Dehradun, August 1
In a bid to boost the sugar industry, the state government today announced a number of steps, including doing away with 2 per cent VAT levied on the sale of sugar and conversion of outstanding debt of sugar mills into equity.

The imposition of VAT had led to a slump in the sale of sugar.

Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna made this announcement at the end of a meeting to review the functioning of the Cane Sugar Development Department. However, the entry tax on sugar would continue.

The decision to convert the outstanding debt of six government sugar mills amounting to Rs 498.88 crore, including Rs 227.21 crore interest, into equity has been taken to shore up their financial health. “By converting debt into equity, we will be able to restore financial health to the sugar mills in books, which in turn will enable them to take loans from banks,” said Bahuguna.

He added the other option of running the sugar mills on the public private partnership too was being explored. “We will be tabling all these proposals before the Cabinet on August 17,” he said.

However, the Chief Minister said to revive four sugar mills in the private sector he would initiate talks with the Central government on August 6 and 7 so that soft loans could be extended to them.

As of now the debt of 10 sugar mills stands at Rs 172 crore and of which Rs 96 crore is of six government mills.

Besides, the Chief Minister announced that a dialogue between the government, sugar mills and labourers would be held to resolve the wage issue.

He asked the officials to take steps to increase power production in the sugar mills for which an investment of Rs 200 crore was being planned. 

Haridwar, August 1
Disclosing that from August 9 onwards, Anna Hazare-led Jan Lok Pal Bill movement and his agitation against black money may be carried out jointly, yog guru Swami Ramdev stated this here last evening.

Speaking at Divya Yog Mandir, the residence-cum-office of Acharya Balkrishan, the yog guru feared that in view of their agitation against black money, corrupt system and corruption, anti-movement forces can connive to kill Balkrishan to weaken the August 9 agitation.

The yog guru feared conspiracy of killing his protege Acharya Balkrishan in Dehradun prison where he is under judicial custody, as he was put up in prison along with hardcore criminals that include murderers,dacoits and rapists.

Citing poisoning of Socrates and exile of Nelson Mandela, Ramdev said that to curb the voices of these social leaders, the prevailing authorities tried to curb their movement only to apologise later, which will also be the case here, he added.

On the joint agitation with Team Anna Hazare, which is staging the stir at Jantar Mantar,Swami Ramdev said that his anti-black money agitation this time will be a definite one and talks are on with the Hazare team to carry out jointly both the Jan Lok Pal Bill and black money protests if the Congress -led UPA government did not pay heed to the "voice of the people."

Dehradun, August 1
Speculations remained rife over resignation of Managing Director (MD) of Power Transmission Corporation of Uttrakhand Limited (PTCUL) AK Gupta over agitation by the Engineers' Association of Power Corporation. The members of the association protested for not convening a meeting of the departmental promotion committee (DPC) on due date, July 1, for filling two vacant posts of Chief Engineer (CE), level II, in PTCUL.

President of this association Jagmohan Singh Rothan said the MD had threatened to resign thrice in the past also but never did so. Hence, it was not certain whether he actually resigned or not. Moreover, he said, it was not clear if Gupta, who had been shown as General Manager in the services but was promoted to the post of MD on a contractual basis, had resigned from services or his position of MD. The former case would mean that he would continue to serve in PTCUL.

The agitation of the members of the association remained directionless throughout the day. Gupta refused to listen to them, citing the reason of his resignation, whilst Director, Human Resources (HR), remained unavailable throughout the day.

The matter snowballed into a controversy when the DPC, which was due on July 1, was not called without citing any reason. Three deserving officers, Superintendent Engineers (SE) SC Bhasin, Sudhir Bhatnagar and Shravan Kumar, who are in line to be promoted as CE-II, were waiting to be selected for the two vacant posts of the same slot.

Rothan alleged that earlier there were four vacant posts of CE-II, of which one, reserved for Schedule Caste, was occupied by officer Kamal Kant, and the other one was also filled with the promotion of SE

Rajiv Shah. He said the other two positions of unreserved categories must be filled in time when there are deserving officials in the department.

