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Board warns schools on bogus certificates Unending woes of Dabwali victims HUDA set to implement pension scheme HUDA to chargesheet two officials Strike hits supply of petroleum School uniform issue hots up Kalka residents denied bail |
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Board warns schools on bogus certificates Bhiwani, November 13 According to sources the board recently got verified the School Leaving Certificate of the other states received with the enrolment returns for the academic year 2002-2003. During this verification process, the board had constituted a committee to verify the SLCs of 37 candidates of Rose Bud High School, Nangal Chaudhary (Mohindergarh), which had been issued from Agra (UP). The committee of the board went to Agra to get the 37 SLCs verified from the Nagar Shiksha Adhikari who said all certificates were bogus. On the basis of the report of the Nagar Shiksha Adhikari, the board issued a show cause notice to the school. In the meantime the institution informed the board that the verification the 37 SLCs had already been made by the District Basic Education Officer, Agra, and the SLCs were original. Sources said since the so-called letter of the officer had been received by the board through post and the Headmaster of the Rose Bud High School had sent a forwarding letter with a photocopy of the so-called verification, the board authorities thought it fit to get it verified again. A team of officers was sent to Agra again to the office of the Basic District Education Officer and found that Rose Bud High School had sent bogus SLCs to the board for enrolment and had sent a letter to the board with forged signature of the District Basic Education Officer and bogus despatch number. A spokesman today disclosed that an FIR was being lodged against the school for misleading the board by submitting forged documents. The enrolment of these 37 candidates and the affiliation of the school were being cancelled. A letter was also being sent to the Education Department, Haryana, for the cancellation of the recognition of the school, she added.
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Unending woes of Dabwali victims Hisar, November 13 The victims are forced to travel more than 300 kms for recording their statements before the Chairman of the one-member commission headed by Justice T.P. Garg, retired judge of the Allahabad High Court, who has been appointed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to determine the amount of compensation to be paid to for the victims of the tragedy. The commission has to hold its hearings at the local Irrigation Rest House as the state government has not provided any office and other infrastructure to the commission at Dabwali ignoring the High Court’s directions in this regard. Considering the problems of the victims, the commission requested the state government to provide it with an office at Dabwali several times in the past but the government paid no heed its pleas. Thereafter, the high court in its order (Dated October 22, 2003) directed the state government to provide an office and other facilities to the commission at Dabwali within 15 days. The deadline has expired but the commission has not heard anything from the Sirsa district administration, in this regard so far. The commission has, therefore, put off its hearings till November 17. In its order of November 6, the commission pointed out that necessary courtroom and other infrastructure required to hold the sittings at Dabwali had not been provided by the state government so far so it was not possible for it to continue the hearings on day-to-day basis. Justice Garg commented in the order that he was constrained to put it on record that despite several reminders no information had been received from the Deputy Commissioner, Sirsa, regarding compliance with the high court’s directive. It may be recalled that 442 persons were burnt alive and more than 250 received serious burn injuries in a fire that broke out at Rajeev Marriage Palace at Dabwali on December 23, 1995. These students and their parents had gone there to attend the annual function of DAV School. As many as 158 victims were students of the DAV School while the rest were parents and students of other schools of Dabwali. |
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HUDA set to implement pension scheme Panchkula, November 13 Even as the issue of transfer of funds to HUDA by the office of the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner (
RPFC) at Karnal - which has stalled the pension scheme of HUDA for the past two years - has yet to be solved, HUDA has now decided to go ahead by using its own reserves (since January this year) for implementing the pension scheme. Senior officials in HUDA informed TNS that a sum of Rs 7 crore deducted as employees provident fund
(EPF) from its employees salaries’ since January, 2003, will be used for implementing the pension scheme, which was introduced in November, 2001. Till the time HUDA gets its share back from the RPFC office, this money will be used for starting the pension scheme, confirmed a senior official in HUDA. Chief Administrator, HUDA, and Director, Town and Country Planning, Mr N.C.
