Shimla, August 12
Cutting short the 16-day monsoon session of the Assembly on the fifth day, Speaker BBL Butail was today adjourned the House sine die as there seemed to be no solution to the current impasse with BJP legislators deciding to boycott Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh.

Repeated pleas by the Speaker urging the treasury benches not to press for sine die adjournment were rejected by the Congress. Notwithstanding a strong protest by the BJP and the Speakers’ insistence, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh stood his ground on adjournment and said there was no business left to be taken up and as of now the government was not ready with the Bills like the Lokayukta.

Seeing the Congress unwilling to relent, an agitated Dhumal went to the extent of saying that the government was afraid to face the House. “If you cannot face the House, then why not recommend its dissolution and let there be fresh elections,” he remarked.

The Speaker said he could give his ruling for adjourning the House sine die right away and would have to consult the rule books before giving his decision tomorrow. However, Virbhadra insisted that he decide the matter right away. Giving his ruling after lunch, he cited that the House had been adjourned sine die under Rule 20.

With the Speaker convening an all-party meeting to seek MLAs cooperation to run the House smoothly in the morning, the BJP decided to participate in Question Hour. However, the hopes of the deadlock being broken proved to be too shortlived as BJP legislators in a change of strategy chose to boycott the Chief Minister and not ask him questions despite being present in the House.

Enraged by the strategy of Opposition members to boycott the CM, the Congress hit back with Minister for Power and Agriculture Sujan Singh Pathania taking everyone by surprise when he chose to remain mum to a question raised by Vinod Kumar of the BJP. Despite the Speaker calling out his name thrice, he sat quietly and later just left the House without uttering a word, leaving everyone baffled.

Taken by complete surprise, Opposition members were on their toes accusing the government of not being keen to run the House. “We have heard of the Opposition staging a walk out but never seen ministers walk out, which makes it evident that the ruling members do not want to run the House,” said PK Dhumal. BJP legislators, including Ravinder Ravi, Suresh Bhardwaj, Rajiv Bindal, Satpal Satti and Randhir Sharma, had heated exchanges with the treasury benches.

The Speaker continued with Question Hour even BJP members resorted to slogan raising while Virbhadra was replying to the question to which Pathania had to reply. The situation aggravated further when Rural Development Minister Anil Sharma also chose to absent himself from the House when a question by Bikram Singh (BJP) was taken up.

As the Chief Minister rose to answer the question, Opposition members were on their feet protesting the behaviour of the ruling party. “If the minister is not present in the House, the Chief Minister can give the reply and nobody should have a problem with this,” said Virbhadra.

He added that the boycott of the Leader of the House was against democratic norms and the BJP could not have its way. He even said the BJP legislators come here only to claim travelling and daily allowance but do not participate in the proceedings.

Despite Question Hour being taken up amid several disruptions and heated exchanges, it was the Chief Minister’s reply to the call attention motion moved by Rajiv Bindal (BJP) under Rule 62 which precipitated the situation. The moment the CM rose to reply, BJP members left the House.

“Dhumal is using the party as a fodder to serve his own ends and what is even more unfortunate is that he is even politicising a natural calamity,” remarked an infuriated Virbhadra. Immediately after this, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Agnihotri urged the Speaker to adjourn the House sine die following the attitude of the Opposition and the fact that the government had no business left to be taken up.

The moment the Congress moved a resolution for adjournment of the House, BJP members entered the House and objected to the move. “We are keen that the House runs smoothly and it is the prerogative of the MLAs not to ask questions from the CM but there is no justification for adjourning the House,” they insisted.

Finally, the House was adjourned sine die amid protests by BJP legislators.

Shimla, August 12
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said the government would not be cowed by pressure tactics being adopted by the BJP in the Assembly.

“It is unfortunate that the entire BJP legislature party is dancing to the tune of Leader of the Opposition PK Dhumal, who is facing the heat of Vigilance inquiries and wants to divert the attention of the people from these cases,” he said.

