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Cong to crack whip on rebels
CM keen to expand ministry before budget session
HLP to contest 4 seats in 2014 poll
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Election Department owes HRTC over
Rs 2 crore; corpn fails to pay staff
1.23 lakh migratory birds recorded
at Pong Dam lake this year
Repair of Mubarakpur-Dehra road to take another 2 months
Workshop held on sector-specific skill enhancement
Pharma units face closure
British Council okays tie-up with Kangra school
sc sub plan
Employees to oppose quota in promotions
Resin factory at Baijnath to resume shortly
Anup Rattan is Addl Advocate General
‘Journalist’ held for fleecing
State gets award for MGNREGA implementation
8 more cases of diarrhoea
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Cong to crack whip on rebels
Shimla, February 2 The presence of rebels in the fray and anti-party activities by some cadres reportedly cost the party a number of seats. The issue was discussed during the first meeting of the HPCC under newly appointed state party president Sukhvinder Singh, to which candidates who lost were specially invited. On the basis of the feedback received from them, action will be proposed against those who indulged in anti-party
activities. Sukhvinder Singh said AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi had underlined the need to enforce discipline during the ‘chintan
shivir’ and he would try to implement Rahul Gandhi’s guidelines in letter and spirit to strengthen the party. Sukhvinder Singh said those who lost in the electoral arena due to opposition from party leaders had aired their grievances and he proposed to take action against the erring party members within 10 days. About two dozen leaders contested the elections as rebels and several others opposed official candidates. Some leaders were suspended during the course of elections. If the party decides to take further action, they will be expelled for six years. It will be interesting to see the approach the party adopts in case of rebels like Kirnesh Jung, who defeated the party candidate from Paonta Sahib and was now supporting the government. Another step Sukhvinder Singh proposed was opening party offices at all district headquarters, connected to the state party headquarters to facilitate video-conferencing. It will enable party leaders to have frequent interaction and take decisions without loss of time. The HPCC will hold meetings in different districts on a rotation basis to cover all
areas. Sukhvinder Singh was non-committal regarding the enforcement of the one-man-one-post principle. He said it would be kept in view whenever organisational changes were effected, which could take some time. Some ministers hold party posts at present. He said he would visit all districts in the first phase and thereafter hold meetings at the block level and chart out the future course of action on the basis of feedback to strengthen the
organisation. Congress Roadmap
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CM keen to expand ministry before budget session
Talking to mediapersons here before leaving for New Delhi, he said six or seven Chief Parliamentary Secretaries and Parliamentary Secretaries could be inducted during the exercise and more chairpersons appointed in due course. He said he was likely to meet the Prime Minister, Central ministers and Central Congress leaders to pursue various matters during his stay in New Delhi. He said he would take up the matter of expediting work on rail projects with Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and urge him to get the Nangal-Talwara track completed at the
earliest. Virbhadra Singh said he would also urge Bansal to get the survey for the Bhanupali-Bilaspur track conducted further up to Mandi keeping in view the possibility of linking
it to the Jogindernagar-Pathankot track. He said he would also take up with the Centre the issue of resuming flights to
Kullu, Dharamsala and Shimla. He said he would also take up the issue of releasing arrears of the claim in Bhakra-Beas Management Board projects amounting to over Rs 4,250 crore in accordance with the Supreme Court
judgement. He said he would urge the revival of the industrial package at least in a modified form so that the pace of industrialisation could be accelerated. He said the state would benefit even if some concessions like exemption in excise duty and income tax were granted. |
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HLP to contest 4 seats in 2014 poll
Palampur, February 2 Addressing mediapersons after a state-level convention of his party here today, Maheshwar Singh, MLA and president of the
HLP, said the party would maintain its separate entity in the state politics and emerge as the third front in the
coming days. He disclosed that in the just-concluded Assembly elections, the party had contested on 32 seats and received over 3 per cent votes in the state. The party had won the Kullu seat. It was a great achievement of the party as the HLP was formed only two months before the Assembly elections,
