Shimla, April 13
Teams of the Horticulture and Revenue departments have been dispatched to various apple and stone fruit-growing areas in the state to assess the damage caused on account of the hailstorm that lashed the area early this week.

Apple blossoms suffered extensive damage due to a hailstorm which was accompanied by heavy rain. The report regarding the exact extent of damage would be ready in a few days.

“Teams of the Horticulture and Revenue departments reached the field yesterday. The teams will give us a report about the damage that apple and stone fruits like apricot, peach, plum and pear have suffered,” said Narender Bragta, Horticulture Minister. He added that since the threat of damage due to hailstorm still persisted, the department would come out with the figures regarding the damage suffered a little later.

On the controversy regarding the effectiveness of the anti-hail guns, he said this was a pilot project which was still in the experimental stage. “Had the Centre approved the Rs 300 crore project sent by the state to the Commissioner, Horticulture, much more area under apple cover could have been saved,” he said.

Bragta said despite repeated reminders, the Centre was yet to accede to Himachal’s request which would have enabled it to purchase more anti-hail guns and cover 30 blocks in 10 districts of the state. So far three anti-hail guns have been installed at Deorighat (Rohru), Khatasu (Jubbal) and Bhadaunighat (Kotkhai) to save apple orchards from the fury of hailstorm.

The proposal sent by the Centre would provide protection to even other fruits and crops like mangoes, citrus fruits, vegetables, wheat and other produce.

The Horticulture Department also offers subsidy on the purchase of nets that protect plants against hailstorm. The subsidy has now been enhanced to Rs 50,000.

Director, Meteorological Centre, Manmohan Singh, who is a member of the technical committee on anti-hail guns, said here today that the impact of the contraption was limited to only 1 sq km. “To ensure its effectiveness and protection against hailstorm over a large area, more anti-hail guns have to be installed,” he said.

He said the impression being created that damage had been caused in other apple areas as anti-hail guns “dispel the clouds to adjoining parts” was totally wrong and unscientific.

Dharamsala, April 13
Mohammad Azharuddin, former captain of the Indian cricket team and now Congress MP, proved too much for an inexperienced and aged side of British MPs in a T-20 match organised at the Dharamsala cricket stadium today.

The wristy former Indian cricketer tossed the ball around the ground scoring 100 off just 46 balls as amateur British bowlers looked on helplessly. He hit 17 fours and two sixes. He declared himself retired hurt on the demand of other Indian MPs who were yelling from the boundary line that they should also be given a chance to bat on the lush green ground.

Indian MPs won the toss and chose to bat. The match started at about 11 am. Kuldeep Bishnoi, MP from Haryana, opened the batting with Dushyant Singh. He scored 54 runs off 39 balls before being bowled by O Cellvale of the UK. Azharuddin came one down and controlled the game for Indian MPs.

Anurag Thakur, HPCA president and BJP MP from Hamirpur, however, could score only 22 runs of 12 balls. The Indian MPs scored 226 runs in 20 overs.

Right from the start, the British MPs failed to live to the challenge put up for them by the Indian MPs. Opener N Adams got out cheaply for just seven runs. The top scorer in the British team, A Jackman, was given a life by the Indian MPs. He started moving out of ground after being declared out by the umpire. However, Indian MPs called him back. A drama was created on the ground as Jackman wanted to go back to the pavilion, but the Indian MPs forced him back to the ground. Called back, Jackman remained the top scorer for the British team. He scored 37 runs of 29 balls with the help of five fours.

The British team ended at 170 runs for 9 wickets in 20 overs. Anurag Thakur took four wickets. India won the match by 56 runs.

Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, who had come specially to Dharamsala to watch the match, gave away prizes to the participants.

Anurag Thakur, while addressing a press conference, said he would use cricket to improve India’s relations with other countries. He said in the near future a cricket match involving MPs from SAARC countries would be organised at Dharamsala.

Shimla, April 13
The absence of a clear-cut definition and guidelines for the newly created category of “people of eminence” who would qualify to buy land in Himachal is creating hurdles in deciding cases of such renowned people who have sought government approval for constructing their dream house in the hill state.

Seven persons have so far applied for being given permission under this new category of “people of eminence” ever since the provision was made by the government in December last year. A retired Supreme Court Judge, Justice DP Wadhwa, is the only person whose request for purchasing land in the Mashobra area on the outskirts of Shimla has been approved by a special committee, entrusted with the task of deciding the eminence of a person.

Several high-profile people in different fields are invariably keen on purchasing land in Himachal but the cumbersome provisions of Section 118 of the Tenancy and Land Reforms Act, 1972, often prove to be a constraint. As such the government created this category of “people of eminence” whose presence here could even help the state. Priyanka Gandhi, who is building a cottage near Charabra here, was granted special permission by the Congress regime, as no such category existed at that time.

