Mandi/Sangla, June 17
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has been stranded at Sangla in Kinnaur district due to incessant rain for the past 48 hours which has snapped road and air connectivity and electricity to the tribal district.

Though the Chief Minister has been in the Sangla valley since yesterday, he addressed public meetings in Kinnaur district in support of Congress candidate Pratibha Singh.

He said the Local Area Development fund were not utilised and distributed properly among the project-affected people by the previous BJP government. The government would probe the matter and punish the guilty.

Virbhadra said the environmental issues in Kinnaur were not addressed and were partly responsible for the landslides and road blockades. No project would be allowed to play with local interests and ecology, he asserted.

Virbhadra was accompanied by Deputy Speaker and Kinnaur MLA Jagat Negi, Gangu Ram Musafir and other leaders. They had been with him at Sangla for the last 48 hours without electricity in the guest house run by the electricity board.

Virbhadra had campaigned in tribal Kinnaur district and was to fly in a helicopter to campaign at Pangi in Bharmour and Keylong in the Lahaul-Spiti constituency today.

The roads are blocked as the Sutlej has surged due to incessant rain in Kinnaur district, blocking Sangla-Karcham, Recong Peo-Tapri and Rampur national highways at several places.

"Chitkul village, the last village in Sangla, recorded 18 inch of snow. Puh and other places also experienced snow. All roads are blocked and there is no electricity here since yesterday evening as it has been raining for the past 48 hours", said Punia Negi, Congress worker.

The Chief Minister was expected to land in Kullu from Sangla today. He was to address a public meeting in Darang on June 19 at the last leg of campaigning, said party sources. Officials said the JCBs were on the job to clear the approach road to the helipad at Sangla.

Party in charge for Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti Harsh Mahajan claimed that Virbhadra was meeting people there and monitoring the relief operations.

Meanwhile, party workers are raising questions from the tour planners of the Chief Minister, saying that they ignored the "unpredictable localised weather" of Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti despite the MET office warning on rain and thundershowers till June 19. 

Shimla, June 17
Two companies of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have started from Bathinda for rescue and relief operation in the snow and rain-ravaged tribal Kinnaur district.

Chief Secretary Sudripta Roy, who has been in touch with with Union Home Secretary RK Singh, said the companies would reach Kinnaur by tomorrow morning.

The NDRF will also arrange helicopters keeping in view the numerous blockades due to landslides. Rs 10 crore had been released to provide immediate relief and rescue operations.

He said incessant rain had hampered rescue and relief work and efforts would be made to evacuate the stranded people, mainly tourists, tomorrow.

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh had to stay put at Sangla as his chopper could not fly due to rain.

About 1,500 tourists, mostly from West Bengal, were stranded at various places. Over 500 of them, including some foreigners, were in the Sangla valley. Some were in Kalpa and Reckong Peo and several others were on trekking expeditions. Efforts would be made to evacuated them.

He said RK Singh had also convened a meeting late this evening to take stock of the situation and provide assistance to the state to cope with the natural calamity.

Governor Urmila Singh and Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh have expressed grief over the death of people who were buried in landslides.

The Chief Minister has directed the administration to take quick action to deal with the situation and provide immediate relief to the affected. He has also urged the Centre to send a team to assess the losses due to the heavy rain.

Mandi/Kullu, June 17
The state Congress yesterday dared BJP candidate Jai Ram Thakur to test his popularity in his home segment of Seraj as he was pushed by certain ambitious BJP leaders into the contest.

Party in charge for Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti and vice-president Harsh Mahajan claimed that the Chief Minister was campaigning because he was the star campaigner and did not need Jai Ram’s advice to test his popularity as he had been the Chief Minister for the sixth time.

Mahajan stated that the BJP had pushed Jai Ram into the fray due to its mutual bickering.

