Nurpur, March 25
Union Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Virbhadra Singh today demonstrated his political strength during a “Parivartan Rally” at Jawali. Leaders of the “rival group”, led by PCC chief Kaul Singh, were conspicuous by their absence.

It was a show of Virbhadra Singh’s loyalists alone. The rally is being considered significant as it comes after Congress activists from the state met AICC general secretary in Delhi urging him to bring back Virbhadra Singh into the state politics to oust the BJP government from power in the coming Assembly elections.

The “Parivartan Rally” was organised by the local unit of the block Congress. The Union Minister gave a clarion call to the people of the state to oust the Dhumal government in the state in the Aassembly poll. Terming the Dhumal government as corrupt and anti-people, he said it had been shaken the dissidents’ activities in the state.

“This government has tried to frame me in false cases and has resorted to witch-hunt against Congress-supported elected representatives of panchayati raj institutions, creating a bad precedent in the state politics. I have never been bogged down by such political gimmicks. I have always got a clean chit from the judiciary in cases registered against me. The government is knee-deep in corruption and scams. A number of ministers and ruling BJP MLAs are involved in scams,” he alleged.

He warned Chief Minister PK Dhumal not to “harass” Congress activists and respect others in politics. He also warned government employees who “are acting on the whims of the Dhumal government” and said they would be paid in the same coin if the Congress government came to power in the state.

Flaying the Dhumal government for playing political gimmicks by launching a move to divide Kangra, the biggest and most significant district in the state, by carving out more districts from it, he ridiculed that the Chief Minister wanted his native Hamirpur district as the biggest district in the state.

Among those present at the rally were former Lok Sabha MP Chander Kumar; sitting MLAs Sujan Singh Pathania, Yog Raj, Kuldeep Pathania, Surinder Bhardwaj, Mukesh Agnihotri, Prakash Chowdhary, Nand Lal and Neeraj Bharti; former MLAs Surinder Kaku, Bodh Raj, Ram Lal Thakur, Thakur Singh Bharmori and Karan Singh; state INTUC president Hardeep Baba and former state Youth Congress president Manmohan Singh.

The rally was also addressed by Chander Kumar, Sujan Singh Pathania, Kuldeep Pathania and Ram Lal Thakur.

At the beginning of the rally, the local Congress unit weighed the Union Minister against coins, which he gave to the party to manage its affairs.

Shimla, March 25
While the government seems to be in no hurry to scrap the State Apartment and Property Regulation Act, as recommended by a select committee of the Vidhan Sabha, the latest census data reveals that the housing sector is oversaturated in the hill state.

The percentage of vacant houses has increased in urban areas from 13.9 per cent in 2001 to 17.6 per cent in 2011 and in rural areas from 9.9 per cent to 11.1 per cent. The government has granted the maximum number of permissions under Section 118 of the Land Reforms and Tenancy Act to outsiders for purchasing property in the state in Solan and Shimla districts and the data reveals that these districts have the highest percentage of vacant houses. The percentage of unoccupied houses in urban areas has increased in Solan from 15.3 per cent to 22.3 per cent and in Shimla from 17.9 per cent to 20.3 per cent and in rural areas from 8.1 per cent to 11.6 per cent and 12.6 per cent to 14.7 per cent, respectively.

The total housing stock in the state shot up from 24,08,922 to 29,33,663 over the decade. In case of Kullu district, the vacant houses increased from 9.5 per cent to 13.7 per cent in urban areas but there was no change in rural areas with 12.6 per cent vacant houses. With a large number of people moving out from tribal areas, the percentage of vacant houses has increased from 8.2 per cent to 13.9 per cent in Lahaul and Spiti. Overall, Sirmaur district has the minimum vacant houses at 7.9 per cent, followed by Mandi 9.2 per cent and Bilaspur 9.7 per cent.

The percentage of families living in good houses increased from 61.2 per cent to 72.4 per cent, which is higher than 53.2 per cent at the national level. The number of families having latrines increased from 33.4 per cent to 69.1 per cent and toilets from 35.4 per cent to 67.5 per cent. The percentage of families defecating in the open has come down from 66.6 per cent to 29.7 per cent, which is still very high in view of the stress being laid on the total sanitation programme.