The other six cases, including senior Army officers and super-specialist doctors, have been put on hold by the high-powered committee, which has senior bureaucrats as its members. “We are of the opinion that we need to have more clarity and specific guidelines before we start deciding cases of people of eminence. Hence, we have deferred a decision on the pending cases,” said Deepak Sanan, Principal Secretary, Power and Revenue. He added that specific guidelines for this category needed to be framed so that there was more clarity.

Sources said since the committee members did not have any doubt about Justice Wadhwa (retd) qualifying for being an eminent person, his case was cleared. Justice Wadhwa, who retired from the Supreme Court in 2000, had passed his matric from the local Government Senior Secondary School, Lalpani, in 1951.

Dharamsala, April 13
Industrialists in the state have protested against the decision of Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board Ltd (HPSEBL) to impose heavy infrastructure development charges (IDCs) on the industry in the state with retrospective effect.

A delegation of the industrialists met Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and submitted a memorandum against the decision of the HPSEBL to impose IDCs on the industry in the state with retrospective effect from 2005.

General secretary of the Mehatpur industrial area CS Kapoor, while talking to The Tribune, said the HPSEBL had imposed the highest IDCs in northern India. The power board had issued a notification asking the industry in Himachal to pay Rs 3,590 per kVA with retrospective effect from 2005. In other states, the IDCs were much less. In Punjab it was just Rs 900 per kVA, Haryana Rs 750 per kVA, Uttarakhand Rs 1,000 per kVA and Rajasthan Rs 690 per kVA.

Kapoor alleged that in other states the power boards were charging just the power line-laying charges from the industry as IDCs. However, the HPSEBL was charging even the cost of erecting substations from industrialists. Providing quality power was the responsibility of the HPSEBL.

He alleged that the power board was citing losses as the reason for imposing heavy IDCs on the industry in the state.

The state power board had to recover around Rs 300 crore from various government departments. However, it could not shift the burden of not being able to recover its dues from government departments to the industry, Kapoor alleged.

HPSEBL secretary Guleria said they were looking into the matter. The industry had taken up the matter with the Chief Minister and they would consider the demand of the industry.

Asked if the board had to recover about Rs 300 crore from government departments, Guleria said the process of recovering the dues from government departments was under way.

Sources told The Tribune that the board was likely to review the notified IDCs after the Chief Minister’s intervention.

Mandi, April 13
V Srinivasan, founder of the Indian Green Service, has only one mission to accomplish: To make cities waste-free using the “zero waste management” mantra.

Srinivasan has done what no one has done before: Turning solid waste into organic feed for cows, bio-gas, manure and recycled plastic, all within 24 hours!

Srinivasan’s “zero waste management” mantra is simple. Unlike the country’s municipalities and central and state pollution control boards, Srinivasan does not treat solid and medical waste as “garbage”. For him this waste is “money-producing gold material”.

Srinivasan was here to deliver a talk on “zero waste management” at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, recently. He showed a documentary, made by UNICEF on his “zero waste management” success story at his native Vellori town in Tamil Nadu, to IIT students.

“For the first 12 hours, solid waste that you throw in a bin at home daily is fresh material. We collect the waste organic material in 12 hours’ time in a green bin and solid material in a red bin and transport these on tricycles. These are segregated at the integrated waste treatment plant,” he says.

Segregation is the key task and is done by members of self-help groups, who have uniforms, gloves, masks and caps. “Methane helps generate bio gas, organic material, produces organic feed for cows while the other leftovers are taken to the composting unit to produce vermin compost, earthworms and manure,” he says.

After 24 hours, this “gold” turns into garbage, in 48 hours’ time it stinks and in 72 hours’ time, it produces disease-breeding maggots and worms. “We collect waste twice a day at Vellori. The staff are happy as they earn money by selling cattle feed and manure and vermin compost to farmers,” he says.

One tonne of waste produces 30,000 earthworms. Each earthworm costs Re 1 and gives an earning of Rs 5,000. Vellori is the first waste-free green town in the country. The project is being implemented in Velod town in Gujarat.

Himachal needs to learn a lot on how to make its garbage-littered places like Kufri, Shimla, Manali, Rohtang and other tourist spots free from waste. “I visited Kufri in 2010 and was shocked to see the mess created by over 650 horses,” he says.

He says around 15 per cent garbage cannot be recycled and it comes from items like carbon paper, chocolate wrappers, tablet covers and thermacol and bubble gums. “These should be banned as the plastic and aluminum companies can be asked to use recyclable wrappers and covers,” Srinivasan says.