National vice-president Shanta Kumar, former MP Maheshwar Singh, Dr Radha Raman Shastri (Chopal), Khushi Ram Balnatta(Rohru), Roop Singh Thakur (Sundarnagar) and several others had been ignored and the party was ruled by Leader of the Opposition PK Dhumal and his son, BJYM chief Anurag Thakur, he claimed.

The response that the Congress had been getting from people showed that Congress candidate Pratibha Singh was far ahead of the BJP candidate and now, it was a question of margin of votes, he claimed.

Taking the Congress head-on, Jai Ram claimed it was the good work he had done in Seraj that he had been elected as its legislator for the fourth time in the last Assembly elections. “I will come up to my reputation in the bypoll as well,” he asserted.

Bilaspur, June 17
The BJP has taken the Congress government to task for misleading and deceiving the masses in the Assembly elections to grab their votes.

BJP district spokesman Shashi Sharma said here today that a meeting of the district BJP took stock of the functioning of the Congress government and found that the party had deceived people to get votes, but did not fulfil any promise which it had made before the elections.

The meeting reminded the government that it had promised all benefits to employees and pensioners of the state on the Punjab pattern and also allowance to all unemployed youth, but not a single benefit had been given to them.

All development works had been stopped in the state and corruption and favouritism had become the order of the day. The poor were suffering as several essential items were missing from ration shops.

It was decided at the meeting that leaders and activists should sensitise people of the Congress mismanagement to ensure the victory of BJP candidate Jai Ram Thakur.

Mandi, June 17
Prism party candidate and RTI activist Lawan Thakur today claimed that the video CD allegedly carrying video clips of a senior Congress leader with a woman was dropped at his residence-cum-office by some unknown person and CID team should catch the culprit rather than intimidating him.

Addressing a press conference here, Thakur said he was being targeted at the behest of some Congress leaders as he was contesting the Mandi bypoll.

"The CID team should catch the alleged doctor as reported in some newspapers rather than harassing him by taking his hard computer disk and a laptop of his client", he said.

He was accompanied by party office-bearers and showed the video CD to the mediapersons. He said he was not aware about who made it or who dropped it here, but the CID should catch the culprit.

The CID team had raided Thakur's premises yesterday and seized the computer hard disk and two CDs and a laptop.

Shimla, June 17
Industries Minister Mukesh Agnihotri and Chairman, State-level Planning Development and 20-Point Programme Committee, Ram Lal Thakur lambasted BJP leaders for making unnecessary hue and cry over the age limit and period of skill development allowance to be provided to youth in the state.

In a joint press statement here on Friday, the two leaders said the Rs 500-crore Skill Development Scheme launched by the government was aimed at providing better employment and self-employment avenues with dignity to the youth.

They said Rs 100 crore would be spent under the scheme during the current year and eligible youth would be getting Rs 1,000 per month as skill development allowance whereas youth with disabilities would get Rs 1,500 per month. A provision of interest subvention of 4 per cent up to project cost of Rs 1.50 lakh had also been made under the scheme.

Agnihotri and Ram Lal said over 5,000 posts of various categories were being filled during the year that included 2,000 posts of teacher, 500 each of computer operator, water guard and patwari, 250 of junior engineer, 200 of doctor, 205 of forest guard and 100 of nurse.

The Congress government had enhanced the social security pension from Rs 450 to Rs 500 and all 10,900 pending pension cases had been cleared. Financial assistance to the poor for building house had been increased from Rs 48,500 to Rs. 75,000 and free travelling facility was being provided to all students of government schools.

Shimla, June 17
Paonta Sahib in Sirmour district recorded 405mm of rainfall during the last 24 hours, the highest in a day in June. The previous highest 24-hour rainfall of 98mm for a month was recorded on June 13, 1980.

Kalpa in the tribal Kinnaur had 202mm of rain in a day which was also the highest in June. The previous high of 73mm was recorded on June 12, 1998. Chitkul, Pooh, Labrang and some other areas in the district had freak snow.

