Shagun Scheme Scandal
Welfare Dept to get fresh, pending claims checked
Jalandhar, June 3
Following the detection of a scandal in the shagun scheme in the state, the Finance Department has tightened control as far as releasing money for this scheme from the dedicated social security fund is concerned.

13th Finance Commission Report
Manpreet unhappy at suggestions
Patiala, June 3
Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal today expressed unhappiness over the recommendations of the Report of the Thirteenth Finance Commission (2010-2015) with respect to Punjab. Talking to TNS at the residence of former minister Harmail Singh Tohra here today, Manpreet said the commission had not considered their plea for a waiver of the central debt standing against Punjab. "It is sad that the commission overlooked the requests made by Punjab," he said.

Chandigarh, June 3
Despite having met the Punjab Health Minister, Lakshmi Kanta Chawla, several times in the past few months to review the functioning of the Health and Family Welfare Department, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today decided to keep her out of the media’s glare during a press interaction organised to highlight the achievements of the department.

Not many newsmen were aware that till minutes before the press interaction, the Chief Minister was being briefed by Chawla at Punjab Bhawan, where the press conference took place. Sources add that even during the briefing, she was present at the venue. It was decided that Chawla should avoid the media in view of the recent controversy involving her and Chief Parliamentary Secretary Jagdish Sahni. When Badal was asked about Chawla’s absence from a press conference dedicated to her department, he said, “I sent her a message, but she could not come.”

Chief Minister’s media adviser Harcharan Bains, when asked about the minister’s absence said, “It was the Chief Minister’s media interaction. Generally the ministers of the department concerned are not present at such meetings.”Interestingly, even when mediapersons asked Badal about the charges levelled against Chawla by Sahni, he said, “I have read them, but I returned from the US just yesterday. The matter will be dealt with in an appropriate manner.”

The Chief Minister said the government would spend Rs 342 crore on the construction of new hospitals and upgradation of existing hospitals, community and primary health centres throughout the state.

He pointed out that out of 342 crore, Rs 75 crore would be meted out from state budget, Rs 44 crore from GMADA, GLADA and BDA, Rs 83 crore from the Rural Development Fund , Rs 80 crore from the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board and Rs 60 crore from the National Rural Health Mission. He added that 376 doctors, including 214 medical specialists, 128 medical officers general and 34 medical officers dental would be recruited through a committee of PGI doctors. He said that with the recruitment of these 376 doctors against the gap of 566, the remaining 190 would be recruited thereafter.

In response to a question on linking of river waters and declaring natural resources national property, the Chief Minister said there was a well-established norm that river waters belonged to the state which has the river flowing through it. “Punjab has no natural resources other than river water and there could be no free sharing on this”.

Reacting to a question on the inclusion of caste in the national census, Badal said “manas ki jaat sabhe eko pehchanbo” adding that Sikhism did not discriminate on the basis of caste or creed. 

Jalandhar, June 3
Following the detection of a scandal in the shagun scheme in the state, the Finance Department has tightened control as far as releasing money for this scheme from the dedicated social security fund is concerned.

A special checking made by senior officials of the department had revealed several irregularities, including payment to fake persons under the shagun scheme. While Rs 90 crore was paid under the scheme during 2008-09, Rs 35 crore had been released during 2009-10. As there are 53,000 pending applications under the scheme, the SC and BC Welfare Department has sought Rs 80 crore from the Finance Department to clear the pending claims.

Recently, the Welfare Department had held special checking of cases to whom payment was made under the shagun scheme in Bathinda, Faridkot, Ferozepur, Amritsar and Ludhiana districts. In one of the districts, 300 cases, out of the 600 inspected, were found bogus. In some cases, girls were married long back and had grown- up children but payment to such girls under the shagun scheme -- Rs 15,000 is given to each girl -- was made last year. In fact, many startling facts had come to light following a special checking.

The Finance Department has directed the Welfare Department to get the fresh and pending claims checked as per the guidelines laid down for spending the dedicated social security fund. The Finance Department wanted that Revenue Department officials should get the claims inspected from the officials concerned. A certificate should also be given that applications given to claim money under the shagun fulfil the norms fixed in this regard.

The Finance Department has also told the Welfare Department to make all payments under the shagun scheme from the personal ledger accounts (PLA) and no account in any bank should be opened to disburse money under the scheme. “Opening of an account in a bank is against the guidelines issued by the Finance 
Department.”

