youngsters should take pro-people policies and programmes of the government to all corners of the state.

They should also take active part in all Panchayati Raj activities in their areas.

District youth coordinator Dr Shantanu Shah said the district NYK had organised two blood donation camps and also planted over 4,850 saplings in various parts of the district this year.

Palampur, February 28
The Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh are due later this year, but the Congress and the BJP have geared up their political activities in Palampur district, with an intention to win the maximum number of seats.

Both the parties have realised that without the support of people of the Kangra district they cannot rule the state. To gain a large number of seats in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, the political battle will once again be fought in Kangra district, having almost one-fourth of the population of the state, with 15 of the 68 Assembly segments.

The past electoral history of the state is witness that Kangra district is important, as whichever party has won a majority of seats in Kangra has formed the government in Shimla.

For the first time in 1990, when the BJP formed the government led by Shanta Kumar, it had won 13 of the 16 segments from Kangra district.

In 1993, when the Congress was voted to power and formed the government, once again the district played a major role by sending 12 Congress MLAs to the state Assembly.

In the 1998 Assembly elections when Prem Kumar Dhumal took over the reins of the state for the first time, 11 BJP candidates made it to the state Assembly from Kangra district, paving the way for the formation of the BJP Government in Shimla.

Even in the 2007 Assembly elections, the BJP secured 11 seats from Kangra district and Prem Kumar Dhumal formed the government in Shimla.

Whatever will be the election result next year, there is a strong feeling in the region that chief minister should be from Kangra. It is almost certain that Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal will be the chief ministerial candidate of the BJP, who hails from Hamirpur district.

However, the Congress seems confused. For the chief ministerial candidate, the fight is most likely to be between Virbhadra Singh, former Chief Minister; Thakur kaul Singh, PCC, president; and GS Bali, former Tourism Minister. Bali hails from Kangra district, which has sixteen MLAs in the Assembly at present.

In the past, Congress Chief Ministers have come either from Shimla (Virbhadra Singh and Ram Lal Thakur) or from Sirmor (Dr YS Parmar).

Shimla, February 28
Despite a 15.64 per cent increase in the urban population during 2001-11, Himachal Pradesh continues to be predominantly a rural state with 89.96 per cent people living in villages.

The number of villages in the state has increased from 20,118 in 2001 to 20,690 in 2011. However, the average size remained small with an average of 298 persons in a village. The average size of a village in 7 out of the total 12 districts was higher than the state average and lower in 3 districts. The entire population in the two tribal districts of Lahual-Spiti and Kinnaur was rural.

These facts were brought out in the provisional population totals and rural-urban distribution for the state released by Chief Secretary Rajwant Sandhu here recently. The highest rural population in the state has been recorded in Kangra district (94.42 per cent), followed by Mandi (93.73 per cent) and Bilaspur (93.27 per cent).

The decadal growth of rural population is 12.50 per cent with a total count of 61,67,805 (31,02,262 males and 30,65,543 females). The urban population stood at 6,88,704 (3,71,630 males and 3,17,074 females). Shimla district has the highest 24.77 per cent urban population, followed by Solan district with 17.70 per cent.

Out of the total population of 68,56,509, the count for age-group of 0-6 years was 7,63,864 persons (4,00,681 males and 3,63,183 females) of which 7,00,87 (91.65 per cent) reside in the rural areas, while 63,777 (8.35 per cent) in the urban areas. It accounted for 11.14 per cent of the total population and the highest percentage of 13.38 per cent of child population has been recorded in Chamba and the lowest 9.47 per cent in Kinnaur district.

Hamirpur district has the highest sex ratio, 1,096 females per 1,000 males, and Kinnaur lowest with 818 females per 1000 males.

The highest sex ratio (954) in the urban area has been recorded in Mandi district and the lowest sex ratio has been recorded in Solan (731).

The sex ratio in the child population (0-6 years) comes to 906 females per 1,000 males with the highest figure of 1,013 females in Lahaul-Spiti and the lowest in Una district with 870 females.

