The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Centralised kitchens: Hygienic food for students and relief for teachers Mid-day meal to turn over a new leaf Ashok Kaura Phagwara, August 1 Now, 23 lakh students in more than 7,000 government and government-aided primary and middle schools would be provided mid-day meal prepared in the centralised kitchens of each sub-division of every district of the state so that the students could get more hygienic food and the teachers could focus on teaching only. In this series, the work has already been completed in Nawanshahr and Firozepur districts, while it is in progress in Kapurthala and Mansa. This was confirmed by Phagwara SDM Amarjeet Paul while talking to The Tribune here today. He disclosed that all 18,569 students of total 177 such schools of Phagwara sub-division would be provided mid-day-meal from the centralised kitchen, which would be inaugurated by Technical Education Minister Swarna Ram on the Phagwara-Hoshiarpur Road near Bhulatai on Monday. When The Tribune visited the centralised kitchen site, Prabhcharan Singh, general manager, mid-day meal, Punjab said contracts had been allotted to two private companies of Delhi --- Jan Chetna Agency and Shade India Society --- to set up these centralized kitchens to prepare mid-day meal for the students. As per contracts, Rs 2.69 per under primary student and Rs 4.03 per upper primary i.e. from Class VI to Class VIII student would be given to the private company to provide 100 g and 150 g of mid-day meal to each student, respectively, for which menu of the meal would be changed daily, said the GM. District Education Officer KK Aery said the centralised kitchen would start functioning from August 5, while these kitchens would start functioning in every sub division of Kapurthala by September 1. District Mansa would also be facilitated with centralized kitchens from September 1, while two more districts of the state would be covered by the end of this year, added GM Prabhcharan Singh. SDM Paul said the private companies would deliver meal in each school before 11 am daily. Kitchens sheds are also being set up in all schools to distribute the meal to the school students. The SDM said the new beginning would also provide employment opportunities to hundreds of people in the area.
	Saving Power Powercom to provide CFLs for just Rs 15 Tribune News Service Jalandhar, August 1 To save electricity, Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (Powercom) has decided to provide CFLs at much cheap rates to its consumers. During his visit to the city, Powercom Director (Distribution) A.K. Verma said the CFLs would be provided to its consumers at the rate of just Rs 15 as compared to its market rate Rs 100. In an attempt to save power theft, he said all domestic meters would be installed outside the houses by December 31. As many as seven lakh meters had already been installed outside the houses, the remaining would be set up at a war footing, he added. Verma said eight-hour power supply had been ensured to farmers during the paddy season. He said no weekly cut was imposed on industry, whereas two to three days’ cut a in week had been imposed last year during this season to ensure adequate power supply to farmers. Two customer care centres would be set up at in the city this month at the Children Park, falling under Model Town division, and at Pathankot Bypass, falling under the East division. Verma initiated sapling plantation drive of the Powercom in the city by planting a sapling at its Rest House near Chugitti. As many as 10,000 saplings would be planted on the premises of Powercom buildings in a week, he claimed.
	PIMS delivers Dharmendra Joshi/TNS Jalandhar, August 1 With the patients starting taking the benefit of the health facilities provided at the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), the first baby was born in the institute on Friday. Both the child and mother, Sandeep Kaur of Model Town here, are healthy. As a token of good gesture, the hospital has decided to provide free health care, including all immunisation, to the baby boy for the next 11 years. The delivery was also conducted free of cost by a team of doctors, headed by Dr Harwinder Kaur Cheema, along with Head of the Anaesthesia Department Dr Iqbal Singh. PIMS Chief Operating Officer (COO) Raj Sekhar K stated that after the success of the bone density check-up camp by the Orthopaedics Department, medical camps would be organised by the paediatrics, psychiatric and medicine departments in the coming days. The Paediatric Department was observing “Breastfeeding Week” from today in the Paediatric OPD in the PIMS. There would also be a poster competition. The Psychiatry Department would hold a free de-addiction camp at Pholriwal village on August 8. The Medicine Department would be conducting a thyroid testing camp on August 9 in the Medicine OPD of PIMS, he added. Raj Sekhar K said daily OPD count at PIMS had already touched 500. In addition to general medicine and general surgery, PIMS had specialists in the departments of orthopaedics, physiotherapy, gynaecology, dentistry, ENT, psychiatry, chest and TB, skin, paediatrics and eye. Further in-patient facilities had also started with 350 beds, he said, adding that PIMS would also start conducting surgeries and shortly be opening it own emergency services. PIMS was providing all these services at the rates of the PGI, Chandigarh, he added.
