HC allows PTU to relax domicile terms
CHANDIGARH, Nov 13 — The Punjab and Haryana High Court today permitted the Punjab Technical University to fill 393 vacant seats in different engineering colleges in the state by relaxing the condition of Punjab domicile or residence.

PUTA chief, secy take opposite stands
PATIALA, Nov 13 — Sharp differences have arisen among leaders of the Punjabi University Teachers Association over the issue of ban imposed by the Punjab Government on the recruitment of teachers.

Proceedings against ex-minister stayed
CHANDIGARH, Nov 13 — A Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today stayed further proceedings before the Lok Pal against Mr S.S. Dullo, former Punjab Excise and Taxation Minister. It also issued notice of motion to the state of Punjab and the Lok Pal for January 15, on a writ petition filed by the ex-minister.

SDO, 4 others beat farmer to death
AMRITSAR, Nov 13 — Seventy-year-old Joginder Singh, a farmer of Sultanwind village, was allegedly beaten to death by SDO and four others. The victim was reportedly pushed inside the office of the SDO by certain staff members and the room was bolted before he was beaten up.

Mann 'sceptical' about refinery
JALANDHAR, Nov 13 — The President of SAD (Amritsar), Mr Simranjit Singh Mann, while welcoming the refinery project at Bathinda is, however, sceptical about the progress of the project.

Dairy farmers' plea to govt
CHANDIGARH, Nov 13 — Dairy farmers have urged the Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, to involve them in the formulation of the new animal health policy.

Plea to Centre on wheat stocks
PHILLAUR , Nov 13 — The Punjab Food and Supplies Minister, Mr Madan Mohan Mittal, has urged the Union Government to make arrangements for the lifting of over 53 lakh metric tonnes of wheat and rice stocked in various godowns in the state.

Thieves, liquor smugglers held
FATEHGARH SAHIB, Nov 13 — The district police claims to have arrested gangs of thieves and liquor smugglers.

PAU student dies in mishap

Purchase tax on cane slashed
By Sarbjit Singh
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Nov 13 — While the Punjab Government has directed all the remaining 14 sugar mills to start cane crushing operations within this month, it has slashed the purchase tax on sugarcane from 8 per cent to 2.2 per cent.

Out of 21 sugar mills in the state, six had started crushing operations last week. The remaining mills have been told that delay on their part in starting the crushing of cane would affect the farmers adversely. Many farmers sow wheat after harvesting of the cane crop.

While confirming the report of slashing of purchase tax, Mr Mewa Singh Sonar, Cane Commissioner, Punjab, told TNS here today that a notification in this connection had been issued. He said that the purchase tax was given by the mills to the State Government.

In fact, many sugar mills were not paying the purchase tax to the Government for the past several years. The dues on this count against mills were to the tune of several lakhs of rupees, it is learnt.

Mr Mewa Singh said that the Central Government had decided to buy sugar from mills at the prevailing wholesale market price for the public distribution system (PDS). More than 400 sugar mills in the country would benefit from this decision of the Central Government, he added.

Earlier, the Central Government used to procure sugar from mills under levy quota at a price fixed by the Government. The price paid by the Central Government to mills was far less than the wholesale price of sugar in the open market.

For the past several years, mills were pressing the Central Government to do away with the levy quota sugar. The Central Government had told the states that this year the sugar output would be around 154 lakh tonnes against the domestic requirement of 135 lakh tonnes. The government had also agreed in principle to give priority in procuring sugar from mills in the country and not to import in case of any exigency.

Meanwhile, the authorities of the Phagwara sugar mill today agreed to start the crushing of cane within this week. Earlier, the management of the mill had informed the Cane Commissioner, Punjab, that the mill would start crushing operation by the end of this year.

Mr Mewa Singh said that he had rejected the proposal of the Phagwara mill authorities to start the crushing operation in December and had clearly told them to start the operation within this month. He said that earlier the mill used to start crushing operation in the last week of October but for the past two years it was creating problems for farmers by starting crushing operation late.

Farmers were agitating for the past several days in the Phagwara belt to press the State Government to direct the mill authorities to start the crushing of cane. Phagwara is the centre of the sugar belt in Doaba region.

Fee hike in medical colleges okayed
By P.P.S. Gill
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Nov 13 — The Punjab Government has decided, in principle, to allow medical and dental colleges and hospitals attached to them to adopt measures for additional resource mobilisation to tide over the financial crunch faced by these institutions.

