Jalandhar, April 29
It seems that the heedlessness of the Municipal Corporation and irresponsible attitude of owners of hundreds of private hospitals and shopping malls across the city are adversely affecting the smooth commutation of citizens.

In the absence of any permanent parking facility at private hospitals and shopping malls, the space available in front of these buildings is converted into illegal parking lots which leads to creating bottlenecks on the main roads and streets.

Ironically, the authorities are yet to wake up to the problem which is turning severe with every passing day.

Nothing concrete is on the cards of the Department of Town Planning, and the traffic police feels that any solution to the problem would be temporary until the corporation does not grill owners of such buildings into making parking arrangements.

Building bylaws say that sufficient parking space should be provided in the buildings of such hospitals and malls.

When asked whether unavailability of sufficient parking space is the violation of the bylaws, a senior officer of the department said building bylaws were framed in 1997.

However, a large number of buildings of private hospitals were constructed much before that.

“We can’t issue orders for the construction of parking lots in buildings constructed before 1997. All we can do is to tell them to make alternative arrangements for parking,” he said.

Even Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Daljinder Singh Dhillon admitted that illegally parked vehicles 

in front of private hospitals were worsening the already deteriorated traffic movement on the main roads.

“Besides, illegal parking in congested markets and private hospitals poses a severe challenge in this regard. Everyday we toe away 30-40 wrongly parked cars. However, no significant change is observed in the traffic scenario,” said Dhillon.

“Pressing private hospitals for arranging alternative space is a distant dream. The MC has failed even in promoting the already existing parking spaces. There are at least 12 paid and unpaid large parking lots owned by the MC, however, a very few residents use these lots as there is no promotion. There are not even signboards directing towards these parking lots,” he said. Though newly-constructed shopping malls have sufficient parking space, traffic congestion even in front of such malls becomes severe during peak hours, Dhillon added.

Jalandhar, April 29
The budding technocrats of the local CT Group of Institutions bagged first position in the recently held NASA’s 17th Annual Great Moonbuggy race at Davidson Space Center NASA, Huntsville, Alabama, USA.

A team comprising six students --- Harshal Thakur, Amritpal Singh, Rajnish Sharma, Sukhwant Singh, Naveen Dadwal and Maninderdeep Kaur --- and two advisors Vikrant Sharma (project guide) and Monica Sharma (assistant project guide) participated in this competition, which was held from April 8 to 10.

The students were awarded scholarships of Rs 25,000 each by Dr N.P. Singh, Dean Academics, Punjab Technical University, during a special award ceremony. Under this project the students were given the task to drive their moonbuggy, a small vehicle to drive through different terrains on the moon on a track built by the NASA team, which was similar to that of the moon’s surface.

The design of moonbuggy was prepared after an approval by the Project Manager of Moonbuggy Race, Durlean Bradford and Project Coordinator Sabrina Pearson. As many as 109 teams participated from all over the world out of which 8 teams were from India. On day one of the competition there were two qualifying tests for the next round.

“In first test, the moonbuggy was folded into dimensions of 4’x4’ and weighed and in the second test both the moonbuggy drivers had to carry the moonbuggy up to 20 feet of distance. Later we assembled it from 4x4’ size to its original size as fast as possible. Here the assembling time was counted with the final race time of that team,” said one of the student. After clearing the tests the moonbuggy was brought down on the track and the drivers were asked to drive through all the hurdles spread over the track distance of 1 km. “The maximum time given to each team to complete the race was 10 minutes and exceeding of which disqualified the teams”, said another student.

On first day, CT team finished the race in 9 minutes and 34 seconds whereas on second day the team members finished the race in 7 minutes and 21 seconds. “The CT team won the “Pit Crew” award, which was one of the main awards. This was the only award in its category, which was presented to our students for their team work”, said Charanjit Singh Channi, Chairman of CT Group. — TNS

Jalandhar, April 29
Frequent power cuts are adding to the pollution woes of the city as there is no effective authority to put a check on thousands of generator sets which start running immediately a power cut occurs.

On an average, each day witnesses power cuts spanning from six to seven hours.

Residents of nearly all the localities are left with no option but to bear the heat along with the deafening dissonance of generators. Owing to the release of sulphate, sulphur dioxide, metallic abrasion particles and ash particles as end products, the generators also add to the air pollution level.

