Shimla, July 20
The Himachal Government has ordered a probe into all land and property transactions that have taken place on the basis of the General Power of Attorney (GPA) with instances of hotel projects having been converted into commercial flats for sale at several places like Kasauli, Manali, Dharamsala, Mashobra, Solan and Manali.

The Revenue Department has asked all Deputy Commissioners in the state to identify such property transactions where hotels or apartments have come up in the name of Himachalis, but the investment has been made by outsiders.

The transactions that have taken place on the basis of the GPA will also come under government scanner to ascertain that they are not benami deals that have been made in violation of Section 118 of the Tenancy and land Reform Act.

During the past five years, a total of 19,440 sale transactions have taken place on GPA and in 1,796 cases, vendees are outsiders.

“We have directed the Deputy Commissioners to ascertain the credentials of people who own these hotels or apartments in their name so that it can be verified whether it is their own genuine property or the investment has been made by someone from outside the state,” said Kaul Singh Thakur, Revenue and Health Minister.

He said there were complaints that many hotel projects had been converted into real estate ventures and being sold as apartments.

“The source of income of the owner, income tax returns and the finance for the projects will be verified,” he said.

Since Section 118 of the Tenancy and Land Reform Act prohibits non-agriculturist Himachalis from buying land in the state, many real estate and hotel projects have come up in the name of local residents while the investment is made by realtors.

Many towns of the state, especially Kasauli, Manali, Solan, Mashobra-Naldehra-Fagu and Dharamsala, have seen a spurt in construction activities, including hotel projects.

With most of these places being popular tourist destinations, the value of land is high and real estate business very profitable.

In fact, the DP Sood Committee, set up by the previous BJP regime to look into all benami land transactions in the state, had pointed out the need for strict enforcement of the Himachal Pradesh Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 2005.

The report of the committee had recommended that there should be strict implementation of the Town and Country Planning Act and the HP Apartment and Property Regulation Act to ensure that no benami deals take place.

Sale deeds executed through GPA - 19,440

Una 4,493
Kangra 3,946
Solan 3,579
Mandi 2,039
Kullu 1,298
Shimla 1,352
Sirmour 1351
Hamirpur 965
Chamba 215
Bilaspur 147
Kinnaur 44
Lahaul-Spiti 11

Hamirpur, July 20
The incessant rain in Hamirpur district has caused extensive damage and claimed one life last night.

Sunita Devi (35) lost her life as a major portion of her house was washed away in slush after a heavy landslide at Makswal village (Khanoli panchayat) in the Jangal Beri area of Sujanpur tehsil.

As per information, the woman had come to stay with her parents a few days ago and was supposed to return to her in-laws’ house.

The house was completely destroyed and her body was also washed away and later found 150 m down.

SDM, Hamirpur, Satish Sharma after visiting the village said, “Sunita Devi died as her house was destroyed in the landslide and two other houses were also damaged. We are trying to evacuate residents from the village who are living in houses that are declared unsafe.”

He has also given an immediate relief of Rs 10,000 to the deceased's family and Rs 5,000 each to those residents whose houses have been damaged.

The administration also pressed into service a pump and a JCB to pump out the water accumulated in the Doli ward of Sujanapur town.

PALAMPUR: The entire Palampur region experienced heavy rain in the past 40 hours disrupting normal life. The Beas and its tributaries are in spate.

Residents residing near the river have been advised by the District Magistrate to stay away from the river as the level of water can go up any moment because
of the downpour in its catchment areas.

Power supply, telecommunication and passenger transport have also been adversely hit. Vehicular traffic on various kacha routes have come to a standstill following landslides. Most of the roads in Chhota Bhangal have been closed for traffic.

The drinking water supply in upper parts of Palampur was also disrupted. Bundla and adjoining villages remained without water.

The Public Works Department has made adequate arrangements to deal with the situation. The department has already cancelled the leaves of its field staff.

MANDI: As many as 10 houses were washed away in Satrehar and Mathi Bhanvar villages in Dharampur, while five gharats and a footbridge on the Shawag-Bheen road were washed in two incidents of flash flood due to cloudbursts in the district today.

The victims said the nearby nullah surged and washed away 10 houses in the wee hours today as it was raining heavily last night.

They evacuated their houses in time, which saved them and their livestock. The rescue team under ADC, Mandi, Gopal Chand and SDM, Sarkaghat, today visited the spot and shifted the flood victims to the local government school and provided them an immediate relief of Rs 25,000 each.

