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Pledge to save environment
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Fate of real estate projects hangs in balance
Probe sought into Kanwaljit’s death
Time for
Crossover
PPCC’s ex-general secretary joins BSP
Two murders in 2 days
Ward No 1 faces infrastructure blues
NRI arranges treat for orphans
Khalsa College for Women accredited ‘A’ by NAAC
Class VIII: DAV Public School fares well
Medical Tourism
Time to bring social issues in limelight
It’s playtime for special kids
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For mother earth
Amritsar, March 31 Running a provision store on Sultanwind Road for the past many decades, he decided to plant about 250 saplings of various kinds on the divider of the same road. “Planting saplings voluntarily and paying from my own pocket to do so was my way to pay my gratitude to my locality and its residents,” he said. Fondly called Comrade Buta Ram, he has been associated with the communist party since he was young. Putting his foot down for a just cause is something he is known for. Displaying exemplary bravery, unarmed Buta Ram chased terrorists and nabbed one of them on May 5, 1987. The government honoured him with the Shaurya Chakra. Then President R. Venkataraman handed over the prize and the citation on April 14, 1990. Morose and gloomy narratives of human suffering, instances of Hindu-Sikh brotherhood and minute observations during the terrorism days, find place in the poignant tales he wrote in the collection called “Kale Dina Di Dastan” (A saga of black days). The battle-hardened selfless social activist has resolved to save his immediate environment. To render a plantless East Mohan Nagar Park green, he started planting saplings of mango, rose, kaliyan, guava,
etc. Inspired by his act, some locality residents also joined hands and soon the vacant
space was transformed into an original park. Later, a local leader also chipped in and got a footpath constructed in it. According to him, the government covered the drain in the area and got the road constructed. He followed suit and planted saplings without wasting any time. At his age, the green surroundings are a reason for him to cheer and keep going. |
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Pledge to save environment
Amritsar, March 31 CII Chairman Gunbir Singh said more than 500 schoolchildren gathered with candles at the district shopping centre as a show of strength to sent out a message to save the earth from further degradation in view of the destruction of the green belts. He said several residents had expressed solidarity with the movement and decided to join the cause now to save the planet. Chief Coordinator Prakash Singh Bhatti of the Joint Effort, a group of NGOs, including Mission Aagaz, SAATHI, Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti, Amritsar Vikas Manch, Bharatiya Vikas Parishad, Pollution Control Committee and International Welfare Society in collaboration with the Worldwide Fund for Nature appealed to the people to join hands to save the earth for the betterment of ecology and mankind. He said this movement would be an annual feature to create awareness among the people. Meanwhile, a rally was organised in which a large number of students from schools and colleges took the pledge to protect environment and be part of the global endeavour. Mumbai and Delhi, which had launched this movement, have now also included the holy city to be part of the worldwide effort to save the ecology. |
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Fate of real estate projects hangs in balance
Amritsar, March 31 This has deprived the cash-starved Municipal Corporation of much-needed funds as the land use charges rates were fixed at Rs 4,400 per square yard and the 12 project proposals awaiting the final nod from the state government although the majority of the cases have been cleared by the corporation. A leading hotel entrepreneur said his case has been pending with quite some time as he had already bought the land on the posh Mall Road in early 2008 and he was willing to immediately deposit to CLU (change of land use) charges amounting to Rs 90 lakh. He said his project had been needlessly delayed due to unbusiness like approach of the civic body and the state government. According to sources in the corporation, the state government had been sitting on the files for many months while the entrepreneurs were making several rounds to get the clearance to deposit the requisite fee. Details available with The Tribune revealed that CLU could bring in crores of rupees to the corporation to uplift its economic condition besides accelerating development works and pay off their old liabilities. However, the corporation has failed to give any details of the pending list of properties for which the civic authorities has yet to give its recommendations for final approval from the state government for obvious reasons. Number of entrepreneurs have filed their application in recent months for changing their residential premises into commercial in several parts of the city while the corporation continues to mull over the old system wherein it was yet to declare certain areas as commercial while there was mushrooming of commercial building activity in the civil
lines as well as the walled city. |
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KMO, SSF hold protests against Cong
Amritsar, March 31 Activists of the federation burnt an effigy of the Congress here today, claimed Amarbir Singh Dhot, district president, SSF. He alleged that the giving of clean chit by the CBI to both Congress leaders had brought its working under cloud. Meanwhile, the KMO held a protest march from bus stand to Harmandar Sahib recently. Paramjit Kaur Khalra and Harmandeep Singh Sarhali, patron and president, respectively, of the KMO, criticising the Congress said the party had shown its true face by announcing candidature of Sajjan and Tytler. They held the Parkash Singh Badal government equally responsible and alleged that it gave clean chit to civil and police officials who had been involved in the disappearance of some Sikh leaders during the militant movement in the state. |
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Probe sought into Kanwaljit’s death
Amritsar, March 31 |
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Time for
Crossover
Amritsar, March 31 He said as Mayor and MLA his priority had been development projects and he had all along been easily accessible to the people. Among others District Congress Committee (Urban) president Jagjit Sehdev, District Youth Congress Committee (Urban) president Dinesh Bassi, former Deputy Mayor Surinder Shinda and former MLAs Jugal Kishore Sharma and Harjinder Singh Thekedar were present on the occasion. At another political meeting, he claimed that about 24 families residing on Batala Road having allegiance to the BJP announced to support the Congress. He said the families announced to support the Congress for its honest leaders like Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and its development projects.
