Dhumal lays stone of Rs 90-cr Kholi project
DHARAMSALA, Jan 24 — The Himachal Chief Minister Mr P.K. Dhumal, today laid the foundation stone of the Rs 90 crore, Kholi hydel project at Salli, in the Shahpur constituency.

Trees felled en masse to clear road
SUNDERNAGAR: In 1998 the largest number of trees — nearly 600 — were felled in Sundernagar subdivision, which includes the assembly segment of Forest Minister Rup Singh Thakur.

Teachers to move NHRC
KANGRA, Jan 24 — More than 1000 teachers of the privately managed Himachal government recognised and aided schools have decided to move the National Human Rights Commission.

Attacks on Christians ‘unfortunate’
UNA, Jan 24 — Mr Suresh Chandel, state BJP President and member of the Lok Sabha from Hamirpur, while addressing a meeting here today.

Snow in Himachal, Kashmir
SHIMLA, Jan 24 — There was moderate to heavy snowfall in the upper areas of Shimla district today, intensifying the cold wave in Himachal Pradesh.

• 100 eucalyptus trees felled
• Plane force lands

Dhumal lays stone of Rs 90-cr Kholi project
Tribune News Service

DHARAMSALA, Jan 24 — The Himachal Chief Minister Mr P.K. Dhumal, today laid the foundation stone of the Rs 90 crore, Kholi hydel project at Salli, in the Shahpur constituency.

Addressing a public meeting in heavy rain and snow, Mr Dhumal said that the 12 MW Kholi project, would bring an annual income of Rs 20 crore to the state apart from providing employment to youths of the area. He assured that his government would make all efforts to harness the identified hydel potential in the state, so that Himachal could become self-reliant at the earliest.

Detailing achievements of his government in short span of nine months, he said that work on the 86 MW Malana hydel project had been started in the private sector, and agreement for the 2051 MW Parbati project had been signed, along with expediting of the work on the 126 MW Larji project.

He announced that work on the 300 MW Chamera hydel project in Chamba was to begin soon and starting of work on the Rampur, Sawara, Kuddu and Gudhil projects was on advanced stages. He also announced that work would soon be taken up on the Neugal hydel project, near Palampur, very soon.

"In order to fulfil aspirations of the people of Kangra, the government will ensure that work on the Vivekananda Medical College and hospital is started soon," he announced. He accused the Congress of trying to divide the people of the state by exploiting the regional sentiments. He reiterated his government's commitment for speedy and overall development of the state.

Speaking on the occasion, the former Chief Minister and MP from Kangra, Mr Shanta Kumar, said that the decision of the central government to raise the hydel thermal ratio to 40:60 would benefit Himachal. He termed the agreement on the 2051 Parbati project as a historic one and said that had the Congress government gone ahead with the project earlier, the government would have started getting income from it.

The Chief Minister also visited the remote Mand-Miani area of the Ganggath constituency yesterday. He announced that reorganisation of the panchayats would be undertaken so that the people living in the area did not face problems. It is because of the Beas river that villages are on both sides of the river, which caused a lot of inconvenience to the people of the area. He stressed that his government would take up the development of the area on priority to solve the problems of the people.

Our Correspondent from Kangra adds: The Chief Minister urged the engineers of the project to complete the work in three years and promised them one month's salary as bonus if they adhered to the deadline of three years.

Mr Dhumal said the Union Government had come out with a national policy on hydel power development which laid emphasis on planning and execution of hydro-power projects in various parts of the country, particularly in Himachal Pradesh.

Mr Dhumal announced that an ayurvedic dispensary would be set up at Drint village, a sarai at Chatri village for labourers and 25-km-stretch of road between Salli and Naddi would be completed.

Earlier the Chief Minister inaugurated the Rs 30 lakh project of primary health centre at Ridikmar village.

Trees felled en masse to clear road
From Mahesh Chander Sharma

SUNDERNAGAR: In 1998 the largest number of trees — nearly 600 — were felled in Sundernagar subdivision, which includes the assembly segment of Forest Minister Rup Singh Thakur. This illicit felling was reported in mid-December, which was done by residents of Paurakothi panchayat to construct the Kateroo — Paurakothi Road, work on which had been stopped as a forested area was involved in the road construction.