Officials concerned had said that if at any place a bank account has been opened, all details of that should be furnished to the authorities concerned and the name of the official, who gave permission to open the bank account, should also be furnished. The Finance Department has made it clear that a fresh instalment of money under the scheme will only be released after the information sought by it is furnished to it by the officials concerned. 

Patiala, June 3
Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal today expressed unhappiness over the recommendations of the Report of the Thirteenth Finance Commission (2010-2015) with respect to Punjab. Talking to TNS at the residence of former minister Harmail Singh Tohra here today, Manpreet said the commission had not considered their plea for a waiver of the central debt standing against Punjab. "It is sad that the commission overlooked the requests made by Punjab," he said.

On the fiscal state of the state, he said tax collection in the state had doubled in the fiscal 2009-10 as compared to 2008-09. Manpreet further said that while in 2008-09, Rs 4,000 crore were collected in the form of VAT, the figure for 2009-10 stood at Rs 8,000 crore. Likewise, excise collection in the state had witnessed a steep increase. On the development of the state, he said an IT park was being set up near Rajpura. He added that on similar lines, IT parks would be set up in Ropar and Bathinda as well.

Meanwhile, Manpreet has said that the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) of the SAD seems to have lost its relevance, as now important decisions are being finalised in its Core Committee. However, when asked whether this was the reason behind not attending the PAC meeting held in the recent past, Manpreet said he could not attend the PAC meeting due to his engagement in another meeting in New Delhi.

Fatehgarh Sahib, June 3
The Drainage Department has not desilted the choes in Fatehgarh Sahib, while the monsoon is expected in a next few days.There are two major drains in Fatehgarh Sahib, including Sirhind Choe and Jhambowali that have not been desilted so far. Wild shrubs have grown all over the drain from Sirhind to Bhadson.

Besides affecting the historical places, including Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib and officers colony, the overflowing water will affect a large number of villages and agricultural land in the rainy season.

The Department officials said these shrubs would thwart flow of the water during the rainy season and a large amount of water might enter in the villages, agricultural land and would damage historical places as well. Expressing concern, the area residents said the Sirhind Choe was blocked with construction works, while most of the part of the Jhambowali drain was blocked with the shrubs.

Noted environmentalist Baba Seechewal had stated that the state government must learn from the tragedies of past, wherein the rain water had wrecked havoc during flood-like situation. Deputy Commissioner, Fatehgarh Sahib, Yashvir Mahajan said an amount of Rs five lakh has been provided to the Drainage Department for desilting and the Sirhind and Jhambowali Choe’s, where suspected flood-like situation was expected, would be plugged in. The DC had earlier too given Rs 5 lakh to the drainage department, which were returned over alleged technical reasons.

XEN DS Kohli denied commenting and said he had been transferred. While XEN, Sangrur, who had additional charge of Fatehgarh Sahib, Amrit Lal Goyal said he would not be able to say anything. “New XEN will perhaps join in next few days and he can give a clearer picture,” he said. He added that for last 20 years no drain in the state has been desilted despite repeated requests.

Chandigarh, June 3
The newly created governance cell of the BJP will hold a two-day national conclave on good governance. Titled Suraj-Sankalp, the conclave will be held at Bhainder, near Mumbai, on June 5 and June 6.

Announcing this here today, the party’s national general secretary, Jagat Prakash Nadda, said the convention was the first of its kind initiated by any political party in India.

Chandigarh, June 3
Member of Parliament from the Bathinda constituency Harsimrat Kaur Badal yesterday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking immediate withdrawal of notification of Union Public Service Commission barring the recruitment of women as officers in paramilitary forces.

In a communiqué addressed to the Prime Minister, Harsimrat regretted that the UPA government claiming the credit of introduction of the Women Reservation Bill in Parliament was now barring the entry of women constituting 50 per cent population of the country, as direct officers in paramilitary forces.

She said the UPSC, in a notification, had made clear that only male candidates could apply for the post of officers like assistant commandants in Sashastra Seema Bal, BSF and ITBP and no women candidate would be allowed to apply for these posts.

She further said when the BSF opened the entry of women and they were posted on western and eastern borders, the infiltration and smuggling from these areas declined considerably. 

Jalandhar, June 3
Rejecting claims that there is a high level of pesticides and toxic metals in the rice prepared from the 1121 variety of paddy, the Agriculture Department has said there is no substance in such claims and the rice prepared from this variety is fit for human consumption.

