Shimla, July 10
The Forest Department has missed the target of sterilising two lakh monkeys by June 30 by a huge margin due to an inordinate delay in opening new centres for the purpose.

In all, 55,036 simians have been sterilised so far. As against the proposed 21 sterilisation centres, only one has been opened at Kandaghat so far. It has not been made fully functional due to a shortage of staff. The infrastructure has been created for three more centres at Paonta Sahib, Sarol (Chamba) and Slapper (Mandi). These, however, could not be opened as the government has failed to depute veterinary surgeons and other support staff.

The target of sterilising two lakh monkeys was not only ambitious but rather unrealistic. If eight centres are made fully functional, the department will have the capacity to carry out about 20,000 sterilisations per month and as such the target can be achieved over the next seven to eight months. However, the main problem has been of capturing the monkeys. It is a specialised job to be carried out under the guidance of forest officials and the animals are to be released in the same area from where they were trapped after operation to maintain the integrity of troops.

As such there is no need to open 21 new centres on which the department will have to spend around Rs 35 crore to Rs 40 crore. Given the slow pace of monkey capturing, even the capacity of the five existing centres, along with three likely to be made functional shortly, will not be fully utilised. The government has fixed a remuneration of Rs 500 per monkey for the catchers. The pace has not improved much as the work takes time and requires tactics.

Undue haste can spoil things as simians are clever and once a few are trapped, the others in the troop refuse to be lured by baits like bananas, grams and other eatables.

Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) RK Sood expressed the hope that the sterilisation programme would gain momentum after three more centres became functional.

He admitted that capturing monkeys was the main bottleneck that hampered the pace of the sterilisation. With the breeding season (April 15 to June 15) over, sterilisation had been resumed and the programme was gaining momentum.

In case the department manages to sterilise two lakh simians over the next one year, the problem of monkey menace would be solved to a large extent. During the latest headcount of monkeys, the department focused on identified hotspots where 5,296 troops with a total headcount of 1,93,225 were spotted.

As against a target of two lakh monkeys, 55,036 simians have been sterilised so far. Of the proposed 21 sterilisation centres, only one has been opened at Kandaghat. It has not been made fully functional due to a shortage of staff. Infrastructure has been created for three more centres at Paonta Sahib, Sarol (Chamba) and Slapper (Mandi). These, however, are yet to be opened as the government has failed to depute veterinary surgeons. 

Kangra, July 10
The Himachal Pradesh High Court has ordered the Deputy Commissioner, Kangra, who is also the commissioner of the Brajeshwari Devi temple, Kangra, and the temple officer to ensure that complete accounts of the temple trust are maintained. It has also stayed an order of the Deputy Commissioner on the distribution of offerings among the trust and the baridars (priests) till the disposal of a writ petition, filed by Deepak Sharma, a social activist.

The Brajeshwari Devi temple was taken over by the state government on November 4, 1986, and the offerings made by devotees were being distributed among the temple trust and the baridars on a 60:40 ratio.

Pawan Patial, temple officer, said according to the order of the Deputy Commissioner, issued on May 3, the ratio of the distribution of cash offerings among the trust and the baridars except from three cash boxes left for langar purposes had been fixed at 70:30.

He said the Deputy Commissioner had further ordered that dry coconuts and “chunnis” offered at the temple should be distributed in the ratio of 50:50.

Deepak Sharma, a social activist from this temple town, moved the High Court against the Deputy Commissioner’s order of May 3. The court admitted the petition and granted a stay on the said order.

In its order, the High Court said, “The Deputy Commissioner-cum-commissioner, Brajeshwari Devi temple, and the temple officer are directed to ensure that complete accounts are maintained with regard to the offerings which have been covered under the May 3 order. The final disposal of the amount collected on account of these offerings will depend on the outcome of the petition.”

The court said till the disposal of the petition, the trust can collect the offerings in terms of the May 3 order and dispose of perishable items. However, the distribution of the offerings shall depend on the outcome of the petition.

