Samalkha (Panipat), November 11
The state government has chargesheeted seven senior officials of the Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board (HSAMB) for having failed to thwart encroachments by commission agents on prime property worth over Rs 24 crore in the new grain market here.

Action has been taken against SE Dinesh Garg, XEN Mukesh Garg, SDE GL Malik, EO Satpal Sandhu, assistant secretaries Ravinder Kumar and Ravi Kumar and another official BS Rao on the directions of the Haryana Lokayukta. During the tenure of these officials 109 shops (out of a total of 151) encroached on 6562.65 square yards of land valued at Rs 24.11 crore. The land was meant for roads and laying of sewers.

The marketing board had constituted a special committee in 1994 comprising the district marketing enforcement officer and EO under the chairmanship of an XEN for undertaking the removal of the encroachments.

However, even after 16 years, nothing has been achieved.

Till date, 21 executive engineers, 10 district marketing enforcement officers and 12 secretaries have remained posted here, but have failed to get the encroachments removed. Some officials have now retired and the Financial Commissioner has asked the Legal Remembrancer to suggest action against them.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has asked the Agriculture Minister to intervene and find a way to get the encroachments removed. Some commission agents are said to be “well-connected” and each time the authorities initiated action to remove the encroachments, they put up a strong resistance.

It was in April this year that the Lokayukta had served the marketing board with a six-page notice, seeking a clarification.

Panchkula, November 11
“The circumstances today are not any different from what these were (police pressure and administration apathy) when my daughter committed suicide. My son is deeply perturbed and I fear he may take some extreme step like his sister,” said a distressed SC Girhotra, father of Ruchika, after the Supreme Court allowed the bail application of former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore.

“When the Union Law Ministry is all set to frame stringent laws to punish those found guilty in molestation cases, Rathore should not have been treated as an ordinary accused. He was holding the post of IG when he molested my 14-year-old daughter that led her to commit suicide,” said Girhotra. On the closure report by the CBI at an Ambala court yesterday, Girhotra said: “The CBI did not contact us for the past six months, leave aside inform us about the contents of the report. The intelligence wing should have given us a chance to provide more evidence in the cases as we had struggled hard for over 10 years to get these registered against the former DGP. “We will seek a copy of the report and file a reply in the court accordingly.”

On the CBI rebuttal that Ashu had not been framed by the police in a case of vehicle theft under pressure from Rathore, Girhotra maintained: “If that was so, the police should have contested the case in a higher court when my son was acquitted. The CBI officials had assured us that they would file the challan after we had got our statements recorded.”

Anand Prakash and his wife Madhu Prakash, who have been in the forefront in their battle for justice in the Ruchika case, said: “The grant of bail by the SC is unfortunate. We will contest the closure of cases in the Ambala court on November 23.”

Hisar, November 11
The city and other smaller towns in the district are facing an acute shortage of cooking gas as well as drinking water. There are 21 cooking gas agencies in the city catering to over two lakh consumers. However, with the onset of winter, the waiting period for a cylinder has gone up to three weeks.

Harried housewives staged angry demonstrations at several places in the district yesterday. In Hisar, LPG consumers, mostly women, blocked traffic on the Suryanagar main road to protest against the acute paucity of cooking gas. They argued with officials and policemen as they tried to clear the blockade.

The consumers alleged they had not been receiving supplies for a month. Alleging that the cooking gas agencies were selling cylinders on the black market, they sought action against the owners. Angry protesters detained a truck carrying LPG cylinders near Vidyut Nagar and deflated its tyres. The driver and cleaner of the truck fled, abandoning the loaded truck to escape the wrath of the consumers.

Gas agency owners said they were not being given adequate supplies by the oil companies.

They said each agency needed about 10,000 cylinders a day, but the companies were supplying only half that number.

However, a spokesperson for the IOC said there was no shortage of cylinders and supplies could not be made for three days last week because of Divali holidays. Meanwhile, residential sectors developed by HUDA here are facing an acute shortage of drinking water for the past three weeks as the reservoirs had been emptied for cleaning. As a result, the supply has been cut down to once a day. On many days no water is supplied.Officials said they had started filling up the reservoirs and the supply would be normal by tomorrow morning. Residents of these sectors have had to buy water from tankers at exorbitant rates.

Fatehabad, November 11
Gorakhpur farmers, who have been agitating against the acquisition of their agriculture land for the nuclear power plant, are optimistic after their meeting with Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Chandigarh on yesterday.

Though the farmers went to Delhi to hold a demonstration at Jantar Mantar with farmers of some other districts agitating on similar issues, they are hopeful that Hooda would understand their problem. “The Chief Minister listened to our grievance with patience and saw the memorandum presented by us.

Though he was non-committal, we believe he has understood our problem,” said Hans Raj Siwach, president of the Kisan Sangharsh Samiti of Gorakhpur.

He, however, said their three-month-old agitation would continue till the government took back the land acquisition notice.

Tohana (Fatehabad), November 11
Procurement activities remained suspended in Mirch Mandi, the grain market of Tohana town, due to a strike by labourers.

Later, farmers blocked the Chandigarh road demanding resumption of the procurement process of their crops.

The roadblock continued for several hours disrupting traffic.The labourers had gone on strike yesterday following suicide by a youth, Rajesh, allegedly for fear of police torture.

The labourers demanded that the trader, on whose complaint the police had intimidated the youth, should be arrested forthwith. SP Jagwant Singh Lamba later informed mediapersons that a case had been registered against the owner and an employee of the grain market trading firm.

Meanwhile, the body of Rajesh had not been traced till this evening.

Sirsa, November 11
About one lakh bags of rotten wheat, lying in the Haryana State Warehousing Corporation (HSWC) storehouse at Bani village in this district, will now fetch the corporation 94 paise per kg.

The HSWC has received the highest bid of Rs 94 per quintal for the decayed wheat, according to an official spokesperson.

The corporation conducted an open bid of the wheat in the HSWC storehouse at Bani today.

Though senior officers of the HSWC did not respond to calls made on their mobiles after the auction, a spokesman for the district administration said the authorities had received the highest bid of 94 paise per kg for the putrid wheat and had accepted the offer.

Earlier, the HSWC authorities had received the highest bid of 62 paise per kg for this wheat last month and the higher authorities in the corporation had rejected that offer.

This lot of about 1 lakh bags is from the 1,70,000 bags of wheat submerged under flood water in July this year. — TNS

Fatehabad, November 11
A steno typist working in the SDM office at Ratia has been booked for embezzlement. The official, Ram Dhari, had allegedly kept with him a sum of Rs 71,600, received as tax collection, which he was supposed to deposit in the bank account of the office.

The amount pertained to the tax collection for the municipal committee for the period between August and October 2010. — TNS