Chandigarh, September 12
The Haryana Government has given the finishing touch to the plan of closing down the cooperative sugar mill at Sirsa by appointing a liquidator for the purpose. Mr Naresh Chaudhry, MD of the Cooperative Labour and Construction Federation Ltd, has been appointed the liquidator for winding up the mill, official sources said.

The mill, named after late Devi Lal, was inaugurated by former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala on November 1, 2001. In March 2002, the Secretary of the Cooperative Department announced that the mill had successfully completed the trial run and had crushed 9.40 lakh quintal of cane with an average recovery of 9 per cent, thus producing about 80,000 quintal of sugar. This was the highest sugar recovery in the history of the cooperative sugar mills in the state, the Secretary had said.

The bright picture painted by the obliging official, however, turned out to be a chimera. Sirsa is not traditionally a cane growing area. Farmers in the district have always grown cotton. The mill soon started facing shortage of cane for crushing, as the farmers stuck to their old crop.

The amount of cane crushed progressively declined since the first season (2001-02) and in 2004-05 the crushing came to a standstill, as there was no supply of cane. As it turned out, the mill became one of the most controversial experiments by Mr Chautala to benefit his home district. The construction of mill alone had cost the state exchequer Rs 44 crore. Out of the total amount, Rs 39 crore was obtained from Hafed, a cooperative sector unit, as loan.

There are 272 employees in the mill, including 98 permanent employees. It is learnt that the permanent employees will be shifted to other vacancies after the liquidation of the mill. The remaining employees, known as the seasonal staff, will be offered compensation and then packed off. The liquidator had sought funds amounting to over Rs 2 crore from the government for settling the dues of seasonal staff.

The INLD is not likely to let the closure take place without protests and will try to make an issue out of it. However, even when the INLD was in power in the state, it had become evident that the mill could not be run successfully. The accumulated loss of the mill was Rs 18 crore in 2004 when Mr Chautala was the Chief Minister. 

Karnal, September 12
Scores of bureaucrats, Vice-Chancellors, university registrars and the ‘VIP politicians’ are illegally using red and blue lights with flashers on their vehicles in violation of the government notification.

An investigation revealed putting red and blue lights with flashers has become a “symbol of power’’ and a number of state government officials at the district-level and certain advisers to Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda are flouting norms set by the state Transport Department.

Photographs of several such vehicles of the officials who use red light atop vehicles are with The Tribune. Though several “offending officials’’ ignorance over any such notification others tried to justify their ‘offence’. The state authorities assured to take stern action against the ‘violators’.

Following directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the transport department had cut list of users of such lights.

Investigations revealed that VCs of several universities were using red beacon atop official vehicles. As per notification of the state Transport Department VCs of Haryana universities were entitled to use only blue light with flashers on their vehicles.

Registrar of CDLU, Sirsa, Dr R.C. Dalal confirmed to The Tribune that the VC, K.C. Bhardwaj had been using red light atop his official vehicle.

Dr R.P. Bajpayee, VC of GJU, Hisar also uses red beacon and claimed that the VCs in the state were entitled to use red lights. Registrars of certain universities were also unauthorisedly using red and blue lights on their vehicles.

Talking to The TNS, here this evening, Principal Secretary, Transport, Ramendra Jakhu confirmed that under the notification issued on April 27, 2006, VCs were entitled to blue light with flasher and not the red lights.

He assured to The Tribune that action would be taken against the offenders.

Dismissing plea of the offenders, Mr Jakhu said that each notification is circulated to all the districts by the head office thus no question of any ignorance of government orders.

A survey in the state revealed that misuse of red and blue lights were reported in almost each district. Scores of the Additional Deputy Commissioners, CTMs, Civil Surgeons and officials were either using the red lights while numerous tehsildars, district revenue officers and other officials were using blue flasher lights to which they were not entitled.

ADC of Karnal, R.S. Kharb expressed ignorance if he was not entitled for the red light. He claimed that after being transferred to the district last month, he was given the same vehicle with the same light.

As per official orders, a CMO is not entitled to fit any light atop his vehicle whereas The Tribune has a photo where the Civil Surgeon of Karnal had fitted a red light. When contacted, he admitted that he knew about the orders and claimed that an appeal had been made to the state government to allow the light.

In another example of defiance of government orders tehsildar of Karnal, Satish is using blue light with a flasher on his official vehicle. He said that he was not aware of the orders but said that presence of light on the vehicle helped them “to work smoothly’’ in field.

Mr M.S. Malik, District Revenue Officer (DRO) tried to justify the use of blue light saying that putting of light did not make any difference.

Chandigarh, September 12
The Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has urged the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, to approve the state’s Integrated Murrah Development Project worth Rs 544 crore to improve the quality of Murrah buffaloes.