Residents said there was a cloudburst in the higher reaches around midnight in Barot. They were sleeping when the nearby Nazar nullah surged and inundated the cultivable land and washed away the bridge on the 9-km-long Barot-Neot-Bheen road, disconnecting other areas from Barot.

NAHAN: Two persons were injured and property worth lakhs destroyed in a cloudburst that led to huge water and slush flowing down a hillock in the Vankala-Shambuwala panchayat at Dosarka on the Nahan-Paonta Sahib National Highway last night.

The torrential rains which struck the highway for over eight hours since last night damaged a check post of a marketing committee and a police post at Dosarkha. Traffic on the NH-72 remained suspended since 2 am last night to 3 pm today.

Marketing Committee member Inder Singh and ASI Parkash Chand, who was on night duty at Dosarka, were injured when a sudden gush of slush flowed into the marketing committee office.

SDM, Nahan, Jyoti Rana, who visited the cloudburst-affected areas in the Paonta Sahib sub-division, said as many as 35 houses in the Vankala-Sambhuwala panchayat were damaged.

According to the initial estimates, about 93 kuccha houses, 43 roads and three cowsheds have been destroyed while six bighas of cultivable land have been washed away in the torrential rains that lashed Sirmaur district since last night.

The administration has pegged the losses incurred by the PWD at Rs 1.94 crore till now while losses suffered by the Electricity Department and other departments were yet to be estimated. The district received as much as 568.20 mm of rain in the past 24 hours.

Local MLA Rajeev Bindal, who visited the affected areas, urged the Chief Minister to extend the relief work to the affected families.

Manmohan Sharma, ADM, Nahan, also visited the affected areas.

Shimla, July 20
In a significant development, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today withdrew the criminal defamation filed by him against former Congress minister Vijai Singh Mankotia in the audio CD case in which the former has already got a clean chit from the court.

It was following the statement made by Mankotia before the court today that the counsel of the Chief Minister did not press for further pursuance of the defamation case filed in August 2007.

Virbhadra and his wife had been given a clean chit in the CD case by the court on December 24 last, a day before he assumed the office of the Chief Minister for the sixth time.

Mankotia, in his statement before the court, said the press conference he had held in Dharamsala on May 28, 2007, where he had made allegations against the Chief Minister and his wife was bona fide and he had not intended to harm the reputation of Virbhadra and his wife, Pratibha Singh, who is at present the MP from the Mandi Lok Sabha seat.

He further said if his act had harmed and defamed Virbhadra, he regretted the same.

The withdrawal of the case comes at a time when there is speculation that Mankotia’s name was being considered for being appointed as Chairman of the Tourism Advisory Board.

Virbhadra and Mankotia had buried the hatchet before the Assembly elections in December 2012 and he had also been fielded from Shahpur on the Congress ticket, which he lost.

He was suspended from the Congress after he had released the CD in May 2007 in Dharamsala, just before the bypoll to the Hamirpur Lok Sabha constituency. Virbhadra had accused Mankotia of releasing the CD to help the BJP.

Following his expulsion from the Congress, Mankotia had joined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and contested the election unsuccessfully.

Sundernagar, July 20
A Consumer Forum Bench of Mandi, headed by JN Yadav, has directed Oriental Insurance to pay Rs 8 lakh with 9 per cent interest, Rs 5,000 as compensation and Rs 3,000 as the cost of complaint to Pawan Kumar of Handkali village, Sarkaghat, whose flour mill was damaged in fire in 2009.

The complainant had taken a loan of Rs 8 lakh from Himachal Gramin Bank and, after purchasing the machinery and furniture, started a flour mill which was insured with the company. On June 4, 2009, a fire damaged the mill and the company was informed about it. The claim was not settled, so the case was filed in the forum and it ordered to the company to settle the claim within 30 days. But the company rejected the claim so the complainant again filed a case. The company stated that the claim was manipulated.

The forum also discussed the reports of revenue officer and president of the gram panchayat who visited the spot and the loss was assessed between Rs 11 lakh and Rs 13 lakh. The forum then directed the company party to pay the compensation.

Shimla, July 20
Member of Parliament (MP) Pratibha Singh called on Union Water Resources Minister Harish Rawat in New Delhi today and sought the release of a one-time grant of Rs 62.42 crore for the state towards the payment due from the Punjab Government for the Shah Nehar Major Irrigation Project.

She said the Planning Commission had agreed to provide a one-time grant of Rs 62.42 crore towards the payment due from Punjab during the state annual plan for 2012-13. She said a complete case for the release of this amount had also been processed by the Central Water Commission and forwarded to the Ministry of Water Resources.

