Fatehabad, July 31
For poor families already reeling under rising prices of pulses, vegetables, milk and other food items, government agencies, too, are adding to their miseries.Fungus-infested dal is being supplied to poor families through the public distribution system (PDS) at Meond Kalan village in this district.

The dal stinks and is unfit for human consumption even from its outward appearance.

To cap it all, the purchase of this fungus-infested dal is not optional for the BPL families.

They have to purchase it if they want to get other items like sugar and wheat.

The yellow dal is supplied to the families living below the poverty line at a subsidised price through the PDS.

“I went to our depot to purchase my family’s monthly supply of subsidised ration, but was told that I will have to purchase packets of yellow dal if I want to buy other commodities,” alleged Gurpreet Kaur, a villager.

She alleged that the dal supplied by the depot-holder was infested with fungus and was stinking.

The woman alleged that the depot-holder claimed that the authorities had supplied this dal and he had no option but to liquidate the stocks.

Meond Kalan is among the worst-affected villages in the district from the current floods.

Sources said similar stocks had also been supplied to other villages in the district.

The District Food and Supplies Controller, Dr Ghansham Singh, admitted that fungus-infested yellow dal had been supplied to ration depots, but added that the stocks had been recalled after complaints.

“The infested dal had been supplied to the depots by Confed. The Confed authorities have told us that they received this stock from their Sonepat store, where it might have rotten due to humidity. However, we have recalled all infested dal,” Dr Ghansham Singh claimed.

He said the Food and Supplies Department was only a monitoring body; the goods were supplied by Confed.

New Delhi, July 31
It may be sheer coincidence, but the bureaucracy of the Haryana cadre is nowadays literally on “the top” at the Centre. Yesterday, 1971 batch Haryana cadre IAS officer SY Quraishi was appointed the Chief Election Commissioner amid much media hype, but away from the media glare his cadre-mates hold vital posts at the Centre.

Haryana now has four secretaries in the government, besides an IPS heading a leading agency. In the past three days, the government has appointed 1976 batch officer RS Gujral as Secretary, Road Transport and Highways. With minister Kamal Nath having set a target of building 20 km of highway everyday, Gujral, a soft-spoken man, could be the ideal foil for the voluble minister, who recently had a public spat with the Planning Commission, calling its members “armchair advisers”. Gujral was the Director-General, Foreign Trade, and had worked with Kamal Nath in the UPA-I. Another 1976 batch officer, Anita Chaudhary, Special Secretary in the Home Ministry, was posted as Secretary, Land Resources, two days ago. Chaudhary, in the past couple of years, has gone about “smoothly implementing the changing face” of the Home Ministry under P Chidambaram.

Haryana cadre’s 1972 batch officer Pradeep Kumar heads the important Defence Ministry while his cadre-mate Vivek Mehrotra is Secretary, Minority Affairs. With the government laying special emphasis on the minorities, Mehrotra’s ministry is the one that implements targeted schemes for the uplift of the minorities, a vital issue for the Congress-led UPA government.

Haryana cadre IPS SC Sinha heads the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that is probing the Mumbai attacks.

A senior Punjab IAS official said it was “cyclical”; some states got a clutch of officials at senior posts at the same time while other did not. He pointed out that SK Tuteja, SS Dawra and Satwant Reddy, all of the Punjab cadre, were secretaries at the Centre around the same time in the past. Still a far cry from the “golden days” of the Punjab cadre when officers like NN Vohra, MS Gill, SS Grewal, Tejendra Khanna, Serla Grewal, Karl Reddy and JNL Srivastava, all of the Punjab cadre, were virtually the figureheads of the bureaucracy. TKA Nair, a 1963 batch Punjab cadre IAS officer, is on a top position as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. He was handpicked by the Prime Minister.

At present the Punjab cadre has only one Secretary in the Central Government, A Didar Singh in the Ministry for Overseas Affairs. Among the IPS, NPS Aulakh heads the National Security Guards (NSG). Officers of the 1977 batch Dilsher Singh Kalha and Sundaram Krishna, posted in the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Defence, respectively, have recently been empanelled as secretaries, but are yet to be appointed at that level. 

