Amritsar, October 15
Continuing its drive against adulteration, the Health Department seized a huge quantity of ghee with the stamp and packing of Healthaid Company from a rented building in the walled city. The team of health officials suspected the ghee, belonging to an Indian cargo trading company, to be spurious.

As many as 350 tins of 15 kg each were supplied from the Azadnagar area of Delhi. This led to suspicion as the only plant of Healthaid Company is in Amritsar. Civil Surgeon Dr Lehmbar Singh said the company had collected three samples from more than 60 qunitals of ghee seized, which would be sent to Delhi for test. He said although the seized ghee seemed to be duplicate, conclusions could be drawn only after testing.

The owners of the material fled, locking the godown after they caught wind of the raid 
by the health team. They failed to be present before the 
department even after repeated requests.

Meanwhile, the health teams also took samples of khoya from various sweet shops, besides taking samples of ghee from Malwa Desi Ghee Shop at Kanak Mandi, Dhab Basti Ram. They also took samples of haldi, besan and oils from the area. Meanwhile, the samples of about 36 quintals of khoya and sweets, belonging to Bikaner Sweets, seized about two weeks ago, have failed to pass the laboratory tests.

Kapurthala: Health officials seized four quintals of spurious khoya, 88 kg of milk powder and potassium bicarbonate from a sweet shop in a raid at Sultanpur Lodhi here today.

According to the information received here, a team of Health Department officials collected samples of the spurious khoya and sent them to the laboratory.

The Health Department had seized six quintals of rasgulas, 70 kg of stale khoya and 20 kg of milk cake from a sweet shop at Bholath on Wednesday.

Civil Surgeon Dr Ranvir Singh said the department took 24 samples of sweets and food items a few days back. Seven samples had failed examination. Legal action would be taken against those shopkeepers whose samples had failed, he added.

Pathankot: The health authorities destroyed 2.5 quintals of synthetic paneer after the commodity was recovered from the bus stand here on Thursday.

According to information, the police found the commodity lying on the bus stand. When no claimant turned up, the police informed District Health Officer Dr Ram Lal who reached there with his team and ordered to throw the synthetic commodity in the running water of a canal.

Hoshiarpur, October 15
A skill development incentive scheme of the DGE&T of the Union Government is being introduced by the Technical Education and Industrial Training Department in government/private industrial training institutes, polytechnics/engineering colleges of Punjab.

As many as 52 government industrial training institutions have been covered in the first phase.

This was stated by Deputy Commissioner Megh Raj in a press note here today. The main aim of the scheme was to check school dropout, to increase employability of present workers and certificate holders for raising the standard of their skill.

Short term courses from 60 to 450 hours for providing training to the youth had been started under the scheme.

Fee of Rs 500 up to 90 hours, Rs 1,000 from 91 to 180 hours, Rs 1,000 from 181 to 270 hours and Rs 1,500 from 270 hours onwards had been fixed for training of short-term courses. Fees of all the successful students who obtained admission in the mentioned institutions would be refunded to them. Assessment of all trainees would be done through the assessing bodies of the DGE&T, which would issue the certificate on the national level. The eligible age for these courses is 14 years.

Kapurthala, October 15
The Rail Coach Factory (RCF) here bagged the prestigious Greentech Environment Excellence Gold Award second time in a row. The RCF General Manager, Pradeep Kumar, received the award from the Greentech Foundation, New Delhi, at the 10th Annual Greentech Conference on Environment Management held at Kovalam, Kerala, on October 12.

About 300 corporate houses, public sector undertakings, government bodies, NGOs and others participated in the conference. The objective of the conference was to promote education, training, research and dissemination of knowledge and advancing the scientific, technical and practical aspects of environment management.

It is worth mentioning that the RCF has taken many strides to conserve energy and make its contribution to sustainable environment management. About 7,000 tube lights of 40 W have been replaced with 28 W energy-saving fittings, while 5,800 lamps of 40/60/100 W have been replaced with 5/11 W CFLs.

Now, the Indian Railways have also entered into a contract with C Quest, USA, under a CDM project to replace all incandescent lights with CFLs, work on which is likely to start soon.

To recharge groundwater, the RCF has constructed 13 bore-wells and connected them with storm drainage system. A sewage treatment plant is being used for treating 7500 KL of water per day, a part of which is recycled for use in non-drinking and non-bathing activities like watering of lawns and grounds.