His success story of Vellore has been appreciated by UNICEF. He has taken his mission to Sikkim and Tripura, were two villages each are about to accomplish the waste-free township status on World Environment Day this year, he says.

Bilaspur, April 13
Prominent Congress leader and former Forest Minister Ram Lal Thakur, who is at present the state general secretary of the Congress, has charged that he is being hounded by the Vigilance Department at the instance of “BJP leaders” without any justification at all.

Talking to mediapersons at the Circuit House here today, Thakur warned that he would be forced to drag officers and politicians concerned to the court if this “campaign to harass, malign and coerce him“ was not ended immediately.

Giving details of notices after notices he has been receiving from the Vigilance, he said whenever he talks to the media and exposes the misdeeds of top BJP leaders, invariably the next day he gets notices like this.

Thakur, a senior advocate himself, said he was surprised that even his friends are not being spared from this ordeal.

He said he had been regularly filing his income tax return since 1985 and he had fought several Assembly elections and has invariably filed lists of his income, property, assets and liabilities, which could be seen and inspected by anybody.

Dharamsala, April 13
Chief Minister PK Dhumal today visited the injured victims of the bus accident that occurred yesterday near Dhaliara, which claimed four lives. Sources said the death toll in the accident had risen to seven today.

The Chief Minister visited each of the injured passengers at Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College, Tanda, Kangra.

He directed the hospital authorities to provide best of the treatment to the injured.

Earlier, he visited the accident site near Dhaliara, and took stock of the situation that resulted to the accident.

He also spoke to officials of the Punjab Roadways.

The chief minister said the state had already constituted a committee under the chairmanship of the SDM concerned to enquire into the accidents which take place within their jurisdiction.

The local SDM would enquire into the accident and also inform the authorities in Punjab.

He said that the private bus accident which had taken place near Hamirpur would also be enquired into by the concerned SDM.

Dhumal directed the district administration to provide relief to the next of the kins of the deceased and injured people as per the relief manual of the state.

He added that immediate relief had already been provided to the families of the deceased and the injured.

Mandi/Jogindernagar, April 13
Union Minister and Congress MP from Mandi Virbhadra Singh today said the Congress-led UPA government would move the historic Food Security Bill in the next session of Parliament to grant the right to food to each citizen.

Addressing two public meetings at Chauntra and Jogindernagar, Virbhadra Singh said the rural poor already had the bank and health facilities and they got 100 days of work under MNREGA and now the Food Security Bill would ensure that no one went hungry to bed, he said.

He said the Dhumal government had launched a false propaganda that the Centre was discriminating against the state. The fact was that the state was even paying salaries of the staff of primary health and ayurvedic centres from central funds under the National Rural Health Mission, he added.

Virbhadra Singh said the social audit of MNREGA works had been made mandatory so that its misuse could be checked.

“I am a Congress man and am here to ensure that the party forms the next government in the state,” he said.

Having a dig at his detractors in the party, Virbhadra Singh said it was strange that certain party men get worried when he toured the state for strengthening the party.

He praised former Jogindernagar MLA Surinderpal Thakur and declared him as the Congress candidate for the next election.

Former Excise and Taxation Minister Rangila Ram Rao and Surinderpal Thakur also addressed the meeting.

Virbhadra Singh also laid the foundation stone of a community centre at Jogindernagar for which he gave a grant of Rs 10 lakh. He also gave Rs 5 lakh for the construction of a school retaining wall.

Shimla, April 13
The state high court has directed Himachal Pradesh University to revise the merit list as per the revised key answers and reschedule the first counselling for admission to MD/MS course for April 25.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice DC Chaudhary found that almost 17 questions have different key answers or over one key answer. Surprisingly, in two questions expert suggested that all key answers are correct.

The court has observed that students who have attempted the deleted question should be given marks and added that views of all experts shall be considered as plausible and correct answers of students shall be awarded marks accordingly.

It further observed that “in view of a statement of the counsel of university we are refraining from making any direction or observation against the university. Yesterday the counsel for the university produced the opinion of the expert committee in a sealed cover.

The moderation committee had earlier found that at least eight questions are either incorrect or have more than one key answer but after the intervention of the court about nine more questions were found having wrong key answers.

Petitioners had challenged the key answers of the entrance examination to MD/MS course. They have alleged that as many as 45 key answers are incorrect or questions are incorrect. They had also made a representation to the university and the questions were referred to the moderation committee.

The petitioners have alleged that the committee had not given due consideration to the references made by them in support of their representation.

The court, however, has excluded the eight questions from reference whereupon the committee has already adjudicated. Earlier, the court had directed the moderation committee to look into the disputed 36 questions in the light of the references appended by the petitioners along with the writ petition.