Palampur, March 20
The tourism industry in the state is passing through critical conditions as reaching some of the popular tourist destinations in Himachal has become not only difficult but also quite challenging for domestic as well as foreign tourists because of poor air connectivity, bad condition of roads and virtually no rail network in the state.

Tourists visiting the state have slammed the state government for poor infrastructure particularly the road network in the state. Today, the state roads have become a major hurdle for the state tourism industry.

Several tourist destinations like Shimla, Dharamsala, Manali and Dalhousie and tribal towns like Rekong Peo and Keylong have bad roads. It is on the record that most of these roads in the state have not been repaired for the past five years because of poor financial health of the state. The busy Kiratpur-Manali, Kalka-Shimla and Pathankot-Mandi national highways are in bad shape and full of potholes.

Despite tall claims made by the HP Tourism Department, no steps have been initiated in this regard and tourists visiting the state are a harassed lot. Recently, participants of the Vintage Car Rally, which started from Chandigarh to Palampur had a very bad experience because of poor condition of roads between Mehatpur-Palampur. Out of 24 vehicles participating in the rally, only 16 could reach Palampur as other eight had a breakdown on the way.

In another case, group of six doctor couples from Chandigarh visiting Palampur, Dharmsala and Dalhousie called local mediapersons to their hotel and complained about bad roads, they criticised the state government for poor maintenance of roads in the Kangra tourist circuit. They said they would not recommend anyone to visit this part of the state. In present scenario, the state government lacks both administrative and political will as no officer either in the state PWD or the HP Tourism Department is concerned with the problems being faced by the tourists and others visiting the state. The rampant corruption in the state PWD has made the matter worse. Many roads carpeted in last summers were damaged in the first showers of monsoon.

Hoteliers in Manali and Kangra districts have also made complaints about the poor roads in the state. The roads connecting lesser known tourist towns in Himachal are so poor that tourists avoid travelling there.

Dr Arun Sharma, Director, HP Tourism Department, is making all efforts for the promotion of the rural tourism in the state but on the other hand no one in the state government is bothered about the poor roads. Though the tourist season is on in the state but no efforts have been made till date to improve connectivity to these places.

Today tourists visiting the state are heavily relied on roads and rail network to reach the tourist destinations in Himachal. The narrow gauge railway line between Pathankot-Jogindernagar is in bad shape. The train services on this section have already been discontinued for the past six months because of collapse of a bridge on the Chakki River. The Railway Department is yet to restore the damaged bridge. The state has only three domestic airports with very few flights. Hoteliers and travel agents say that poor connectivity is one of the reasons why the state is receiving few foreign tourists as compared to other states like Rajasthan and Kerala.

Mandi, March 20
As many as five government aided colleges in the state getting 95 per cent grant-in-aid have been reeling under severe financial crisis over the years as the state government has not disbursed a pending grant of Rs 10 crore overdue under the government’s Grant-In-Aid Rules, 2008.

These colleges include MLSM College, Sundernagar, St Bede’s College, Shimla, SVSD College, Bhatoli and DAV Colleges at Kangra and DAV College, Kotkhai. More than 10,000 students were getting higher education in different faculties of these colleges and more than one third of the merit positions were bagged by the students of these colleges in 2010-11.

The Himachal Pradesh Non-Government College Lecturers Association (HPNGCLA) met Chief Minister PK Dhumal and presented him facts and figures and highlighted how these colleges were coping with the fund crunch.

They said the Grant-In-Aid Rules, 2008, stipulated that the state government paid 95 per cent of salaries of the staff on all the sanctioned posts in these colleges.

“However, the government has not released Rs 10 crore under the grant to these colleges over the years, pushing the colleges into financial mess. These colleges are providing quality education in the state and provide the best infrastructure and academic atmosphere,” said members of the association.

CP Kaushal, general secretary, HPNGCLA, said, “The government gave a new pay scale to the staff. But the managements of the colleges are finding it difficult to meet the expectations of staff and students due to fund crunch caused by the non-release of the grant in aid to the colleges”.

The college managements claimed that Rs 10 crore was still lying pending in the form of grant-in-aid to these colleges. “They are forced to raise loans from different sources to pay salaries to the staff,” they added. Kaushal said in Punjab, Haryana, Kerala and Maharashtra, a majority of renowned colleges were 95 per cent aided colleges. The Goa government provided regular 95 per cent grant-in-aid as well. “If the government spends Rs 100 per year per student in its colleges, it is just Rs 40 in the aided colleges,” he added.

Dr OP Sharma, director, Higher Education, said, “We have released the grant along with 40 pc arrears to these colleges for 2010-11. We will be releasing the grant for the current financial year this month”. 

Kangra, March 20
Kangra town lacks basic amenities, including the sewerage system which has not taken concrete form even eight years after its foundation stone was laid.

