Nakodar, March 24
Shortage of private funds and the government’s ‘who cares’ attitude have forced the century-old Government High School in Shahkot to close down Class IX and X from this session.

Better known as ‘Nimma Wala School’ (there were hundreds of Neem trees around the school) and also ‘Angrejo ke zamane ka school’, the century-old temple of learning has been given a cold shoulder by the government ever since its establishment in 1905.

Throwing light on the sorry state of affairs, school principal Dhanpat Rai said, “We decided to upgrade the middle school up to Class X in 2005 after we got the help of the Shehri Shiksha Vikas Committee and Parents Teachers Association (PTA).”

The upgradation took place as per the self-finance policy of the government, in which all financial responsibilities were to be borne by the Shehri Shiksha Vikas Committee and PTA and no government funds would be allotted for its working. Only the available infrastructure was allowed to be used.

“To run self-financed classes, we needed around Rs 3 lakh every year,” he said adding that every year it was mandatory to give an affidavit to the government regarding the availability of funds to run a full session of the high school.

The Classes IX and X ran for five years due to private contributions of donors and NRIs, Dhanpat said. But now the committee has run out of funds and private contributions have also stopped.

As a result, salaries of teachers, who were appointed on a contractual basis for higher classes, were still pending. Three such teachers have also resigned.

“I had to pay Rs 30,000 (salary of two contractual teachers) from my own pocket,” the principal said.

He informed that 9th class students had been informed in advance regarding the closure of higher classes. The students have shifted to other schools.

He recalled in 2005, PWD officials inspected the building and declared it unsafe and even cautioned the school authorities not to hold classes as precautionary measures.

Following the inspection, classes were held only in those rooms which were in good condition, while rooms which were in poor condition were locked, the principal said. Afterward the school got a grant of Rs two lakh from Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan fund, which was to set up three classrooms.

Many times politicians promised to upgrade the school to the higher secondary level but nothing happened. “Rana Gurjit Singh, former MP, and Ajit Singh Kohar, MLA, had made such a promise,” he lamented.

Meanwhile, the post of drawing teacher is lying vacant for the past five months. A post of peon is vacant for the past five years. The vacancy of science teacher, which remained vacant for 10 years, recently got filled.

When contacted, area MLA Ajit Singh Kohar claimed he distributed grants worth crores of rupees to 20 schools under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. “From the last five years, I have focused on education in my constituency and spent around Rs 12 crore on government schools,” he added.

When reminded about his promise, he made in his last term as a MLA, regarding the upgradation of the school, he said, “Right now, there is no policy of the government to upgrade any middle school to high school.”

Ashok Grover, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Coordinator (civil construction), said no recent grant has been issued to this school for reconstruction. “If its building has been declared unsafe, then the school authorities should have written to us about this situation and possible help can be extended to school through SSA funds.”

Jalandhar, March 24
Barely two days after the Health Department honoured doctors and paramedics for their meritorious services during the outbreak of dengue, scores of employees of the department challenged the criteria for the selection of such doctors and paramedics for the honour.

The agitated employees alleged that the criteria adopted for selecting doctors and paramedics, who were honoured, was irrational as the local health authorities did not find even a single good reason to honour staff nurses and employees of the emergency ward of the Civil Hospital, who worked as much hard as other employees during the outbreak.

The state Health Minister Luxmi Kanta Chawla had honoured 81 employees of the Health Department on March 22 for their services during the outbreak of dengue last year.

The resentful employees are putting forth the rationale that thousands of suspected dengue patients were admitted to indoor wards during the two-three month-long dengue outbreak. Besides, employees posted at blood bank, laboratories and emergency also dedicatedly performed their job.

“After all, besides those 81, who were awarded, there would have definitely some other employees also, who have taken care of these patients in wards and emergency. None of the staff nurses, who provide continuous care to the patients between intervals of doctors’ visits, was honoured. Similarly, a few laboratory technicians and blood bank experts were also left out,” said Jasbir Kaur Thind and Jaswant Virli, president and secretary of the Joint Action Committee of the employees of the Civil Hospital.

It appears that either the authorities did not adopt proper channel for the selection of meritorious employees or simply preferred to appease their favourites through the ceremony, they added.

However, denying the charges, Dr S.K. Gupta, Civil Surgeon, said, “Self assessment is no assessment. Only those employees were awarded who have performed some extra duties at that crucial point of time. How can department accord honour to those employees who merely performed their duties as per the routine schedule?”

Moreover, before the final selection, the department had taken inputs from the doctors who worked closely with all the employees during the outbreak, he added.

