Mr Bali was by no means your conventional Minister. He was a supercharged bundle of energy, a man in a hurry, brimming with ideas, always on the move- in Delhi in the morning, in Nagrota by the evening, and in his Shimla office the next morning, having inspected a dozen buses en route! He did not depend on his officers with the usual passive attitude of most Ministers who wait in their offices for the files to come to them. He did his own legwork, checking buses and ” nakas” late in the night himself, stopping at the favourite dhabas of the HRTC buses to see if his passengers were being ripped off, going to the depots and bus stands himself to meet the union leaders to hear their grievances. He even had his personal mobile number painted on all HRTC buses so that any aggrieved passenger could call him up at any time of the day or night. And they did, with gusto! Bali took all the calls himself, and many a Divisional Manager or Regional Manager, rousted from their beds by the Minister from a sound sleep, have as a result been banished by their wives from their bedrooms forever. By his hands-on approach, Bali endeared himself to the travelling public and workers equally. My main job, as I saw it, was to apply the brakes on his warp-speed style of functioning!A widely travelled man, he welcomed new ideas and innovative projects and lent them his full support. Some of the more successful ones from our tenure include the ropeways to Rohtang pass, Bijli Mahadev and Triund; introduction of Volvo buses on long-distance routes; the Jakhu ropeway; modern bus stands such as the ISBTs Shimla and Kangra on PPP mode; the Tourism Department’s Home Stay scheme (a phenomenal success- there are now about 3000 registered home stays and an equal number of unregistered ones in the state). But sadly, the one mega project which could have been his lasting legacy for Himachal was sabotaged by petty politics and never saw the light of day.I refer to the Ski Village project, a US$ 400 million venture (at the time the biggest FDI in the Tourism sector in India) proposed by a company owned by the grandson of the legendary Henry Ford. The project, located above Palchan near Manali, envisaged a ski lift going up to 10000 feet, an international class, 5 star, hotel and cottages, a traditional handicraft village, a helipad and upgradation of the Bhuntar airport at the company’s expense. If implemented the project would, at one stroke, have lifted Manali from the over-priced slum it has become to international stature.
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