The percentage of literates comes to 83.78 per cent, excluding age group 0-6 years, with Hamirpur district recording the highest of 89.01 per cent and Chamba district recording the lowest of 73.19 per cent. Balbir Tegta, Director of Census, said housing census data with details like condition of houses, drinking water, electricity, toilets, sewerage, assets and the status of amenities like banking, use of cellphones, televisions and motor vehicles was likely to be released shortly.

I was at Trilokpur (Sirmaur) last week where I shared my views on national integration with 150 youth from Punjab, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Haryana and Tamil Nadu who had assembled there at the behest of Nehru Yuva Kendra, Sirmaur. I had visited Trilokpur after 36 years and found that the then village-like place had developed into a small township now. It stands on a hillock, 24 km south-west of Nahan, and is famous for its temple of Goddess Bala Sundari.

This temple was built in 1573 when Raja Deep Prakash (1570-1585) was ruling the state of Sirmaur. He had invited artisans from Jaipur for doing the job. That time Iranian architecture, patronised by the ruling Mughals, had its influence on the Rajasthani structural designing and, therefore, one finds a happy blend of Indo-Iranian architecture in the temple at Trilokpur (see photo).

On completion of the temple, Raja went to Trilokpur and offered 84 bells to the goddess, so the temple is also called ‘The temple of 84 bells’. These bells are hung in a chord at the entrance of the sanctum and devotees pull the chord when all the bells chime together. The temple was renovated in 1823 during the reign of Raja Fateh Prakash under the guidance of his mother, Guleri Rani, who was the de facto ruler because the Raja at the time of coronation in 1815 was underage. Raghuvir Prakash, who ruled the state for six years from 1850 onwards, also renovated the temple in 1851. The latest rejuvenation of the entire complex has been done in 2007 by the Temple Trust headed by the Deputy Commissioner since 1984 under whose eye the temple now functions. I could see respectable and affordable boarding and lodging at Yatri Niwas, Kaithal, and Aggarwal Dharamshalas for the visitors who throng the place during the Navratras in ‘Chaitra’ and ‘Asvin’. A folk museum was under construction on the day of my visit.

The legend associated with Maa Bala Sundari is that it had appeared in 1570 at Trilokpur in a bag of salt brought from Deoband, near Saharanpur (UP), by a local shopkeeper, Ram Dass. The shopkeeper kept on selling salt from the bag throughout the day, but the bag remained full as if nothing was taken out. He was surprised by the miracle and, at night, he had a dream in which the goddess directed him to get a temple constructed at Trilokpur and install therein her ‘pindi’ form, which existed in the bag of salt itself. She also told him that she, Mahamaya Bala Sundari, was an infant form of Goddess Vaishno Devi. Ram Dass was a petty shopkeeper, who lived hand to mouth, so he travelled to Kalsi, the then capital of Sirmaur, and requested the Raja to get a temple constructed at Trilokpur. The Raja immediately agreed and ordered for starting the construction work and since then worshipping Goddess Bala Sundari is the tradition of the Sirmaur royalty.

The traditional priests of the goddess here belong to the business community and are of the ‘Vaishya Varna’. The 19th generation of the descendants of Lala Ram Dass still attends to the ‘aarti’ and receives the traditional fee from the royal family, set at Rs 31 per annum by their forefathers. The trip here is considered incomplete if the temple of Dhyanu Bhagat, right at the start of the Trilokpur temple complex, remains unvisited. Dhyanu Bhagat, who lived during Akbar’s period, was a great devotee of the Devi. The story goes like this - Akbar summoned him to his court and chopped off the head of Dhaynu’s horse and said he should ask his all powerful Devi to put it back. Dhyanu came to Kangra and prayed long, but to no avail. He then severed his own head. Devi then appeared and re-connected both his and horse’s head and accepted the prayer of Dhyanu that, in future, she would accept a coconut broken at her altar so that her devotees do not suffer the ordeal through which Dhyanu had to pass. Trilokpur, now, has developed into an attractive location of the state pilgrimage tourism.

Palampur, February 28
The Ministry of Civil Aviation has deferred the plan for expansion of the Gaggal Airport in Kangra. The state government has expressed its inability to provide its share of Rs 500 crore.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation had initiated a plan for expansion of the air strip of the Gaggal airport from the existing 4,620-ft runway to 8,000 ft or above to enable the landing of bigger aircrafts like Air Buses 320 and Boeing 737.

