Jalandhar, May 27
Soaring temperature has started affecting the health of the citizens. The number of persons falling sick due to merciless heat are rapidly increasing in hospitals and health centres of the city.

Hospitals are being flooded with cases of allergic skin disorders, nasal bleeding, dry eyes and viral and bacterial diseases. With over 100 deaths reported across the country in just one week, doctors are of the opinion that if remained continued for a few more days, scorching heat itself would toe course of an epidemic.

Ophthalmologist in Civil Hospital Dr Vijay Joshi said number of patients with dry and infectious eyes had significantly increased during the past 10 days.

“Eyes are usually protected with the protective tear line and with increased temperature this protective lining evaporates rapidly. This rapid evaporation eventually causes irritation in the eyes and people usually touch their eyes with dirty hands. This increased frequency of contact of sensitive parts of eyes with dirty hands ultimately lead to infection in eyes,” said Dr Joshi.

With sudden changes in temperature cases of nasal bleeding are also alarmingly high. Leading ENT specialist Dr Sanjeev Sharma said the patients reporting sudden nasal bleeding had increased due to rise in temperature. He said the cases of high-grade fever and allergic disorders of ears and nose had been on the increase in the past 15 days.

Diseases like viral fever, diarrhoea, vomiting, sore throat, tonsillitis, hepatitis and jaundice are also taking their toll. Dr Kashmiri Lal, a physician in the Civil Hospital, said the frequency of such cases had increased by 15-20 per cent in the last few days.

“Even the cases of heat strokes are also being reported in the hospital. However, as there are over 400 private hospitals and clinics in city, we cannot ascertain the exact number of such cases. But it is sure that raised mercury is causing this problem,” he said.

Though mercury is touching unusually high levels and gravely affecting the health of citizens, the Health Department is taking it casually. Civil Surgeon Dr S.K. Gupta said it was not an alarming situation for the department.

“It is not a new thing for doctors. We are ready to deal with any such medical problem. In addition to this, we have alerted all health centres across the district to educate the patients who are reporting for routine checkup,” said Dr Gupta.

Jalandhar, May 27
The holy city of Amritsar today remained the hottest in the region and recorded the highest temperature of 44.3 degree Celsius. 
The mercury has been hovering around 44 degrees coupled with persistent heat wave in the city for the past some days.

Pathankot saw a sweltering temperature of 44 degree Celsius. However, a day before mercury remained at around 45.8 degrees at Pathankot. Halwara recorded a temperature of 43.1 degrees.

In the Malwa belt, Bathinda saw a highest temperature of 43.5 degrees.

At Adampur, near here, the maximum temperature was recorded at 42.9 degree Celsius.

While the later part of the day remained hazy, leading to poor visibility. Vehicle owners were seen driving with difficulty as the visibility level remained poor till dusk. With haze all around the region, the weather remained choked forcing people to stay indoors. Chandigarh also recorded a maximum temperature of 41.2 degrees.

The met department authorities at Adampur Air Force station have predicted occasional dust, haze and thunderstorm in the next 24 hours. “The region would witness a fair to partly cloudy sky”, the met officials added.

While Pathankot and its adjoining area may witness a slight drizzle as well, the met officials maintained. “At the same time the region would continue to reel under heat wave conditions”, the met officials said.

Jalandhar, May 27
The decreased prices of wheat flour and sugar this week came as a respite for consumers.

Sugar witnessed a decrease of approximately Rs 2 per kg in its price of Rs 35 last week. Wheat flour also witnessed a decrease in price and remained around Rs 140 per 10 kg this week.

The prices of onion, potato and tomato remained the same as that of last week.

Items like lemon, garlic and capsicum witnessed an increase this week. Lemon saw an increase of Rs 5 per kg and was sold at Rs 75 per kg. Similarly, garlic also witnessed an increase of Rs 10 per kg. Capsicum and tinda witnessed an increase of Rs 5 and Rs 2 per kg, respectively, this week.

On the other hand, items like bitter gourd and lady’s finger witnessed a significant decrease in prices.

Bitter gourd and lady’s finger remained around Rs 12 per kg this week against Rs 20 and Rs 16 per kg, respectively, last week. 

Jalandhar, May 27
In its campaign to put check on child labour, the district Labour Department today recovered eight children, who were forced to do labour by the owners of two embroidery shops and a schoolbag-manufacturing factory. The shops are located in the Muslim Colony area of the city.