On December 14, a group of nearly 400 residents of Paurakothi panchayat, led by the panchayat chief, felled about 600 trees which were coming in the way of the road.

According to eye-witnesses, the residents of 17 villages assembled on the spot and indiscriminately felled these trees, of which about 400 were about 10 to 17 years of age.

Enquiries conducted by this correspondent at Paurakothi, 30 km away from here, showed that residents of this panchayat were annoyed at the stoppage of work on the road, hence they cut these trees themselves and offered to cut trees at three more spots.

According to them, work of the Kateroo-Paurakothi road was started in 1977, since then the department could construct this road only up to a length of 8.5 km due to which residents were facing problems.

Work on the construction had been stopped as there was a demarcated protected forest (Sanora) involving about 659 trees over 1.19 hectares of land. As per the provisions of Forest Conservation Act, no non-forest activity can be done on forest land without the permission of the central government which takes years.

First the case has to be submitted by the executing agency to the D.F.O. who will process the case through the Chief Secretary. The latter has to give a certificate that non-forest land was not available for the construction of road and finally the case will be submitted to the Environment Ministry for sanction.

According to the D.F.O., Sundernagar, the illicit felling was done at Khabri in the Jaidevi Range of the Sundernagar forest division. The forest officials reported the matter to the police the next day. According to him, a loss of Rs 1.10 lakh had been assessed by the department. All these trees had a diameter ranging from 10 to 25 cm. The department booked 90 persons under Sections 32 and 33 of the Indian Forest Act and put in a challan in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Sundernagar, on January 18.

Although the Jaidevi Range Officer reported the matter to the police on December 15, the police took no action.

On visiting the spot on January 20, this correspondent confirmed that no police official visited the spot even a month after the felling.

The area's DSP was not available for comment as he was said out of station. It was confirmed by the police that no one visited the spot and no FIR had been registered. The complaint had, however, been marked to the ASI.

The police has treated this large-scale felling lightly when even cases where a single tree felled are registered by the police. Both the elected representatives of Sundernagar Sub Division (MLA of Nachan Tek Chand Dogra (Cong) and Sh Rup Singh, Forest Minister who represent Sundernagar assembly segment) were not interested in the registration of case by the police as the president of Paurakothi panchayat which falls under Nachan Assembly seat is stated to be a Congress MLA. It was desired by the elected representatives of both the political parties that the case should not be registered so the police obliged them by not registering the case.

All this occurred due to lengthy procedure of getting clearance for roads from the central government.

Since the case has not been registered, the residents of this panchayat say that they would fell all trees which came in the way of the road.

There is also a need to create a cell in the PWD which can speed up clearance from the Centre so that such offences can be avoided in future.

Demand to dissolve nagar panchayat
From Our Correspondent

MANALI, Jan 24 — Representatives of various villages have demanded the dissolution of the Manali Nagar Panchayat.

A delegation of panchayat pradhans, members of the panchayat samiti, Mr Bishan Dass Warpa, a former president of the Manali Nagar Panchayat, and activists of the ruling BJP met Mr Maheshwar Singh, MP, and urged him to ask the Chief Minister to dissolve the nagar panchayat.

The delegation said the post of the president of the nagar panchayat had been lying vacant since October 25, 1997, when Mr Warpa had to resign following a no-confidence motion brought against him. The post is reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. There is no Scheduled Tribes member except the former president who could hold the post.

On December 27, 1997, Mr Gautam Nath Thakur was elected vice-president of the seven-member nagar panchayat. So far, no election has been held for the post of president in the absence of any other Schedule Tribes member.

It is learnt that the pradhans of village panchayats around Manali took serious note of the disbursement of funds for development through the nagar panchayat.

Teachers to move NHRC
From Our Correspondent

KANGRA, Jan 24 — More than 1000 teachers of the privately managed Himachal government recognised and aided schools have decided to move the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). As the Himachal government had failed to provide them with 95 per cent grants for salaries for the past 10 months.

Mr Neeraj Sood, President, Himachal Pradesh Government recognised and aided Schools Teachers Union, Kangra district, said that grant-in-aid comprising 95 per cent of their salaries had not been released to 64 schools in the state for the past 10 months.

