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CGHS scam: CBI in dock for clean chit to societies
FIR lodged against leading builder for fraud
Major markets stay closed due to traders’ protest
Safdarjung Hospital pulled up by CAG
Land rates in Noida, Gr Noida hiked
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Men take advantage of women empowerment provisions
Loni youth shot over land dispute
Shortage of fire-fighting measures in trans-Yamuna areas
SPA students design products for physically challenged
Govt staffer convicted for graft
Capital continues to enjoy cool weather
Demand to distribute waste land among poor
Gang of dacoits busted
Bird flu alert in Noida
DMS to bear more losses this year
Pragati-II power plant to start functioning in 2008
Man jailed for possession of leopard skins
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CGHS scam: CBI in dock for clean chit to societies
New Delhi, March 21 A division bench of Justice Vijender Jain and Justice S N Aggrawal said, “The discrepancies, particularly the signatures of some of the original members in the original list and the resignation letters, cast a shadow on the investigation by the CBI. It clearly shows the lapses by the investigating officers. The dereliction of duty by the IOs shatters the faith of this court on the investigating team”. Amicus Curie K C Mittal pointed out that Biharbandhu Co-operative Group Housing Society and Padmini Co-operative Group Housing Society, which were given a clean chit by the CBI besides 20 other societies, had many discrepancies in the list of members. The signatures of some of the original members had been allegedly forged in the resignation letters, he submitted. He charged the probe agency with clearing these societies despite “sufficient incriminating materials” against them in the illegal revival. CBI counsel Harish Gulati said the agency had filed 20 preliminary enquiries (PEs) in relation to the 102 housing societies which were revived and given land after 2000. Mr Gulati said the CBI had sought the permission of the Lt Governor and Chief Secretary, Delhi government to file another six PEs as the accused were in government service. While fixing May 3 for the next date of hearing, the court asked the CBI to file the final status report in this regard within six weeks. The CBI informed the court that the Delhi Government had referred the names of Vishrantika CGHS and Queta CGHS for probe after finding some illegality in them. Meanwhile, a Delhi court today remanded a private builder, allegedly closely involved in the scam to ten-day CBI custody. Special Judge S K Kaushik sent Gokul Chand Aggarwal to CBI custody till March 31 for his alleged involvement in the fraudulent revival of Ruchika CGHS on Pusa Road here. According to the CBI, the society was wound up in 1979, but more than 14 years later, a fresh application to revive the society was filed with a set of 143 members. The society was revived in 2004, allegedly by former Registrar of Co-operative Societies (RCS) Narayan Diwakar and other RCS officials in connivance with private builders and CGHS office bearers. The CBI alleged that Aggarwal paid a sum of Rs 4,000 to the election officer appointed by the RCS to submit a false report for conducting the elections. The court also extended the judicial remand of accused Diwakar, Ram Nath, Faiz Mohammed, N S Khatri, U S Bhatnagar, Niranjan Singh and Man Singh till April 4.
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FIR lodged against leading builder for fraud
Gurgaon, March 21 According to the FIR, Ashok Verma, Chairman and Managing Director of Ardee City, Satyender Kumar Chokkar, former tehsildar of Gurgaon, and Ramesh Kumar, area patwari, have been booked under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120 B of the IPC which are non-bailable. Wazirabad farmers had given a complaint to the Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, in August 2005. The latter directed the police vigilance department to investigate the matter. In its investigation, the vigilance department had found that a villager, Kanyahai Lal, had died in 1993 but the builder, in connivance with the revenue officials, got land papers transferred in his name with his bogus signature in 1995. There were a lot of other villagers also whose signatures had been forged to complete the documents, traced the vigilance department. According to the findings of the vigilance department, the builder had purchased another piece of land but took possession of this particular land in connivance with revenue officials, which the builders had not purchased. The vigilance department has also noted the lapses and irregularities on the part of various officials of Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) who exchanged around 33 acres of HUDA land in Sectors 51 and 52 with the land of Ardee City and its sister units. The villagers had alleged that HUDA first acquired their land and then transferred the land with the builder to give financial advantage to him. “If HUDA does not require this land, then why did the department acquire it?” queried the villagers. They further alleged that the land which HUDA got in exchange from the builder had less market value in comparison to the value of the land given to him. The builder had formed nine companies for the purpose of exchanging land with HUDA. The companies are Gopal Das Estates and Housing Pvt Ltd, Ardee Business Centre Pvt Ltd, Ardee Unitron Computers Pvt Ltd, SAS Leasing, Neeta Estate and Leasing Pvt Ltd, Ardee Mechanical Industries Pvt Ltd, Ardee Machines Pvt Ltd, Ardee Infrastructure Pvt Ltd and Ardee News Pvt Ltd. The land was transferred in February 2005, just a few days before the assembly elections in the state, found the vigilance department. The Superintendent of Police, Vigilance, Mr Ram Singh Bishnoi, informed The Tribune the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Mr Om Prakash, was preparing the documents and would soon arrest the three
accused in the case. Many attempts were made to seek Ashok Verma’s reaction on the allegations, but he could not be contacted. The SP further informed that some of HUDA’s officials are also found to be involved in the multi-crore racket. Their role would be thoroughly investigated by the department later on.