“I am not hurt by such foolish acts of the Opposition but such unruly and indecent behaviour is unacceptable and against democratic norms,” he said. It appeared that Dhumal was frustrated and was using the entire party to act as per his wishes, added Virbhadra.

He said the government would decide in due course of time whether to convene a special session before the budget session or complete the mandatory 35 sittings during the winter session.

The Chief Minister said the Congress was ready for discussion as it did not fear anything, but the Opposition could not cross all limits of decency. “Nobody, including us, has the right to raise and discuss matters which are pending in a court and we have desisted from doing so though in two cases the Vigilance has readied the challan against Dhumal and his son,” he said.

He said nobody could pass a judgment on the cases pending in a court when the final verdict was yet to come. “I have never indulged in mudslinging and expect others to do the same so nobody should insist on raising sub judice matters,” he said.

The Chief Minister lamented that such acrimonious exchanges between the ruling party and the Opposition were even harming the friendly relations that legislators across party lines always had. “There is no question of the government expediting or slowing the pace of investigation in the ongoing cases faced by Dhumal or other BJP leaders as investigating agencies would take their own time,” he remarked.

Shimla, August 12
Piqued over the decision of the government to adjourn the Assembly sine die prematurely, the BJP today decided to approach Governor Urmila Singh tomorrow and seek dissolution of the Assembly for the protection of democratic rights of the members of the Opposition.

The BJP legislature party, which met soon after the House was adjourned sine die with 11 more sittings to go, took exception to the unprecedented move by the ruling party and said that it was an infringement of democratic rights of the members.

“If the government is so scared of discussing the issue that it has adjourned the House, it should dissolve the Assembly to facilitate fresh elections,” said PK Dhumal.

Dhumal alleged that the government was bent on muzzling the voice of the Opposition and was functioning in an undemocratic manner. He said protest was a democratic right of the Opposition and even Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi entered the well of the House in the Lok Sabha to lodge his protest.

The BJP wanted to discuss all issues and smooth running of the House, but the ruling party was bent upon forcing confrontation, he said.

Shimla, August 12
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said the issue of removing the accident-prone black spots on various roads would be taken up with the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and the state too would try to improve the road condition as every life lost in accidents is precious.

Replying to a query raised by ID Dhiman, Mahender Singh, Ravinder Ravi, Satpal Satti and Maheshwar Singh raised during Question Hour, he said all possible steps would be taken to improve the road condition, especially the 314 black spots.

He informed the House that between January 2013 and July 2014, 1,149 road accidents had taken place in which 562 people had lost their lives and 2,567 had been injured. He said several steps had been taken to improve the road condition and also undertake awareness campaign and intensify police patrolling and check drunken and negligent driving.

Maheshwar Singh pointed out that there had been a rise in the bus accidents as the earlier system of having two drivers work in shift on long routes had been abandoned due to shortage of drivers. Transport Minister GS Bali said this system of two drivers working in shifts was still adopted on long routes and, moreover, most of the accidents had taken place on short route buses.

Replying to another question by Ravi Thakur on employees posted in tribal areas not getting relieved for 10 to 15 years in absence of a reliever coming, Virbhadra said the government would be strict to ensure that these employees get posted out.

“It is due to political interference that the transfers of employees are cancelled, but in future we will ensure it is not done and despite the ban, we will post these employees from tribal areas for years together,” he said.

In reply to another question raised by Sanjay Rattan, the Chief Minister admitted that the number of permits issued for plying of vehicles on sealed and restricted routes within Shimla was too huge. Rattan had pointed out that the huge number of permits issued to vehicles was causing inconvenience to pedestrians. Virbhadra assured them that the government would be strict and so far 3,379 permits for both sealed and restricted, 250 sealed permits and 4,855 for restricted roads had been issued.

Shimla, August 12
For the first time ever, the Students Central Association (SCA) of Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) has served a show-cause notice on the Vice-Chancellor and sought a reply within a week.

