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Tuesday,
September 10, 2002,
Chandigarh, India  
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INLD govt disputes Ajit’s remarks Mining mafia rules the roost in state: Gujjar Transfer petty cases to lok adalats: HC Judge Bansi Lal’s proposal surprising: Sampat
Kurukshetra to be tourist centre |
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Dispute with brother costs man his life Tributes paid to Dyal Singh Majithia Power staff hold demonstration 3 bodies found in
Ghaggar canal
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INLD govt disputes Ajit’s remarks Chandigarh, September 9 Quoting Mr Dhirpal Singh, Revenue Minister of Haryana, a press note alleged that Mr Ajit Singh was interested in politicising the issue of drought rather than mitigate the sufferings of peasants affected by drought. The statement said Mr Dhirpal Singh and Haryana Agriculture Minister Jaswinder Singh Sandhu had on July 24 briefed Mr Ajit Singh about the drought situation in the state and presented before him a tentative requirement of Rs 615.21 crore plus 3.61 lakh tonnes of wheat for giving relief to the affected people. Mr Dhirpal Singh said the state government had also sent a number of written requests to the Union Agriculture Ministry for drought relief. The Revenue Commissioner, Haryana, in a d.o. letter No. PS/FCR/02/1606, dated August 5, 2002, addressed to Mr J.N.L. Srivastava, Union Agriculture Secretary, sought relief from the Centre in view of the drought situation. Subsequently, the Chief Secretary in a communication to the Union Agriculture Secretary, dated August 13, 2002 (d.o. no 2448), wrote about the problem of areas remaining unsown in Haryana. “The Calamity Relief Fund guidelines normally do not cover such relief but the very dismal conditions and the special circumstances of the state require that such relief is granted to the affected farmers in Haryana”, the Chief Secretary wrote. According to the Revenue Minister’s statement, the Chief Secretary also conveyed in his letter that while a detailed memorandum was still under preparation the tentative amount of financial assistance needed from the Centre had increased to Rs 1107.63 crore. In addition, 9.52 lakh MTs of wheat was also sought from the Centre. The statement added that after the completion of special girdawari, the state government had submitted a detailed memorandum seeking a compensation of Rs 1895.98 crore and 9.72 lakh MTs of wheat from the Centre. Mr Dhirpal Singh said while the state government had not heard anything from the Union Agriculture Ministry in response to its requests, he was shocked to read the baseless statement of Mr Ajit Singh today. Mr Ajit Singh, during his visit to Hisar yesterday also criticised Mr Om Prakash Chautala, Chief Minister of Haryana, for wasting money in order to have
political bases in UP and Rajasthan. A statement, attributed to Mr Sher Singh Badshami, President of the Haryana unit of the INLD, took Mr Ajit Singh to task for criticising Mr Chautala for his plans of extending bases to UP and Rajasthan. The statement by Mr Badshami claimed that the money spent during the UP elections was raised by the UP unit of the party. It added that Mr Chautala had given a grant of Rs 51 lakh for a hostel in Rajasthan which would provide accommodation to girls belonging to backward and rural areas. What Mr Ajit Singh had said yesterday showed that he was not in favour of education of rural girls, said the statement. Meanwhile, the President of the Haryana Krishak Samaj, Mr Shamsher Singh Surjewala, said that Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala had committed the breach of privilege of the assembly by falsely claiming on the floor of the House that his government had demanded a relief of more than Rs 1,000 crore from the Centre for the drought-hit in the state. In a statement issued here today, Mr Surjewala said Mr Chautala had been exposed by the Union Agriculture Minister. |
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Mining mafia rules the roost in state: Gujjar Chandigarh, September 9 Illustrating his charge with an example, the BJP leader, who addressed a press conference here today, said that the lease of a mine in Gurgaon district was in the name of the wife of a Congress MLA while its operation was being looked after by Mr Sanjeev Chaudhary, son of Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala’s wife’s sister. He claimed that about 250 truckloads of goods were ferried out from the mine daily by the operators who paid only a pittance to the authorities. Mr Gujjar alleged that the local police and officials of the Mines Department offered full protection to the trucks to reach up to the Delhi-Haryana border even as the operators paid only 25 per cent of what they should be actually paying. Mr Gujjar said that similarly a mine in Kote village in Faridabad district was being run together by an INLD minister and Congress leaders, Mr Bachan Singh Arya and Mr Dharampal Malik. He also alleged that Mr Meenu, an operator from Sirsa, native district of the Chief Minister, was extracting minerals from a mine in Dhoj village in Faridabad district without any valid authorisation. “In fact, the auction of the mine has been suspended. But it has been taken over by Meenu by throwing all norms to the winds”, the BJP leader alleged. He added Som Prakash Sethi, one of the biggest operators in this