This has been done on the recommendation of a report submitted by the Director, Medical Education and Research, and by a committee of eminent doctors, which recently studied the financial health of the colleges and hospitals concerned.

It is, perhaps, for the first time that the colleges and hospitals will be allowed to retain the money thus raised to improve the quality of medical education and medicare to the patients. The Finance Department has accepted this once the Chief Minister strongly recommended that the money accruing from raising the fee to be charged from students and the hospital charges should be ploughed back into the medicare and medi-education system rather than going to the state exchequer.

This was disclosed by the Minister of Medical Education and Research, Mr Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal, in an interview with TNS here today. This decision was taken in principle at a meeting the Chief Minister held on November 6, when demands of the teachers of medical and dental colleges were accepted. The government admits shortage of funds for the medical institutions and concedes it had not been able to revise the two upward for several years.

Mr Grewal said the proposed fee structure and the hospital charges to be levied would be notified shortly. While refixing these care had been taken to "protect" the deserving classes given the cost factor involved in medicare. Most of the upward charges to be realised from consumers or patients were either almost the same or even lower than what is charged at the PGI, Chandigarh. These were lower than even what private colleges and hospitals were charging.

It is also learnt that the Punjab Health Systems Corporation is also in the process of raising by 25 per cent the hospital charges in the health delivery institutions not covered by the medical and dental colleges and hospitals. This corporation covers 150 odd hospitals at the community health service level. User charges are nominal at present in the 3,000 odd institutions under the department of Health and Family Welfare.

Under the proposed charges from patients in medical college hospitals, henceforth, Punjab Government employees and pensioners will also pay charges for CT scan and ultrasound for investigation as per the income and claim reimbursement. The new charges are Rs 1,000 (CT scan) and Rs 200 (ultrasound). In respect of private cases, there is a proposal to levy charges for medico-legal examination. For such an examination a person shall pay Rs 100.

Mr Grewal said charges had been hiked for operations, investigations and specialised treatment. Interestingly, "free" treatment would be available to members of Parliament and members of Legislative Assembly, besides pensioners, government employees, freedom fighters, yellow card holders or other categories as the government may decide.

Municipal Bill almost ready
From Our Correspondent

ROPAR, Nov 13 — The draft Bill of new Punjab Municipal Act will be tabled in the ensuing winter session of the state Assembly to replace the old Municipal Act, 1911, and the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act, 1976.

Addressing a press conference here today, Mr Mandip Singh, Director, Local Bodies, Punjab, who was here to preside over a meeting of executive officers of municipal committees, said the draft Bill was being given the final touches at the state legal department and would be ready for presentation before the Assembly by the end of this month.

He said the new Act would empower Mayors and Presidents of the municipal corporations and municipal councils, respectively, with more powers.

He said the municipal councils and municipal corporations had a gross income of Rs 215 crore in the first seven months of the previous financial year. He said there was an increase of about 35 per cent as compared to the corresponding period last year.

The Director claimed that the state government had not imposed any new tax on the local bodies, rather it had provided relief in the house tax.

Mr Mandip Singh also said the Local Bodies Department had recovered Rs 9.5 crore till October this year out of the old recoveries of Rs 32 crore pertaining to house tax and water bills. The remaining 75 per cent would be recovered by March.

He said the councils and corporations had been directed to conduct a door-to-door survey for the actual assessment of house tax and unauthorised water connections.

He claimed that the privatisation of octroi posts in the state was running smoothly in all 85 municipal councils.

Mr Inder Sain, President of the local municipal council, said more funds should be given to develop the town.

Symposium on veterinary immunology ends
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, Nov 13 — The six-day international veterinary immunology symposium concluded at Punjab Agricultural University here today.

According to Dr M S Oberoi, organising secretary, the sixth symposium will be held in Uppsala, Sweden, from July 15 to 20 in 2001.

Fortysix lectures were delivered during the plenary session and 18 workshops and seven symposium sessions held.

The symposium on immunodiagnostics was chaired by Dr En-Min Zhou who presented his work on an anti-idiotypic antibody which could act as a surrogate antigen of the blue tongue virus for the diagnosis of blue tongue.

Dr Paul Wood from Australia revealed the results of field trials of newly developed diagnostic kits for mycobacterial diseases like Johne’s disease and the TB of the bovines. He disclosed that the new test kit for a cytokine gamma interferon had proved to be more sensitive and specific than the conventional skin test.