In charge of the local met office Manmohan Singh said the widespread rain over the past one week had brought down temperature, and monsoon easterlies coupled with a western disturbance had created unusual conditions resulting in snow.

Minimum temperature in Kalpa dipped to 2° C, almost 8° C below normal and maximum to 9.2° C, 13° C below normal. Keylong had a minimum of 7.3° C and maximum of 20° C. Southwest monsoon was vigorous over the past 24 hours and the cumulative rainfall from June 1 to 17 reached 151.2mm, which was 293% more than normal.

All the districts have recorded excess rainfall during the period with Kinnaur (270mm) and Sirmaur (381mm), which was 1,229% and 798% more than normal, respectively. Una district received 175mm, which exceeded the normal by 606%.

Shimla, June 17
Vikramaditya, son of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, has been unanimously elected president of the Himachal Pradesh State Softball Association.

Kulbir Singh Chauhan, vice-president, All-India Soft Ball Federation, said the election of the state body was held under national observers' supervision.

LR Sharma has been unanimously elected senior vice-president, Chuni Lal Chauhan, Santosh Chauhan, Pawan Chauhan and Ravinder Rathore vice-presidents, Surat Singh Kalet general secretary, Saurav Malhotra and Priyanka Pandit joint secretaries, Rohit Panta treasurer, Madan Bhardwaj coordinator, Harsh Wardhan press and media coordinator and Keshav Chauhan event advisor of the state association.

He said the National Softball Youth Training Camp was also being organised at Marog in Chopal from June 16 to 24, 2013, wherein 40 players from across the country were participating and 17 players of them would be selected for the Asiad Championship which would be held in Bangkok. 

Hamirpur, June 17
The disbursement of salaries to government employees for March this year on the last day of the month has brought thousands in the upper bracket of the income tax range.

The Income Tax Department has calculated this salary as one additional salary in a financial year and asked all District Treasury Officers (DTOs) to direct all employees to file their returns for 13-month salaries as they had received one extra salary this year.

There is a practice to pay salary to government employees after the completion of the month on the first day of the following month.

But the Finance Department this year disbursed salaries to the state government employees for March on March 31 reportedly to include this month's salary bill in the expenditure of the last financial year.

The technical inclusion of one month's extra salary in the income of thousands of employees, who otherwise were in the tax exemption range, have brought them in the income tax range and they will have to pay the income tax.

Similarly, many of them have come in the upper slab of the income tax.

The employees said technically they had received 13 salaries last year but, in fact, they had received 12 salaries in a year and thus should not be made to pay income tax on this salary.

They said their income should be calculated from March 1 to February 28.

However, I-T department official's said the financial year for filing tax returns is from April 1 to March 31 and if they had received 13 salaries during this period, then they were liable to pay tax on actual money received during the period.

The DTOs said it was a technical issue which the state government would have to settle.

Finance Secretary Srikant Baldy said they had to pay tax. But their was a provision in the I-T Act under which the employees could apply for a refund.

Shimla, June 17
The Himachal Pradesh High Court today directed the Union Ministry of Agriculture, the Forest and Rural Development and the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) to file replies on the action plan submitted by the Wildlife Department of the state government.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice AM Khanvilakr and Justice Kuldeep Singh passed this order after perusing the plan submitted by the state government to tackle the menace of wildlife animals and monkeys. The court passed this order on a bunch of petitions filed in this regard.

During the course of hearing, the state government submitted a five-year plan to tackle the monkey menace under the Human Monkey Conflict. It said killing or sterilisation of the animals was not a permanent solution to this problem. Therefore, the state government would plant 10 lakh fruit-bearing trees, plants and shrubs over 10,000 hectares, which would arrange food for wild animals and monkeys in their natural habitation.

The counsel for the state government contended that funds for the implementation of the scheme would be generated from CAMPA and other Central schemes for compulsory forestation. It said it had identified the areas affected with the wild animal problem and also the land for plantation.