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Major markets stay closed due to traders’ protest
New Delhi, March 21 Major markets in all parts of the city, including South Extension, Greater Kailash, Kotla Mubarakpur, Kalkaji, Govindpuri, Green Park, Vikaspuri, Janak Puri, Uttam Nagar, Shalimar Bagh, Pitampura, Ashok Vihar, Model Town, Azadpur, Kamla Nagar, Shakti Nagar, Roop Nagar, Malka Ganj and Patparganj remained closed as part of Delhi Bandh, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which is spearheading the agitation, said. The Delhi Bandh, called by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), Delhi Traders Sangharsh Morcha and other leading trade bodies of the Capital has gained wide support from all corners and the traders are firm on keeping their establishments closed, CAIT secretary-general Praveen Khandelwal said. He alleged that the Delhi Government and the MCD have been misleading the High Court through misrepresentation of facts and it is the innocent traders who bear the brunt of it. Traders took out a rally from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar in the heart of the city to express resentment over the demolition of commercial establishments in residential areas. The sealing of shops is expected to affect at least 500,000 traders in Delhi.
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Safdarjung Hospital pulled up by CAG
New Delhi, March 21 As per government orders, transport allowance was not admissible to those employees who had been provided with government accommodation within a distance of one-kilometre or within the campus housing the places of work and residence. “Audit scrutiny records of Safdarjung Hospital revealed that it had been making payment of transport allowance to doctors and other staff who were allotted government accommodation within a distance of one-kilometre or within the hospital campus,” the CAG said in its report tabled in Parliament today. It said the hospital had irregularly paid Rs 49.52 lakh during the period from August 1997 to October 2004 to doctors and other staff allotted accommodation near the office. The CAG report said the hospital should immediately stop the payment of transport allowance to non-entitled doctors and other staff and recover the irregular payments already made. The hospital was also pulled up by the CAG for purchasing a gas steriliser at the cost of Rs 27.80 lakh without assessing the cost of the consumables. The CAG also pointed out that the hospital did not get separate domestic electric metres installed in the nurses’ hostel and incurred expenditure of Rs 48.55 lakh on domestic consumption of electricity at a higher commercial tariff.
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Land rates in Noida, Gr Noida hiked
Greater Noida, March 21 Greater Noida has provided a budget of Rs 1,583 crore for the next financial year. A blanket hike from 10 to 15 per cent has been affected in residential, institutional and industrial plots. The rates of residential plots have been hiked from Rs 3,910 to Rs 4,500 per sq mt. The compensation for farmers has been increased by Rs 11 per sq yard. The GNIDA will henceforth pay land compensation to farmers at Rs 322 per sq yard. A target for acquiring 20,000 bighas for development in the next year has been kept. The Deputy CEO, Greater Noida, Mr Harish Kumar Verma, said a budget of Rs 1,104 crore had been prepared which had been enhanced to Rs 1,583 crore. A sum of Rs 600 crore for land acquisition, Rs 93 crore for internal development, Rs 71 crore for external development and Rs 61 crore for construction activities had been provided in the budget. A sum of Rs 16.35 crore had been provided for urban infrastructure, Mr Verma said. The residential land rates for new sectors had been revised from Rs 3,600 to Rs 4,110 per sq mt. The industrial land rate had been hiked by 10 per cent. Rates of plots up to 1,000 sq mt had been raised from Rs 2,560 to Rs 2,850, for plots between 4,000 to 5,000 sq mt the rates would now be Rs 2,150, for plots from 8,000 to 12,000 sq mt size the rates would now be Rs 1,950 and for plots up to 20,000 sq mt a rate of Rs 1,850 had been finalised. The rates for plots of 30,000 sq mt size had been pegged at Rs 1,750. For 40,000, 50,000 sq mt and 100,000 sq mt size plots, rates of Rs 1,450, Rs 1,150, and Rs 1,050 would be applicable. For institutional plots too, an increase of 10 per cent had been effected. For up to one acre, a rate of Rs 2,010 had been hiked to Rs 2,150. A five-acre to 30-acre size plot would command a revised rate of Rs 1,705 from Rs 990 in the past. Plots larger than 30 acres would have a rate of Rs 1,050 as against Rs 930 in the past. For commercial plots of 101sq mt, the rates had been revised from Rs 8,190 to Rs 9,920 per sq mt. For 101 to 10,000 sq mt plot, the rate would be Rs 7,250 per sq mt as against Rs 6,300 in the past. A sum of Rs 15 crore had been provided in the Budget for the Dadri railway overbridge, the Deputy CEO added.