Dharamsala, July 10
JBT trainees sitting on an indefinite fast for the past few days at Dharamsala have lifted their dharna. Their leaders said they would now fight their case regarding the Teachers’ Eligibility Test in the High Court. The sudden suspension of the agitation by the JBT trainees is being attributed to a recent clarification issued by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development over the matter.

The ministry has rejected a proposal of the state government to exempt JBT teachers who were selected for training prior to the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act from the TET.

Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal had written to Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal on June 7 to exempt JBT teachers selected for training prior to the implementation of the Right to Education Act from the TET.

In a reply sent on June 29, Sibal has stated that the condition of passing the TET was mandatory for recruitment as teacher, both in government and private schools.

Sibal has urged the state government to conduct the TET at the earliest and only thereafter appoint schoolteachers.

JBT teachers in the state have been holding agitations across the state in protest against the TET being made mandatory for recruitment as teacher in government schools. They want the earlier system to continue in which JBT students passing out from institutes functioning under the Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education were recruited directly as teachers in government primary schools. Many JBT students had gone on an indefinite fast at Dharamsala to press the government for waiving the condition of the TET for them.

Shimla, July 10
The government has amended the relief manual to include hailstorm in the category of natural disasters and provide higher compensation to victims of various calamities.

Giving details of the amendments here today, Revenue Minister Gulab Singh Thakur said the ex gratia in case of death caused due to a natural calamity or accident had been raised from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.50 lakh and for the first time Himachalis residing outside the state had also been included for this benefit. Similarly, hailstorm had also been covered in the category of a disaster to help farmers and fruit growers who suffered huge losses due to damage caused to crops on this account.

He said in all six amendments were made to the relief manual to provide greater relief to victims of natural disasters. The relief given to a person in case of injury had been increased from Rs 35,000 to Rs 43,500 and for injuries leading to disability above 80 per cent the amount had been revised to Rs 62,000 from Rs 50,000.

Since a large number of people were dependent on livestock for livelihood, the relief amount in case of loss of cattle, sheep and other animals had also been raised substantially. The amount in case of loss of a buffalo, ox, horse, mule, yak and camel had been revised from Rs 10,000 to Rs 16,400 per cattle, in case of a cow (cross breed) and churu from Rs 10,000 to Rs 11,000 per cattle and cow (local breed), donkey and pashmina goat from Rs 5,000 to 6,000. The relief amount in case of loss of household items had been raised from Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000 per family, he added.

He said hitherto there were no set norms and procedure for determining the quantum of relief to be given in case of death, injury, loss of cattle or damage to houses. With these norms and guidelines in place, the victims would not be harassed and officials would be abele to disburse relief to the affected people expeditiously.

He said Himachal was only the second state after Gujarat to commission a statewide Hazard Risk and Vulnerability study to help map hazards up to the block level, study the pattern of vulnerability and quantify the risk. It would enable the government to plan the required interventions for prevention and mitigation of disaster.

Shimla, July 10
The government has hiked the support price of apple and mango under the Market Intervention Scheme to Rs 6 per kg, an increase of 75 paise per kg, for the current season.

Announcing this at a public meeting at Jubbal after inaugurating a two-day local festival today, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said his government had been committed to the economic uplift of fruit growers and it had taken a number of steps for their benefit. He also inaugurated a bus stand, constructed at a cost of Rs 2.11 crore, a car parking (Rs 67 lakh) and a helipad at Sundali (Rs 17 lakh).

The government had cleared the pending payment of apple growers running into crores of rupees on account of fruit procured under the Market Intervention Scheme. Reiterating his government’s resolve for strengthening the economy of the fruit growers, he said horticulture had an important role in the economy of the state and the increase in the support price would ensure remunerative returns for the produce, which in turn would boost the economy.

Dhumal said anti-hail guns in the Kharapathar area had been successful in saving the apple crop from hailstorms and the government was considering to install anti-hail guns in other apple-growing areas of the state.

He said more than Rs 100 crore had been spent on the construction of roads in Jubbal-Kotkhai, Dharampur (Mandi) and Jaisinghpur (Kangra) under NABARD. He said the social welfare pension had been enhanced to Rs 400 per month, which would benefit over three lakh persons.