Solan, June 17
Reacting to a news item highlighting the plight of residents of villages in Parwanoo, State Pollution Control Board officials have issued power disconnection orders on Pronto Industries for causing air pollution in the area.

Confirming the development, Deepak Aggarwal, Regional Officer, Parwanoo office of the board, said since the unit's reply to its notice had been found unsatisfactory, they had recommended to the head office to order power disconnection.

These orders have been issued keeping in view the public outcry on air pollution allegedly by Pronto Industries.

Residents of surroundings villages, including Dhagger, Taksal and Dangiar, had been suffering on account of the unit's lax approach to control air pollution.

The unit had been served notices time and again to ensure that smoke was not let out early morning and in the evenings when people went out for walks. A short-time notice was also served to the unit directing it to furnish a reply. Only now a case for disconnection of its power was made to the board's head office in Shimla.

Though the unit is located near the SPCB office in Sector 4, its pollution has remained unchecked.

JS Rana, Executive Engineer, HPSEBL, has confirmed that they have disconnected the power connection of Pronto Industries soon after receipt of the directions from the Pollution Control Board today.

Palampur, June 17
The government has decided to reopen the office of Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) at Baijnath which was closed by the previous BJP government in 2008.

Addressing mediapersons here today, Sudheer Sharma, Urban Development Minister, said the office would be functional from tomorrow. The government had also ordered the posting of new DSP at Baijnath. He said he had made a commitment to the residents of Baijnath for the restoration of this office and it had now been fulfilled.

The minister said despite the fact that the Congress government had constructed a new office and a residence of the SDP at Baijnath, even then Prem Kumar Dhumal had closed this office. He said he would inaugurate the new office tomorrow.

Meanwhile Kishori Lal, Congress MLA from Baijnath, thanked the Chief Minister and Sudheer Sharma for taking interest in the reopening of this office. He said in the absence of the office, the public was facing a lot of hardships as they had to go to Palampur for the redressal of petty complaints. 

Shimla, June 17
Concerned over the increasing confusion among students over the new choice-based credit-based system (CBCBS) being introduced from the coming academic session, the Education Department has directed all college principals to conduct counselling to enable students to make the right options and take advantage of the opportunities the new system has offered.

The issue was discussed at a meeting in which the Director of Education and other senior officers, Deans and senior professors of Himachal Pradesh University and principals of degree colleges took part. It was decided that counselling would be carried out in all colleges to enlighten the students about the CBCBS, being implemented under the Rashtriya Uchchttar Shiksha Abhiyan.

It offers a vast scope for the students to opt for subjects across the traditional streams of medical, non-medical, humanities and commerce. For instance, a student going for physics can opt for music or psychology as an elective subject.

While the students are free to undertake optional subjects, they will have to obtain a minimum 120 credits to qualify for the three-year degree course, spread over six semesters. A minimum of 56 credits have been prescribed for the major subject, 40 credits for elective subjects, nine credits for compulsory subjects and one credit for hobby or general interests.

For the remaining 14 credits, the students can opt for subjects of his choice in the institutions. They can even opt for two core subjects and earn up to 144 credits by taking additional subjects.

The students will be admitted on the basis of merit and they will be asked to make three preferences for main subjects.

The major subject once identified will not be changed unless a student quits a programme and joins a new programme. A student will not be allowed more than three attempts to pass a course.

Chamba, June 17
Three persons were booked at the Chamba police station for waylaying, abusing, thrashing and intimidating Rajat, a tourist of Amritsar, and his family near Saroo last evening, Superintendent of Police BM Sharma said here today.

The SP revealed that Rajat had come to the Dalhousie-Chamba tourist circuit for an excursion, along with his family, and after visiting Chamba town, he was on his way back to Dalhousie.

As soon as Rajat reached near Saroo, three persons, who were travelling a private car, overtook his car and abused him and beat him up

A case under various sections of the Indian Penal Code had been registered at Chamba police station. Further investigation in the incident was going on, the SP said.