Jalandhar, April 15
Even as Punjab Education Minister Upinderjit Kaur promised to develop a mechanism to regularise the fee structure in private schools in the state, the schools, in turn, it seems, don’t give a damn to any such regulation.

Private schools have increased their fees, much to the annoyance of the parents. Recently, the minister had declared that a committee has been formed to develop a system which would regulate the fee structure in private schools.

While some schools attributed the fee hike to rising inflation, others linked it with the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission. The Tribune spoke to some private schools in the city regarding the existing fee structure.

Cambridge International Public School increased the fee from 5 to 10 per cent in this academic session. “The school increased the fee from Rs 1,750 to Rs 1,900 on monthly basis. Last year too there was a considerable increase in the fee which caused our monthly budget to dwindle,” said Harvinder Singh, whose children study in classes III and V.

The parents lambasted the school authorities for not regularising the fee structure. “If this continues for long, the day is not far when parents would be found paying Rs 10,000 per month as fee, barring other expenses. The commodification of education needs to be checked,” he added.

School Principal Deepa Dogra admitted that there had been a fee hike but termed it meagre.

“There has been a change in the fee structure but this is for the second time in the past five years that we have enhanced the fee. The school has increased just Rs 250 per class. We have increased the fee owing to the Sixth Pay Commission report. As an educational institution, we are not here to fleece the parents,” she added.

Similarly, Mayor World also increased its fee from Rs 1,300 per month to Rs 1,800 with Rs 9,000 as annual charges. The school charges Rs 850 per month as meal fee.

“The school is expensive but at the same time it gives world-class facilities. From studios, labs to computer classes and sports, the child undergoes a complete overhaul. At the same time, nobody has forced us to send our child to this school, but yes the fee needs to be regularised,” maintained Tejinder Singh, parent of a KG student. Mayor World owner Rajesh Mayor was not available for comments.

Swami Sant Dass Public School, JP Nagar, which is otherwise considered as a reasonable school, also increased its fee from Rs 3,450 to Rs 3,700 for classes VI to X on quarterly basis. Last year the school had increased the fee from Rs 2,200 to Rs 2,500.

“This is sheer fleecing. We are left with no option but to accept the fee hike. It is high time and the state government should intervene to regulate the fee structure,” said a parent.

Principal H.B. Kaur said there had been a hike of 7 to 10 per cent in the fee structure.

“The school management is responsible for taking major decisions pertaining to fee,” she added.

However, St. Joseph’s School has been running the show with a reasonable fee structure, making it a hit among many parents.

“We have been paying Rs 1,950 as quarterly fee and Rs 3,150 as annual charges for my son who is studying in class III. The school is providing excellent education facilities. What else can you expect in such minimal charges,” quipped a parent.

Many private schools had enhanced their fees last year, which led to widespread criticism of these institutions. Last year MGN had increased the fee, which drew a flak from parents leading to widespread protests. The issue ended with an assurance from the school that there would be no further fee hike.

The meritorious efforts of the government to impart free and compulsory education to children is indeed a glorious fructification of the dreams of those great leaders, savants and erudite scholars who really wished to bring a transmogrification of their motherland through education. In “Gitanjali”, Tagore has embossed his brilliant ideas about his motherland with great perfection in the verse:“Where the mind is without fear, where the head is held high, where knowledge is free…” These lines clearly highlight the magnificent dream that Tagore held in his eyes regarding a prosperous and strong India.

The Right to Education (RTE) Act proves that education is not the legacy of a selected few. Each and every child, irrespective of his social and economic condition, can get free education. No doubt, the motive is noble and the government is ready to tackle any sort of obstruction, yet a concrete policy regarding the implem entation of law needs to be initiated. If materialises properly, this Act can do wonders for the children who open their eyes in the squalor, dirt, muck and mud.

The RTE has come as a panacea for the deprived and underprivileged children who can never dream of going to a school. Their life is nothing but a saga of unimaginable hard toil and inexorable suffering.

Therefore, along with other formalities like recruitment of lakhs of teachers to make this Act a real success, much work has to be done on the other plane also.