Quoting example of self-financing courses of MBA, MCA and MTA, students asked VC ADN Bajpai to reply on moral grounds as to why the university had not refunded the fee of students when they were not even provided basic facilities such as hostels, labs, library and classrooms.

SCA president Rajan Harta said: “Students made various attempts through memorandums to convey their grievances to the VC and administrative officers throughout the year, but no meeting was convened to sort out the issues. As a result students were forced to raise their voice through protests, rallies and gherao.”

“Every time we raised our voice we were served a show-cause notice by the university and threatened that disciplinary action will be initiated against us,” he said, adding: “We replied to the notices every time.”

SCA secretary Piyush Sewal said: “Even students have the right to express their grievances and question the university if all is not well. If the VC does not reply to the notice in seven days it will imply that the university administration has nothing to say in this regard and students should not be held responsible in case they resort to aggressive protests on the campus in support of their demands.”

They said the tenure of Bajpai as a VC would be remembered for corruption, fee hike and increasing non-subsidised seats without proper faculty and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, SFI activists raised slogans today to protest fee hike and warned the university administration that a hike of even Re 1 was not acceptable to students.

SFI president Suresh Kumar said the government had opened teaching shops in the name of private universities and colleges and now it was hiking the fee of the only government-run university in the state.

Dharamsala, August 12
The state government has turned down the request of CSK Palampur Agriculture University seeking Rs 61 crore to implement its pension scheme smoothly. This means that about 900 employees of the university would not get pension in time.

Sources said the pensioners of the agriculture university have not got pension since March. The employees who have retired since March have not been given any dues.

Ranjeet Singh, comptroller finance of the university, said the university would not be in a position to pay pension regularly to its employees without government support. “In case the government does not pay up, we can pay pension to employees just once in 5 to 6 months. The University does not have sufficient funds,” he added.

The university is an autonomous body. Though it was edstablished by the state government, its employees are not considered as government employees.

The sources here said earlier the university used to have contributory pension. In 1998, the state government allowed the university to implement pension scheme at par with state government employees. However, the officials at that time allowed the scheme to be implemented since 1998. The result of implementing the scheme from retrospective effect was that some employees made meagre payments as contribution to scheme and took lakhs as commutation of pension.

By allowing the implementation of pension scheme at government pattern, the coffers to university went dry very soon. Now the university authorities are seeking help from government to continue their pension scheme. The government initially gave a financial help of about Rs 35 crore to the university. However, even those funds have been exhausted.

The university is now seeking Rs 61 crore from the government to continue the pension scheme. The state, itself facing financial crunch, has declined the request of the university.

The sources here said the worst sufferers in this scenario were class IV employees of the university. The teachers usually get handsome amount as retirement dues. However, the class IV employees require pension to make both ends meet.

Like the CSK Palampur Agriculture University, the pension schemes of other government universities in the state, such as Horticulture University at Nauni and Himachal Pradesh University, are also defunct.

The government had also proposed to draw a scheme under which pensioners of all the government universities of the state could be covered. However, sources said no contributory scheme can provide pension at par with what was being given by state government to its own employees.

The government would have to cap upper limit of pension for beneficiaries of contributory pension to make the schemes work.

Shimla, August 12
The Shimla Municipal Corporation (MC) has sought objections and claims from public on bylaws on the unit area method (UAM) of property tax in the city.

It has given a month’s time to the public to reply.

Exercising its power vested with it under Section 397 of the Himachal Pradesh Municipal Act, 1994, to frame its bylaws on property tax, the MC has kept the Urban Development Department out from it.

Municipal commissioner Amarjeet Singh said: “We have finalised draft bylaws today and have sought public objections and claims in a month’s time.”

After the objections are considered, the MC would implement bylaws that were passed by the House willy-nilly on July 18 and submit the report to the Urban Development Department.

All councillors of the merged areas of the city had boycotted the general House meeting on property tax in protest pleading that new tax should not be imposed in these areas, as it had no civic amenities.

