Hisar, June 16
A number of PMT aspirants in the state, who had secured good positions in the common entrance test for admission to various medical, dental, ayurvedic and homoeopathic institutions located in Haryana, received a rude shock with several private colleges deciding to conduct a fresh entrance test.

On March 14, 2006, the Haryana Government issued a notification, declaring Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU), Rothak, as the competent authority to conduct the entrance examination for admission to the MBBS, BDS, BAMS and BHMS courses in medical and dental colleges across the state for the year 2006.

Following this, the MDU conducted the common entrance examination on June 6 and promptly declared the results the next day.

However, the joy of the candidates securing reasonably good positions in the state-level examination proved to be short-lived as the authorities of a private medical college and several dental colleges formed an association and issued admission notice for a fresh pre-medical test to be conducted on all-India basis.

According to the advertisement regarding the fresh admission, a notice has been inserted on behalf of the Association of Self-Financing Medical Colleges of Haryana, the M.M. College of Dental Sciences and Research, Mullana, Ambala, has been made the admission office.

Talking to The Tribune here today, parents of several candidates who had secured good positions in the state-level CET maintained that the authorities concerned had played a cruel joke on their wards by allowing the private colleges to conduct a separate PMT at this stage.

“If the managements of the private medical colleges wished to conduct a separate exam, they should have stayed out from the state-level entrance test,” said Mr Chetan Garg, a bank manager whose son has secured the 234th rank in the state PMT.

The parents assert that the move had put their children’s future at stake, adding that the grant of permission for conducting the test at this stage also smacked of the government’s intention of favouring the private institutions.

The association of medical institutions has decided to organise a fresh test on the basis of the Supreme Court directions stating that in the case of privately managed unaided medical institutions, the seats would be filled through a separate entrance test to be conducted by an association of such institutions.

The parents, however, maintain that the state authorities should not have granted the permission to conduct a fresh test at this stage. They have urged the Chief Justice of India to intervene in the matter. They also plan to file a writ petition in a court of law.

Chandigarh, June 16
The Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has told the Education Department to start the science stream in all such schools where more than 10 students are interested in studying science subjects.

The Chief Minister gave the directions while presiding over a review meeting of the department here today.

Mr Hooda also sanctioned an additional Rs 30 crore to the department to further upgrade the educational facilities in the state. This amount would be spent on setting up regional centres at Hamirpur and Jind, a women's university and new government colleges.

He said the recruitment of 15,000 teachers would soon be undertaken in the state. As many as 4,700 guest teachers had already been appointed.

Separate girls’ toilets in schools would be constructed under the Total Sanitation Campaign in the state, he added.

The Chief Minister said two model schools — at Gannaur and Biddal in Sonepat district — would soon be opened. Many more model schools would also come up in various blocks during the next financial year. He said the fee of Rs 80 per month earlier charged from students for learning computers would be abolished.

Karnal, June 16
A team of the “CM’s Flying Squad”, which raided various government offices on Wednesday in the district, turned out to be a fake one. Members of the raiding party were found to be the state employees of the Administrative Reforms Department who checked various public offices and were found incompetent to conduct such raids.

All members of the raiding party — Mr Jai Prakash, Mr Prakash, Mr Jagram and Mr Rampal were caught while they were consuming liquor at Marketing Board run rest house at Asandh by the area SDM.

The district administration probed the matter and today forwarded a message to the CM’s office about the “raiding team” that caused embarrassment to the state government.

The district administration has recommended departmental action against the erring officials.

On Wednesday, the team raided the Civil Hospital, the BDO’s, Office, Public Health Department besides others. A number of officials were found absent from duty during the raid. Sources said the district administration got suspicious about the manner in which the raids were made. An official said normally the DC concerned is told about of such actions.

Deputy Commissioner, Rakesh Gupta this afternoon termed the incident as unfortunate and said that the CM’s office had been apprised of the issue

Fatehabad, June 16
Irked at the raids by the Vigilance Wing of the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, farmers, from Taliwali, Dhani Chetanpur, Khanpur, Masitanwali and nearby Dhanis villages, today blocked the road near the Kuldeep Resorts here and took the officials of the checking party as hostage.

Mr Nishan Singh, district president of the INLD, and Mrs Krishana Poonia, district president of the women wing of the party, also reached there and supported the move of the farmers.

The farmers alleged that the vigilance team was imposing heavy fines on some farmers on the plea that they had increased loads on their tube-well motors.

A team of Vigilance Wing of the DHBVN today reached these villages and checked motors installed on the tube wells in these villages.

The team found that many of the farmers had increased the load on their motors unauthorisedly. The team then imposed heavy penalty on some of these farmers.

The farmers alleged that the instrument, by which the team was measuring the load on their motors, was not recording correctly due to low voltage.

When the vigilance team had imposed fines on three farmers Baldev, Gurdev and Harpal, and was about to impose fine on another farmer Maghar Singh, the farmers became agitated and held the officials of the vigilance team captive.