Some West Asian countries had blocked the entry of consignments of 1121 variety taking the plea it had high level of toxic metals and pesticides. Rice prepared from 1121 variety of paddy is as good as some of the fine quality basmati varieties. It has high demand in Arab countries such as Iran. Punjab is one of the states where this variety is transplanted in substantial area and rice prepared from it is exported to Arab countries.

“We have tested 60 samples of rice prepared from this variety and the level of objectionable substances such as pesticides and toxic metals was well below the permissible limit fixed at the international level,” said Balwinder Singh Sidhu, Director (Agriculture). He said samples were collected from different blocks and were tested at the Punjab Horticultural Post Harvest Test Laboratory, Ludhiana. The state government has decided to set up a state-of-the-art pesticides residue testing laboratory in Jalandhar. It would cost Rs 4.70 crore and funds would be provided by the Centre.

Amritsar, June 3
Holding placards with photographs of ideologues of the “Khalistan” movement, activists of the Dal Khalsa supported by the Khalsa Action Committee (KAC) began a three-day silent protest against the SGPC at the entrance of the Golden Temple here today.

The agitating groups have been demanding from the SGPC to announce a fixed date for building a memorial to “Khalistan” ideologues. Besides the protest, they also wanted to pay homage to those who had died during the Operation Bluestar.

Meanwhile, former chief of the Dal Khalsa Satnam Singh Paonta Sahib went on fast, along with the silent protest, for 72 hours.

After performing ardas, the protesters sat on the silent protest in the park at the entrance of the Golden Temple, which leads to sarai and the SGPC office. They did not raise any slogan, but kept placards with photographs of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Bhai Amrik Singh, General Subeg Singh and catchy slogans in Punjabi afloat to draw the attention of all those visiting the Golden Temple.

Representatives of the Dal Khalsa had given written representations to the SGPC twice before starting their agitation today. Senior leaders of the outfit held a meeting with SGPC chief Avtar Singh last night. It is, however, learnt that they failed to arrive at a decision as the SAD chief is at present in the US.

The SGPC had twice passed resolutions in 2002 and 2005 to build a memorial in the Golden Temple complex. Following this, the date was fixed for June 6, 2005. However, a day before, the then president of the SGPC, Bibi Jagir Kaur, had postponed the ceremony for unknown reasons.

The SGPC chief, withholding his comment on the issue, said it was not ethically right to hold agitation outside the Golden Temple complex. He said: “Harmandar Sahib was a spiritual place for all religions and constant flow of devotees was enough to buttress the point.”

Ferozepur, June 3
To conduct the PMET in free and fair manner, the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) has taken certain “unusual measures”, never heard in any competitive exam conducted by any institution hitherto.

For the examination, to be conducted in 29 centres located in Kotkapura and Faridkot towns on June 6, 2010, vice-chancellors, registrars and controllers of exams of different universities dotting Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Haryana and Delhi would play the role of observers. Each centre would cater to 250 candidates.

Gazetted officers of the Punjab Government would also be deployed, along with doctors from PGI, Chandigarh, CMC and DMC of Ludhiana and other medical colleges of the state to play the role of invigilators, a step never taken by BFUHS before. A large number of bunglings, including impersonation, were found during the PMET in 2008.

“We want to bring error level in the conduct of examination to zero and, hence, we have taken certain measures,” said SS Gill, Vice-Chancellor, BFUHS, adding that thumb and finger print impressions of candidate would be taken, videography would be done and answersheets would have secret codes to block any kind of bungling into the test expected to be taken by about 7,500 candidate.

“Even pens will not be allowed inside the examination centres. Pens will be given to candidates by the university authorities. Candidates photos in videos will be matched with their photos during the counselling and also at the time of joining of colleges,” he added.

Raminder Singh, commissioner, Ferozepur and Faridkot division, who presided over a meeting convened in connection with the review of arrangements made for conducting the PMET, said effective support was being given to the BFUHS authorities for this task.

Special buses would be plied for candidates, who come from faraway places on June 6 to appear in the exam.

Mohali, June 3
The PSEB class XII result alleged controversy over giving awards to candidates continues to brew, putting at stake the career of hundreds of students who have cleared various entrance tests for admission in professional courses.