Wadhwa, when contacted said that the case for implementing the pension scheme had been sent to the state government for approval and once HUDA was excluded from the EPF Act, the pension scheme would be implemented. It may be noted that the non-implementation of pension scheme for HUDA employees had caused a lot of heart burning among employees. With the office of the
RPFC, Karnal, asking HUDA to first deposit damages worth Rs. 27 crore with their office, the pension scheme had been stalled. Officials in HUDA have been pleading that the RPFC office release the Employees Provident Fund
(EPF) share of its employees already deposited with them, after making deductions for these damages of Rs. 27 crore, so that they could begin its pension scheme. The entire HUDA establishment is covered by the Karnal RPFC office since 1991. Earlier, HUDA establishment was covered under the
RPFC, Chandigarh. HUDA had been deducting Contributory Provident Fund
(CPF) of its employees from 1977, but not depositing the same with the
RPFC, Chandigarh. It was in 1982, after HUDA failed to get a stay against the
RPFC, Chandigarh, that they finally deposited Rs. 9.25 lakh with the
RPFC, Chandigarh. It was in 1991 that HUDA was shifted under the RPFC, Karnal. But HUDA also failed to deposit the provident fund even with the
RPFC, Karnal, from 1991 to 1999. It was then that the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, Karnal, passed an order asking HUDA to deposit the entire EPF collected since its inception in 1977, along with a detail return of the EPF deducted from each employees’ salary. |
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HUDA
to chargesheet two officials Panchkula, November 13 Sources in the Estate Office informed TNS that the then Naib Tehsildar Bachchan Singh and the then Kanungo Sher Singh, who had failed to check encroachments in Sector 19 and Harmilap Nagar in Industrial Area, Phase II, will be chargesheeted. “Other than this, an inquiry will also be initiated against the Junior Engineer (JE) and Sub Divisional Officer ( SDO), Survey, who were posted in Harmilap Nagar from 1997 to 1999 — when the encroachments were taking place here,” the Estate Officer, Mr Ashwani Sharma said. This move follows the recent stand off between the revenue officials of Punjab and Haryana over the ownership of 2000 sq yards of land in Harmilap Nagar near Industrial Area, Phase II, here. As many as nine residential premises have come up on the land, which is being claimed by both Punjab and Haryana as its own. HUDA claims that these premises have come up on four industrial plots of one kanal each. Even as HUDA has initiated the eviction process, it has decided to fix responsibility for neglecting this encroachment when it had begun in 1997. Since Bachchan Singh and Sher Singh were earlier placed under suspension in another case for issuing NOC (No Objection Certificates) for selling off HUDA land located outside the Lal Dora of Haripur village, the charges of negligence in case of “encroachment” at Harmilap Nagar will be added in the earlier chargesheet prepared against them. It may be mentioned that these two officers, along with Patwari Gurnam Singh, were placed under suspension in May earlier this year, after they were indicted in a departmental inquiry on charges of issuing NOC for selling off 850 sq yards of HUDA land located on the common boundary of Railla and Haripur villages here. While the three above mentioned officers had issued NOC for about 42 marlas of land, the sale deed was prepared for 16 marlas of the land. In another case, NOC was issued for 10 marla land here and sale deed for the same land was also prepared at the Sub Tehsil office. The revenue records, however, show this land was acquired by HUDA. Other than this, about 10 acres in Sector 19 (along a seasonal rivulet near CID Complex, and, near Sector 19 shopping area), is also a sore point between the revenue departments of the two state governments. Even though the issue of ownership is under litigation in the courts at Rajpura and Patiala in Punjab, it is alleged that HUDA “lost” its land to developers from Punjab, in connivance of its own revenue officials. A meeting of the SDM, Dera Bassi, Tehsildar, Dera Bassi, Estate Officer, Panchkula, and the SDM, Panchkula, will be held tomorrow to decide the next course of action regarding the eviction proceedings for residents of Harmilap Nagar. Estate Officer Ashwani Sharma said the demarcation (nishan dehi) of the land will be done within a week. Earlier, residents of Harmilap Nagar had gathered this morning in wake of a demolition threat by HUDA. M.S. Sidhu, SDM, Dera Bassi, and N.K. Sharma, DSP, were also present there.  |
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Strike hits supply of petroleum Panipat, November 13 A large number of people were disappointed as the IOC petrol stations along the GT Road turned them back, as the strike by their association entered third day. With the IOC petrol stations virtually dry, people had no option but to queue up at the petrol stations of other oil companies. However, the situation here was also the same with a majority of petrol pumps remaining dry. People could be seen arguing with the petrol station staff over the non-availability of petrol and diesel. Even the filling station, run by the Haryana Tourism, which claimed to have its own tankers to bring petrol and diesel, was also dry till about 2 pm. It is learnt that the IOC has chalked out a strategy to deal with the strike. Under the strategy, if the strike is not called off in a day or two, the tankers could load their supplies from any of the oil depots in Ambala, Hisar and Rewari so that supplies could be sent to far-off places and the public was not made to suffer. Officials sources said if solution was not found within a couple of days, the district administration could invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), as various petroleum products were supplied to several parts of northern India from the Panipat refinery. While private tankers did not load any supplies from the refinery for the third day today, about 15 oil tankers, belonging to government departments such as the Haryana Roadways, sugar mills and the Haryana Tourism, were loaded today. Meanwhile, the association members sat on a dharna outside the refinery gate for the third day today. It is learnt that there are serious differences in the association over continuing the strike. Among other things, the association is demanding a hike in the transportation charges, which is currently Rs 1.29 per litre. |
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School
uniform issue hots up Ambala, November 13 The matter is now being looked into by the district administration. The Deputy Commissioner, Ambala, Mr D.D. Gautam, said he has taken suo motu notice of the issue. Parents are unhappy with the condition of schools regarding buying uniforms. "The school management decides the shop from where we have to buy the uniform. Why can't they choose a colour combination which is readily available in the market so that the parents do not have to pay excess for the uniforms?" a harried parent asked. She said the parents should be given the option to buy the uniform from the market so that it can be bought according to the budget. "Now, we are forced to buy whatever is given by the shop. There is no option. It is an unfortunate scenario and we are being helplessly being taken for a ride," she stated. The Principal of a public school pointed out that a shop is specified for buying the school uniform so that there is uniformity of colour. "We have noticed that when parents buy on their own, there is a significant colour variation. To maintain uniformity, we want that the parents should buy from an earmarked shop," he said. He said that there was nothing wrong if a shop is specified for the purpose. "If the uniform is being sold at a premium, then it is incorrect. Otherwise, if the uniform is available at the market rate then there should not be any objection," he added. A member of a school management said that the school uniform lends identity to the student. "From a distance, one can make out that a student belongs to a particular school. I think that the parents, management members, principal and teachers should all sit together to find a solution to the issue," he said. "Frankly, everyone should pay more attention to what the student is learning in the school than what he or she is wearing to the school," he stated. |
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Kalka
residents denied bail Panchkula, November 13 They resigned in October and it was thus learnt that a sum of Rs 4.49 lakh collected from customers was not accounted for and that a balance of Rs 24.21 lakh was also due from them. |
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