Bathinda, October 15
Faced with the shortage of storage capacity for the current paddy produce, the Punjab government has initiated steps to hire private godowns to stack 70 lakh tons of grain.

DS Guru, principal secretary to the chief minister, today said that storage would not be a problem as offers for 101 tons of private storage capacity have come in response to the tenders for 70 lakh tons floated by the food and supplies department and the Pungrain.

A final decision on the issue would be taken after financial evaluation of these offers.

Guru said while arrival of paddy was yet to pick up in this Malwa region of Punjab, the Taran Taran and Amritsar districts of the Majha belt are leading in procurement of the grain. Procurement in Taran Taran has touched 106 per cent of the anticipated arrival, whereas in Amritsar it was 94 per cent.

Arrival of paddy was also encouraging in the Doaba region whereas in Jalandhar about 56 per cent of the expected target has already arrived in the grain markets.

However, the arrival of paddy was as low as 13 per cent in Patiala and 29 per cent in Ferozepur divisions. Arrival of paddy in the market was yet to pick up in the Malwa belt, he said.

He said that 37 lakh tons of paddy had arrived in the markets till yesterday evening out of which 35 lakh tons has been purchased by various agencies of the government. Another one lakh tons has been purchased by private traders.

Guru said the agencies have been ordered to make payment for the purchased paddy within 48 hours and lift the grain within 72 hours after cleaning and packing the gunny bags.

Of the 24 lakh tons of paddy purchased till October 11, 18 lakh tons has been lifted.

For the smooth conduct of procurement, the state government has set up 1700 centres in the state that has been divided into six zones headed by divisional commissioners and senior officials. Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was personally monitoring the procurement drive.

Bathinda, October 15
The Punjab Rural Women's Conclave today asked the Punjab Government to pass a Bill for getting the section 354 of the IPC (assault or use of criminal force on a woman with intent to outrage her modesty) amended for making the offence, on the pattern of Andhra Pradesh, non-bailable and to award seven years' imprisonment to the accused in view of the occurrence of a large number of incidents (reported or unreported) of outrage of poor women's modesty in the villages.

The conclave, held outside the Mini-secretariat here today.

The event was jointly organised on the occasion of World Rural Women's Day by the Gramin Mahila Adhikar Manch and a Phillaur-based NGO Dalit Dasta Virodhi Andolan (DDVA).

The conclave also urged the Punjab government to implement the PNDT Act in a strict manner and to allot free residential plots to the poor persons for constructing houses, besides making potable drinking water free of cost available to every person in the state. It also asked the government to implement the NREGA strictly in the case of woman labourers in the state.

The conclave also demanded maternity benefits for the women labourers, working on brick kilns through out the state.

The conclave was presided over by Gagandeep Kaur, advocate, secretary of Gramin Mahila Adhikar Manch while Bhupinder Kaur, a member of District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Moga, was the chief guest. A member of the governing body of Gramin Mahila Adhikar Manch from Delhi, Kumari Nisha and national president of the DDVA Jai Singh Phillaur were also present at the conclave.

A deputation of the women also submitted a memorandum, enlisting their demands, to an officer of the district administration here to forward the same to the Punjab Chief Minister for the implementation of the same. Hundreds of women also participated in a signature campaign by signing on a long piece of cloth. These signatures will be sent to the CM with charter of demands.

Among others who were present included a legal consultant of DDVA Anu Nagra advocate, a governing body member of Gramin Mahila Adhikar Manch Gurmeet Kaur and office secretary of NREGA Workers Union Navneet Kaur.

Ferozepur, October 15
The members of the District Bar Association (Ferozepur) today observed a complete strike to press the Punjab government to stall any move, if initiated, to bifurcate this district by according district-level status to its sub-divisional town, Fazilka.

The decision to go on strike was taken in a meeting yesterday. A number of representatives of different commercial and social organisations also participated in the meeting.

Though the state government has not initiated any visible move to accord district status to Fazilka so far, various organisations of this district headquarter town have formed a Zila Bachao Sangarash Committee to stall any such move.