field, was resorting to unlawful means while carrying out operations at the Pali crusher zone in Faridabad district. Sethi, too, was guilty of excess loading in the trucks and he had been paying only 25 per cent of the revenue due from him on this account. Similar fradulent operations were under way at Indri in Gurgaon district as well, Mr Gujjar said. He claimed that the state government was suffering a loss of Rs 30 lakh to Rs 40 lakh daily due to the operations by the mining mafia in these mines. He demanded that a probe should be conducted by a retired high court or Supreme Court judge to look into the activities of the mining mafia in the state. He further demanded that an all-party assembly committee should be formed to look into the extent of loss of revenue by the state government due to the operations by the mining mafia. |
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Transfer
petty cases to lok adalats: HC Judge Fatehabad, September 9 Addressing members of the District Bar Association after inspecting the courts, Mr Bedi said a Bar played a very effective role in the proper functioning of the judges. He said for a court to function smoothly relations between the Bar and the Bench have to be cordial. Later, talking to mediapersons, Mr Bedi shared concern of the common people regarding the delays in the administration of justice and pendency of cases in the courts, including the high courts. He said lesser number of judges was the main reason behind the delays. He said though Lok Adalats had lessened the work load on the courts a bit but even they had their limitations as they could not hear contested cases. He said as the Chairman of the Punjab Legal Services Commission he planned to recommend to the Punjab and Haryana High Court to transfer petty cases like those under the Excise Act to Lok Adalats so that the work load on the courts could decrease a bit. The District and Sessions Judge, Mr Nawab Singh, the ADJ, Mr Darshan Singh, the Sub-Judges, Mr Mewa Singh and Mr Mahabir Singh, the INLD MLA Mr Leela Krishan, the District Consumer Forum chairman, Mr P. C. Gupta and the District Bar Association president Mr Gulbahar Singh, were present on the occasion. The Bar Association president presented a memorandum of demands to Mr Bedi. |
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Bansi Lal’s proposal surprising: Sampat Chandigarh, September 9 Mr Sampat Singh said that the Supreme Court had asked the Punjab Government to complete the canal by January 15, 2003, failing which the Central Government would have to take up the work of completing it. “The ball is in the Punjab Government’s court now. The Centre cannot do anything about it till next January 15. Only after the deadline is passed, the question of putting pressure on the Central Government for taking up the construction of the SYL canal in Punjab territory will arise”, Mr Sampat Singh said here today. |
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TRIBUNE SPECIAL-II HISAR: An acute shortage of manpower, lack of facilities, stagnation, bureaucratic interference and low morale of engineers have led to the virtual collapse of the canal systems in Haryana. Significantly, no junior engineers has been recruited since 1981-82. The youngest JE in the department is 40 plus and given the lack of promotional avenues, the JEs are likely to retire in the same post. A majority of the
SDOs, too are in the 45 plus age group. Given the lack of facilities and the increase in the area, these middle-aged officials are in no position to check the
menace. The position of the Superintending and Executive Engineers is no better. Most of them are nearing retirement and many have not been promoted for decades. On an average there is a shortage of 20 per cent of the running staff — running
beldars, gauge readers and mates. The average age of Beldars is 50 years. Except in ex-gratia cases, no beldars have been recruited for the past 20 years. They have neither any protection from assaults by water thieves nor any powers. Besides, they are not in a position to render physical labour so necessary at their level because of their age. Sources said there was an acute shortage of proper vehicles for patrolling of canals by engineers. An XEN in charge of a division has just two jeeps and there are severe constraints on using these vehicles. A number of vehicles of a particular type supplied to the department, engineers say, are useless for patrolling as these cannot run on “kutcha” canals service roads. They say they are entitled to TA and DA for only 10 days in a month. The amount of these allowances cannot be more than Rs 750 per month. The figure remains unrevised since 1987. This, they say, is highly inadequate and leads to inadequate patrolling. Round pegs in square holes is another malady affecting the functioning of the Irrigation Department. Of the 25 SEs in the field, 14 are mechanical or electrical engineers who have never studied irrigation engineering. Irrigation engineers say this had led to a sharp decline in the quality of civil works. Another factor affecting the quality of works is the through rate system wherein contractors supplied material as well as labour. The department has consequently no control over quality and workmanship. The merger of drainage and irrigation wings under the Water Resources Consolidation Project, engineers say, has contributed a great deal towards the collapse of the system. The