	Power pangs: Double trouble for residents Our Correspondent Hoshiarpur, August 1 Electricity consumers of the town are facing two types of power cuts - general cuts being imposed by Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (Powercom) and overloading cuts by the local officials of the corporation - as a result of which residents face a lot of inconvenience and small-scale industrialists suffer economic loses. In a press note here yesterday, President of the Social Democratic Party of India Jai Gopal Dhiman alleged that overloading power cuts were being imposed due to the corrupt and negligent attitude of the staff of the Powercom. On account of these cuts, power was being supplied to different mohallas on their turn on rotation basis. He alleged that officials concerned were fully responsible for the power overloading, due to which power was being supplied mohalla/feeder wise to urban and rural areas of the town. These officials had not made any effort to overcome the overloading problem. He demanded probe into the working of these officials for their failure in solving the overloading problem. He also demanded charging of electric bills on the meter reading basis and stoppage of taking octroi charges in the electric bills when it was already abolished in Punjab. He suggested to replace 10 MVA capacity transformer with 20 MVA capacity in Hoshiarpur town for de-loading the power from its overload work and 25 MVA capacity transformer to 50 MVA at Bham substation. Superintending Engineer of the Powercom of Hoshiarpur circle Jagmohan Singh said the overloading cuts were being imposed occasionally whenever any of the feeder was overloaded. He said normally only general power cuts were being imposed. Efforts were being made to avoid overloading of any of the feeder. People of the town experienced more than three-and-a-half-hour power cut from 10 am to 1.30 pm yesterday, due to which water supply in the city was also affected. Jagmohan Singh said a big snag was developed in the main supply line at Mahilpur. On account of removing the snag, the cut was imposed.
	Common Effluent Treatment Plant City leather industry gets second module Tribune News Service Jalandhar, August 1 Coming at a cost of Rs 18.5 crore, the city leather industry today got a second module of the Common Effluent Treatment Plant with a capacity to treat 6.5 MLD of waste water daily. The industry managed to meet the deadline issued by the Punjab and Haryana High Court just in time. The deadline fell today itself. The development will surely bring immediate relief to thousands of villagers living close to the Kala Sanghain drain where the untreated water was being discharged. A 1.5 MLD treatment plant, which existed earlier, was far below the required capacity. Ajay Sharma, general secretary of the Punjab Effluent Treatment Society (PETS), said the lack of power connection was the major hurdle, which got cleared today. He said the plant, designed by the Central Leather Research Institute, would get fully stabilised in the next five to six months.
	Flood threat: Admn looking the other way Balraj Mahajan Batala, August 1 The district administration has not made any pre-flood arrangement in Batala sub-division despite the threat from Ravi and Beas rivers, which pass through Gurdaspur district. The flood-control centres, established in the DC Office at Gurdaspur and sub-divisional office at Batala, have got no information about the rain forecast or the conditions of the rivers. There is no patrolling even along the banks to keep an eye on the water level. Another danger which lurks over the sub-division is the clogging of Kasoor nullah, which is also called Hansli nullah while passing through Batala. The district authorities and the Drainage Department have failed so far to clean 8-km stretch of the nullah which is clogged with wild grass and weeds. In 1988 and 1993, low lying areas of Batala got flooded because of blockage in the nullah. Thereafter, it was cleaned till 2001. But the cleaning process stopped afterwards. It was last cleaned in 2006. Rahul Chaba, Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Batala, said he had demanded Rs 10 lakh to clean this nullah but had got nothing till date.