For this, enlightened citizens should come forward to reset and recreate the entire perspective of such children’s parents. It is seen that people living below the poverty line see their children as a bread-earning member only.

Though the child labour is illegal, the sight of children aged between 6 to 14 years working in dhabas, houses and other grubby jobs is not rare at all.

It is not easy to change the perspective of such people who find no big gain in educating their child. For this we need to revamp our education system. Apart from the traditional subjects, some vocational courses need to be introduced. Cramming and reproducing lessons is not education. Education must teach us the right way to live. Making this new fundamental right a soaring success is not just the government’s task.

The government without public support cannot achieve the goal. People must understand that the notion of a strong and prosperous nation cannot become a reality with some debilitated souls struggling for their physical existence. If we want the national body of our country in the pink, we will have to give sustenance to each and every organism, otherwise the mission to impart free education to more than 22 crore children will never be a success.

Jalandhar, April 15
Chief of Army Staff General V.K. Singh laid the foundation stone of the new Army College of Nursing at Jalandhar Cantonment here today.

The “bhoomi poojan” ceremony was attended by GOC-in-C of Western Command Lt-Gen S.R. Ghosh, GOC of Vajra Corps Lt-Gen Ramesh Halgali and other Army officers, JCOs, NCOs, faculty members from the college and Military Hospital and students of the college.

The state-of-the-art project will be completed by 2012 at a cost of Rs 28 crore approximately. The project will consist of an administration block, a multipurpose hall, modern library, teaching block, staff residences, sports complex and a hostel complex. The project construction is being undertaken by the Army Welfare Housing Organisation.

In his address, the Army Chief exhorted the students to willingly devote themselves to providing succour to the poor and downtrodden during community health programmes and bring up the healthcare awareness in rural areas.

At present the Army College of Nursing has a strength of 200 students undergoing B.Sc nursing course. The college is affiliated to the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot, and is being run from the premises of Military Hospital, Jalandhar Cantonment, from August 1, 2005.

The Army Welfare Education Society (AWES) was raised in April, 1983, with the aim to impart quality education at an affordable cost to the wards of serving and retired Army personnel. Today, the AWES runs 127 schools and 13 professional colleges.

Jalandhar, April 15
A Jalandhar-based girl has brought laurels to the city. A software readied by her and three of her teammates has been selected by Microsoft for a national-level contest to be held at Bangalore this month-end.

Shallu Sarvari, a student of B.Tech-II (computer science and engineering) from the University College of Engineering, Patiala, teamed up with three other students, forming a group called Inferno, to design a software to assist primary school teaching.

Inferno will be one of the five teams making a presentation for the Microsoft Imagine Cup during the event. If declared a winner, the team will get a chance to take part in an international contest to be held in Poland.

There were two rounds of online submission of projects in which initially more than 6,000 teams participated. The 120 selected teams were again screened for the top five slots.

After their selection, the team took their project to Director-General School Education Krishan Kumar, who, too, found it user-friendly, said Shallu.

She elaborated, “Ours is a cheap software as compared to those available in the market. If kids have some basic computer knowledge, they can themselves operate it. It guides them on reading, writing and speaking all alphabets. We have prepared video recordings of its usage in schools and posted the same on our website www.infernotech.cc.”

She added, “Now we are planning to make it useful for teaching Punjabi and Hindi languages. We also want to make it customised, preparing different modules according to the syllabus of all classes.”

Her teammates are Harpreet Singh, Gursimran Sahota and Amarjot Singh from the same institute.

Jalandhar, April 15
Scores of motorists and commuters were put to great hardship following a major traffic hazard on the GT Road for over 12 hours today.

The traffic on the GT Road moved at snail’s pace, following a major bottleneck due to the ongoing elections of the NRI Sabha at Bath Castle. To participate in the elections, members of the sabha started gathering in front of the marriage palace and parked their vehicles along the GT Road as there was hardly any provision of parking.

Vehicles lined up, on the either side, of the road for a distance of almost 1 km, creating chaos, thus leaving hardly any space for traffic heading from Jalandhar towards Ludhiana and back, to move.