“We have sent back the draft bylaws to the corporation without any change or suggestion after the MC sent us a communication,” said RD Nazeem, director, Urban Development.

The case related to property tax is pending in the High Court, he said, adding that the matter would now come up for hearing on August 14.

Though the MC was to yet collect property tax worth Rs 2 crore in the city on an old pattern, the Shimla Hoteliers’ Association have opposed the hike in tax, while the residents in merged areas have demanded that they be excluded from municipal areas.

“We have taken up the matter with Urban Development Minister Sudhir Sharma and he has agreed that the Municipal Act should be amended so that residents are not burdened with tax,” said Mayor Sanjay Chauhan.

The High Court has asked the MC to finalise bylaws on property tax, prepare the list of defaulters and submit its reply by August 14.

The court had taken suo motto notice of the non-collection of property tax even though the corporation was reeling under fund crunch.

The House had passed the buck on the state government on the proposed tax reforms and other urban local bodies (ULBs) in the state. The tripartite agreement was signed on UAM among the MC, state government and the Centre after the Centre gave funds to the MC under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNURM) as it had paid Rs 50 lakh to an Ahmedabad-based company for UAM survey.

The bill to implement the UAM was passed by the state Assembly in 2011 and the Urban Development Department issued a notification in February, 2012 and amended the Municipal Corporation Act by scrapping the old system of property tax, including 100 sq m exemption in tax.

Shimla, August 12
The Himachal Government Teachers’ Union (HGTU) today served an ultimatum on the Education Department to resolve its burning and pending issues in nine days.

Teachers threatened to sit on a dharna in front of the directorate on August 20 followed by a peaceful march to the Secretariat to hand over a memorandum of their demands to the Chief Minister.

HGTU president Virender Chauhan said if the issue related to the grade pay of the Department of Physical Education (DPE) was not settled by August 19, the DPEs irrespective of their unions would boycott the ongoing tournaments at various levels throughout the state.

HGTU said some categories, especially DPEs, were fighting for the enhanced grade pay and demanded the same pay for all as the nature of work was same. They also demanded that promotions of teachers should go round the year.

Sundernagar, August 12
A five-day-long induction training programme for engineering faculty concluded at Jawahar Lal Nehru Government Engineering College (JNGEC) here.

Prof RL Sharma, Vice-Chancellor, Himachal Pradesh Technical University (HPTU), Hamirpur, was the chief guest on the occasion. Prof BD Choudhary, Professor, IIT, Mandi, was the guest of honour. The programme was attended by about 75 teachers from various engineering colleges of the state.

JNGEC Director Lalit K Awasthi laid stress on the importance of such programmes for new entrants in the field of teaching and learning. He welcomed the participants and expressed his commitment to build JNGEC a brand in imparting technical education in the country and abroad.

Professor Choudhary detailed his experiences as a faculty for more than 35 years and emphasised the need for such training programmes for new faculty in engineering institutions.

Professor Sharma appreciated the efforts made by the JNGEC director and his team for organising the orientation programme.

CS RANA, convener (press & media), JNGEC, said the programme was held with a vision to upgrading the teaching skills of engineering faculty. Lectures on the teaching-learning methodology were delivered by experts from NITs of Hamirpur, Jaipur and Jalandhar, IIT, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla, and HPTU, Hamirpur.

Shimla, August 12
The Himachal Government today appointed Excise and Taxation Commissioner RS Negi as member of the Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission.

Negi, a 1996 batch IAS officer of the Himachal cadre, was due to retire in December 2014. He held several important assignments, including Deputy Commissioner, Sirmaur, and Special Secretary (Education).

He will assume office on August 16 and hold the office till the attainment of 62 years of age.

Palampur, August 12
Reena Devi, a resident of Paror, was washed away in the flooded Neugal yesterday. Her body was recovered two kilometres downstream from the accident site.