The result of class XII was declared on May 28 last. Around 42 students of science stream from Mansa, Amritsar, Patiala, and Ferozepur districts after seeing their subject-wise numbers on board’s website came to meet the PSEB’s chairman, Dr Dalbir Singh Dhillon today.

Claiming that they should have scored good numbers in the chemistry subject, the students alleged that the board authorities had given them wrong numbers.

Dr Dhillon said a special committee had been constituted to look into each and every case and verify the facts and go through the answer books.

All such cases would be disposed of in the next 15 days. In case of candidates who apply for rechecking, the outcome would be revealed in the next 15 days.

Pointing the anomaly, students of Gandhi Senior Secondary School, Mansa, said most of the students of their school had got between 14 and 17 numbers in Chemistry (theory) paper.

On the contrary, their numbers in maths, physics, Punjabi and English subjects were comparatively higher. Among the students, Mahesh Kumar and Deepak Goyal, have got ranks in the Punjab’s CET.

“The counselling is going to begin in the next few weeks. The authorities have played with our career”, said Mahesh Kumar. A number of students have threatened to move the court as the authorities were not allowing revaluation of the answersheets. Giving its logic, board officials told the students that after poor performance they had been given grace marks to enable them to appear in the compartment exams.

Students from Saradgadi Senior Secondary School, Amritsar, and Government Senior Secondary School, Ferozepur, also visited the board today to know the reasons for getting less numbers in chemistry.

Patiala, June 3
The Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) has announced to honour Kheti Virasat Mission executive director Umendra Dutt and Ludhiana-based industrialist Joginder Kumar, at the annual state-level function, being organised by the board at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Mohali, to celebrate the World Environment Day on June 5.

In his articles and speeches, Umendra has been very critical about the policies of the state government with respect to the environment sustainability. Board officials said for this year honour, Umendra and Joginder were shortlisted by the PPCB for their contribution towards spreading awareness to save the environment. At present, Umendra is working with KVM, a movement for natural farming and ecological restoration, at Jaitu, Faridkot.

He has penned down several articles on sustainable farming and need for building a pro-people non-polluting and sustainable model of development in industry as well as agriculture. Two of his articles “Green Agenda for Sustainable Punjab” and “Environmental Health Crisis In Punjab, Who Cares?” are highly critical of the role of successive governments in dealing with the crucial issue of environmental health and ecological crisis and preventing the environmental degradation in the state.

Talking to The Tribune, Umendra said: “It is a pleasant surprise that government has announced to honour him.” “I am not against the government, but the policies of the government, which are not good enough to deal with the environmental issues,” he added.

The second person to be honoured this year is Joginder Kumar, an industrialist from Ludhiana and the CEO of the Special Purpose Vehicle set up for running the Common Effulent Treatment Plant (CETP), located at Focal Point Phase-VIII, Ludhiana. An elated Joginder said: “From a non-functional CETP in 2006, we accepted the government’s challenge to make it operational and within three years, we achieved our task,” he said.

Amritsar, June 3
On a call given by the Punjab Kisan Sabha, its district unit today organised a dharna outside the Deputy Commissioner’s officer here to register its protest.Meanwhile, the Kisan Sangharsh Committee’s agitation regarding the various demands of the farmers and bifurcation of the PSEB entered its fifth day today.

Raising slogans, activists of the sabha alleged that the central as well as the state governments were deliberately ignoring agriculture, the mainstay of the Indian economy. They submitted a charter of their demands to the Deputy Commissioner, KS Pannu. Bhupinder Sambar, general secretary of the organisation, said the current deplorable condition of farmers was the result of the central government’s policy of reducing investment in agriculture, irrigation and rural development.

“The input costs of agriculture have increased manifold due to increase in the prices of agricultural appliances, pesticides, diesel, fertilisers etc,” said Samber.

They demanded that the government increase its share of investment in agriculture and research and development besides reducing the rates of seeds and machinery. Pending advances must be waived, provision made for soft loans and 12-hour uninterrupted power supply must be ensured, he added.

Meanwhile, the activists of the Kisan Sangharsh Committee continued their demonstration against the transformation of the PSEB into a corporation, at its various subdivisions.

Ropar, June 3
In its endeavour to find good accommodations for its teaching faculty, IIT Ropar is seeking houses on rent at Kharar. The staff members will be placed here till IIT’s own campus comes up at the Birla farms in Ropar.