Starting from 6 am onwards, as the election process continued till late in the evening, the voters and their pedestrian supporters were seen crossing the road more frequently to a fast food joint, which further added to the chaos. Alleging rigging in the elections, supporters of certain candidates even stopped trucks on the highway, climbed on them and raised slogans.

Though, the district administration had deployed adequate police force, there was no one to regulate the traffic on the main road.

There was a complete jam on the GT Road for over an hour as supporters of the winning candidate organised a victory procession amid beating of drums at the venue.

Prominent residents of the city and surrounding cities and towns have demanded a ban on such activities that disrupt smooth flow of vehicle on the GT Road. 

Phagwara, April 15
More than 115 acres of wheat crops and 35 acres of wheat straw were reduced to ashes in fire incidents which broke out at 28 places in Phagwara, Nakodar and Phillaur subdivisions yesterday.

Sparks from electric wires due to a low velocity dust storm are said to be the cause of most of the fire incidents. According to details collected by The Tribune, 24 acres of wheat crop in Mahema village, 27 acres in Bath, eight acres in Zandiala Manjki, seven acres in Dhanipind, four acres in Bandhala, two acres in Rihana Jattan, 25 acres in Mattfallu, 14 acres in Goraya and four acres in Sarhali were destroyed in the fire.

Fire engines from Phagwara and Jalandhar worked hard to control the fire.

Meanwhile, it was observed that presently only Phagwara, Hoshiarpur and Nawanshahar towns have the facility of fire engine services to meet the requirements of dozens of villages, including Phagwara, Banga, Nawanshahr, Garhshankar, Mahilpur, Balachaur, Zandiala Manjki, Noormahal, Nakodar, Bilga, Goraya, Apra, Phillaur, Lohian, Shahkot, Malsian, Rihana Jattan and Panchhatt, while the fire engines at Nawanshahr are in a bad shape presently.

When The Tribune correspondent visited the Phagwara Fire Brigade today, two fire engines, with a capacity of 4,500 litres and 2,250 litres, respectively, were found parked to cope with any incident in these towns.

The Tribune found only two firemen against 40 required in the Phagwara Fire Brigade, while two drivers and three helpers posted as gardeners in the Nagar Council were seen working as firemen.

Phillaur SDM Pritam Singh and Nakodar SDM Iqbal Singh admitted that there was the dire need of fire brigade services in important towns like Phillaur and Nakodar.

Jalandhar, April 15
Continually rising mercury has started showing its effect on the prices of confectionery and vegetables. The prices of lemon witnessed a significant increase of Rs 10 per kg this week and are being sold at around Rs 80 per kg against Rs 70 per kg last week.

Similarly, squashes have also witnessed an increase of Rs 10 per 750 ml as compared to last season. Beverages like jaljeera, Brahmi and Ruh-af-zah are being sold at Rs 70, 60 and 90, respectively, and witnessed an average increase of Rs 10 per bottle this season.

Prices of potato and tomato witnessed a minor increase. The price of potato increased from Rs 5 to Rs 6 per kg and that of tomato from Rs 16 to Rs 18 per kg this week.

On the other hand, items like ginger, peas, garlic and radish remained nearly at the same price as that of last week. Items which witnessed decrease in prices this week are capsicum and onion. The price of capsicum came down to Rs 28 per kg this week against Rs 30 per kg last week. Similarly, the price of onion witnessed a decrease of Rs 2 per kg. The price of onion came down to Rs 16 per kg against Rs 18 per kg last week.

Bottle gourd also witnessed a decrease of Rs 3 per kg this week and is being sold at Rs 15 per kg.

Jalandhar, April 15
The Lok Bhalai Party and Congress have extended their compassionate hand to address the poor financial condition of the families of those 17 Indians, who are on a death row in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). LBP President BS Ramoowalia distributed Rs 2.81 lakh to the members of affected families in a press conference at Jalandhar.