In January 17, 2004, the then Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, along with the then IPH Minister Kaul Singh Thakur, had laid the foundation stone of the Rs 9.28-crore sewerage scheme with much fanfare on the premises of the local polytechnic college. Though more than eight years have passed, the work is yet to be completed.

The process of laying pipes is yet to be completed in all the three zones in which the town has been divided for the scheme. Some of the pipes are rusting in the town along the Kangra bypass and on the Nandrul road for the past few years.

PR Agnihotri, a retired executive engineer, said this facility had not been provided to the residents of the town till date due to the ‘callousness’ of successive governments. He said initially, the delay in looking for a site for three treatment plants and paucity of funds led to the deferment in the completion of the project.

Ashok Verma, a social activist, said pipes were laid in some parts of the town, adding that the pipe laying work was yet to be completed.

“The work on the treatment plants in Zone I and II are yet to be completed and in Zone III, the work on the treatment plant is yet to be started,” he added.

He said the pipes to be laid for the sewerage scheme in various parts of the town were rusting by the roadside with the authorities being a mute spectator to the damage to the public property.

Jagat Ram, SDO, Kangra, claimed that 65 per cent of the work had been copleted during the past eight years.

IPH sources said it was an urban scheme, therefore, it was diverted to the Urban Development Department (UDD). However, the SDO, UDD, said the department had no role to play in it.

Jagat Ram said Rs 50 lakh were sanctioned for the scheme during the current financial year and 75 per cent work on the Rs 90-lakh-treatment plant project on the Kangra bypass was completed and the remaining 25 per cent remains to be completed. He said the location for the third treatment plant near old Kangra was finalised and an estimated Rs 1 crore was approved for it, adding that tenders would be floated soon. He hoped that the sewerage scheme would be completed by June 2013.

Chamba, March 20
Dr Rajesh Sehgal (45) of Chamba is a name occurring foremost in the galaxy of young scholars committed to the reconstruction of the archaeology of Himachal Pradesh. His insatiable desire to cull evidences recorded in the form of inscriptions on metal, paper and stone etc has led him to travel extensively to the remote terrains and the difficult areas of Chamba.

Following the footsteps of Prof Vogel and Dr B Chhabra, he is perhaps the only promising scholar who is well-versed in deciphering the ancient scripts of Brahmi, Sharda and Tankari. Hailing from the Wazir family of Chamba, Dr Rajesh took keen interest relating to the history and culture of Chamba. Being an inquisitive and passionate aspirant, he chose to do his PhD in Archaeology and Culture of the Ravi Valley.

Rajesh's exceptional talent was recognised in 2006, when his services were solicited for the Chamba millennium celebrations. He possesses adequate knowledge of ancient and medieval coins. He has successfully deciphered important Tankari documents and has reproduced them in important publications.

Being a life member of the Indian History Congress, he has attended several seminars and workshops. He started a new inning of his career when he joined the Bhuri Singh Museum (Chamba) as Technical Assistant. He has explored and acquired rare artifacts and antiquities for the museum, which were hitherto lying in abandoned state. His excavations to the remote regions of the state have resulted in acquisition of valuable artifacts now preserved in the museums. Some of Rajesh's articles have appeared in the leading newspapers, periodicals journals and other publications. Currently, he is engaged in cataloguing the antiques preserved in the Bhuri Singh Museum. 

A common sight on the state roads these days is a flock of sheep hindering the traffic, but nobody minds it and takes photographs of these innocent looking creatures. I also did the same (see photo).

The animal Census reveals that in this state, 27 per cent of the population of sheep is migratory and 73 per cent stationary. An average size of a stationary flock is five and is kept as an ancillary occupation to crop farming whereas a migratory flock averages 22 sheep, although some can exceed 100. The migrating flocks leave their homestead for the foothills in November and graze on crop residues in harvested fields or in the forest areas until March or early April, when they start returning. The economic condition of the shepherds in this region is better than that of their counterparts in the plains. During migration, a shepherd handles 100 to 200 sheep; the flock contains sheep of four to five households and he uses his tribal instinct in distinguishing the herd of one from that of the others, which we find difficult.

These shepherds belong to the Gaddi tribe and are not nomads. They have village houses in Bharmour of Chamba and Baijnath of Kangra; they own land which they or their families cultivate. The Gaddis are Hindus and have faith in Lord Shiva so they venerate their homeland as Shivbhumi. They also follow the sub-caste system of gotra and maintain several taboos of the caste system seen among the mainstream Hindus.

When I was working as a national consultant for the Food Insecurity, Vulnerability Information Mapping System (FIVIMS), Himachal Pradesh, I got the opportunity of knowing Gaddis better.