She requested the Centre to sanction 44 projects under the Minor Irrigation Scheme in the state. She said the state government had submitted 44 surface water-based minor irrigation schemes for inclusion under the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP) for 2013-14 and 2014-15.

Shimla, July 20
Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) will soon launch the second phase of the Rs 62-lakh campus networking project, which will help provide quick and reliable information to all the teaching departments and provide Internet facility in the hostels.

Addressing a press conference here today, Prof ADN Bajpai, Vice-Chancellor, HPU, said the executive council on July 12 had decided to implement the Campus Wide Optical Network, Phase II, under the National Mission on Education. He said the projects had been financed through the Information Communication Technology (ICT), Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), New Delhi.

Professor Bajpai said of the total cost of Rs 62 lakh, Rs 46 lakh was being provided by the MHRD and Rs 16 lakh cost would be borne by the HPU. "We have already released the HPU share of Rs 16 lakh to the BSNL authorities for executing the project," he said. He said the project would be completed within the next six to eight months as per the terms and conditions.

He said the project would help provide Internet access in the common rooms of all the hostels. He added that the new buildings of Management Studies, University Institute of Information Technology, Department of Biotechnology, Controller of Examination and University Faculty House would be covered under this project.

Professor Bajpai also said Oscar Fernandes, Union Minister for Surface Transport, would be the chief guest at the inaugural function (July 22) of the three-day foundation day celebrations of the HPU and Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh the chief guest on the concluding day (July 24). 

Shimla, July 20
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has extended felicitations of Ramzan to people of the state, especially the Muslim brethren.

He was speaking at an Iftar party organised here last evening. He said the Muslims were the largest minority community in the state, where people belonging to different religions lived in harmony.

Khwaja Khalil Ullah, former Chairman of the State Waqf Board, welcomed the Chief Minister. He urged the Chief Minister to give directions to the authorities concerned to make arrangements for lodging of Haj pilgrims at Himachal Bhawan or Himachal Sadan in New Delhi for two to three days.

Mahboob Khan, Director, Minority Finance Development Corporation, Sikandar, Mushtaq Quaraishi and Murad Khan also spoke on the occasion.

Mandi, July 20
The District Consumer Grievances Redressal Forum, Mandi, yesterday awarded Rs 20,000 compensation to Sanjiv Kumar, a local resident, and directed the erring company to pay Rs 4,000 as compensation on account of mental torture and Rs 2,000 as the cost of litigation to the complainant.

The compensation is to be paid within 15 days.

The complainant had pleaded that he had bought an orange squash from the Monmohiks for Rs 90 and found a dead fly in it. He made several pleas to the company and distributors and sellers, but to no avail and then moved the forum.

The forum found the complaint true and valid and imposed the fine on the company.

Bilaspur, July 20
Nand Lal, a private bus transporter and resident of Changar sector here, has alleged an attempt on his life by a speeding government vehicle when he was returning from his morning walk near the Government Boys Senior Secondary School at Raura sector here today.

Nand Lal has given a memorandum to Superintendent of Police Kapil Sharma today giving details of the incident saying had he not jumped across a roadside drain, he would have fallen a victim of this vehicle in which a woman officer was sitting.

Giving the name of this officer, Nand Lal said even earlier he had been receiving threats on the phone and he had apprised the earlier SP here. But he had taken no action till now.

Nand Lal, who is brother-in-law of Parshuram awardee athletics coach late Kamlesh Thakur, has been pursuing all cases of Kamlesh after her “accidental death” a few months ago.

Nand Lal gave the identity of the vehicle and also named a sports officer of Shimla and an officer and two coaches of Bilaspur and a “tantric” who all had collaborated to prove that Kamlesh was responsible for making a girl ill due to her “jadu tona”.

Kamlesh had filed cases in courts and complained to the higher authorities to get herself cleared of this stigma.

But the state Sports Department had transferred Kamlesh to Una and one day she was crushed under a truck while driving her scooter. Now Nand Lal, who is looking after Kamlesh's 15-year-old daughter, is pursuing all the cases she had lodged.

Nurpur, July 20
The Fatehpur police in Jawali sub-division registered a dowry and abetment to suicide case against Daljeet Singh of Tutwan Sihal last evening. Naresh Kumari (32) reportedly consumed some poisonous substance on Thursday evening at her in-laws’ house. She was rushed to the CHC, Fatehpur, from where she was referred to the Tanda Medical College, but died on the way.

Jawali DSP DC Verma said the deceased’s father Sahib Singh in his complaint alleged that Daljeet had been torturing his daughter. A case under had been registered against the accused.