There has been an abnormally high increase in the percentage of people owning mobile phones from 16.9 per cent to 82.3 per cent (63.2 per cent at the nation level), scooters and motorbikes from 2.6 per cent to 8.3 per cent and cars and jeeps from 7.4 per cent to 15.5 per cent. The percentage of those using banking services has risen from 59.5 per cent to 89 per cent.

The percentage of families using firewood as fuel decreased marginally from 64.6 per cent to 57.5 per cent, which indicates that despite introduction of cooking gas and almost 100 per cent electrification, the dependence on forests has not decreased. The percentage of cooking gas users has gone up from 28.1 per cent to 38.6 per cent.

Kullu, March 25
The executive body of the International Roerich Memorial Trust (IRMT), Naggar, has ordered the removal of the IRMT’s controversial visiting curator Elena Adamkova and her close associate and cultural convener Sheru Baba after an internal audit conducted by the Trust found “91,000 entry tickets worth several lakhs of rupees missing”.

A decision to this effect was taken at the IRMT’s executive body meeting presided over by Principal Secretary Manisha Nanda, who is also the ex officio general secretary of the Trust, in Shimla on March 4.

However, both Elena and Sheru continue to hold office and run the affairs of the IRMT as the former refused to hand over charge to a five-member team sent by the state government on March 20.

Though a charge sheet was submitted to the Chief Minister, who is the president of the Board of Trustees, by IRMT’s life-time trustee Shakti S Chandel last year, the board had been dithering on taking action against Elena and Sheru.

The executive body ordered the removal of Elena and Sheru on March 4 at a meeting in which two senior representatives of the Russian Embassy were also present.

Trustees have alleged that the curator has been running the gallery considering it her personal fiefdom ever since she joined it as its visiting curator in 2002.

Interestingly, the Roerich Art Gallery is closed on holidays when a large number of tourists visit Naggar, thereby causing a loss to the Trust. Moreover, nobody knows how the entry ticket fee for visitors has been enhanced from Rs 30 per ticket in 2010 to Rs 50 at present without consulting the trustees. Sheru is patronised by Elena and they work hand in glove, alleged the trustees.

The audit of the IRMT for 2009-2011 has detected an entry ticket fee scam. More than 91,000 entry ticket serial numbers have gone missing that allegedly caused a loss of lakhs of rupees to the Trust.

The charge sheet alleges that the IRMT’s work related to the entry tickets has been assigned to Sheru, who works hand in glove with Elena without fulfilling the formalities.

Local hoteliers told The Tribune that they had requested the Deputy Commissioner, Kullu, who is also the treasurer of the Trust, to keep it open for visitors on holidays.

Both Elena and Sheru term the charges against them as baseless. They say they have been depositing the entry fee and other funds in the bank account of the Trust at Naggar on a regular basis. There was also a manager to look after the funds, they claimed.

Manali, March 25
After a long spell of cold, the weather in the Kullu valley has improved and now one can see a large number of domestic and overseas tourists thronging Manali.

The 474-km-long Manali-Leh highway has now been opened to vehicular traffic up to the picturesque meadow of Gulaba, 21 km from here, today.

The place up to which the Manali-Rohtang Pass road is open is popularly known as Snow Point. Slowly and steadily as the road is cleared of snow, the Snow Point also keeps on moving higher till it reaches Rahla waterfall, Beas nullah, Marhi Meadows (11,500 ft), Rahni nullah and the Rohtang Pass, the main tourists attraction sites during the summer season.

The 51-km-long Manali-Rohtang Pass road is replete with magnificent views of the snow-covered peaks. This road, which winds its way up by more than 7,000 ft, brings drastic changes in temperature. While the town of Manali is warm at noon, the Rohtang Pass is chilly with a strong breeze blowing over it.

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is now engaged in clearing snow on the road and massive efforts are being made to open the 13,050-ft-high Rohtang Pass, the gateway to Lahaul and Spiti.

The traffic in charge, Manali police, said keeping in view the increasing traffic and safety of tourists, all vehicular traffic going for sight-seeing to the Snow Point were stopped near Gulaba.

Shimla, March 25
The Chief Secretary has in an affidavit informed the HP High Court that at present the state has no intention to set up pay commission for its employees and shall continue to follow the Punjab pattern.

In an earlier order, the high court had asked the government why the state should not have its own pay commission, keeping in view its geographical conditions. The court had directed the state government to consider the issue and apprise the court of its view within three months.