Ajit Singh, with his flock at Nainatikkar in Sirmaur district, told me that he had been engaged by a flock owner who, in return of his services, would give him six sheep on his home return and pay for the food expenses during his travel outside his village at Baijnath. Jaichi Ram of Pather village in the same area had a big flock size; he owned 120 sheep, 80 goats, four horses, two dogs and one cow. He had hired three persons to look after his livestock though he also travelled sometimes with the flock. He said, “I pay each hired labourer eight pregnant sheep every year in return of their services”.

A Scot lady, Christina Noble, who accompanied a flock all through its journey, gave an interesting account of how the flock moves: “Nearby the endless baa-ing and bleating, the calling, grunting and whistling - the whistling not as we would imagine to their dogs, but to the goats and sheep. One man always leads, calling and whistling, another always at the back, grunting and urging on the stragglers. As you walk along the path, the stink of wool and dung is overwhelming.”

The Gaddis nourish a complaint against the Forest Department that it has become stingy in giving permits. The department says that the state has 20 per cent of the geographic area below 1,000m and the rest of the area above that height. For winter grazing, the flocks come to the area below 1,000m because the higher reaches have snow. Therefore, to accommodate the flocks that spread up in 80 per cent of the area in summer in just one-fourth of that area in winters creates problems. The solution is to adopt the practice of stall feeding instead of free grazing. The other problem is that grazers used to cover 8 km earlier which has now been reduced to 5.25 km, thereby resulting in overgrazing of the patches of land and it is having an adverse effect on the eco-fragility of the forests here.

The FIVIMS report reads: “Gaddis do not keep tents and use a light bedding and blanket for their nocturnal rest and huddle together with the flock while sleeping. The migratory Gaddi men seldom bath or clean clothes.” 

As many as 53 gram panchayats of Hamirpur district have been declared this year’s Nirmal Gram Panchayats under the total sanitation programme launched by the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA).

With this, the total number of open defecation-free gram panchayats in the district has risen to 157. There are total 229 panchayats in the district.

Congratulating officials and panchayat-level activists involved in the total sanitation drive, Hamirpur Deputy Commissioner Rajinder Singh Thakur said the district had made good progress in implementing the programme.

Solan, March 20
A one-day national conference on “Future Trends in Upcoming Pharma Sector” was organised by the Himalayan Institute of Pharmacy at their kala Amb-based campus recently.

It was inaugurated jointly by Prof Arun Nanda, Dean, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, MD University, Rohtak, and Rameshwar Thakur, SP, Sirmour. Rajnish Bansal, chairman of the group, welcomed the guests and elaborated on the endeavours of the institute to promote the pharmacy education.

Expressing the need to gear up to address the challenges of the pharmaceutical industry, Prof Nanda said, “Though the Indian pharma industry had grown exponentially from Rs 10 crore in 1948 to about Rs 1,00,000 crore today, it will have to gear up for the future challenges”.

He said the Indian pharmaceutical industry had several strengths, such as low cost, large pool of highly-trained manpower, strong IT skills, strength in chemistry, rich biodiversity, ability to circumvent API patents, etc.

“However, there are a few weaknesses in the pharmaceutical industry here. The investment by most of the companies in R&D is less than 15 per cent, the industry margins are low and the tariffs are high. There is a poor compliance with the regulatory guidelines, resulting in frequent occurrences of low quality or spurious drugs,” he added.

Dr Subheet Kumar Jain, associate professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab, focused on dermal drug delivery.

Prof Bhupinder Singh, University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (UGC Centre of Advanced Studies), and coordinator, UGC Centre for Excellence-Nanoscience, Nanotechnology & Applications, Panjab University, Chandigarh, said the research today demanded infrastructure-intensive evaluation.

He added that the academic curricula needed to be regularly updated, education system grossly reformed, educationists duly trained and the didactic delivery methodologies revamped.

Kapil Dhiman, Drugs Licensing Authority, Drugs Control Administration, emphasised the role of pharmacist in contributing to the future trends in the pharma sector. He said the curriculum should be reoriented to fulfil practice requirements in both the industrial as well as the healthcare settings.

HR Batra, principal, Himalayan Institute of Pharmacy, thanked all the guests for their participation in the function and making it a great success.

Nurpur, March 20
A railway bridge on the Chakki river, which was damaged in August last year, will be thrown open for rail traffic in the first week of April.

A trial of a railway engine on the repaired rail track of the bridge will be undertaken in the coming week followed by plying of unoccupied rail coaches to ensure smooth and safe rail traffic on the bridge. The traffic on Pathankot-Jogindernagar narrow gauge had been terminated from Pathankot to Nagrota Surian after washing away of supporting pillar number 5 and damaging pillar number 4 of the bridge in the flash floods in the Chakki river last year.