— TNS |
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PPCC’s ex-general secretary joins BSP
Amritsar, March 31 The BSP’s candidate for the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, Lieut-Gen B.K.N Chhibber, announced Mehra as general secretary of the
Punjab BSP. Mehra alleged that the Congress was not encouraging people from non-political families to become career politicians and added that only some families were running it. Citing the example at the Centre, he said after the passing away of first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister. Later her son Rajiv Gandhi held the baton and now his wife Sonia Gandhi and their son Rahul Gandhi were calling the shots. He said the Gandhi family also perpetuated family rule in Punjab with Capt Amarinder Singh, his wife Perneet Kaur and now their son Raninder Singh has been given the ticket for the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat. Similarly, another senior Congress leader Bibi Rajinder Kaur Bhattal had brought her son in politics. Chhibber said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP President Mayawati had laid down a fair democratic system in
the party with ample opportunities for deserving persons to grow. |
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Two murders in 2 days
Amritsar, March 31 Meanwhile, the police remained clueless about the yesterday’s murder of an unidentified person who was found dead at a city hotel in close proximity to the Golden Temple. The name and address of the deceased, which he had mentioned on the register during the checking-in, was found fake by the police team. The investigations are now concentrated around the mobile phone recovered from the deceased. According to details, the unidentified person had booked the room in the name of Kanwalpreet Singh of Kishapura village at Mandi Maur in Bathinda during the checking-in at about 7.30 pm of March 29. After one hour he again came to the hotel with another person. The early next morning the second person and the “accused” left the room saying that he was going to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple and told the hotel staff not to disturb Kanwalpreet as he was asleep. In the afternoon, when Kanwalpreet did not make any call to the reception for any order for breakfast or lunch, the hotel staff got suspicious and opened the door only to find him in a pool of blood.
He was stabbed to death by the “accused”. |
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Ward No 1 faces infrastructure blues
Amritsar, March 31 Its residents have pinned their hopes on the completion of about Rs 1.7 crore development works. The ward came into being on the land of twin villages Ghanupur and Kale. Lush verdant agriculture fields gave way to human colonies and concrete structures were raised at every vacant space. Though the area was absorbed into the Municipal Corporation many years ago but the basic civic amenities eluded it. The residents rue that the Corporation could not match pace with the colonisation of the villages. On the other hand, people kept constructing houses without caring about sanitation provisions. Dwellers constructed their separate septic tanks in front of their houses and installed bore wells to extract underground water. While those who could not afford it relied on hand pumps. Open drains carrying household waste to nearby open space and fields along with Kutcha roads pose serious problem to its residents. Gursewak Singh of Baba Farid Nagar said his family migrated here from Bhikiwind village about a decade and a half ago. According to him, “rains are the worst period for them as roads turned into puddles full of slush”. While normally clouds of dust engulf streets once a vehicle passes over it, he said. That the new human colonies have come up recently could be judged from their names like Raj Avenue, Milap Avenue, Hargobind Avenue, Basant Vihar, Riyasat Avenue, Baba Farid Nagar, Shakti Nagar, Jeewan Singh Colony. Earlier, all these colonies used to be field which used to be tilled by farming families of Ghanupur and Kale villages. A farmer from Ghanupur, Manjeet Singh Sandhu, said his family had purchased the agriculture field at Naraingarh, located about five km away from here, after selling the land at Ghanupur village. The first-time councilor of the ward, Amardeep Kaur Sandhu said earlier the ward fell in ward number 36. Belonging to the BJP, she said the area would see a complete changeover by yearend. She said development works worth about Rs 1.7 crore were being carried out in the area. In order to provide water supply to each household a tube well of Rs 38 lakh would be installed at Kale village while another was already functioning at Ghanupur. She said sewerage costing Rs 10 lakh would be laid on Kale Road while sewerage channel for rest of the area had been cleared and work was expected to be started after the completion of Lok Sabha election. About deplorable condition of roads, she said kutcha road from Ghanupur Amar Singh Chowk till Mata Rani Mandir and at Hargobind Avenue were bricked. She informed that streetlights worth Rs 14 lakh would be installed. Besides, the ward has five Mohalla Sudhar committees with each of them having at least five members for efficient cleaning of streets. |
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Now, power bill payment a queue-free affair