The DPC, PTCUL, comprises five officials, three directors from PTCUL, MD and one each from project and human resources of PTCUL, two secretary-level officials from the Energy Department and one secretary from the Industry Department.

Gupta, who earlier worked with Uttar Pardesh Electricity Board, joined Uttrakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL) when the state was formed.

After PTCUL was separated from UPCL in year 2004, he was shifted as Executive Engineer. 

Dehradun, August 1
The Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN), which earned a revenue of Rs 5 cr this year from quarrying activity, will not be able to do so anymore in the near future as the environment impact assessment (EIA) report prepared by it to seek renewal of permission for quarrying for the next five years has been rejected by the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MOEF) in its present form.

Managing Director GMVN Pankaj Pandey said the MOEF wanted GMVN to make either a new report or amend the existing one; he chose the latter. He said he himself was pursuing the matter. General Manager, Industries, GMVN, Pratap Shah, said: " After the High Court cleared the

way of carrying out quarrying with clearance of the EIA, we could undertake the activity this year as relaxation was provided for the first six months to undertake quarrying even without the pre-condition of the EIA. Now the EIA report sent to seek renewal of permission for the next 5 years has been rejected. Hence we are standing at crossroads because we will not be able to earn revenue when quarrying season begins in September-end."

He said the major faux pas in the EIA report was that the environment clearance was sought as per the river, not according to lots (parts of the rivers), where quarrying was to conducted. He said the agency which was preparing the report turned out to be inexperienced but since a fat payment had already been made to it, it had been asked to continue and make the necessary changes.

Shah also added that the GMVN was searching for new river lots for quarrying. "Since now we can do quarrying with the clearance of the EIA, we are looking for new destinations. At present, we use only 8 lots in Haridwar and 2 in Chamoli. Many state rivers are, however, being exploited by illegal mafia. In case we start handling the business, as a government body, we would certainly carry the activity within the limits which will augur well for our natural resources," he said.

He also stated that the department was dependent on District Magistrates (DMs) in the state to help in locating new river lots as per revenue records but they were not forthcoming on this issue.

District Magistrate, Dehradun, Ravinath Raman, said he could not take the initiative in engaging his staff in identifying land for quarrying unless he got directions from the state government in this regard.

Nevertheless, Shah said quarrying staff of GMVN had still managed to apply for 45 new lots out of a total identified 90 lots in Dehradun district for the preliminary permission from the state government. 

Dehradun, August 1
To further strengthen e-governance in the state, the blocks would be connected through state wide area network (SWAN), for which Rs 76.23 crore has been sanctioned. The amount would be utilised for setting up a data centre and strengthening information technology.

Chief Secretary Alok Kumar Jain, chairing the meeting of SWAN's state project execution committee at the secretariat, directed the officers concerned to expedite the process of establishing state data centre.

The centre would start functioning after signing of agreement with Wipro by the month of December. The OFC connectivity in all 135 points of presence (POP) would be provided by BSNL. Besides, 4 MBPS established on the state level would be enhanced to 8 MBPS and 2 MBPS set up on district levels would be enhanced to 4 MBPS capacity. The connectivity would improve with the increase in bandwidth, which would result in faster public services. Jain directed the officers to ensure that the programmes run under SWAN were evaluated by the third party and wherever deficiency found, would be removed accordingly. He revealed that ITDL was functioning as the nodal agency in the state, while NIC was the principal operating agency. He said that so far 400 government institutions had been connected with SWAN.

Mussoorie, August 1
Vanmahotsava organised jointly by the Ecological Task Force (ETF) and Government Inter College, Kempty, was celebrated with fervour on the school premises here today.

The 127 Battalion of the Eco Task Force involved in greening of hills around Kempty distributed more than 200 saplings of Indian blackberry, also called Java Plums (jamun), and guava fruit to schoolchildren so that they could take them home and plant them in such a place where they could take a good care of them.