Besides residents of Fazilka sub-division including its different employees, industrial, labourers, farmers, business and commercial organisations in association with members of Fazilka Bar Association have been observing hunger strike continuously for the past many weeks to get district status for their town, the members of Bar Association (Abohar) have also started demanding district-level status for their town as well. 

Bathinda, October 15
The National Students Union of India (NSUI) has fixed a target to enroll 60,000 new members from colleges and universities of the state till October 30. The enrollment drive was started in the state on October 1 in the light of organisational elections in November for electing office-bearers to the college, district, state and national units.

In reply to a question, the Pradesh Returning Officer of the NSUI for Bathinda zone, comprising Bathinda, Muktsar, Moga, Faridkot, Mansa, Barnala and Ferozepur districts, Pardeep Surya said here today that for the first time in Punjab, the organisational elections of the NSUI were being held for electing office-bearers to the college, district and state units as their leader Rahul Gandhi wanted to end the nomination system in the NSUI. He said till now, elections in 24 states had already been completed.

Surya further said enrollment of 50 members in a college had been fixed for constituting a five-member committee, comprising president, vice-president, two general secretaries, a female secretary, besides five delegates. He said these members could vote for the district, state and national units, but only delegates would contest elections to the district, state and national units.

He further said that election process for the college units would start from November 7 in the state which would conclude by November 15. However, he said the elections to the district, state and national units would be held later on one day.

Surya said in the district committee, there would a president, two general secretaries, a secretary from SC/ST communities, and a secretary from girls. He said the elections would certainly help the NSUI in broadening its base among the students. 

Barnala, October 15
Forced by alleged tension over some personal issue, a farmer of village Naniwaal allegedly committed suicide after hanging himself from a tree last night.

Lakhvir Singh, son of victim Bant Singh (45), revealed to the media that his father was under acute mental stress for the last few days due to some unknown reasons.

He said his father left home for the fields late in the evening yesterday and he came to know in the morning that his father had committed suicide while he had gone to water the fields.

Lakhvir Singh further said after he found his father’s body hanging from the tree, he informed the Bhadaur police.

The police after recovering the body has sent it to the district hospital in Barnala for postmortem. A case has been registered in this connection, poilce sources said.

Barnala, October 15
An SHO of Barnala police has been attached to district Police Lines due to his negligence after an accused involved in a land dispute allegedly escaped from his custody.

Sources said a few days ago, two groups had a fight over land in Subhash street of Tapa resulting in injury to a youth namely Vicky.

The police had arrested one of the accused Sandeep Kumar who was booked under various sections of the IPC on October 10 at Tapa police station.

On the other hand, blaming negligence on the part of the SHO Tapa Sumit Sood, the senior police authorities in a damage control exercise attached the SHO to district Police Lines Barnala. — TNS

Ferozepur, October 15
The Ferozepur police have arrested another member of a naxal organisation from a local workshop. As per the police sources, Harbans Singh, a welder and carpenter, hailing from Gurdaspur district, working under the command of Jai Parkash Dubey, a known leader of Maoists, was arrested from a local workshop after the local police received intelligence inputs in connection with the same.

Harbans Singh was working under the name of Balbir Batala in the organisation, which would print literature connected with Naxalism and subsequently distribute it to attract people.

Harjit Singh Pannu, SP (D) said the accused has been handed over to Phillaur police, where a case against Dubey and others had been registered for their involvement in anti-national activities.

Bathinda, October 15
The Kotwali police has registered a case against four persons, Ashwani Bhalla (son of Sita Nath Bhalla), his wife Sweta Bhalla, both local residents and Sonia Khanna and Tarun Khanna, both residents of Ganganagar, under sections 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC. However, no person has been arrested in this case so far.

As per police, the case was registered on a complaint, filed by the complainant Sita Nath Bhalla against the accused, including his son Ashwani Bhalla.

In the complaint, he stated he had given the power of attorney to his son Ashwani Bhalla for looking after his business as he (Sita Nath Bhalla) had 32 vehicles. He had further stated that the accused had sold his vehicles by preparing fake documents. — TNS