Ironically, no data exist with any government authority regarding the exact number of generators in a city, hence no record of level of pollution caused by the generators is available.

“It is not in our purview to maintain any such record. As far as the case of noise pollution is concerned, 55 decibels and 75 decibels (units to measure sound) are the permissible upper limits in residential and industrial areas. Modern generators, with soundproof cabins, multiple silencers and installed under canopies, hardly produce sound more than 55 decibels,” said the Enviornment Engineer, Punjab Pollution Control Board, Jalandhar Division, Harbir Singh.

He, however, admitted that most of the generators installed in residential areas were locally made and produced sound above the level of 100 to 125 decibels.

“We are not even an appellate authority in this regard. The police is the appellate authority and they too can act only on complaints by residents of a locality,” he added.

Although much hue and cry has been raised about the increasing pollution levels caused by autorickshaws, all wings of the district administration, the police, the pollution control board or the Municipal Corporation are in no mood to initiate any campaign against the detrimental effects of generators.

“Earlier, there was a mandate that every generator should be passed by the electricity authorities. However, according to the new circular of the erstwhile Punjab State Electricity Board, generators, only with a capacity of above than 10 KW are required to be passed,” said an engineer in the office of the Chief Electrical Inspector.

“The exact number of generators could have been on records, had the said norm continued. It would have been easy for the pollution board authorities to make an idea of noise and air pollution. Now everything runs on assumptions. And ironically, nobody even bothers to assume anything in this context,” he added.

Jalandhar, April 29
Apeejay School, Rama Mandi, Jalandhar, conducted an orientation programme for the parents of students of the pre-primary section. Various crucial issues regarding children and their education were discussed. Principal Madhu Sharma, in her address, said children should not only equip themselves with bookish knowledge but should also have the talent to develop an individual approach in learning the various ways of life.

Jalandhar, April 29
Lemon and cucumber witnessed a fall in prices while ginger and peas became dearer as compared to last week.Lemon witnessed a marked decrease, whose price came down to Rs 65 per kg from Rs 80 per kg of last week. Cucumber also witnessed a fall of Rs 3 per kg.

Prices of essential vegetables item like onion and potato remained nearly same as that of last week. Onion and potato remained at Rs 11 and Rs 6 per kg, same as that of last week. However, tomato witnessed a marginal increase of Rs 1 per kg as compared to last week prices.

Prices of garlic and raddish also remained unchanged. Capsicum witnessed fall in prices of Rs 2 per kg. Ginger remained around Rs 90 per kg against Rs 80 per kg of last week.

Kapurthala, April 29
In a significant decision, the District Consumer Redressal Forum directed the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA) to refund Rs 43,856 charged from a consumer of Model Town, Kapurthala, as non-construction charges without giving him physical possession of the plot allotted to him.

Forum president Paramjit Singh and its member Gulshan Prashar also directed PUDA to pay the consumer, Dr Barinder Singh, Rs 2,000 as compensation on account of mental tension and harassment suffered by him and Rs 1,000 as costs of litigation.

In its order pronounced on April 21, the forum directed PUDA to complete the process of refunding the money along with damages and costs of litigation within three months from receipt of a certified copy of the order.

In his complaint filed on February 19, Dr Barinder Singh stated that he had applied for allotment of a 400 sq yds residential plot in Urban Estate, Kapurthala, on November 19, 2004.

He was allotted plot 1259-C by PUDA vide its letter of February 28, 2005, and he paid Rs 9,57,425 as the total price of the plot, adding that PUDA also issued him a “no-dues certificate”.

The complainant alleged that PUDA did not give physical possession of the plot as two mango trees were standing in the plot regarding which he had intimated the PUDA authorities through letters sent on December 15, 2008, and November 27, 2009.

Dr Barinder Singh submitted a plan to raise construction and PUDA sanctioned it, he added.

In the meantime, PUDA sent a letter demanding Rs 43,856 from him as non-construction charges/extension fee. Dr Barinder Singh deposited the amount under protest. Later he filed a complaint before the forum terming this act of PUDA as deficiency in service.

The forum directed PUDA to refund this amount.