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Men take advantage of women empowerment provisions
Faridabad, March 21 Even though women have held most of the important posts, including the Municipal Corporation Faridabad (MCF), the Zila Parishad, the Panchayat Samiti and at least 33 per cent of the village panchayats, “it has failed to change the profile of women in a substantial manner”, as husbands of these elected members have often used the authority and responsibilities delegated to them. The men have been using facilities, including vehicles with beacon light, meant only for officials. Recently, a case came to light where the husband of the chairperson of local body here was seen meeting officials of the district administration in place of his wife. The District Development and Panchayat Officer (DDPO), Mr Devinder Singh Surjewala, was “furious” when the husband of woman, a gram panchayat head of a village in Palwal subdivision, came to meet him in connection with some panchayat work. It is interesting that the woman sarpanch of the village was made to sit outside the office while her husband tried to represent her in the office. Similarly, the DDPO had to intervene when an attempt was made by the husband of woman sarpanch of a village in Hodal sub-division to represent her in connection with some official work. Mr Surjewala said that he had issued a circular that the elected women representatives should attend every meeting and ensure that their husbands or male members should not visit offices in connection with official works.
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Loni youth shot over land dispute
Ghaziabad, March 21 Ravi Dutt Varma of Naipura Colony in Loni was working at a veterinary clinic in Ghaziabad. His wife, who had separated from him, was living in the same colony with her three kids. Her son, Sunil, had a shop in the colony. Ravi Dutt had a 1500 sq mt plot in the same colony which was a bone of contention between his three sons and his brother Laxman. Ravi is said to have divided the plot into three parts and given his children one part each. But his brother and sister in-law were still pressing Ravi for registration of the plot in their name. All three sons of Ravi Dutt had sold their plots to property dealers to end the feud. Laxman had gone to the court against the registration of the plot. Sunil’s wife Kaushal said that on March 17 four unidentified persons had come to meet her husband in the afternoon. After they left, Sunil also stepped out, saying that he was going up to Loni. At 6 pm, he told his wife on phone that he was at an unknown place with at least six persons and would not be able to return home at night. On March 20, his body was found in Bulandshahr at 10 am. There were gunshot wounds on his body. Acid had also been sprinkled on him to disfigure his face. The Salempur police had identified the body from a letter found in the deceased’s pocket.