The Chief Minister said the government was committed to providing professional education to the youth on their doorstep and it had set up the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government Engineering and Technology Institute at Gumma where BTech classes were proposed to be started from this session.

He declared the Jubbal festival as a district-level fair and said the SDM, Rohru, would sit at Jubbal and the SDM, Theog, at Kotkhai for a week in a month to redress the grievances of the people. Besides, the Naib Tehsildar, Jubbal, would sit at Saraswatinagar and the Naib Tehsildar, Kotkhai, would provide services to the people at Kalbog for a week each. He assured the people of exploring the possibility of tunnels between Khaneti and Tikkar and Marathu and Jubbal.

Shimla, July 10
Members of the Himachal Pradesh Electricity Board Employees Union today held a mass protest rally in front of Kumar House, the headquarters of the board, against the “wrong policies” of the government, which, they said, had brought the board on the verge of a collapse.

The union alleged that the “anti-board policies” of the government had pushed the board into a debt trap. Its financial condition had become so grave that it was raising fresh loans not only to repay the old ones but also for running the day-to-day expenditure. President of the union Kuldeep Khawara said the cumulative deficit of the board had crossed the Rs 1,400-crore mark as on March 31 and the outstanding debt liability had reached Rs 3,600 crore. The main reason for the widening gap was that there was a difference of Rs 1.10 per unit in the cost of supply and the revenue realised.

He said payments to employees were being delayed due to the perennial financial crisis and the worsening condition of the board had created panic among pensioners. The government had disowned its responsibilities, both towards the employees and the consumers.

The union demanded that the entire share of power from the BBMB projects should be given to the board and the government should provide adequate funds by way of capital investment to help the board tide over the financial crisis. The government should also evolve a mechanism for the disbursement of pension, gratuity and other retirement benefits as committed in the scheme for restructuring the board.

It demanded recruitment of technical and commercial staff at the lower level in accordance with the norms. At present, the strength of staff was declining at the rate of 1,250 per year and it was affecting the efficiency of the board.

The other demands of the union included release of the time scale with jumps after the completion of nine, 16 and 23 years of service, mobile phone allowance and enhancement of ex gratia from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.

Hamirpur, July 10
The delimitation process undertaken in the state has changed the caste equations in the Hamirpur, Nadaun and Badsar Assembly constituencies in Hamirpur district.

After the delimitation process, about two dozens polling booths, including Chowki, Patlandar, Bir Bagehda and Darbeli, have been moved out of the Hamirpur constituency and added to the newly constituted Sujanpur Assembly constituency.

Most of these panchayats had Rajputs in a majority. On the other hand, a few panchayats and polling booths from the old Mewa constituency, which reportedly had Brahmins in a majority, have been added to the Hamirpur constituency.

In many of the newly added panchayats to the Hamirpur constituency like Ukhali, Saur and Didwein Tikkar, Brahmins are in a majority.

The new limits of the Hamirpur Assembly constituency have a sizeable Brahmin population.

Similarly, in Badsar nine panchayats having a majority of Brahmins have been included in the Nadaun Assembly constituency and new panchayats like Ropari, Dad and Samtana having a majority of Rajputs have been added to the Badsar constituency from the old Mewa Assembly constituency.

In Badsar, a good number of Rajput voters have been included and Brahmin voters have been excluded.

On the other hand, about 4,000 Brahmin voters have been included in the Nadaun Assembly constituency.

With the addition and exclusion of several panchayats in the three constituencies, new caste equations have been formed in these constituencies.

Bilaspur, July 10
The Central Road Transport and National Highways Ministry has issued a notification giving details of land and other property to be acquired for the four-laning of the National Highway No. 21 (Chandigarh-Manali) from 82 km to 134.5 km from Kiratpur Sahib to the Bilaspur section in this district.

BD Sharma, land acquisition officer for the work, said here today that this notification had been issued on June 18, 2012, and it had been published in newspapers on July 9, 2012. The details of the same were also available on the website of the Deputy Commissioner, Bilaspur.

Sharma added that those who have any objections over acquisition of their land and properties for this purpose should submit the matter in writing to the office concerned in town within 21 days of publication of the notification.