The farmers blocked the road and raised anti-DHBVN slogans. The INLD leaders also supported the farmers .

The roadblock was lifted only when the SDM, Mr Yogesh Mehta, and the Executive Engineer, Mr D.S. Rathi, reached the spot and assured them of action. — OC

Ambala, June 16
Former Ambala cantonment MLA Anil Vij today demanded that Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) must probe the Agrofed scam.

Mr Anil Vij alleged that the extent of involvement of MLA Devender Bansal in the Agrofed scam must also be looked into by the CBI sleuths. However, Mr Devender Bansal termed the allegation as baseless, without any merit and defamatory in nature.

Talking to mediapersons here today, Mr Anil Vij said that the Agrofed scam is an important inter-state case. “An FIR has been registered and police raids are being carried out. But important people are said to be involved and local police may not be able to reach the truth. So, we demand CBI enquiry,” he said.

Mr Vij said that after the Assembly elections, Agrofed chairman, Mr Sandhu, participated in several Congress functions. “Also, Agrofed placed in newspapers for the Congress. Hoardings were placed by Agrofed. Some hoardings mentioned the name of Ambala Cantonment MLA D.K. Bansal,” he said. “It is clear that the MLA as well as the ruling party is shielding Agrofed chairman,” he alleged.

He demanded that the investigators must look into the circumstances in which Agrofed chairman Sandhu used red beacon light on his car and who had issued the necessary stickers to him. “During the raids in the last two days, we have been made to understand that letter pads of MLAs, ministers and MPs have been recovered. All this puts a question mark on investigation,” he said.

Mr Anil Vij said that not only did Agrofed have several branches in Haryana, there were branches in other states too. “Money was taken from youths on the pretext of giving them government service. The youths were misled. We suspect that this could be a several hundred crores scam,” he said.

He said that the Agrofed scam had exposed the clean image cultivated by Haryana Chief Minister Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the true face of the Congress had been revealed.

Mr Vij said that if the CBI enquiry is not initiated within one week, then they would stage demonstrations. “We will also meet other political parties and try to form a common platform on the Agrofed issue,” he said. “We want the victims should get justice and their money should be returned to them,” he added.

He alleged that the recent resignation by Mr Devender Bansal was not due to NOC issue but it was pressure tactics with regard to the Agrofed case. “The timing of both the incidents show that there is more to it than what meets the eye. The resignation was a ploy to gain false sympathy of the people,” he said.

On the other hand, Mr Devender Bansal strongly refuted all allegations levelled by Mr Anil Vij.

Mr Devender Bansal said: “We demand that CBI enquiry should take place. Any enquiry will bring out the truth. When Agrofed chairman was roaming around in Ambala, then nobody was aware of the matter. Mr Vij too was in Ambala. Yet he never brought the matter either to my notice or to the notice of the authorities concerned. He should have complained earlier,” he added.

Chandigarh, June 16
The BJP today joined the debate on the Reliance-SEZ issue and said the Haryana Government should have invited tenders for the land it was unilaterally handing over to the RIL for setting up a special economic zone.

Addressing a press conference here, the BJP leader and former Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Mr I. D. Swamy, said the decision had even led to protests from a Congress MP and various functionaries of the ruling party's state unit. He alleged that the state government had sacrificed the interests of the state as well as those of farmers by proposing to strike a deal with the RIL regarding the project. He said had the RIL purchased the land from the farmers by paying them the market price, the farmers would have got many times more than what was being paid to them by the state government for acquiring their land.

“It is a blatant misuse of the powers for the acquisition of land vested in the state government,” Captain Abhimanyu, the young BJP leader from Rohtak, who was present at the press conference, said.

Mr Swamy said proposing to enter into an agreement with a private company to set up an SEZ spread over 25,000 acres itself was improper. One company should not have jurisdiction over more than 5,000 acres in an SEZ, he said and added that SEZs should be developed in industrially backward areas of the state rather than in Gurgaon district.

Captain Abhimanyu said SEZs were allocated by the Andhra Pradesh Government by inviting pre-qualification bids from interested parties. The Haryana Government should have followed a similar principle, he said. Asked why the BJP had remained silent on the issue for a long time, Captain Abhimanyu said the issue had been raised by the party at various district headquarters of the state.

The press conference was enlivened by the participation of Mr Krishan Murty Hooda, a recent entrant to the BJP from the Congress. Mr Hooda, who was known to be a protege of the HPCC chief and former Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Bhajan Lal, alleged that the Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda's claim that he had always remained a part of the Congress, was untrue.

Mr Krishan Hooda said Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda and his father, Mr Ranbir Singh, had joined the party floated by Mr Brahmanand Reddy after the rout of the Congress in 1977 at the hands of the Janata Party. Mr Ranbir Singh was the president of the HPCC at that time and Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda the general secretary of the Youth Congress unit of Haryana. He said the father-son duo returned to the Congress after the party regained power at the Centre in 1981.