The IIT is functioning from transit campus situated on the Nangal road in the premises of the erstwhile ITI Polytechnic College for Women. Presently, there are around 25 faculty members who are staying at the quarters in IIT campus itself, including director MK Surappa.

“By July, the strength of the teaching faculty will grow to almost 60. The Ropar district does not have many options for rented accommodations. After thoroughly going through the options available, we zeroed in on Kharar,” said dean academics and Head of Department Prof BD Gupta.

Gupta added that talks were going on with owner of the Gillco Valley, a private township in Kharar, which would give 20 houses on rent for the IIT faculty members. In order to ferry staff members from the campus to Kharar and vice-versa, a special AC bus would be run.

The IIT authorities have been in the stage of finalising the houses to suit the needs of the teaching faculty. Final decision would be taken before July 18 when the new session starts.

At the same time, the state government has sanctioned Rs 8.6 crore for setting up a hostel for the students. Gupta said the hostel, with capacity of 300 students, would be completed before May 2011.

The foundation stone of IIT’s building at the Birla farms was laid on February 24 last year. Prior to that the classes of first year were being held at IIT Delhi. Construction of the new students’ hostel and accommodation for the faculty members was expected to bring relief.

Chhat (Banur), June 3
After white tiger Gullu, royal Bengal tiger, cub tigress Chitra and a leopard captured from Nangal, Mahendra Chaudhary Zoological Park’s key attraction male chimpanzee Rustam was found dead in his enclosure today morning.Aged 30 years, it was an exotic species brought from the Delhi zoo five years ago. With the death of Rustam, the workers at zoo have started recommending the zoo authorities to resort to holding a prayer session and cleanse the air.

“It was an unfortunate day today. One of our zookeepers Jarnail Singh too died today morning. We are trying to emphasize on zoo management that a pooja should be performed at zoo premises in order to avoid untoward incidents,” said a zookeeper pleading anonymity.

A panel of doctors, including senior veterinary officer Dr Nirmaljit Singh and veterinary officer Dr Rajkumar, conducted post mortem examination of the animal.

The post mortem report stated that Rustam died primarily due to haemorrhages to all vital organs due to acute infection. The samples of the vital body organs were sent to the laboratory for further investigations.

The zoo authorities said the animal was suffering from infection for the past three to four days. But the infection remained undetected. The authorities agreed that the death of the chimpanzee was a setback to the zoo, as it used to be a major attraction for the visitors.

Before Rustam, white tiger Gullu used to be a crowd puller and later the title went to Rustam. Earlier on April 21 this year, cub tigress Chitra was found dead in her enclosure, while an year-old leopard rescued from Nangal on May 16 had died after two days of being brought to the zoo. 

Patiala, June 3
The Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) of Punjab has prepared an action plan to stop the trafficking of various drugs in Punjab from neighbouring states, including Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan.

The plan has already been sent to the Narcotic Control Bureau (NCB), New Delhi, for issuance of necessary instructions to the head of the ANTFs of the above-mentioned states. As per the copy of the action plan prepared by the Punjab ANTF, it mentioned, “As per the interrogation reports of the drug traffickers, it is found that the traffickers are using trucks and light vehicles for trafficking of the narcotic drugs into Punjab from neighbouring states. Hence, joint random checking of vehicles will be carried out by the Punjab police and the neighbouring states at the entry points on the inter-state border.”

Punjab ANTF IG RP Meena said they have also mentioned in their plan that people of Ferozepur, Muktsar, Bathinda and Mansa districts visit poppy husk vends located adjoining the Punjab border in Hanumangarh and Ganganagar districts of Rajasthan from where they get poppy husk illegally. He added that there was need to check this practice and cooperation of the Rajasthan cops could help a lot. A copy of the action plan, in possession of The Tribune, further read, “Quarterly meetings of the heads of the ANTF of the neighbouring states should be held to review the progress of the action plan and subsequently a report should be submitted to the Director General of NCB, New Delhi.”

It also mentioned that an SP rank officer be nominated by Punjab and all neighbouring states to establish effective coordination among the police officers.

The ANTF has also recommended that proclaimed offenders and the absconders, hailing from the neighbouring states, who are wanted under the NDPS Act by the Punjab police, should be arrested on priority basis by the cops of the neighbouring states. “The Punjab ANTF will supply a list of all such PO’s/ absconders to the neighbouring states,” stated the ANTF officials, while adding that they were hopeful that if the action plan was implemented, it would help immensely in checking the drug trafficking in the state.