Major part of this amount was contributed by Dilbag Singh Chawla of Canada and local Congress workers, including Raghvir Singh Jaura, ex-chairman, Punjab Agro Corporation, Munit Pal Singh Jaura and Malvinder Singh Lucky. Ramoowalia also collected significant amount during religious gathering on the occasion of Baisakhi at Damdama Sahib. While demanding intervention of the state government on the issue, he said the Punjab government should put its effort to press on agents to return Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 lakh to the affected families.

“It is crystal clear that the state government cannot directly pursue the case as it cannot intervene in the foreign affairs. What Badal can do is to force the unscrupulous travel agents to return this money to each family,” said Ramoowalia. He said they were demanding this money, as agents were the main culprits behind this tragedy. “Youth were promised that they would get salary of Rs 15,000 to 17,000 per month. They were promised that free accommodation and medical care would be given to them. A month long leave every year was also promised. However, they landed up in the dark on the foreign shores and this forced them to enter into illegal liquor business,” added Ramoowalia.

He said five-member team of the LBP would leave for Dubai on April 17 to find out the possibilities to save the 17 Indians from gallows. 

Jalandhar, April 15
Reacting sharply to Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s recent statement of starting a monthly grant of Rs 300 for all BPL families in lieu of the atta-dal scheme, the Congress alleged that the SAD-BJP government was now turning away from the atta-dal scheme as it would not be able to provide money to the needy families due to its bad financial condition.

Stating that the Badal government could not provide money to the beneficiaries of the Shagun scheme and old-age pension due to its deteriorated financial condition, PPCC secretary Virendra Sharma and DCC president Arun Walia questioned how it would give money to BPL families in such circumstances.

Sharma and Walia alleged that the Badal government was misguiding and cheating the BPL families as it was going to close this scheme indirectly.

The Congress leaders urged the state government to explain to the public how it would be able to provide money in lieu of atta-dal to BPL families. The atta-dal scheme for BPL families was the main poll plank of the Akalis during the last Assembly elections.

Terming the Badal government as anti-Dalit, Sharma and Walia alleged that it failed to hold any state-level function to mark the birth anniversary of Dr B.R. Ambedkar.

Jalandhar, April 15
A major fire broke out in a rubber factory located at the Wariana Leather Complex on Kapurthala road on Thursday evening. No loss of life was reported.

As many as 10 fire tenders were pressed into service in an attempt to put out the fire, which had broken out at Arun Rubber Industries at 5.15 pm. Efforts were on to put out the fire completely till last reports came in.

According to fire brigade sources, some tenders were also called from Kapurthala and Kartarpur to put out the fire owing to shortage of fire tenders in the Jalandhar Fire brigade department.

Three Jalandhar tenders had been sent for emergency duty at Nakodar, Phillaur and Shahkot to face any eventuality due to strike by PSEB employees to protest against its unbundling.

A major tragedy was averted as the local residents and fire fighters prevented the flames from spreading to nearby fields where the standing wheat crop was ready for harvesting.

According to fire brigade sources, the exact cause of the fire and estimated loss is yet to be ascertained.

The loss could have been more, had the over-head high-tension wires passing near the unit caught fire.

Phagwara, April 15
Functioning in municipal offices remained paralysed today as, on a call given by the Punjab Municipal Employees Action Committee, all employees, including those working in municipal offices, water supply and sanitation, observed a one-day strike in support of their long-pending demands.

Municipal employees sat on a day-long dharna and held protest rallies in front of the Nagar Council office here.

Union leaders like Surjit Kaur, Jaswinder Bhalla, Ashok Joga, Jagtar Singh and Jyoti Bhaghania 
condemned the indifferent policies of the state government.

Their major demands include regularisation of the services of ad hoc safai karamcharis, grant of better pay scales, etc.

Jalandhar, April 15
As many as 150 students of MPhil, BTech, Law and Mass Communication were today awarded degrees during the first ever convocation of Guru Nanak Dev University, Regional Campus, Ladhewali.

Dr. Surinder Singh, Dean, Academic affairs, GND University, Amritsar, congratulated the students. ‘Lab News’ published under the aegis of Dr Kamlesh Singh Duggal, Head of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, was released by Surinder Singh.