Assistant Labour Commissioner Inderjit Singh said acting on the complaint of one Shabir Ahmad, the department conducted raids on the embroidery shops and small factory. He said two children, aged 12 years, were recovered from the factory.

Six children, in the age group of 11 to 13 years, were recovered from the embroidery shops located in the same colony. He said cases under the Prevention of Child Labour Act, 1986, were registered against the shops and factory owners and a challan would be presented in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate.

“As per the provision of the Child Labour Act, children cannot be forced to work more than five hours a day in embroidery shops. However, the owners of these shops were making these children work for more than eight hours a day,” he said.

Gurmit Singh, SHO, division number 8 police station, Rajinder Singh, District Welfare Officer, Amrik Singh, Block Development and Project Officer, Anoop Watts of the Citizen Protection Council, Varinder Kalia, Health Officer of the Municipal Corporation, and Mohan Sachdeva, advocate, were part of the raiding team.

Jalandhar, May 27
Strict action will be taken against the persons who do not cooperate with enumerators on census duty.Deputy Commissioner Priyank Bharti said it was everyone’s duty to participate in the census by providing full information to the staff visiting their areas about their families, relatives living with them or tenants in their houses.

He said instructions from the Election Commission of India and the Punjab and Haryana High Court should be followed in letter and spirit and if someone created an obstacle in the ongoing exercise, it was serious offence and the violators would be dealt with as per law.

The census was being conducted as per the provisions of the Constitution and no one had a right to create problems in this context, he warned.

He directed the staff to set up control rooms at the division level so that the record could be stored safely.

Bharti also asked the enumerators to wind up their work by June 10 so that the information could be compiled by June 15. The staff should carry identity cards and copies of their orders that could be shown to the persons who wanted to see them.

Jalandhar, May 27
Chairman of the Punjab Khadi and Village Industries Board Vijay Sampla said today that unlike other states, Punjab did not have its own financing scheme under which the board could help the rural people start their own enterprises.

Addressing mediapersons at Circuit House here, he said he was already reviewing the status of the state-run finance schemes for generating rural employment in other states, including Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. “Both the states have quite a few state-run schemes benefiting the rural poor. We will soon tour Gujarat and finally come up with a report on the kind of schemes that can be started in Punjab as well,” he said.

The BJP leader said as of now Punjab was offering finance for setting up of commercial units in villages only through funds generated under the PM’s Employment Generation Programme. He said the board offered subsidies for all kinds of enterprises barring those for power looms and polluting units. He said beekeepers and flour mill owners were the main takers.

Giving figures, he said in 2008-09, 156 units had been set up and Rs 3.39 crore had been disbursed as margin money. In the subsequent year, 387 units had been set up and Rs 8.29 crore disbursed as margin money. He was targeting to disburse an amount of Rs 11 crore in the current financial year.

Kapurthala, May 27
The country’s double decker train will run by the end of this year, it is learnt.Railway Board member (mechanical) Sanjiv Handa inaugurated the production of the country’s first airconditioned double-decker coaches at the Rail Coach Factory (RCF) during his two-day visit to inspect the functioning of the factory.

Railway sources said the first rake, comprising 16 coaches, will be rolled out by the end of this year.

Produced in a green-yellow colour scheme, the double-decker coach has all the features and comforts of a Shatabdi coach and is capable of running at a speed of 160 km per hour with a seating capacity of 128 passengers as compared to the 78 passengers in the Shatabdi Chair car, thus increasing the capacity by 70 per cent.

The overall height of the coach has been increased marginally (by four and a half inches) keeping in view the constraints like overhead structures, bridges, electric traction equipment, platforms, etc.

The RCF has developed a prototype of the double-decker coach in a record time of nine months.

Railways Minister Mamta Banerjee, during the inspection of the coach in Delhi on March 31, had lauded the efforts of the RCF and the Railway Board had given the green signal to the manufacture of double-decker coaches to provide cheap AC travel.

Railway sources said the initial oscillation trials of the double-decker coach on the Delhi-Moradabad section are found to be satisfactory.

Jalandhar, May 27
Punjab National Bank, Jalandhar Circle, organised a programme to felicitate the branch managers having performed well during 2009-10. Branch managers of Jalandhar and Kapurthala districts were invited to the function. General Manager (Field) S.S. Bhatia was the chief guest.

Bhatia gave away certificates to the branch managers for their achievements in different parameters of bank business during the fiscal year ended on March 31, 2010. He exhorted the participants to provide courteous service to all the clients of the bank.