Gharaunda (Karnal), July 31
In a shameful act that will bring the entire teaching community to disgrace, a teacher of Government High School, Hasanpur, here entered the school in an inebriated state and mercilessly beat up a sixth class student, breaking his arm.

The accused teacher, Bhim Singh, drank so much that he could not even balance his body and continued to beat up Satwinder, a student of Class VI even after breaking his arm.

The news spread like wild fire and within minutes, villagers and parents of students converged at the school and seeing that the teacher was drunk, they continued to thrash him till the police arrived.

The police tried to pacify the villagers but they were in no mood to relent and even after the teacher was taken into custody, they were after his blood. Some women even locked the school and said the academic atmosphere of the school had been vitiated by some teachers and demanded stringent action against Bhim Singh.

The teacher admitted before the camera that he had consumed countrymade liquor. A mid-day meal worker Naro also said the teacher beat up Satwinder and was furious.

The villagers dispersed after the police took away the teacher and the student was rushed to hospital.

Fatehabad, July 31
The police today claimed to have busted a gang of robbers and arrested five members of the gang at Tohana town in this district.

SP Jagwant Singh Lamba said the accused - Ashok and Kuldeep from Samain village, Balkar Singh and Bindi from Ratta Khera and Sandeep from Tohana - were arrested by the police today and a pistol and five stolen motorcycles were recovered from their possession.

The SP said the gang members had admitted to their involvement in robberies at a liquor vend in Baliala, a petrol pump in Jamalpur village, a petrol pump in Buan village, besides looting a trader at Tohana town.

The accused had also taken away a motorcycle from a youth at Saniana and shot at him, Lamba added.

He said at least five members of the gang were still at large.

Sonepat, July 31
Vikas, a resident of Rajlu Garhi village, was shot dead allegedly by Jagminder of Gumar village when the victim, along with his friend Mukesh of Khalila village in Panipat district, went to Jagminder’s house to settle a dispute over money with him late last night.

On the complaint of Jagminder’s father Mahavir, the Gannaur police has registered a case of attempt to murder against the deceased and Mukesh. In the complaint, it is alleged that Vikas, armed with country-made pistol, along with Mukesh, came to his residence to attack his son.

Karnal, July 31
In yet another case of marrying against the wishes of their families, two newlywed couples, reeling under the threat of attacks from the girls’ kin, today sought police protection.

Vikas, son of Chaman Lal, and Manju, daughter of Suresh Pawar, both residents of Matak Majra, Basu Gate here, who got married on July 2 in Chandigarh, said they are living under a continuous threat from the girl’s family.

Another couple - Sunil Verma son of Puran of Gheed village, and Diksha from Una district in Himachal Pradesh, who got married on July 15 in a temple here, also said that they feared danger to their lives.

The couples approached the court of District and Sessions Judge Raj Rahul Garg, who directed the police to provide adequate security to them.Another runaway couple seeks HC shield

Chandigarh: Apprehending the worse, another runaway couple from Haryana has approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court for protection.

In their petition, Himanshi and Rahul Bhatt of Jind district have asserted that they decided to tie the knot after three years of courtship. As their parents were not in favour of the match, they solemnised the marriage on July 29 outside 
Jind, according to the Vedic rites.

Counsel for the petitioners, Sandeep Gahlawat contended that the parents and the family of the petitioners, particularly the father, mother, aunt and uncle of the girl, “being of orthodox nature are unhappy with the inter-caste marriage”.

After their marriage, the petitioners had been receiving serious threats to their lives at the hands of their family, particularly from the girl’s side, who had reported the matter to the police and they were hunting them, Gahlawat added.

Available information suggests the couple managed to move the high court even as the groom’s uncle and others tried to trace them.aTaking up the petition, Justice Rajan Gupta has issued notice of motion to the state of Haryana and other official respondents. “Without expressing any opinion with regard to the age or validity of marriage of the petitioners, the petition is disposed of with a direction to Jind SP to look into the representation preferred by the petitioners and take appropriate steps, if circumstances so warrant”.