The new test had been conducted on 6000 affected animals in Australia with an equal number of controls and was now being used in over 30 countries.

Dr Rajashekhar from Bangalore reviewed the Indian scenario of immunodiagnostics. He informed that diagnostic kits made in India were now available for bovine brucellosis, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis and the food and mouth disease. Efforts were under way to develop diagnostic kits for rinderpest.

The kits required in India included bovine viral diarrhoea, blue tongue, swine fever, tuberculosis, paratuberculosis, chalamydial infections, contagious caprin and bovine pleuropnemonias, leptosyira and major poultry diseases.

The plenary session on the modulation of immune responses was chaired by Mr Chris Howard from the UK.

Delivering his keynote address on immunomodulatory effects, Dr Ross G Windon from Victoria, Australia, disclosed his findings on the effects of adjurants (like quil A) and in complete freunds (adjurants) on various cytokines and humoral and cellular responses of the immunosystem and highlighted their potential in modulatory bodies’ immune responses.

Dr David Haig from New Zealand presented his new findings on the modulation of immune responses by viruses and presented his data on new viral proteins identified by his team which suppressed antiviral mediators.

Dr Mark Estes from Columbia presented his work on interlenkin-13 in cattle which had a potential as an adjurant to increase antibody responses without compromising cellular/immunity. He informed that ethe alphal chain of the receptor for bovine homologue of interlenkin-13 had recently been cloned.

HC allows PTU to relax domicile terms
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Nov 13 — The Punjab and Haryana High Court today permitted the Punjab Technical University to fill 393 vacant seats in different engineering colleges in the state by relaxing the condition of Punjab domicile or residence.

This order was delivered by the Chief Justice, Mr Arun B. Saharya, and Mr Justice H.S. Bedi on a prayer made by the university.

The university had pleaded that the seats available for candidates who did not have Punjab residence certificates were very limited and as such most of these candidates could not get admission even though they had reasonably high merit in the combined entrance test (CET).

These seats had remained unfilled even after the completion of the third round of counselling conducted by the university on October 23.

The Bench, however, directed that this permission was being granted subject to the condition that admissions already made would not be disturbed.

The judges also directed the university to grant provisional admission to five Scheduled Caste candidates and one candidate in the sports category, subject to the decision of the court. These six candidates had been rendered ineligible following a recheck of the CET result under court orders. They had been originally admitted in the counselling held in July on the basis of the initial result. The six seats had been kept reserved by the university in the subsequent counselling.

In a significant development, the judges issued a show cause notice to Ms Navnidh Kaur of Ludhiana as to why action should not be taken against her for suspected tampering with her answersheet of the objective-type paper in Physics.

The alleged tampering had led to a substantial increase of her marks in Physics which was detected during the university Lok Adalat camps on September 12 and 13.

The Lok Adalat file pertaining to Ms Navnidh Kaur was confiscated by the Chief Justice. The Bench allowed the Registrar of the university to probe the allegation of tampering against her and to submit his report to the court.

The case was adjourned to December 7.

PUTA chief, secy take opposite stands
Tribune News Service

PATIALA, Nov 13 — Sharp differences have arisen among leaders of the Punjabi University Teachers Association (PUTA) over the issue of ban imposed by the Punjab Government on the recruitment of teachers.

The PUTA President, Dr Surinder Singh Khehra, who is also President of the Punjab Federation of University Teachers Association (PFUTA), has hailed the ban while the PUTA Secretary, Dr N.S. Atri, says that a majority of the PUTA general house did not favour the ban on recruitment. They charged the President with misusing his powers to prevent the issue from being discussed in the union's executive meeting held today.

Differences have also cropped up with regard to the functioning of the Vice-Chancellor. While Dr Khehra has urged the Punjab Government to stop the "high-handedness and irregularities" being committed by the Vice-Chancellor, Dr J.S. Puar, and demanded he and other functionaries "indicted" by a preliminary inquiry be asked to proceed on leave, the Secretary has charged the President with pursuing a personal agenda.

Proceedings against ex-minister stayed
By Our Legal Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, Nov 13 — A Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court comprising Mr Justice V.K. Bali and Mr Justice B.Rai, today, stayed further proceedings before the Lok Pal against Mr S.S. Dullo, former Punjab Excise and Taxation Minister. It also issued notice of motion to the state of Punjab and the Lok Pal for January 15, on a writ petition filed by the ex-minister.