he added. Maheshwar said the membership campaign of the party would be geared up in the next two months and reach every nook and corner of the state. He said people had got fed up with both the BJP and the Congress and wanted a third front which could come up to their expectations. The party would work on these lines and strengthen its base in the state. Earlier, Subhash Sharma, president, Himachal Swabhiman Party, announced the merger of his party in the
HLP. He said he would assist Maheshwar for strengthening the third front in the state. |
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Election Department owes HRTC over
Rs 2 crore; corpn fails to pay staff
Hamirpur, February 2 Hundreds of buses were hired by the Election Department to carry election parties and electronic voting machines throughout the state for conducting elections. The Election Department owes Rs 2.68 crore to various HRTC depots. On an average, 30 HRTC buses of every depot were hired for two or three days. The requisitioning of buses had put HRTC operations at a majority of routes on hold. The salaries of nearly 8,500 employees for January could not be remitted to their accounts. The HRTC management had been urging the government to release a financial grant as the HRTC was facing losses due to free travel for several categories allowed by the government and running buses on loss-making rural
routes. HRTC Managing Director Onkar Sharma said, “I have taken up the matter with the Election Department Secretary and directed all Divisional Managers and Regional Managers to pursue the issue.” An Election Department official said, “We have taken
up the matter with the government and will pay the HRTC as soon as we get the payment.” |
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1.23 lakh migratory birds recorded
at Pong Dam lake this year
Dharamsala/Nurpur, February 2 Members of the team were imparted special training for counting migratory birds. The birds had been coloured and fitted with transmitters last month. Assistant Wildlife Conservator DS Dadwal said the lake was divided into 23 sections and 80 persons participated in the census. He said participants were divided into groups of between three and five persons and sent to various parts of the lake to conduct the census. He said as per the data collected, it was found that about 1.23 lakh migratory birds arrived at the lake this year. Bar-headed geese coming from Tibet and Mongolia dominated the number of migratory birds. It was found that about 34,000 bar-headed geese arrived this year, which was the highest number of the species in the entire country. Scientists had attached radio transmitters to the geese last year to track the migratory routes. A few birds that were ringed last year returned this year. Other bird varieties recorded in the census included the northern pintail (21,000), the common coot (14,000), the common pochard (12,000), the tufted pochard (8,000), the little cormorant (7,700), the common teal (6,800), the common shelduck (35), the ruddy breasted trake (1), the grey legged goose (50), the red crested pochard (110), the white fronted goose (60), the sarus crane (7) and the osprey (7). Among the birds of prey following migratory birds, five western marsh harriers and a variety of falcons were also recorded. Last year, 1.19 lakh migratory birds were recorded at the Pong Dam lake. This year, there was a marginal increase in their number. Principal Conservator of Forests-cum-Chief Wildlife Warden SB Islam confirmed that 1.23 lakh foreign migratory birds of 113 species visited the lake this year. He said a pair of whooper swans was spotted at the lake after a
gap of 113 years. He said it was earlier recorded by General Osborne near Talwara in Punjab in January 1900 and there was no record of this exotic bird in the country after that. He said the birds migrated from their breeding areas in the trans-Himalayan region
in Tibet, Central Asia, Russia and Siberia. The Pong Dam lake, a man-made wetland, was declared as an international wetland during the Ramsar convention. Over the years, the calm and quiet waters had provided an ideal habitat for migratory birds during winter. Many birds had made the lake their permanent habitat. Encroachment along the lake by local residents poses a threat to migratory birds. Local residents grow crops on the banks of the lake when water recedes during winter. Migratory birds feed on these crops and farmers sometimes poison those to save their crops. Wildlife authorities and the Fisheries Department are at loggerheads over fishing in the lake. While wildlife authorities maintain that fishing should not be allowed, the Fisheries Department auctions the fish wealth of the lake every year and issues licences to local residents to fish in the lake. |
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Repair of Mubarakpur-Dehra road to take another 2 months
