Bathinda, September 7
The teachers of government and government-aided elementary schools of the Bathinda education block were imparted training in screening of eyes and dental check-up during a programme organised by the district health authorities under the school health project on the premises of the Civil Surgeon’s office here today.

The teachers will work as nodal officers in their respective schools and monitor the ocular and dental health of the students. The training aims at detecting among students the diseases related to eyesight or teeth at an early stage, so that they could be referred to the nearby health centres for treatment.

Today, as many as 43 teachers participated in the training. About 60 teachers did not turn up, perhaps due to strike by trade unions and the PRTC staff. Almost all PRTC buses in the district remained off the road.

The left out teachers will be given an alternate date for training.

Dr Shashi Jain, a dental surgeon at the Civil Hospital here, educated the teachers on detection of dental caries and protection of teeth.

Ophthalmic officers Binder Pal from Goniana Mandi and Swtantar Gupta from Bathinda apprised the teachers about the eye problems that generally occur in students.

Civil Surgeon Dr Inder Dayal Goyal said about 1.42 lakh students were studying in 663 government and government-aided elementary, high and senior secondary schools of the district.

He said under the school health programme, a medical team visited every elementary school twice a year to examine the students.

Among others who addressed the nodal officers included district school health medical officer Dr Kundan Kumar and district TB officer Dr Rakesh Gupta.

Bathinda, September 7
With the Guru Gobind Singh refinery—a project of HMEL, worth Rs 18,000 crore—inching towards completion with about 80 per cent of the total work done, the pace of construction of the related infrastructure has also been accelerating, simultaneously.

As the civil airport was a major demand of the refinery officials, keeping in view the pace of work at refinery, the authorities concerned have also increased the pace of work for its completion.

The civil airport will come up at the Air Force station, Bhisiana (Bathinda). Though the flights would take off from the runway of the Air Force station, the civil airport would have its separate terminal, for which the work is going on. Meanwhile, the PWD (B&R) has also accelerated the pace of construction of the approach road to the airport.

Besides, the Bathinda development Authority (BDA) is also not in a mood to lag behind in sharing the credit for development. Wading through all hiccups, the prestigious ring road phase-II project, the best link between the refinery and the airport, is also gaining momentum.

The eight km long ring road, which would cost about Rs 107 crore including the cost of land acquisition, construction of road, railway overbridge and a canal bridge, is scheduled to be operational by March, 2011.

The construction of the 100-feet wide road, with four lanes extendable upto six lanes was initiated in June with the target of completing it by December, this year. Further, tender for the canal bridge is also going to be allotted on September 15, while the BDA authorities have been working on the design of the railway overbridge, which would be constructed over the track crossing through the ring road.

It may be mentioned that a five-star hotel also was deemed as one of the basic requirements with the refinery coming up. Foundation stone of the hotel was also laid with much fanfare in the month of February, 2009.

The project was awarded to the Vipul Hospitality Ltd. in a tie-up with Sarovar Hotels and Resorts Ltd. for a concession period of 60 years. The awardees, with an investment of Rs 100 crores, had plans to set up the hotel within a two-year period on a public-private-partnership (PPP) basis, with international facilities and other amenities.

However, citing recession, the awardees had said that it would be started when the refinery reaches near completion as the refinery officials would be main clients of the hotel.

Now, observing that the construction of the refinery and its related projects is gaining pace, hope has dawned again that the lone foundation stone for the hotel that has not seen any activity, would also see the construction of the project soon.

Fazilka, September 7
While lauding the efforts of an NGO Sarhad Social Welfare Society in honouring the distinguished teachers at a programme organised here to mark the Teachers Day, transport minister Mohan Lal said the Punjab government aims at achieving the top position in literacy in the country. He was proud to be a teacher for over 35 years, he added. Twenty five teachers from different categories were honoured by him and the local MLA Surjit Kumar Jyani on the occasion.

Besides, Vinod Kumar Bansal, a descendent of Seth Munshi Ram Aggarwal Lakhpati, who had set up the first college (now MR Government College) of the area in 1940, state award winner of 2010 Teachers’ Day, Vijay Gupta of Fazilka were especially honoured.

Eminent educationist Raj Kishore Kalra was decorated with the ‘Life Time Achievement Award’ by Master Mohan Lal.

Retired headmasters Sada Lal Grover, Chanan Lal Taneja, retired lecturer Jitender Singh Grover, retired principal Krishana Sharma, retired teacher Raj Krishan Sethi, primary teachers Sandeep Arya, Gobind Kumar, Amit Kumar Arora, Urmilla Grover, Banta Singh and Raj Kumar Sachdeva, secondary teachers principal Rattal Lal Kataria, Sandeep Kumar Aneja, Sudha Kataria, headmaster Pankaj Angi, Pawan Kumar Babbar, headmaster Hans Raj, private school teachers Sushma Chuchra, Sandhya Narang, Pawan Kumar Setia, Abhilekh Sharma and from Jalalaabd area teachers Sarla Sachdeva, Amita, Chander Kanta, Sunita Narang were honoured by Master Mohan Lal, Jyani, SDM Fazilka, Ajay Sood, SDM Jalalabad, Rajiv Prashar and youth SAD leader Karan Gilhotra.

Sarhad Social Welfare Society president Rakesh Nagpal highlighted the welfare project launched by the society.

Bathinda, September 7
Big Bazaar, one of the largest hypermarket chains in India and part of Future Group on Tuesday launched its first store in Bathinda at Mittal’s City Mall here. This is the fourth store of the company in Punjab and 135th in India.

The store which is spread in over 23,000 sq ft here would offer 1,60,000 items to its customers at reasonable prices, said Dhananjay Sengupta, general manager, North Zone, Big Bazaar while addressing  media today. Claiming that customers will have great shopping experience at Big Bazaar, Sengupta said that other activities related with festivals or other occasions would also be organised by Big Bazaar time to time.  

Industrialist Rajinder Mittal also spoke to media during the press meet. Other officials of the company, including Ashok Mehta and Rakesh Yadav were also present. — TNS

Bathinda, September 7
Management of the Bawa Nihal Singh B.Ed. College, Muktsar, claimed to have bagged the B-Grade certificate from the National Accreditation and assessment Council (NAAC) with 2.72 points on the basis of standards.

The college authorities stated that the Peer Team of the NAAC had visited on March 27-28 and after analysing the report, the college was awarded the grade during the 53rd meeting of the NAAC on September 4 at Bangalore. — TNS