The petitioner's plea was that Mr Shiv Datt, a resident of Noor Mahal, (Jalandhar) had filed a complaint before the Lok Pal against the petitioner, on the basis of which the Lok Pal invited comments from the petitioner on the allegations. Mr Shiv Datt had earlier filed a writ petition and a contempt petition in the High Court against the petitioner which were dismissed. Since the respondent was not successful in achieving his ulterior motive, he filed the complaint before the Lok Pal.

In the petition, Mr Shiv Datt, a liquor contractor of Phillaur submitted that he met the ex-minister at his residence on March 11, 1995, for issue of the licence when he was told that vends situated at Phillaur circle would be given to his firm on payment of Rs 50,000. It was alleged that the money was paid by the complainant, but he alleged that the minister kept on demanding more money from the complainant's firm on the threat of dire consequences. He filed a writ petition against harassment by Mr Dullo and his group.

It was inter alia argued before the Division Bench on behalf of Mr Dullo that the complainant had not supported his complaint by an affidavit, required under the law. Now that the complainant had filed the affidavit, the Lok Pal had to pass a fresh order forming his opinion that the case required calling the petitioner to answer the charge.

Notice to Punjab on woman's murder

Mr Justice R.L. Anand issued notice to the state of Punjab on a complaint made by Mr S.L. Gupta in a telegram to Mr Justice Iqbal Singh alleging murder of his daughter Pinki alias Sneh, allegedly by her husband, Subhash Goel a prominent businessman of Bathinda.

The judge treated the telegram as a criminal writ petition and heard the father of the deceased.

Mr S.L. Gupta had stated in the telegram that his daughter Pinki had been brutally murdered on November 5, 1998 after harassment by her husband. Also involved in the crime was Binder, alias Pistol Singh, a resident of Bathinda.

The petition alleged that Subhash Goel had planned to kill her in connivance with the local police. It was also contended that the S.P. Hardip Singh, was a family friend of Subhash Goel. Pinki had been murdered in such a way as to appear as an accident. A post-mortem was conducted by a hand-picked doctor of Maur Mandi with the connivance of the SHO, Balwinder Singh of Kot Fateh police station. Even the last rites of the girl were performed by Subhash without informing her parents Subhash Goel is absconding with police connivance, it was alleged.

It was brought to the notice of the court that during last one and a half years, Pinki was not allowed by her husband to meet her parents or even talk on the telephone. He allegedly used to beat his wife on one pretext or another.

It was alleged that the Bathinda SSP after great effort by the parents had entrusted the investigation of the case to the SP, Mr Hardip Singh, a family friend.

Mr Gupta prayed that the investigation of the case be entrusted to the CBI as they had no faith in the local police.

SDO, 4 others beat farmer to death
Tribune News Service

AMRITSAR, Nov 13 — Seventy-year-old Joginder Singh, a farmer of Sultanwind village, was allegedly beaten to death by SDO and four others. The victim was reportedly pushed inside the office of the SDO by certain staff members and the room was bolted before he was beaten up.

It is reported that the farmer had approached PSEB officials on several occasions for getting a tubewell connection released. However, the SDO and other officials had dilly-dallied the matter.

Parkash Singh and Joginder Singh, sons of the deceased alleged that their father had given Rs 10,000 as bribe to the officials of Nawan Pind for getting the connection released. On the fateful day, they along with their father, had gone to the office of SDO, where an altercation followed. The agitated SDO and four staff members took the victim to a room and beat him to death.

According to Ms Anita Punj, SP (headquarters), an FIR has been registered against the SDO and the others under Sections 302, 341, 342, 323, 324, 148 and 149 of the IPC.

She, however, said the suspects were at large.

Mann 'sceptical' about refinery
Tribune News Service

JALANDHAR, Nov 13 — The President of SAD (Amritsar), Mr Simranjit Singh Mann, while welcoming the refinery project at Bathinda is, however, sceptical about the progress of the project.

He said that the experience of Punjab vis-a-vis the successive central governments since the time of Jawaharlal Nehru has been bitter.

The late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had promised Chandigarh and river waters, both the issues are yet to be resolved. The late Rajiv Gandhi promised better Centre-State relations on the basis of the Sarkaria Commission report and signed the Rajiv-Longowal accord but did not implement it.