Dharamsala, February 2 The road is in a bad shape, especially the stretch between Mubarakpur and Dehra. Huge pits on the road makes driving a nightmare. Though the 91-km Nagrota Bagwan-Mubarakpur road was declared National Highway No. 20-A in 2009, there was delay on the part of the Union Ministry for Surface Transport in notifying the road. As a result, the state government had been allocating funds for minor patch work and repair of the road. To make matters worse, the Union Ministry had not allotted any budget for the road. It was only this winter that the 16-km stretch between Ranital and Dehra was metalled. Most tourists coming to Dharamsala and Palampur travel on the said highway. Lakhwinder Singh, a tourist from Chandigarh, rued the bad state of roads in Himachal. Foreign tourists said the poor condition of the road was bad for Dharamsala as a tourist destination. During the recently conducted one-day international cricket match between India and England, a large number of tourists came to Dharamsala. Most of them complained about the poor condition of the road. Officials of the National Highways said the three-year delay in the construction of the road was caused as the Union Ministry for Surface Transport had not entrusted the said NH to the state government for maintenance. As per the rules, the Union Ministry for Surface Transport takes over the roads after the entire land is transferred in the name of the ministry. The state government had transferred the papers of the land to the ministry in October 2011. However, the Union ministry issued a gazette notification on NH 20-A only at the fag-end of last year. It was only after that the ministry released funds for the road, the officials said. Besides this national highway, the Mehatpur-Amb state highway is also in a bad shape as the construction work on the incomplete road has not been started due a dispute over payments between Chinese company Longjian and the state PWD. Bad roads in the state had been an election agenda of the Congress. However, the new Congress government in the state will have to source funds from the UPA government at the Centre to improve the condition of the road. |
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Workshop held on sector-specific skill enhancement
Shimla, February 2 Main speaker Dr SS Mantha, Chairman, AITEC, said the NVEQF was a new initiative for sector specific skill enhancement which would help improve employability of pass-outs. It covered the entire spectrum of technical education right from high school to the postgraduate level. He said there were around 10,000 ITIs in the country, of which 4,000 were in government sector. He gave a detailed presentation on the new initiative. Presiding over the workshop, Sarojini Ganju Thakur, Chairperson of the regulatory commission, said there was demand of skilled professionals in various sectors. The state government was taking steps for providing quality vocational education so that employment and self-employment avenues could be generated for youth. She added that the NVEQF had been introduced to formally integrate vocational education together with its current conventional educational streams across schools and higher education. K Sanjay Murthy, Secretary, Education, said Industrial Training Institutes were being opened in the state. The state had identified 100 schools where vocational education would be started in the coming academic session from Class IX to XII. Initially training would be imparted in IT and automobiles and Rs 40 crore would be spent on starting vocational education in schools. |
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Pharma units face closure
Solan, February 2 The area has earned the sobriquet of the pharmaceutical hub of Asia, with nearly 350 units having set up operations here, but a large number of small-scale ventures were now facing closure and units are on sale. This is especially true for small-scale units operating after availing of
huge loans. In the absence of their own products, those are deprived of adequate business. With tax incentives having been curtailed several times in the last several years, the ventures are uneconomical. Reeling under the liability of loan repayment and lack of orders, the units are difficult to sustain. A 10-year tax holiday was available for units coming into production between 2003 and March 2010. The tax holiday had expired for units which had come into production in the early part of the package period. Vinod Gupta, an investor, termed this as a major cause of concern. He said such units were now competing with those which were still availing of the tax holiday as those had been set up later. He said this not only made the operations of older units costlier, but also made it hard to sustain those units with the declining profit margins. Raw material had to be procured from outside the state and finished goods transported to other states. A mere 2 per cent tax difference available to units availing of tax benefits was negligible, said another investor. Investors are finding it a feasible option to sell the units. First-generation entrepreneurs are facing this situation in particular as they had ventured into it only to make a quick buck after the announcement of the package. With a majority of multi-national companies and large units having shifted high-value-low-volume products to sister concerns in tax-free states, the BBN area is losing its sheen as a major pharmaceutical investment destination. |
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British Council okays tie-up with Kangra school
Disclosing this here recently, Sukhwinder Singh, Principal, GAV Public School, said the Connecting Classrooms programme was designed to help youth learn international themes and become responsible citizens. He said it facilitated partnerships between schools in the UK and other countries, providing educational benefits to young people around the world. He said it helped youth to understand more about other countries, global issues, their rights and responsibilities as global citizens