This was stated at a meeting presided over by Mr Hooda to review the functioning of the Animal Husbandry Department here today. The Animal Husbandry Minister, Mr H.S. Chatha, was also present at the meeting.

Mr Hooda said there was a heavy demand for Murrah buffaloes in 70 countries. Bulgaria had urged the state government to send 8,000 Murrah buffaloes to that country. Murrah, the best breed of buffalo, was upgraded through the performance recording scheme and selective breeding. He said integrated Murrah germ plasm would be developed by using modern bio-techniques. With the approval of this project, 70 per cent of the demand for quality Murrah germ plasm of the country would be met.

He said there were 1,600 lakh buffaloes in the world and out of these 900 lakh were in India. While Haryana had 60 lakh buffaloes, of which 37 lakh belonged to the Murrah breed. Milk production in the world was 600 million tonnes per annum and India produced 91 million tonnes of milk annually. The availability in the state was 660 gm per capita per day.

Mr Hooda said he would approach the Reserve Bank of India for relaxing the condition of collateral security upto Rs 1 lakh for the purchase of three buffaloes as in the changing scenario the price of buffaloes had increased manifold.

Yamunanagar, September 12
Mandoli, native village of Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt, felt relieved here this morning when television channels aired that judgment in Dutt’s case would not be announced today. The village was hub of activity as reporters from television and newspapers started arriving in the village since morning.

A crowd had gathered when Sanjay Dutt had come here with ashes of his father Sunil Dutt last year. Today villagers were speculating on TADA case’s decision.

Though the Dutt family has not done anything special for the development of the village with a population of 2,500, villagers prayed for Sanjay Dutt, also known as Munna Bhai. Prayers were held in the village temple, church, gurdwara and mosque — all praying that Sanjay Dutt be not declared guilty by the special TADA court in Mumbai.

Even children of a private school here held a prayer for Sanjay Dutt. All were praying for Sanjay Dutt and heaved a sigh of relief at 11.40 am when news reached the village that the TADA court would take time in announcing a decision on Sanjay Dutt. Main puja was organised by Mr Rajkumar Mohan and Ms Bimla Mohan, uncle and aunt of Sanjay Dutt.

“Sanjay Dutt is innocent. He accidentally came into contact with some mafia people”, Mr Ashok Mohan, an uncle of Dutt, said. Ms Satya Sharma, his paternal aunt held a special prayer in the village temple.

Villagers lit a candle in the church, participated in a ‘path’ in the gurdwara and prayed in a mosque.

A crowd was in the village though main reason was television cameras with outdoor broadcasting vans.

Mr Kailash Chand said Sanjay Dutt and his father Sunil Dutt have done the village proud and all villagers wished that he should come unharmed out of mess he was in. Dr Subhash who lives in the village said he was sure Sanjay Dutt would be a free man soon.

Chandigarh, September 12
Mr Karamvir Singh, president of the Confederation of SC, ST and OBC Organisations, today demanded reservation for Scheduled Castes candidates in promotions of Class I and Class II functionaries of the Haryana Government.

In a statement, he said the Central Government as well as various state governments had already accepted this principle.

The Dalit activist also demanded 27 per cent reservation for OBC candidates in direct recruitments to Class I posts of the Haryana Government. He said the Mandal Commission recommendation for reserving 27 per cent vacancies for OBC candidates had not been implemented by Haryana in the case of Class I posts.

The president also demanded the setting up of an SC commission in Haryana by the state government on the pattern of the national SC/ST Commission.

Rewari, September 12
On a tip-off, a Khol police party went to Delhi on September 10 where they apprehended the alleged abductor, Ajay Kumar, and recovered a young woman abducted from here on the night of August 29.

The medical examination of the woman here confirmed sexual assault. She was restored to her husband, Surender Singh Yadav.

Ajay Kumar was yesterday produced in a local court which remanded him in judicial custody for 14 days.

Earlier on a complaint lodged by Surender Yadav, the Khol police had registered a case of abduction, wrongful concealment of the woman, criminal conspiracy and criminal intimidation against Ajay Kumar and his three accomplices, Kalu Ram Yadav, Rajesh and Ram Kishan, all residents of Lisan village, under Sections 366, 368, 114, 120-B and 506 of the IPC. Now Section 376, IPC, of rape has also been added to it.

Soon after her abduction on August 29, the woman, a mother of two children, spent the night at Kalu Yadav’s tubewell where she was allegedly raped by Ajay and Kalu Yadav. Subsequently, Ajay took her to Assam where she was kept and repeatedly raped at a brick-kiln where Ajay was engaged as a worker.

Somehow the woman telephonically informed Rajesh about her whereabouts in Assam. The information leaked to her husband Surender Yadav who then managed to bring them (Ajay and his own wife) to Delhi on September 10.