Jalandhar, December 17
Passengers had a harrowing time with roadways buses staying off the roads following a strike call given by the joint action committee (JAC) here today. More than 1,200 buses did not ply on the roads all the day long in the state.

Private operators had a field day and people could be seen travelling on the rooftops of the buses. Only standing space was available in the buses but the worst affected were commuters who had to go to destinations which are not serviced by such operators.

The main demands, include promotion of workshop employees pending since 1986, regularising construction cell employees and putting an end to the contract system.

Hoshiarpur:The employees of the local Punjab Roadways depot today observed complete strike in support of their various demands due to which 
passengers faced a lot of inconvenience throughout the district.

The employees staged a protest rally before the Punjab Roadways workshop and criticised the state government for its privatisation policy and not accepting their long-pending demands.

According to the Punjab Roadways sources, as many as 60 buses of PUNBUS and 36 buses of Punjab Roadways, Hoshiarpur depot, did not ply on any of the route causing loss of Rs 5 lakh to the department today.

However, buses of private operators were regularly plying on main routes, providing some relief to the passengers.

Nawanshahr, December 17
The global meltdown has had an adverse effect on the money exchange, remittances and other banking services in the NRI belt of the Doaba region.

The companies that are into exchange of currency have suffered a major setback owing to fewer NRIs visiting their motherland and getting their currency 
converted into rupees.

Not just that, the number of transactions for remittances to families of NRIs back home has also gone down drastically due to several people losing jobs there. A dip in the value of foreign currency has further affected the business.

Paul Merchants Ltd zonal manager Ashwani Kumar said while his office used to get over 10,000 transactions three months back, these had gone down to nearly 7,600 in November. “Being a festive time with Christmas and Lohri around, the number of transactions should have increased. But there is hardly any let up. I believe that the people have been holding back their currency because of depreciation of its value,” he pointed out.

He added that a very few NRIs were turning up to his agents across the district for exchange of currency, clearly indicating at least 20 per cent loss in the money change business.

But he added that he had observed an upward trend in sending of money across to Australia and a newer destination - Cyprus. “Many parents who are sending their children to study there, need to frequently dispatch money,” he said.

State Bank of Patiala branch manager J.S. Parmar also echoed similar sentiments. “The remittances this year corresponding to the same time last year are clearly down by more than 20 per cent,” he said, adding that there was an increasing trend of shifting of accounts from private banks to the nationalised ones.

“At least 40 persons have shifted their accounts with our branch after the meltdown,” he revealed.

Syndicate Bank branch manager Rupinder Mann, too, said his bank being a nationalised one was a gainer after the worldwide financial crisis.

The managers of private banks, including ICICI and HDFC, refused to comment on the issue.

Amritsar, December 17
The financial stability of the Amritsar municipal corporation is under tremendous strain as the state government has failed to pay up its share of Rs 19.65 crore and Rs 13.10 crore out of excise duty and devaluation of taxes, respectively, for the past three years.

Interestingly, three years ago, BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu had also filed a writ petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court to get an arrear of Rs 38 crore from the state government due from its share of excise duty under the Congress regime.

According to details available with The Tribune, the government owes Rs 2.5 crore for the year 2006-07, Rs 9.40 crore for 2007-08 and Rs 7.75 crore for the current year, which has overburdened the corporation which has to clear the arrears of various contractors to the extent of Rs 31 crore.

A senior officer of the municipal corporation, on condition of anonymity, confided that if the state government failed to bring about urgent reforms and rationalise the taxation structure, various grants would not be forthcoming.

He added that the growing city of Amritsar would face a serious crisis and the corporation would find it difficult to meet the requirements of the people and maintain civic amenities.

Adding to the financial burden, the corporation has also not received Rs 13.10 crore of devaluation of taxes share for the past two years from the government in spite of a budgetary provision. According to information under section 90/6 of the Municipal Corporation Act 1976, the state government has to provide share from various tax collections under devolution of taxes. The corporation has made an income provision under this act for Rs 10 crore for the current financial year but not a single penny has been received, while there were arrears of Rs 3.10 crore due from the government for last year.

The state government was not serious in fulfilling its obligations to meet the resource crunch of the municipal corporation which has been in the red due to abolition of octroi and other taxes, forcing it to depend on the government to meet its financial needs to effectively run the affairs of the local body.

In a glaring anomaly, the state government has reduced the budgetary allocation of the corporation to Rs 12 crore, although it has a provision in the current year’s budget to get Rs 16 crore under its share of excise duty.

Out of this, the corporation has, till date, received only Rs 2.18 crore and was yet to receive the arrears due to excise share from July 1, 2007, to September 30, 2008. The government had been coming out with alibis that the excise and taxation department has yet to furnish duty details for the year 2007-08 while the details for the current financial year would only be available next year.