and culture through working with international partner schools. He said teachers and other educators would have a greater understanding of other countries, their cultures and their education systems and remain better equipped to teach about global issues and develop relevant skills and outlook in the youth. GAV Public School here was awarded the Outstanding Partnership Award for the best use of technology by the British Council for its partnership with Crawshaw School, Leeds (UK), under the Global School Partnership Programme in Mumbai on November 19 by Rob Lyne, Director, British Council India. The school for the past three years had been working dedicatedly on various projects and also had been participating in programmes of the British Council. Lyne appreciated the school for its dedicated contribution towards the Global School Partnership Programme and sanctioned partnership for the next term for a minimum three years, Sukwinder Singh added. |
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sc sub plan
Kangra, February 2 He said Rs 36.70 crore was being spent under the sub-plan in the district and Rs 18.50 crore was spent by the end of 2012 and 58 per cent target was achieved. The Deputy Commissioner said under the 20-point programme, 9,601 BPL families were benefited against the target of 12,114 by the end of 2012. He said he had asked the officers to speed up the development works so that maximum BPL families could avail the benefit under the schemes. The Deputy Commissioner directed the officers concerned to prepare a work plan for the next financial year and priority be given to local demands, so that matter could be sent well in time to the government for funds. |
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Employees to oppose quota in promotions
Bilaspur, February 2 Rather it should be based on poverty. The meeting said caste-based reservation had become “cancer of society” which actually was only increasing discontentment, anger, frustration and disaffection in society and was dividing it still further. A meeting had been fixed at Ghumarwin on February 6 to consider this issue thread bare. |
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Resin factory at Baijnath to resume shortly
Chamba, February 2 The minister also announced that a factory would be set up to manufacture containers used for extracting resin from ‘chil’ trees under the control of the Himachal Pradesh State Forest Corporation soon. The minister said to extract resin scientifically from trees, the rill method would be used so that the life of the trees would not be affected. He said expansion would be made in the Forest Corporation so that people would get direct or indirect employment. The closed forest nurseries
too would be resumed, he added. |
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Anup Rattan is Addl Advocate General
Shimla, February 2 Rattan was general secretary of the NSUI from 1997 to 2002 and joint secretary as well as general secretary of the Youth Congress. He is member of the HP Congress Legal Cell. He has also been Central Government counsel for the HC and counsel for HP Marketing Board. Apart from him, the government also appointed Ravinder Singh Thakur, BS Parmar, Virender Chauhan, MA Khan, Romesh Verma and Pramod Thakur as Additional Advocate Generals and Pushpinder Jaswal as Deputy Advocate General. |
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‘Journalist’ held for fleecing
Bilaspur, February 2 Suresh Kumar of Gaah village had got an FIR registered against Raj Kumar who claimed to be a senior journalist and said if they gave him Rs 2,500, he would get their news item published within three days in his newspaper exposing the “scandal” of including wrong persons in the IRDP list by the gram panchayat. But when this news did not appear and the phone number he had given to them did not respond to their calls, this FIR was lodged. The police arrested him from a gurdwara near the Kullu bus stand on Friday.
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State gets award for MGNREGA implementation
Shimla, February 2 About 75 per cent of the work under MGNREGA in Mandi district was got executed through women as against the national average of 48 per cent. The Tharech panchayat in Theog block of Shimla district was presented the national award for gram panchayats. In Mandi district so far 93,000 women MGNREGA workers had been encouraged to open accounts in banks for the first time.
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8 more cases of diarrhoea
Bilaspur, February 2 Now the total number of patients suffering from this epidemic has reached 67 in Diara sector. Both the IPH and Health authorities are striving hard to locate the cause of this pollution of drinking water. Drinking water samples have been taken from various infected areas and sent for lab testing, but the result is still awaited. Patients are being given required medicines from the dispensary. All residents of town are being advised to use only boiled or chlorinated water and use ORS.
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Shimla, January 2
Kangra, February 2