Jalandhar, June 27
The lackadaisical attitude of the municipal corporation officials in ensuring safety features around under-construction buildings came to the fore once again as at least 10 shops and six houses near Nakodar Road suffered massive damage after a torrential rain flooded an adjacent nearly 40-foot excavated site meant for a double-basement shopping complex here early this morning.

The foundations of the shops and houses had become very week and after the site got filled up with rainwater this morning, the buildings caved in, water seeped inside, walls fell off and huge cracks appeared all over the walls, floors and roofs rendering them completely unsafe.

It, however, was a providential escape for the families and shop owners around the area today.
Personnel from the MC, the fire brigade and the police reached the site to carry out a damage-control exercise. The water was being siphoned off while sacks full of sand were being embedded around the boundaries to check any further loss.

The residents of the Makhdoompur area and shop owners of the Bajwa complex and Nakodar Road shops around the construction site said it had been months since they had been sounding alert to the MC authorities and even building owners DLF, but to no avail. The residents had reportedly gone to the court and managed to get a stay on the construction work. Ajit Pal Singh Sethi, who has his house near the building and a plaintiff in the court, said that the piling around the boundary of the site had not been properly done, and had given way.

He said even the gates had not been closed properly owing to which a huge volume of rainwater kept flowing into it.

Chand Chhabra, whose three shops got badly damaged today, said that he had suffered a huge business loss on account of carelessness on the part of the builders and the civic authorities to keep a check on the safety issues.

Davinder Kumar, owner of Kapoor restaurant, showed how side walls of his compound had given way, making his building completely useless.

Councillor Joginder Singh Tony called for safety of other families in the neighbourhood and demanded compensation for the affected parties. Sanjay Roy, a senior official of the company at Gurgaon, said, “It is a natural calamity. Even as the company had taken the necessary precautions, we may offer to compensate all the affected people.”

Municipal town planner Murari Dutt Sharma too attributed the cause of the incident to the nature. “The site falls in front of a low-lying area and water gushed in after a side portion of the road in front of it got damaged. The building owners were ready to take precautionary measures but they were helpless owing to the court stay orders. They are ready to compensate the families and commercial site owners around the site,” he opined.

Deputy commissioner Ajeet Singh Pannu said apparently the company seemed to be at fault.

The court, in one case, had asked the PWD executive engineer to assess the loss of a house and make an estimate of the compensation. “We will get the loss to other premises also assessed and ask the company to compensate the aggrieved parties. If it fails, we will get it through the court,” he said. He added that the occupants of the unsafe buildings were being evacuated.

Last year too four labourers had died as earth rolled into an under-construction basement of a complex near BMC Chowk.

Kapurthala, June 27
As many as 20 teams will be deployed in the district to film the polling for the three municipal councils of Kapurthala, Phagwara and Sultanpur Lodhi.

Talking to The Tribune, deputy commissioner J.M. Balamurugan said eight teams would film the polling in Kapurthala and Phagwara each and four in Sultanpur Lodhi. Besides, the polling would also be held on the same day for a ward in the Dhilwan nagar panchayat.

The polling would be held for 64 seats (27 in Kapurthala, 27 in Phagwara, 13 in Sultanpur Lodhi and one in Dhilwan) in the MC elections in the district as four candidates have already been declared elected unopposed.

As many as 1,22,386 electors would cast their votes between 8 am and 4 pm on June 30 to elect 64 out of the total 268 candidates. Counting would be held soon after the polling and the results are likely to be announced within a few hours.

Balamurugan said 69 of the total 137 polling booths were identified as sensitive. Extra security arrangements would be made for these booths, he added. As many as 1,500 police personnel would be deployed to ensure free and fair elections.

Balamurugan said as many as 157 electronic voting machines (EVMs) were arranged for 137 polling booths. — TNS

Jalandhar. June 27
Lok Bhalai Party (LBP) president Balwant Singh Ramoowalia today raised the issue of Baba Jaswinder Kaur, the godwoman running a dera at Sohal Khalsa village, Shahkot, Jalandhar, said the Punjab government should specially probe the illegal activities of duping innocent people in the name of sending them abroad and expose her in public.