In 2010, on the request of the state government, the Civil Aviation Ministry had mooted a project for expansion of the air strip. A flyover has been planned over the adjoining villages and the Gaggal town, so that the runway could be expanded.

Besides, it was also planned to construct new terminals at the airport.

Later, the Union Ministry asked the state government for partial funding of the project. As per norms, the Civil Aviation Ministry alone can not finance the whole project and the state has to contribute its share.

Because of the poor financial health of the state, the BJP government had asked the Civil Aviation Ministry to review its policy and norms as the state could not contribute Rs 500 crore.

However, official sources said the state government had agreed to acquire land for the expansion of the runway.

Gaggal airport is the only airport in the state where 85-seater planes can land easily. The two airports at Kullu and Shimla are too small and there is no scope for expansion because of difficult topography and high mountains.

Only small aircrafts with a capacity of 45 seats operate in the Kullu and Shimla circuit.

Delay in expansion of the project will adversely affect the tourism industry of the state. Kingfisher Airways is operating an 85-seater aircraft daily on this circuit.

One-way fare ranges between Rs 4,200 to Rs 11,000. If bigger aircrafts start operating on this circuit, tariff can easily come down to Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000, which will be affordable and will also boost tourist traffic to the Kangra valley.

Continuing its effort to promote and popularise the rich art of the hills, the Himachal Academy of Language, Art and Culture organised a three-day exhibition at the Gaiety Theatre featuring Pahari miniature paintings and the world-famous Chamba Rumal.

In all, 46 miniature paintings and 17 Chamba Rumals were on display (see photo) during the exhibition which was inaugurated by Manisha Nanda, principal secretary, Language Art and Culture. The works were the outcome of a state-level competition organised by the academy to provide a platform to emerging artists and preserve the dying art forms. The exhibition drew wide appreciation from art lovers and the paintings of Dhani Ram, Mukesh and Monu, who won the first three positions, were widely acclaimed.

The Chamba Rumal made by Saraj Begum, a master craftsman, stood out as she has been mostly working on the themes from the Hindu mythology.

Manisha Nanda lauded the initiative of the academy and announced that a counter would be set up at the Gaiety Theatre for the sale of the Pahari miniature paintings, Chamba Rumal, books and other material related to the art and culture of the state. It will provide an outlet for the artists to market their works.

Palampur, February 28
The Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) stadium in Dharamsala, with a capacity of 23,000, is indeed very picturesque surrounded by snow-capped Dhauladhar hills.

The HPCA cricket stadium is the first venue in the country to use winter rye grass scattered around the outfield, which prevents the grass from dying when temperature falls below 10 degrees. Dharamsala has the potential to become one of the most popular venues.

This stadium is a home to Himachal Pradesh cricket team and hosts all of the state’s Ranji Trophy matches and other limited over matches. The stadium has also been chosen to host two IPL matches acting as the home stadium of Kings-XI Punjab and is having floodlights installed for this reason.

The ground could host international cricket in future, after it was recommended by Dav Whatmore, a former director of the Indian National Cricket Academy, and coach of Kolkata Knight Riders.

The venue is unique in India as it is situated at a height of 1,457 m (4,780 ft 2 in) above the sea level and has snow-capped mountains in the backdrop. The first international team which played here was the Pakistan National Cricket Team. It played a tour match against the Indian Board President’s XI in 2005.

As surrounded by Dhauladhar ranges, it will leave the spectators across all walks of life with a breathtaking view. The visitors may find themselves indulged in mixed Tibetan and Indian culture.

The weather in Dharamshala provides a perfect condition to host an international cricket match. The best time for the cricket season is from March-June and from September-December. The breeze coming directly from the mountains would help seam bowlers.

Just behind the stadium is Government Degree College, Dharamsala, which was built during the British Empire. Tourists can enjoy their short stay during the IPL match by visiting nearby places like McLeodganj, Naddi, Bhagsu Nag, Dharamkot, Khaniyara and Palampur.

The visitors, who are keen to have a close look of Dhauladhar mountains, can plan for trekking tours which is provided by various tour operators in McLeodganj and Dharamkot.