The police said Reena Devi (30), along with Tilka Devi and Pinku of the village, were crossing the river at Jajjar village when suddenly the water level increased and swept away the three. Village youths reached on the spot and rescued Pinku and Tilka Devi while failed to locate Reena.

Later villager also informed SDM, Palampur, Bhupinder Attari, who, along with a team of local fire brigade officials, also reached the spot and supervised the relief and rescue operation. A team of the SDM and villagers traced the body of Reena two km away from the accident site.

The SDM said the tragedy occurred because of a sudden increase in the water level of the Neugal river which the victims failed to anticipate. The SDM advised villagers not to go to the riverbed as water level could increase in the Neugal any time because of heavy rain on the Dhauladhars.

The SDM sanctioned ~10,000 to the next kin of the victim. Later in the evening, the body of Reena was handed over to her family members after post-mortem at the local Civil Hospital.

Sulaha MLA Jagjivan Pal expressed shock over the death of Reena. He said he had directed the local authorities to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) for the construction of bridge on the Neugal river at Jajjar where the tragedy occurred.

Nurpur, August 12
Home Guard jawan Sanjiv Kumar (26) of Jachh drowned in a well at Lakhanpur village here yesterday.

He was deputed at the local Fire Station for the past few months. He was trying to extricate the body of a cow that had fallen into the well.

The well owner had intimated the Fire Station authorities about the cow’s felling into the well and a team rushed to the spot. The victim went into the well with the help of a rope, but suddenly he got suffocated due to inadequate oxygen and drowned into it. The Fire Station team immediately informed the police and the administration about the incident.

SDM Ashwani Sood and DSP Manoj Joshi rushed to the spot, along with police personnel.

The body could be fished out after two and a half hours’ operation. Local villagers assisted the police in extricating the bodies. The local administration gave ~10,000 as immediate financial relief to the family of the jawan. The body has been handed over to the family after a postmortem. — OC

Nurpur, August 12
Pankaj Sharma of Sarol (Chamba) was seriously injured when his bike hit a roadside tree at Gahli on the Nurpur-Chamba link road last evening.

Later he succumbed to his injuries at Nurpur Civil Hospital. He was going from Sadwan to Lahru.

DSP Manoj Joshi said the body was handed over to the family after a postmortem today, he added.

Una, August 12
An aged cyclist was killed when a Himachal Road Transport Corporation bus hit him on the Una-Chandigarh road at Chattara village here today. The bus was going from Una to Kalka.

The victim has been identified as Gian Chand of Sasan village. He was rushed to the Una district hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead. A case had been registered against the bus driver, said SP Anupam Sharma, adding that the body handed over to the family after a postmortem.

Shimla, August 12
After successfully hosting the Paragliding Pre-World Cup at Bir-Billing last year, Himachal will now host the Paragliding World Cup-2015.

The event would be organised under the aegis of Paragliding World Cup Association, France.

Urban Development Minister Sudhir Sharma, who is also the Chairman of the Billing Paragliding Association, disclosed this here today.

He said it was for the first time that the world cup was being organised in India.

The world cup would begin from October 24, 2015 and conclude on October 31 at Bir in Kangra district in which world’s 150 top-ranked pilots would participate besides 500 free-flying pilots.

He said the state had been given an opportunity to organise the event by the Paragliding World Cup Association keeping in view the successful organisation of pre-world cup last year, where all arrangements and security norms were of international standards and cash prizes given were the highest ever in the Asian region.

Sudhir Sharma said different activities such as hot ballooning among other things would be organised to add attraction to the contest.

He said live-trekking system would be introduced during the event to ensure safety of pilots and it would also help in fast retrieval and rescue in case of any emergency.

He said elaborate arrangements would be made by the state government and the association for the successful organisation of the event. The takeoff and landing site would be ready by the end of this year and the rest of the infrastructure by March, 2015.

The event would boost sports and tourism activities in the state and international participants, pilots and other visitors would also be able to witness the beauty of the valley, he added.