weaknesses brought in by the merger came to light during the 1995 floods, but no corrective measures have so far been taken. While the irrigation wing handled the supply of water to the fields, the drainage wing was responsible for draining these. The amassing of powers in the hands of bureaucrats is stated to be another contributing factor. Engineers admit that even the Engineers-in-Chief and the Chief Engineers had completely surrendered their powers to the bureaucrats so much so that the role of the EICs was now limited to releasing the LOCs and that too with the concurrence of the bureaucracy. Sources said this had created a communication gap between the political leadership and the engineers. The situation has remained unchanged under successive governments. Sources said though irrigation was the foremost requirement of the state, its share in the workforce had come down from 11.5 per cent in 1968 to 6.53 now. As against this the workforce in the Education department had risen from 7.6 per cent to 32 per cent during the same period. They said unless drastic steps were taken immediately, agriculture in Haryana was bound to suffer badly. (Concluded) |
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Kurukshetra
to be tourist centre Kurukshetra, September 9 Stating this here today, the Deputy Commissioner, Mr Abhilaksh Likhi, told mediapersons that this had been announced by the Union Tourism and Culture, Minister, Mr Jagmohan, at the conference of state Tourism Ministers, in New Delhi. Mr Likhi said Kurukshetra was one of the 35 historical towns all over India, selected for conversion into “hubs of tourism, culture and civic governance”. Apart from upgradation work, an institute of hotel management and catering would be set up in the town by the Ministry of Tourism. |
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Tyre godown
looted Ambala, September 9 According to the police, around 2.30 a.m. three persons, two of them bearing turban, came in a Maruti van there. They
broked the shutter for entering the godown. They locked the watchman in a toilet and took away tyres in a truck. The manager of the sales office, Mr Manoj Sharma said around 7 a.m. some newspaper hawkers informed him that the shutter of his office had been broken by some one. When he reached the office, he found that the watchman was locked in a toilet. Later, the watchman, Ramesh, narrated the incident. The miscreants beat up the watchman because he refused to tell them about the keys of the godown, he was admitted to the local civil hospital with injuries on his face and other parts of the body. The Superintendent of Police, Mr Manoj Yadav and other senior officials reached the spot. Finger print experts and a dog squad was also summoned, but no clue could be found. Last year, too, a godown of medicine was looted at Ambala cantonment and medicines of Rs 70 lakh were taken away by the miscreants. |
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Dispute
with brother costs man his life Yamunanagar, September 9 There was a dispute over a shop between Chaman Lal and his brother Faquir Chand. The farmer was summoned by his brother to his house at 8 am today where he was attacked by his nephews Sanjay, Surajbhan and Pala with iron rods resulting in his death. The Gandhi Nagar police station has registered a case. The deceased was a tractor mechanic at Thana Chhappar, 20 km from here. He leaves behind two wives and a son. His first wife was issueless and he had nominated his nephew, Sanjay, as his successor. Later, he remarried with the consent of his first wife. His second wife was blessed with a son, which resulted in the property dispute. |
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Tributes
paid to Dyal Singh Majithia Karnal, September 9 Mr K.G. Dutt, a veteran journalist, presided over the ceremony. Dr S.B. Dixit, Manager of the college trust society, and Dr V.B. Abrol also spoke. Earlier, the speakers garlanded a portrait of Sardar Majithia. A blood donation camp was organised in which 70 students donated blood. A painting competition was also organised. Besides, saplings were planted on the occasion. |
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Power staff hold demonstration Fatehabad, September 9 Members of the Haryana State Electricity Board Workers Union and the All-India Power Corporation Workers Union participated in the demonstration. The employees raised slogans against the government. Union leaders Arjun Dev, Karam Chand Sardana, Ishwar Mukhija and Pawan Sharma also addressed the employees. |
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3 bodies
found in
Ghaggar canal Sirsa, September 9 According to information received here today, on Sunday morning the bodies of the girls were seen in the canal near Himayukhera village. Villagers identified the bodies as those of Rani Bai (14), daughter of Kartara Ram, and Rani Devi (11), daughter of Devi Lal of Kesupura village in the district. According to the villagers, the girls had accompanied Guddy Devi of the same village to fetch firewood on Saturday, but had not returned. The body of the woman was found in the same canal near Dholpalia village. Their clothes were torn up and there were bruises on the bodies on the basis of which the police suspected murder.
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Fake currency notes seized, 2 held Jind, September 9 |
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