The school staff announced that they would also monitor the growth of trees and ensure that the saplings survival over the years and grow into trees.

The task force officials led by Col HS Rana also announced that they would adopt the school and support it in its endeavours towards conserving environment.

Col Rana also planted a sapling on the school premises to mark the occasion. He commended the efforts of the school in taking special interest in planting trees around the region. He also announced that the Eco Task Force would provide the school with logistic support in its environment conservation drives.

Col Rana appealed to the students to not to use polythene bags as it had become a bane of hills and was hindering efforts to keep the environment clean. He said the force would organise workshops on environment conservation in the school from time to time.

Eminent environmentalist and President’s Award winner Jagdish Bawla said he would reward the five students who would nurture the saplings distributed today for one year.

The coordinator of the programme, Subedar Deleep Kumar, said the task force jawans had put in sincere efforts in greening the area despite several cases of forest fire this year. The students should also make similar efforts if they wanted to keep the area green.

School Physical Training Instructor Roopchand said he would form a monitoring team and keep a watch on the growth of the saplings.

Principal of the school KK Raturi, Subedar Major Govind Singh, Manmohan Singh, Pradeep Singh, Shamsaar Singh and others were present on the occasion. 

Dehradun, August 1
Continuing with tree plantation and plants distribution programme being held in the memory of Sardar Bhagwan Singh, founder director of the Sardar Bhagwan Singh PG Institute of Biomedical Sciences & Research, Balawala, its chairman SP Singh today presented 400 mango trees to students of Govt Inter-College, Barashi, and Govt Inter-College of Soda Saroli.

SP Singh said after Dehradun became the capital of Uttarakhand, a large number of trees were cut for constructions of roads and buildings. The staff of Sardar Bhagwan Singh Institute of Bio-Medical Sciences, Balawala, which are committed to the noble cause of preserving ecology, have been planting trees every year to make up the loss.

"It was observed that these trees were not maintained after being planted. Hence we are presenting these trees individually to students so that they look after these plants," he said.

The efforts of SP Singh were appreciated by Dev Singh Negi, Principal, Govt Inter-College, Barashi and Om Prakash Joshi, vice-principal, Govt Inter-College of Soda Saroli. The events were attended by teachers Mahender Singh Gusain, Brijmohan Raturi, Ravinder Singh Saini and people from the surrounding Gram Sabha.

Musssoorie, August 1
BJP women wing workers gathered at Shagun Palace in large numbers on the eve of Raksha Bandhan and tied rakhi on the wrist of Musosorie MLA Ganesh Joshi in a function here today.

Chief guest Rajpur MLA Ganesh Joshi had his hands full as more than 500 BJP members jostled to tie rakhi on his hands. The first to tie rakhi on the hand of the MLA was BJP Mahila Wing president from Mussoorie Sarojini Kaintura. Palika President OP Uniyal was also tied rakhi by women members.

Ganesh Joshi extending greetings said the festival was an auspicious occasion on which brothers took a pledge to safeguard their sisters.

Anil Godiyal, Kushal Rana, Seeta Panwar, Vijay Ramola, Mohan Petwal, BJP president Roop Singh Kathait and others were present on the occasion.

Later speaking to the media, the Mussoorie MLA said the recent announcements made by Chief Minster Vijay Bahuguna regarding empowering the Municipal Councils with more powers and other announcements were just a political gimmick considering the coming Lok Sabha elections. He further said the BJP would win the Lok Sabha seat from Tehri in the byelections with a handsome margin.

Dehradun, August 1
Governor Dr Aziz Qureshi has greeted the people of the state on the auspicious occasion of Raksha Bandhan.

On the eve of the festival, the Governor said in a message that able people in society should extend a helping hand to those who were weak due to social, economic or other reasons. CM Vijay Bahuguna also greeted the people on Raksha Bandhan. — TNS