He criticised the BJP government in Delhi for having backed out on its commitment to grant the second language status to Punjabi and compensation to the families of victims of the November '84 riots.

He said that his party will monitor the environmental ramifications of the Bathinda Refinery project. It has demanded proper compensation at market price to the owners whose land is acquired for the project and families who lose jobs be given jobs and rights shares out of the 48 per cent equity capital to be subscribed by the public.

Dairy farmers' plea to govt
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Nov 13 — Dairy farmers have urged the Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, to involve them in the formulation of the new animal health policy.

Mr Darshan Singh Alhoran, President of the Punjab Holstein Association and a leading dairy farmer, said here today that before finalising the new animal health policy, the Animal Husbandry Secretary, Mr K.R. Lakhanpal should critically examine the performance of the Punjab Animal Husbandry Department.

Mr Alhoran said that farmers had to suffer due to very low conception rate of the artificial insemination conducted by the department. The quality of the semen was very poor and sperm rate used to be very low in the doses administrated by the department for insemination.

Stressing that without the involvement of dairy farmers no result oriented work could be done in the Animal Husbandry department. Mr Alhoran said that cattle feed supplied to farmers by certain cattle feed manufacturers was of very poor quality and infected with bacteria, virus and fungus. It often resulted in making the milch cattle sick, he claimed.

Despite the existence of Cattle Feed Control Order and other legal remedies, the department had failed to ensure that farmers were supplied quality cattle feed by the manufacturers, he alleged.

Plea to Centre on wheat stocks
From Our Correspondent

PHILLAUR , Nov 13 — The Punjab Food and Supplies Minister, Mr Madan Mohan Mittal, has urged the Union Government to make arrangements for the lifting of over 53 lakh metric tonnes of wheat and rice stocked in various godowns in the state.

Mr Mittal said here yesterday that the FCI was working very carelessly in the state. He said he had taken up the matter with the Union Food and Supply Minister, Mr Surjit Singh Barnala, who had given him an assurance in this regard.

Admitting scarcity of kerosene oil, he said he had requested the Centre to increase the supply of subsidised kerosene oil in Punjab.

Mr Mittal claimed that the SAD-BJP candidate would win the Adampur assembly seat with comfortable majority.

Mr Mittal denied the charge that he had misbehaved with a returning officer in Jalandhar. He alleged that some Congress leaders were spreading false rumours about the issue in frustration as the Congress was bound to lose in the coming byelection.

Thieves, liquor smugglers held
From Our Correspondent

FATEHGARH SAHIB, Nov 13 — The district police claims to have arrested gangs of thieves and liquor smugglers.

Addressing a press conference here today, the SSP said last night a vehicle was stopped during a naka at Nabipur, and 110 bottles of whisky recovered from Rajesh Kumar and Tilak Ram, both residents of Ambala Cantonment, who had been arrested. A case had been registered under the Excise Act.

A four-member gang of thieves was also arrested. They have been identified as Gurdev Singh, Jarnail Singh, Ranjit Singh and Narinder Singh of Badala Kalan, Amritsar.

A case has been registered under sections 354, 356 and 34, IPC.

Nov 25 holiday in Adampur
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Nov 13 — The Punjab Government has declared Wednesday, November 25, a closed day in lieu of Sunday falling on November 29 for shops and commercial establishments within Adampur Assembly constituency (district Jalandhar) on account of Assembly byelection in the constituency.

This decision has been taken under Subsection (1) of Section 10 of the Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, according to an official spokesman.

Pensioners threaten agitation
From Our Correspondent

MOGA, Nov 13 — Members of the All-Punjab Pensioners Association at a meeting held here yesterday decided to launch a statewide agitation next month if their demands were not accepted by the government.

Charging the meeting, the president of the state unit, Mr Hardev Singh said the government had failed to implement the recommendations of the Fourth Punjab Pay Commission and revise their pay scales.

PAU student dies in mishap
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, Nov 13 — The death of Sunanda, a postgraduate student of the College of Basic Sciences and Humanities of Punjab Agricultural University in an accident last evening has sent a shock wave in the faculty.

Dr Gurcharan Singh Kalkat, Vice-Chancellor, in a condolence message expressed deep sorrow over the death of the student.

The ongoing Prof S.N. Kakkar inter-college youth festival at PAU was suspended and classes in the college were also suspended for the day. A condolence meeting was also held where the faculty, students and staff of PAU observed two minutes' silence in memory of the student.