Following persistent demands of the people of Nurpur and Jawali subdivisions, the railway authorities had started repair of the damaged bridge pillars on war footing. Commuters visiting Pathankot and passengers who have scanty means of transport in the area have been facing a lot of hardship following snapping of railway connectivity from Nagrota Surian to Pathankot.

According to Laxman Singh, railway traffic inspector, the Railway Department had reconstructed the washed away pillar and repaired the damaged pillar of the Chakki Bridge. “After erecting pillars the track fitting on the bridge was undertaken.

From safety point of view, the rail engine will be plied on this track on March 28 followed by plying of unoccupied coaches this month end to ensure smooth rail traffic on it. The normal rail traffic will likely to be restored from its origin Pathankot railway station in the first week of April,” he said.

This rail line is 164-km long and laid in 1928 by the British Government but no Union Government has ever taken any step for its expansion or development notwithstanding the longstanding demand of the people of the Kangra Valley. Chief Minister PK Dhumal and Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members from the state had raised this issue so many times before the Union Government but nothing was done.

Nurpur, March 20
The Jassur-Talwara highway is in a bad shape and has turned into a potholed road up to Rehan, a stretch of 20 km. The condition of the highway has gone from bad to worse nowadays.

At many places the bitumen surface is not visible. The poor condition of the road has made travelling unsafe as a number of mishaps have occurred during the past few months due to the widening potholes. The road was damaged during the last rainy season, but so far no repair work has been undertaken.

Though the state government had made tall claims of repairing the damaged state and national highways within 45 days in September last year, this highway seemed to be neglected.

This state highway links Nurpur and Jawali sub-divisions in Kangra district and also provides approach to the Pong Dam Lake, named Maharana Pratap Sagar, on the foothills of Kangra district.

Apart from this, the highway also connects Talwara-Una-Chandigarh route on which a number of private as well as HRTC buses are plying daily. Virtually, it has become a bane for the travellers and vehicle owners. The PWD has yet to start its patchwork and maintenance. The delay in undertaking its repair has resulted in resentment among the commuters.

BS Thakur, superintending engineer, PWD, Nurpur Circle, said the department would start patchwork of the damaged stretch of the highway this week on a war footing.

He added that a 6-km-stretch of the highway would be provided with premix carpeting (bitumen surfacing) to ensure a smooth traffic flow. 

Kangra, March 20
A social reformer, a philanthropist and a great visionary, CD Khanna passed away at the age of 98 last month.

Khanna was born on March 22, 1914, at Shahpur. His heart bled for the poorest of the poor and for the needy and deserving people till his last breath. One of the greatest advocates of women’s education, Khanna was a staunch supporter of making women financially strong and self-dependent.

Khanna, who was a part of the DAV movement, retired from a high position in Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI). He was a real ‘karmayogi’ engaged in service of the people at every moment.

He did his matriculation from Dharamshala in 1930 and post-graduation in English from FC College, Lahore. Khanna passed the test of Indian and British Institute of Bankers and took up banking as his career. He was a witness to the financially crumbled society during his childhood and youth and was eager to remove poverty from the Indian society.

He was selected for advanced training in the World Bank at Washington and studied the working of the International Finance Corporation there. He also studied in the Commonwealth Development Corporation in London and was appointed as chairman of the Industrial Finance Corporation of India after he returned from the US.

IFCI gave him an opportunity to show his worth and he introduced innovative ideas in development banking. He authored a book ‘Legal decisions affecting the development banks’. The annual ‘IFCI silver jubilee memorial lecture’ was instituted by Khanna in the field of development banking.

He promoted the management development institute at Gurgoan which became a top ranking management institute in the country. For providing interest-free loans to professional and technical entrepreneurs Khanna founded ‘The risk capital foundation’.

His novel innovations helped in amending the IFCI Act through parliamentary legislation. After his retirement, Khanna was appointed as Adviser, State Industrial Corporation of Rajasthan and MP. He served as part-time Adviser to the Merchant Banking of State Bank of India in New Delhi.

Khanna served as non-executive director in several companies which included Unit Trust of India(UTI), Mumbai. He was associated with the Army Group Insurance Fund of the Indian Army as honorary Investment Advisor.

Shimla, March 20
The tribal Lahaul and Spiti district of the state has the highest sex ratio of 1,013 in the age group of 0-6 years in the state, state Health Minister Rajiv Bindal said.

Replying to a question, the minister told the state Assembly recently that the sex ratio of Lahaul-Spiti district in the age group of 0-6 years was the highest at 1,013 in Himachal as per the 2011 Census.

He said the state government had provided for an incentive of Rs 5 lakh to the panchayat with the best sex ratio in each district besides launching other schemes like the Indira Gandhi Balika Suraksha Yojna.

Replying to a supplementary, about some special incentive to Lahaul and Spiti for the best sex ratio, he said, “As yet there is no scheme for giving incentives district wise, but when a suggestion has come, it will be considered”.— PTI