Jalandhar, January 14
Excise and taxation sleuths conducted a raid on the local railway station and recovered boxes of goods worth lakhs of rupees being transported illegally by certain traders allegedly in connivance with railway officials.

The recovery has once again exposed a major nexus between traders and railway officials for causing huge losses to the state exchequer by evading taxes.

Acting on a tip-off, teams of the department, led by assistant excise and taxation commissioners J.S. Brar from Chandigarh and Jaspinder Singh from Jalandhar, conducted the raid at the railway station and found a consignment of over 325 boxes being unloaded from the Jammu Tawi Express in the wee hours of Wednesday.

Talking to The Tribune, Brar revealed that the raid was conducted on a tip-off regarding evasion of taxes by certain traders who were transporting goods through the train. Certain traders were transporting the goods without any bill and other mandatory documents from Delhi.

He said the tax evaders had unloaded the goods at platform No. 1 adjacent to the parcel room. During investigations, the sleuths found that the evaders had not provided their address for the delivery of the consignment.

Moreover, the railway authorities did not have any copy of the bills and other documents of the goods unloaded at the railway station.

He permission for taking the goods being transported on lease basis was granted by the railway authorities at Ferozepore late in the evening. Permission of taking other goods in possession was still awaited.

When asked about the goods, their cost and tax evasion, he claimed that the exact amount could be ascertained only after the physical verification of the goods and their evaluation.

Jalandhar, January 14
Travelling on city roads in nights is becoming a nightmare for residents. A gang of ‘night-riders’ have created a sense of fear in the minds, especially those who work or travel during the late hours.

These gangsters first chase down motorcyclists, scooterists or people travelling on rickshaws and then loot and snatch the valuables. Women wearing jewellery, carrying purses and handbags have become easy victims.

O.P. Rana, manager of the Hotel Kamal, had a miraculous escape when he was on his way back to his residence on Sunday night.

Narrating the sequence of events, Rana said four youths riding two motorbikes (without any registration number) chased him till railway level-crossing in Guru Nanak Pura.

“The bikers made several attempts to catch hold of me but presence of some persons at that place foiled their attempts,” he said.

Rana said he made phone calls to the police but failed to receive any response from the police control room. The PCR vehicle, earmarked to the area, did not reach on time.

He said four employees of the hotel lost their goods and valuables in similar incidents.

Almost a week ago, two motorcycle-borne youths snatched a purse from a girl in front of the main gate of the Tehsil complex but that happened in broad daylight.

Shukla Sharma, a head clerk with the Railways, fell prey to the gangsters on Monday. The bikers snatched her purse containing important documents and cash while she was on her way to her relatives near Railway Club for Lohri celebrations.

S.K. Kalia, SP (City-I), said night vigil has been intensified after receiving complaints in the city. Additional force has been deployed at strategic points, he added.

Jalandhar, January 14
An acute shortage of technically-trained staff is hampering the day-to-day work of the municipal corporation here.

Various routine exercises, including a survey of undeclared roads, deviations from bylaws in an under-construction building, anomalies by a contractor in an undergoing project related to construction of roads, bridges, sewage-laying, tubewell fitting and erection of streetlights, their requirement in new areas and their maintenance later are all required to be done by staff with an engineering background.

But there is a shortage of technical staff in each field. While the MC has already started a drive to regularise undeclared colonies by levying development charges on the residents, it does not even have a single surveyor on its roll who is expected to visit a colony and make an assessment of works already done and those further required.

The officers reveal that while there are four vacant posts of surveyor and requirement has exceeded beyond it, not even a single post has been filled so far.

Till the time a surveyor calculates the width and length of roads to be laid in the entire colony, any encroachments made by any resident, total number of plots in each road, number of constructed houses, their dimension and total dues that are to be paid, it will not be possible to collect any charges and start development work.

Further, since there are over 300 unapproved colonies, the process of regularisation seems almost unending.

The officers of the town planning section revealed that the building inspectors serving currently are non-technical people promoted from clerical posts.

“It is extremely difficult to make them understand common terms and calculate floor-area ratio (FAR) and slope gradients. How can we then expect them to know technical faults in a building?” they ask.

Even the number of serving JEs is quite low. “There are 13 people on the post while the requirement as per the expanding areas is more than 40. Last time when the JEs were appointed was in May 1999. Since then a few of them have died while some have got promoted. But no fresh appointments have been made for over a decade,” quipped an officer.

There also is a shortage of assistant town planners. There are five ATPs serving in the city against a sanctioned number of eight.

MC commissioner Vinay Bublani said he was getting an assessment of staff requirement done.

“We will make a proposal and send it to the government. We also plan to incorporate a copy of the old criterion meant for staff recruitment and observations from the finance committee regarding revision of budget in view of the increased staff for a complete review on the issue,” he said.

Hoshiarpur, January 14
Punjab government employees and its pensioners in the district are facing inconvenience in getting cleared their all types of payments, including their salaries, pensions and budgetary bills, from the district treasury office and sub-treasury offices of Garhshankar, Bhunga, Tanda, Mukerian, Dasuya and Talwara on account of shortage of about 38 per cent staff in the offices.

According to sources in the district treasury office, the district and sub-district treasury offices are dealing with the financial matters of about 250 drawing and disbursing officers of various government departments. Besides, the treasury staff is also doing audit to check the monthly payments of pensions being paid through banks.

The sources said the post of the district treasury officer had been lying vacant since long and the deputy treasury officer was performing the duty of the former. Out of the posts of seven treasury and sub-treasury officer, including district treasury officer, Hoshiarpur, five posts were laying vacant in the district.

Besides; two posts of superintendent, seven of senior assistant, 11 of clerk, one of steno, three of peon and one of sweeper had been lying vacant since long, despite repeated reminders for filling them. Sub-treasury offices of Garhshankar, Bhunga, Tanda, Mukerian and Talwara were functioning with only one employee each. But the heads of departments concerned did not take any action in this regard as a result the office work, including clearing of monthly salary bills of the employees, are not being cleared well in time.

For the smooth functioning of the office the vacant posts should be filled at the earliest.

On the assurance of anonymity, many government employees alleged that on account of shortage of staff, many employees of the district treasury office were taking undue advantage of the situation for getting released the payments of government offices.

Nawanshahr, January 14
At last Chhokeran village is going to have a polytechnic. It took about 14 years to materialise the project of setting up a polytechnic institute in the village.

After an amicable solution to the dispute, local MLA Jatinder Singh Kariha today laid the foundation stone of the polytechnic to be set up by the Doaba Khalsa Trust under the public-people participation scheme. Sant Baba Bhag Singh (Kajla) performed ardas and “bhumi pujan” for starting the construction work. Kariha said the polytechnic would open new vistas of educational facilities and development in the area.

The technical education department signed an MoU on December 24 last year with the trust. On December 27 when the trust officials planned to start the work, village residents caused disruption there. The panchayat and the residents, while raising objection, stated that in 1995 the panchayat had given land to the government for setting up a polytechnic. In 1997, then technical education minister Upinderjit Kaur had laid the foundation stone for a government polytechnic. If the land was to be handed over to a private trust for the polytechnic, then the village youth should be given priority in admissions and employment opportunities, said the villagers.

Executive director of the Doaba group of colleges Manjit Singh said the trust had assured the residents that the eligible candidate of Chhokeran would be given priority in admissions to various courses and employment opportunities. Scholarships to meritorious students and fee concessions to the needy students would also be given. The polytechnic would be made operational from the coming academic session and in the first phase admission to MBA, B. Tech and diploma courses in various disciplines would be started.