Amritsar, March 31 These latest-technique machines have been set up at Lawrence Road Chowk at PSEB complaint office, at Sultanwind and Mustfabad Batala Road power stations. Consumers from different sub-divisions of the city and sub-urban circle can deposit their electricity bills at these machines. Earlier, about three years back, the board has installed two machines in as many circles, one at Hall Gate power house in city circle and the other at Ranjit Avenue 66 KV power station in sub-urban circle. It is pertinent to mention here that about six months after the installment these two machines went out of order due to some technical snag. Now these two machines have also been replaced with new ones. These machines work for 24 hours and collects payment by cheque and cash also. However, the machine would collect only the payment of consumers of its respective
areas. At present from this service about 1.50 lakhs consumer of city circle area and more than 50,000 consumers of sub-urban area would be benefited. Sohan Singh, a resident of the civil line area, who had come to deposit the bill at Lawrence Road complaint office machine said the procedure of depositing the money was easy at these machines while they had to stand for hours in long queues at concerned bill cash window. He pointed out that more such machines should be installed so that more and more people of different areas could be facilitated by these machines. At present some people had to come from far away places to deposit the bill. Balbir Singh, station engineer of city circle, said the board was looking towards the response of the machines. He said more machines could be set up after
watching the response. He said that operators have also been provided to these machines so that the people who do not know how to operate the machines could also deposit the bills. |
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Plight of mentally challenged goes unnoticed
Amritsar, March 31 However, the mental hospital authorities say it is the duty of the police to hand over the mental patients for treatment to the hospital obtaining permission from the judiciary. But they usually dither due to cumbersome administrative and judicial procedures, as somebody has to vouch for the antecedents of the patients. A number of such patients can be seen near the railway station, the bus stand, busy cross-sections, near the Golden Temple and the Durgiana Temple, besides several other religious places, generally found abusing the passersby or sometimes making odd gestures. Dr B.L. Goel, Director of the Dr Vidhya Sagar Institute of Mental Health, said although the policemen sometimes handed over such persons to the hospital which handed them over to their families after tracing their whereabouts, once they were fully recovered, during the recent months no such case had been referred to the hospital. Unfortunately, he added that the mental hospital authorities could not intervene on
their own without the support of proper procedures followed by the police any individual or an NGO. Narrating an incident where Health Minister Laxmi Kanta Chawla had referred a similar patient wandering near Circuit House about one and a half years back, he said the patient recovered after an eight-month-long treatment. Thereafter, the hospital authorities managed to extract his address and contacted his relatives in Bihar. His father, who used to work in Ludhiana, came and took him back. He said any concerned citizen could move an application in the court of the CJM who could direct the police authorities to get the patients medically examined and admitted to the mental hospital. However, he added that sometimes anti-social elements, under the garb of being mentally sick, move about freely on roads and commit crimes at night to hoodwink the law and order authorities. He said the police should be vigilant and maintain a proper record of any such persons with dubious background. He also stressed on launching a campaign with the active participation of the police, NGOs and civil administration to identify such patients and get them treated. While SSP Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh was not available for comments, a senior police official, who preferred not to be named, said whenever the police found such persons, after taking legal course it handed them over to the mental hospital for treatment. |
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Banjara Sikhs offer prayers at Golden Temple
Amritsar, March 31 The tour programme was organised by the trust for the welfare of Banjaras and other weaker sections. While talking to The Tribune, trust secretary Mohinder Singh said a large section of the Banjaras came into Sikh fold during the travels of Guru Nanak Dev and during the time of Guru Hargobind and Guru Gobind Singh. However, they lost touch with the faith as they were classified as criminal tribes which resulted in their mass migration to the forests during the British regime. He said for centuries they remained neglected and after Independence, the government denotified the Banjaras class as nomadic tribes. Unfortunately, the constitutional benefits were yet to be restored to them. He said the trust had made an endeavour to conduct the pilgrimage of Sikh shrines in North India to make them aware of Punjab’s rich
heritage and culture. The group arrived here last night and was put up in the Golden Temple complex, where they interacted with members of the SGPC. Siropas were offered
to them. |
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NRI arranges treat for orphans