At a press conference held here, he said the LBP had already gathered facts pertaining to the illegal functioning of the dera woman who under the garb of godwoman operated as a travel agent and exploited scores of people by promising them green pastures abroad.

The dera woman fraudulently duped nearly 39 kanals of agricultural land of Joginder Singh of Mothanwala village, Kapurthala, and transferred it in her name and in the name of the dera as well.

She also took away the passports of Joginder Singh and members of his family. He added that keeping in mind the fraudulent ways of the dera woman the LBP would soon approach the Supreme Court in this case.

Jalandhar, June 27
Members of the Pendu Mazdoor Union (PMU) today held a protest march against the failure of the district administration in launching the Central government approved National Rural Employment

Guarantee Scheme Act (NREGA) in the district. The protest march began from the local Desh Bhagat Yaadgar Hall and culminated in the district administrative complex.

Union president Tarsem Peter, while addressing the members from various tehsils, said that as envisaged under this scheme the authorities concerned should make sure that the labourers got the minimum daily wage of Rs 104.31 at the site of work. Talking about the feasibility of the scheme in the rural areas, Peter said that instead of providing job to one member of the family for 100 days, it should be rather extended to 365 days of the year.

Further appraising the status of the scheme, Peter maintained that the concept of NREGA had failed in Jalandhar owing to lack of interest of the officials at the grass-roots level. “Though the Centre allocated Rs 4 crore to Punjab, till date not even a single work has started in any block.

Even if the work was started the labourers could not get their wages well on time as a result of which the scheme failed everywhere,” he added.

The union members recently visited the villages of Jalandhar (West) and observed that Rs 38 lakh was provided under NREGA, whereas only Rs 12 lakh was spent.

“As many as 2,064 job cards were made out of which only 236 people could manage to get jobs,” said Peter.

Amritsar, June 27
We should rise above the communal prejudices and gather at one platform under the banner of Maharaja Ranjit Singh to keep his name alive which otherwise was fast fading in the past, Fakir Saif-ud-Din, the fifth-generation descendant of Fakirs who held eminent positions in the darbar of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, stated this to The Tribune here today.

He rued that the huge kingdom which the legendary Sikh ruler had worked so hard to build was now utterly disintegrated. He said the concept of Punjabiyat that was founded by the king was now virtually non-existent as the power that be had failed to maintain the legacy of the Maharaja. He said time had come to make aware the youth of the two Punjabs of the life of the legendary king.

He said his forefathers, who included Fakir Syed Azazudin, the then foreign minister, Fakir Syed Imam-ud-Din, treasurer of Gobindgarh Fort, and Fakir Sued Noorudin, formed the most important pillars of Ranjit Singh’s kingdom and justified to the fullest the trust the Maharaja had attached with them. He said even after the death of the king the Fakir brothers remained faithful to him.

“I am feeling comfortable in Amritsar as I could see various establishments and colonies named after the Maharaja in the holy city,” said Saif who arrived in India from Pakistan today to witness the play “Moran Sarkar” on the invitation of Spring Dale Senior School. He said Ranjit Singh was a versatile personality and despite strictly following his own religion had the same regards for other religions too.

Talking about his Faqir Khana (house of the humble ones), one of the biggest private museums in Pakistan, of which Saif is the director, he said the main aim of the museum was promotion of art. He said there were a number of articles, paintings and other things associated with the legendary king which had been preserved by his forefathers. He said the museum was established in 1780.

Batala, June 27
The police has arrested five members of a gang of robbers who were active in the Batala area. SSP Dr Naresh Arora said information was received that five local persons had formed a gang with the intention of committing robberies in the area. Four of them were identified as Lakhan, son of Kamal of Aula Mohalla, Hukum Singh, son of Satpal Singh of Thathiari Mohalla, Manjit Kumar, alias Babu, son of Kaku Ram of Nehru Gate, and Harpreet Singh, alias Preet, son of Gurdev Singh of Mallakwal village.

The SSP told mediapersons here on Friday that during investigation they admitted to have committed a number of crimes.

Gold and silver ornaments, silver coins, 20 pieces of diamond, cameras, DVD players, watches and other things worth Rs 3 lakh had been recovered from them, Arora said. — OC