Attacks on Christians ‘unfortunate’
From Our Correspondent

UNA, Jan 24 — Mr Suresh Chandel, state BJP President and member of the Lok Sabha from Hamirpur, while addressing a meeting here today said that attacks on Christians in various parts of the country were most unfortunate, but the opposition parties like the Congress were trying to politicise these attacks.

Mr Chandel said the Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, visited Gujarat only while attacks on Christians also took place in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and elsewhere. Mrs Gandhi did not visit the Congress-ruled states.

Mr Chandel said that the previous Congress government led by Mr Virbhadra Singh made mess of the Tanda Medical College issue by opening it without providing basic facilities.

Snow in Himachal, Kashmir

SHIMLA, Jan 24 (UNI) — There was moderate to heavy snowfall in the upper areas of Shimla district today, intensifying the cold wave in Himachal Pradesh.

Upper areas of Shimla district, including Wildflower Hall, the ski slopes of Kufri, Narkanda, Fagu, Baggi and Khadrala, had moderate to heavy snowfall and people groaned under the severe cold wave.

Shimla and the surrounding areas had rain accompanied with icy-cold winds. Tourists preferred to stay indoors.

The Hindustan-Tibet road has been blocked beyond Narkanda which recorded about 30 cm of snowfall. The state highway was also blocked at Kharapattar, which recorded 25 cm of snowfall.

The tourist resort of Manali also had snowfall.

According to reports received here, widespread snowfall has been recorded in the tribal districts of Lahaul-Spiti and Kinnaur and the Pangi valley in Chamba district since last night.

Meanwhile, both the Pangi valley and the Pin valley remained cut off from the rest of the country due to unabated snowfall.

The temperature in the tribal areas ranged between minus 5°C and minus 11°C.

The Dhauladhar ranges, over looking the picturesque Kangra valley, recorded snowfall since last night.

Several parts in Himachal, including the districts of Kangra, Hamirpur, Bilaspur, Sirmaur, Solan and Mandi, reported rain since morning.

SRINAGAR (PTI): Life in the Kashmir valley was thrown out of gear on Sunday as it remained cut off from the rest of the country for the second successive day as Srinagar and other major towns besides the high-altitude ranges, had the season’s first heavy snowfall.

The 300-km-long Srinagar-Jammu National Highway was buried under 4 ft of snow at various places forcing the authorities to close the road link between the Kashmir valley and the rest of the country.

Traffic on the Srinagar-Jammu arterial road was suspended yesterday due to landslides at Ramban, triggered by heavy snow and rain along the National Highway, the traffic authorities said.

The uninterrupted snow and rain scuttled the efforts of the authorities to resume traffic. Three to 4 ft of snow had accumulated on the highway at various places beyond Qazigund up to Patnitop, the sources said adding that road clearance operations on the highway were hampered again today because of continued snowfall and rain.

A spokesman for the Indian Airlines said all flights to and from Srinagar were cancelled for the second day as snow had accumulated on the runway which was being cleared.

Inhabitants of Srinagar today woke up to see a thick blanket of snow caused due to intermittent snowfall since yesterday.

Six inches to over 1 ft of snow had accumulated on the rooftops, roads, trees and the Zaberwan hills surrounding Srinagar.

The power supply was cut off last night as snow damaged electric poles. Telephone lines were also damaged at various places in the city. Many roads in the city were closed. District and inter-district buses remained off the road today.

However, as the day progressed snow clearance work was undertaken on the city roads.

Gulmarg in north Kashmir was under a blanket of snow. Pahalgam, Sonamarg, Yousmarg, Khilanmarg and Patnitop had the season's first heavy snowfall.

100 eucalyptus trees felled
From Our Correspondent

NURPUR, Jan 24 — Over 100 fully grown eucalyptus trees have been felled by Public Works Department at Featehpur in Jawali subdivision where the Chief Minister, Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, has laid the foundation stone of a housing colony to be constructed for officials of the new Shahnehar irrigation project.

The Forest Department had planted these trees many years ago on government land.

No senior official of the Public Works Department was immediately available for comments.

Plane force lands
From Our Correspondent

BILASPUR, Jan 24 — A small plane belonging to the Haryana Government force landed at Kuladi-Mandloo village on the border of Bilaspur-Mandi district near Jahoo, 60 km from here, at about 4 p.m. today.

Both its occupants, including the pilot escaped unhurt. The tyres of the plane, however, got damaged. The plane had to forced land due to the inclement weather.