In compliance of this order, the Chief Secretary, in her affidavit, stated that it is not necessary that every state should have its own pay commission. She added that about 20 states were following the central pay commission, whereas Himachal Pradesh was following Punjab in this regard.

The state government added that it had already granted the revised pay scales to its employees from 2006.

Hamirpur, March 25
The HP State Electricity Board Limited (HPSEBL) Technical Employees Federation has served a 48-hour strike ultimatum on the board management to concede their long-pending demands.

Talking to mediapersons here today, state president of the federation Dev Raj Sharma said, “We have given enough time to the board management and if it does not take any concrete steps to fulfil our demands within 48 hours, we will
be forced to start an indefinite agitation from Tuesday onwards.”

He accused the board management of “changing the demand charter” discussed at a meeting held in February with the federation.

The federation blamed the board management for allegedly failing to tap power projects, which were identified by the board by spending over Rs 80 lakh, but have been awarded to private companies.

Highlighting the plight of the technical staff, a leader of the federation said, “Around 10,000 technical employees are serving 20 lakh consumers in the state and 25 employees have died on duty. However, jobs on compassionate grounds are not being given to their wards by the board management.”

Mandi, March 25
A pall of gloom descended on students of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi, today after divers brought out the body of Prahhar Shah, a second-year BTech student of the IIT, from the Beas here.

Shah, who belonged to Andhra Pradesh, along with his four friends, had gone to swim in the Beas from their hostel room at Sauli Khad to beat the heat in the afternoon. The river has lean discharge these days.

His friends said Prahhar dived into the river to swim across. However, he did not come out. He knew swimming, they said.

They raised the alarm and informed the IIT administration, the police, the fire brigade and locals, who reached the spot, but failed to spot the boy.

Divers from Sundernagar were summoned. The rescue operation was carried out in the presence of IIT Director T Gonsalves and police and district officials.

He, along with the staff and students of the institute, have mourned the death of the student and warned the students not to venture near the river.

After a four-hou-long exercise, the divers spotted Prahhar’s body on the river bed.

Diver Udham Singh said the boy had dived into a pool of water which was more than 50 ft deep. “There were no visible injury marks on the body,” he said.

SP, Mandi, Ahishek Dular said the police had ruled out foul play in the incident. However, they were waiting for the postmortem report.

A spokesperson for the IIT said the administration had informed Prahhar’s parents and they were expected to reach Mandi tonight from Andhra Pradesh. 

Shimla, March 25
The BJP has castigated the state Congress leadership for its failure to take up important issues like strengthening of the security setup along the Chinese border and has alleged that it was making false allegations against the Dhumal government to mislead the people.

Spokesperson for the party Ganesh Dutt said PCC chief Kaul Singh and other leaders were indulging in “parrot-like repetition” of false charges to malign the government just to gain political mileage as the party had no real issues to go to the polls. They had not bothered to draw the attention of the Centre towards the increasing activities of the Chinese along the border and repeated violations of Indian airspace.

The Congress was opposing the allotment of land to the Patanjali Yogpeeth of Swami Ramdev, but it had no qualms in giving 14 bighas of land to a missionary school in Shimla free of cost. It reflected its anti-Hindu and pro-missionary attitude. He wanted to know the reason for the apathetic attitude of the Congress towards Indian culture, Hindutva and ayurveda.

While the BJP government in the state announced several schemes for the uplift of various section of people and announced major concessions and relief to them, the UPA regime at the Centre presented a Budget which would fuel inflation and lead to an increase in the prices of kerosene, cooking gas, diesel and other essential commodities.

He also rebutted the allegation of the Congress that the BJP government had misused Section 118 of the Land Reforms and Tenancy Act to oblige outsiders and said the Congress had amended it five times and the party also implemented the Apartment Act. He said the Congress leaders were levelling false charges against the government to score points over each other in the tussle for leadership.

Dalhousie, March 25
The Himachal Pradesh Journalists’ Federation has hailed Chief Minister PK Dhumal’s vision to bring all the journalists of the state under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna with an insurance cover of Rs 1.75 lakh as included in the current state Budget proposals put up in the ongoing session of the Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha at Shimla.

In a statement here, District Journalist’s Federation spokesperson Rajinder Gupta applauded the Chief Minister’s initiative with regard to the corpus of journalists welfare fund proposed to be increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh.