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Shortage of fire-fighting measures in trans-Yamuna areas
New Delhi, March 21 According to sources, there are only 6 fire stations in the whole trans-Yamuna area. These are at Laxmi Nagar, Geeta Colony, Mandawali, Shahdara, Gokulpuri and Shastri Park. “In East Delhi area, there is a big locality with a dense population near the UP boarder. It is surprising that there is not a single fire station there. If there is a fire, fire tenders have to be summoned from Laxmi Nagar and Mandawali fire stations. Even in Laxmi Nagar and Geeta Colony area, fire tenders have to be called from other areas in case of a major fire,” said a fireman associated with the Delhi Fire Service (DFS). “Apart from this, there is no fire station near Nand Nagari, Seemapuri and Yamuna Vihar localities of this district. In case of a fire there, fire tenders have to go from Gokulpuri, Shastri Park or Shahdara fire stations,” he said. Another officer associated with the DFS said that there was an acute shortage of fire tenders and personnel in the existing fire stations. “At present, there are only 200 firemen including officers in the whole trans-Yamuna area. As per DFS rule, there must be at least 6 firemen on a fire tender sent to a site of fire. But due to shortage of staff, we are forced to manage with only four,” he said. He said that the whole trans-Yamuna had only 16 fire tenders for an area containing one third of the city’s population. “There should be at least 10-12 extra fire tenders,” he said. When contacted, the Deputy Fire officer in-charge of the trans-Yamuna area Mr Santokh Singh said that five new fire stations were to be opened soon in the area at Kalyanwas, Dallupura, Mayur Vihar Phase-1, Tahirpur and Yamuna Vihar. “The land for these fire stations has already been identified and the stations will be ready prior to the start of the Commonwealth Games. Apart from this, more than four hundred firemen have been recruited recently. They are being given training these days,” he said.
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SPA students design products for physically challenged
New Delhi, March 21 Perhaps the most outstanding product is a brilliant design of an ‘Easy Braille’ instrument to aid writing for the blind. Prof Mandeep Singh, Head of Industrial Design, SPA, says, “This easy Braille set has been developed by a third semester student, Jaidevi Venugopal. If this model gets picked up, then it will simplify Braille reading.” He further adds, “This set, unlike any other, has a negative stylus and a bottom protrusion. Right now, we have begun the procedure for patenting this easy Braille set. The process has been begun by the Dean and approvals have poured in.” Nitin Nagdavane has put together a device to help the physically challenged use regular taxis, like the Maruti Omni. The idea behind this design was to provide city taxis with a facility to accommodate wheelchair users without compromising on the comfort of regular users and with minimum investment in production cost. Nitin has created such a model especially adapted for Maruti vans and taxis. Yet another resourceful design is that of an easy rickshaw for the old, the obese and the pregnant. This design was evolved by Neha Srivastava. The idea was to make it easier for the physically challenged and others to climb onto a rickshaw and travel in comfort. Neha managed this by dividing the footboard into two parts with a folding seat at negligible extra cost. This not only made it comfortable to get into the rickshaw but also made the rickshaw more stable by bringing down the centre of gravity. Students have put together designs and successfully constructed computer input peripherals for people with spinal injuries and other related physical disabilities, a device to help aid the process of eating and drinking for people with spinal injuries, a device to help arthritis patients traverse vertical distances, a system to aid the recovery process of spinal chord injury patients, an educative toy for a blind child, a basketball game for visually impaired children to be used on school campuses, a vendor cart for the disabled to make them self-reliant, a wheelchair specifically designed for use in the office environment, a playstation for a primary school that caters to both the disabled and other children, an efficient redesign of crutches as a lifestyle accessory and a recreation tricycle for children with weak lower limbs in the 8-15 year age group. All these designs are going to be on display at the Blind Relief Mela coming up in April.
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Govt staffer convicted for graft
New Delhi, March 21 Special Judge Sunil Gaur found convict Chanderkesh, a record keeper in the Sub-Registrar’s office at Kashmere Gate, guilty of offences under various provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 3,000 on the convict. Complainant Madhu had approached the convict on April 27, 1993 to get a certified copy of the deed of her house located on Najafgarh Road. The government official demanded Rs 250 for the service. She filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Branch which laid a trap for the convict at his office the next day and caught him red-handed while accepting the bribe.
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Capital continues to enjoy cool weather
New Delhi, March 21 Clouds enveloped the Delhi skyline again this morning till about noon. The thick clouds resulted in the minimum temperature today rising to 17.4 degree Celsius from 15 degree Celsius yesterday. The cloud cover and the cool breeze today continued to provide relief to the people from the scorching conditions, which characterised the weather since the beginning of February.—TNS
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Demand to distribute waste land among poor
Gurgaon, March 21 Addressing the workers of Gurgaon unit of ‘Janhit Sewa Sangathan’, the president of the organisation, Dr Kriparam Puniya, said that most of the anti-poverty programmes remained only on paper. Later, interacting with mediapersons, he announced that the Sangathan would organise a rally soon after the completion of his intensive tour of the State. The next phase of the ‘Janhit Aandolan’ will commence after the proposed rally, he added. Dr Puniya said the organisation would try to mobilise the poor sections of the society. Recently, it had organised a seminar on ‘Eradication of poverty’ in Delhi, and a procession along with the All India Confederation of SCs and STs in the national Capital in protest against the alleged apathy of the administration towards the needs of the poor. Some of the other demands of the Sangathan include the formation of Indian Judicial Service and filling up of the backlog in government jobs. Accompanying him was Mr Azad Singh Toor, the Vice-President of the Haryana unit of the organisation and presently with the Ministry of External Affairs.