Amritsar, March 31 She was here recently to hold a fair on the premises of the orphanage. As per her wish, stalls of choicest of eatables were installed for savouring of inmates. She said it was for the fourth consecutive year that she arranged this fair. She added that she wanted to give parentless children a sense of belongingness. For this she had convinced some NRIs living in the UK to adopt at least 14 inmates here. She said they often received letters from them which gave them solace. Surinder Kaur was only nine years’ old when she along with her family shifted to the UK about three and a half decades ago. The Diwan established the orphanage in 1904 once where Udham Singh stayed. The voluntary charitable institution nourished thousands of orphans, destitute and blind children to make them useful and productive members of the society. The centre has a garden, a children’s park and volleyball and basketball grounds besides a gurdwara and a library with more than 10,000 books. It houses spectacular buildings of Simran Kendra and Bhai Veer Singh Guest House, constructed for meditation and residential purposes. A neat and clean dispensary, was built in the memory of Charnjit Singh Ghura of the UK, late husband of Surinder Kaur. The dispensary caters to the medical
needs of the inmates. |
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Khalsa College for Women accredited ‘A’ by NAAC
Amritsar, March 31 |
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Class VIII: DAV Public School fares well
Amritsar, March 31 Principal Neera Sharma said the school achieved a 100 per cent pass result. As many as 366 of its students appeared in the examination conducted by the DAV Educational Management, New Delhi. Congratulating students, the principal said this was the second consecutive year when students of the school scored above 97 per cent marks. She added that out of the total of 366 students, 84 scored above 90 per cent, 140 scored above 85 per cent and 189 students got above 80 per cent marks. Last year, as many as 35 students had scored above 90 per cent marks. Meanwhile, this year the number of students scoring above 90 per cent has gone up to 84 students, she said and added proudly that since the board examination started in 1991 the school had successfully maintained a record of 100 per cent pass percentage among its students. As many as 14 students in mathematics, four students in science and five in social studies scored 100 per cent while in languages three students in Sanskrit scored 99 besides one in Hindi and two in Punjabi scored 98 per cent. — TNS |
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Medical Tourism
Amritsar, March 31 Former top executive of Uzbekistan's Lola Company, Allashukurova (59) got her advanced eye surgeries done in Amritsar. The Uzbek national said she decided to undergo surgery in the city after she got to know about the high-quality treatment at moderate prices. She was in a dilemma when doctors in Tashkent told her that there was no guarantee for the complicated eye surgery. Later, she decided to get the surgery done at Dr Om Parkash Eye Institute here. She said, “My vision is now clear and I feel confident that I will be able to lead a comfortable life.” Eye Institute Director Dr Rohit Om Parkash said phaco-emulsification cataract surgery with intra ocular-lens implantation was performed on her. These sophisticated surgeries required no conventional injection of anesthesia as it was stitchless and needed no bandage post surgery, he observed. According to the patient, she was diagnosed with cataract in one eye and macular hole in the other. There were hardly any eye hospitals in her town and no doctor agreed to give her guarantee for the surgery. Direct air link to Amritsar from Tashkent was another big positive point. Dr Rohit appealed to the government to chalk out a comprehensive plan in the field of medical tourism to tap the phenomenal potential of the city. |
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Time to bring social issues in limelight
Amritsar, March 31 Talking about social issues like drugs, unemployment, female foeticide and illiteracy, Kulbir Singh stressed on the development of overall personality of individuals. He informed them how to get any information under the RTI Act. SSP Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh said different social problems could not be seen in isolation. He said history revealed that most of the social reforms were initiated by individuals which became mass movements at later stages. He asked the students to take a pledge to fight the social evils. Dean Academic Affairs Dr Raghbir Singh said the younger generation should come forward to educate women. He talked about the female power and role of the media in social reforms. |
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It’s playtime for special kids
Amritsar, March 31 Organised by NRI Chander Mohan Kohli, the main aim of holding the event was to create awareness among the children that they are an essential part of society. They could be seen running and shouting and could be seen taking part in the cricket competition, tricycle race and other interesting games with normal children. Pingalwara President Dr Inderjeet Kaur said such competitions helped in removing the inferiority complex among these special children, besides making them physically fit. She said no one was a winner or loser and everyone was awarded with a prize. |
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