Bilaspur, March 25
The HP State Pensioners Welfare Association has honoured centenarian Sohan Lal Sharma, a retired Reader in the Deputy Commissioner’s Office here.

Association senior vice-president JK Nadda said here today that association president Jivan Nand Jivan, accompanied by office-bearers of the state executive committee, visited Jhabola village near Shah Talai, 65 km from here, on Sohan Lal’s 100th birthday and presented him a Kullu cap and a shawl for crossing 100 years.

Sohan Lal retired in year 1970, 42 years ago.

They found Sohan Lal quite hale and hearty and in good spirits despite his 100 years. He had a hearty chat with some of his former colleagues in the DC office and recited some incidents during his service days. He was very happy that his “pensioner brothers” from all corners of the state had bothered to reach his village to congratulate him.

Present on the occasion were leaders of the district association and local pensioners association, including district president Rama Nand Sharma, general secretary Jagdish Dinesh and block presidents Birbal Dhiman, Daulat Ram Chauhan and Lekh Ram Sharma, district treasurer Mohinder Bakshi and organisation secretary OP Garga among others.

Kangra, March 25
Swami Vivekananda’s teachings are relevant in the present scenario, particularly for the younger generation, as these help them in adopting the path of karma yoga, a key to success in attaining the goal both in materialistic and spiritual life.

Major Gen VK Yadav, Chief of the Staff 9 Core, said this while addressing an annual day function Mor Chandrika of the Viveka Foundation, a school which was founded in 2007 on Swami Vivekananda’s ideals at Mansibal.

Expressing satisfaction over the school functioning, which was moulding toddlers into responsible citizens by making them follow Swami Vivekananda’s teachings, General Yadav congratulated the staff for this.

The Mor Chandrika highlighted “education with happiness” which was enacted in a skit by students of Class VI. The audience was spellbound with the performance of children spreading the message that education was their birth right.

Principal Kusum Rana said, “In the coming years we will strive to install facilities of international standards and ensure a child-friendly environment that allows children to be groomed in natural surroundings, besides providing quality education.” 

Bilaspur, March 25
Total 1,305 monkeys have been caught from various problem areas and sterilised in the district here, which is the highest number of monkey sterilisations in all districts of the state. This was claimed by Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) DR Kaushal while talking to mediapersons here today.

Kaushal said the total monkey count in the district was 13,705 a couple of years ago, but now their latest count in the district stood at 3,000 less, which might be due to migrations of these monkeys to adjoining districts.

Answering questions on justifiability of re-release of already caught and sterilised monkeys in areas from where these were caught and their unreasonably aggressive behaviour resulting in repeated attacks on villagers, the DFO said it was a matter of study as presently there was no other method to keep them away from the hordes that were caught earlier.

He urged villagers and others not to serve food, grains or fruits etc to monkeys as this resulted in their repeated visits to that very place.

He said the present rush of monkeys to inhabited areas was due to the fact that forest areas had dwindled and their food reserves ended and they were now being forced to migrate to villages in search of food.

He said leopard attacks in villages had also increased due to the fact of their habitat and jungles were being cut and destroyed and leopards were being forced to come to villages in search of food. He said a leopard was known to operate within an area of 30 km to 40 km for its food to survive.

The DFO said during this year 2,44,609 saplings were planted in 328 hectares of land in the district, while lantana, a dangerous weed which is destroying large tracts of useful land, has been eradicated and contained in 90 hectares by the latest technique of “root-cut system” in the district in the past one and half years.

He said 90 village plantation committees of villagers were actively participating in the plantation and preservation programmes in the district and were doing a very useful job in their areas. Steps were also afoot to energise other such committees in villages for their own benefit.

Shimla, March 25
With over 10,000 hand pumps having been installed in the state over the past four years, the total number has crossed the 25,000 mark.

While traditional sources of water like springs and wells are drying up, hand pumps are taking their place and providing much relief to the people during the lean summer months when several parts face an acute shortage of water. An added advantage is that unlike water supply schemes based on surface water sources, the water from hand pumps does not require any treatment.

The government has identified 12 blocks: Bamsan, Bhoranj, Bijhari in Hamirpur district, Pragpur in Kangra, Jhanduta, Sadar and Ghumarvin in Bilaspur, Kunihar and Dharampur in Solan, Sarkaghat and Gopalpur in Mandi and Bangana in Una as water-stressed areas for installation of hand pumps on a priority.