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Gang of dacoits busted
New Delhi, March 21 The police also claimed to have recovered 178 self-starters of Lucas Company and Rs 9 lakh from their possession. The local police in Chandni Chowk nabbed the accused while they were passing through the area possessing the self-starters of tractors. During interrogation, the accused disclosed that on the night of March 10 and 11, they along with their 12 accomplices, all heavily loaded with arms, went to a factory situated in Sector-31, Faridabad, and overpowered 15 persons present there. Thereafter, they loaded their two Tata-407 tempo and escaped from there after injuring some persons. The value of the goods was more than Rs 60 lakh.
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Bird flu alert in Noida
Noida, March 21 A control room has been set up in the office of the Chief Medical Officer where information pertaining to possible cases of bird flu can be registered on Telephone No 2453797. The Noida Heath officer has been designated as the nodal officer for coordinating the efforts for controlling the bird flu in the district. Noida authority will be responsible for banning the sale of poultry — chicken and eggs in the town. The Chief Medical Officer, Dr J. P. Sharma, said all poultry farms in the district will have to file their reports with authorities within three days. Health and food inspectors in all the four blocks have been made responsible in this connection. Women health visitors have also been asked to disseminate the information to the people in the rural area. Orders for setting up of isolation wards in each primary health centres and community health centres have been issued. Since bird flu spreads very quickly and the treatment of patient affected by bird flu is very complicated it is desirable that the suspected patients are kept isolated from other patients, CMO said. He said the bocks would be inspected to force ban on sale of chickens and eggs. In case the sale of poultry is not banned there would be risk of spreading bird flu, CMO said.
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DMS to bear more losses this year
New Delhi, March 21 As per official sources, the losses are expected to be around Rs 1,395.84 lakh this fiscal. The losses were on account of continuous increase in cost prices of raw materials and other inputs as also lower capacity utilisation and higher operational losses due to the plant and machinery being very old and labour-intensive. However, the DMS had taken steps to cut costs by outsourcing transportation and engagement of distributors to increase the sale of milk, reduction in consumption of electricity and water per unit of milk produced and custom packing of Mother Dairy milk to utilise the surplus capacity. It is also upgrading some parts of the plant, machinery and equipment to cut the operational cost and reduce staff by not filling up vacant posts.
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Pragati-II power plant to start functioning in 2008
New Delhi, March 21 The plant would start generation in September 2008, he told reporters after the meeting. He informed that as per the 16th power survey conducted by the Central Electricity Authority, the power requirement in the Capital during 2008-09 was expected to grow to 4810 MW. Dr Walia said the EFC has also sanctioned an amount of Rs 1.55 crore for purchase of land from DDA for construction of a 66 KV grid sub-station at Uttam Nagar in south-west Delhi. The EFC also cleared a proposal relating to construction of Udyog Sadan building at Patparganj in East Delhi at an estimated cost of Rs 9.26 crore. The project of the Industries Department would be completed within six months after award of the work. Among the other projects cleared by the EFC is building an old-age home in Dwarka on the outskirts of the capital at a cost of Rs 4 crore. In all, the EFC cleared projects costing Rs 1,415 crore.
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Man jailed for possession of leopard skins
New Delhi, March 21 The court also slapped on the convict a fine of Rs 10,000 in default of which he would have to spend another three months in prison. Delhi Police, acting on a tip-off, had on May 20 last year arrested Nath, a native of Bijnore district in Uttar Pradesh near a bus stand at Raghubir Nagar here. They seized the skins from a briefcase he was carrying at the time. Nath’s defence that he had come to the Capital to purchase clothes and was falsely implicated in the case did not stand ground during the trial. Moreover, the fact that he could not produce any legal source of procurement of the skins or any licence or authority went against him.
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