Financial and the civic affairs experts have expressed their concern over the depleting resources of the key municipal corporation of the state which has been hard pressed to maintain the civic amenities and continue with its various developmental projects.

The corporation has decided to shore up its finances and clear its old liabilities by offering to sell prime property (with an area of around 2,852 square yards) near the Golden Temple for a commercial hotel.

Batala, December 17
Gurdaspur deputy commissioner Gurkirat Kirpal Singh ordered Batala sub-registrar Rohit Gupta not to entertain or register any sale deed pertaining to the land falling under the area of unauthorised and unapproved colonies in and around Batala.

The deputy commissioner vide his letter of December 5 directed the sub-registrar that as per the instructions of the government and the PUDA Act, all such sales were illegal and as such no sale deed should be registered till it was approved by PUDA.

He pointed out that nine such colonies, New Batala Colony, Jalandhar Road, Suncity Enclave, Sangatpura Road, Plant Colony, Jalandhar Road, German Estate, Benami Estate, Faispura Road, Usmanpur City, Gurdaspur Road, Anand Vihar and Roshan Vihar outside Bhandari Mohalla and Golden City, Shri Hargobindpur Road, were carved out unauthorisedly and the sub-registrar was effecting sale deeds pertaining to these colonies.

He has also mentioned the names of the owners/partners of these colonies as Shiv Charan of the first three colonies, Madan Lal of German Estate, Kasturi Lal Seth (Batala City Congress President), Dharamvir Seth (BJP MC), Paramjit Singh of Benami Estate, Vinod Sharma (Congress leader) of Usmanpur City, Ashwani Sharma, Om Prakash Sharma, Naresh Luthra and Naresh Mahajan (BJP district president), Manohar Lal Sharma (BJP leader) of Roshan Vihar Colony and Sawinder Kumar of Golden City Colony.

Strangely, the PUDA authorities have not taken any action against these illegal colonies. By carving out such colonies the colonisers have duped the government of crores of rupees. Some of them have even managed to get sewerage and road facilities from the departments concerned without any approval.

The deputy commissioner has further directed the sub-registrar to submit the details of the sale deeds of these colonies registered during last year.

Nawanshahr, December 17
The Institute of Technology and Future Management (ITFT), Chandigarh, in collaboration with the local district education and employment departments, Sainik Vocational Academy, organised a seminar here today to make the students of senior secondary classes aware of the various educational, vocational courses and employment opportunities. Students, of senior classes of 43 senior secondary schools and the Sainik Vocational Academy attended the seminar in two sessions.

Deputy commissioner Nilkanth Avhad inaugurated the seminar. While lauding the effort, Avhad stressed the need to make people, especially students, at the grass-roots level aware of the latest trends in education and skills needed for tapping job opportunities in different sectors in the present era of globalisation.

Dr Gulshan Sharma, director, ITFT, said the students could make their career in service industry, media and entertainment, health, education, tourism, hospitality, airlines, telecom, event management, fashion designing, etc., provided they were given proper guidance.

Deputy district education officer Swaran Singh district employment officer Jatinder Kumar Sareen, director of Sainik Vocational Academy, Col Chuhar Singh, district vocational coordinator Dinesh Kumar, principal Krishan Kumar, among others, also addressed the gathering.

Hoshiarpur, December 17
The District Consumer Forum, headed by president P.D. Goel, has ordered the local branch of DTDC Courier and its regional office at Bangalore to pay Rs 10,000 in lump sum to Rajiv Kumar, son of Sohan Lal of local Mohalla Bahadurpur, on account of compensation and costs of litigation within one month.

Rajiv Kumar stated before the forum that his brother sent a package from Saudi Arabia containing one Nokia mobile phone 6120, cashew-nuts (2 kg), one electric motor and two blankets through courier.

Rajiv Kumar alleged that when he opened the packet in front of the office staff and manager of DTDC Courier, he found that mobile phone Nokia 6120 of the value of Rs 15,000 and two kg cashew worth Rs 1,000 missing.

The authorities of DTDC Courier took the plea that the terms and conditions were read over to the complainant at the time of booking which were accepted by him. In case of any damage during transit, they were liable to the extent of Rs 100. No declaration of consignment was disclosed by Rajiv Kumar at the time of booking.

The forum held that the packet in question was sent by the brother of the complainant, whereas the courier company in reply had raised the plea that the terms and conditions were read over to the complainant at the time of booking which were accepted by him.

This part of the defence is neither acceptable nor plausible as the packet was sent by the brother of the complainant, thus there was no occasion to accept the terms and conditions by Rajiv Kumar.

This proves that DTDC Courier has not come to this forum with clean hands, forum further held. It is established on record that Rajiv Kumar at the time of taking the delivery of the package, specifically mentioned on the delivery sheet issued by the courier that the aforesaid goods had not been received.