Jalandhar, March 24
Businessmen hailed the notification on getting 75 per cent refund of Value Added Tax (VAT) amount on the spot without submitting the Form “C”.

President of the Jalandhar Traders and Manufacturers Association Raj Kumar Sharma said the remaining 25 per cent VAT amount would be refunded after submitting the Form “C”.

Sharma said the notification was issued as Jalandhar (North) MLA K.D. Bhandari, Chairman of the Punjab Traders Board Narotam Ratti and president of the Federation of Jalandhar Industrial and Traders Association Gursharan Singh had pursued the matter with the SAD-BJP government effectively.

The association honoured Ratti for his help in the issuance of the notification today, whereas it had honoured Bhandari and Gursharan Singh a few days ago.

The businessmen were getting VAT refund without any difficulty from April 1, 2005, to October, 2009, but the SAD-BJP government issued a notification in which it was made mandatory that no VAT money would be refunded without the prior submission of the Form “C”.

Crores of rupees of the businessmen were lying pending with the Excise and Taxation Department as it took several months for the businessmen to get form “C” from the parties concerned.

As a result, the traders and industrialists were left with no option but to get loan on exorbitant rates of interest from different banks to run their businesses.

The businessmen had to resort to agitation for restoring the earlier system of refunding VAT without the Form “C”.

Jalandhar, March 24
KP Saxena’s play ‘Gaj Foot Inch’ was staged at the Lovely Professional University in collaboration with the North Zone Cultural Centre, Patiala, on Wednesday.

Directed by actor, director Kuldeep Sharma, it was the second play of the six-day long theatrical extravaganza planned at the varsity and it was charming.

The love story of a cloth merchant’s profit-obsessed son Tillu and Jugni, a girl from his town that he takes a fancy to, the play was loaded with small-town wit.

It took you into that nondescript Hindu home where men with champi-ed heads and rustic diction talk business and ghoonghat-clad women handle household chores. There was nothing remarkably new or path breaking about the play since it was an old-fashioned love story narrated in an old-fashioned manner. But the subtle handling of the humour-laden script by Sharma retained the rustic charm in the plot and promised a lot of laughs for the audience.

Lead actors Karan (Tillu) and Jugni (Upasna) almost carried the play on their shoulders.

Karan’s little mannerisms of blushing and lighting up at the mention of Jugni and dressing up like a desi Romeo were typical of a small town kid just bitten by the love bug.

He enchanted the audiences as the little-read, honest guy adept in dukaandari but clueless about the manoeuvres of love.

(Read: Mujhe aurat ka ek hi roop dekhne ko mila, Lakshmi ki moorat jiske neeche likha rehta hai shubh labh).

Bragging about his profit-making capabilities, he tells an infuriated Jugni (about the pen that she gifted him), “Tumhara pen 50 ka tha, ek grahak mila, 70 mein nikal diya.” Performances by Tillu’s mother, played by Swati Chopra and Kuldip Sharma himself as Pokharmal, were laudable.

The spectators at the Lovely Professional University were plenty and enthusiastic but they could profit with a lesson in etiquette. Most of the auditorium was filled with students from the hostel. They cheered and whooped excessively, passing comments especially during the Tillu-Jugni sequences. The applause at times blocked out long and vital dialogues for times long enough to make the artistes pause or repeat them.

Play on Bhagat Singh’s life

Jalandhar: The Vision Foundation in association with a theatre group, Kalaa, will pay homage to Shaheed Bhagat Singh by staging a play, “Gagan Damaama Bajeyo”, on the occasion of World Theatre Day here on March 27. The team of veteran dramatist Hansa Singh would stage the play based on the life of the martyr. — TNS

Nakodar, March 24
Three-day Bharat Nirman Public Information campaign, with the coordination of units of Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, began in the grain market at Shahkot today.

Inaugurating the campaign, Sarojani Gautam Sharda, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development), Jalandhar, while addressing the public, said purpose of this campaign was to make people aware on the welfare schemes of the central and state governments.

Appreciating the I&B Ministry, she urged people to utilise maximum benefits from these people-oriented welfare schemes. She also went around the exhibition stalls, which were 22 in numbers, put up by different departments at the venue of the campaign. She also instructed the officer-in-charge of stalls to give information in depth to people regarding the schemes so that actual benefit can be given to the needy.

She emphasised the need of spreading special awareness amongst women about food, health and self-employment schemes. She urged the departments to provide information to the youth about new techniques of agriculture and horticulture and self-employment.

She said many new schemes were also being implemented to encourage agriculture.

MM Sharma, Deputy Director, Press Information Bureau, Jalandhar, informed about the efforts being made by the Ministry of I&B to create awareness among the people about various welfare schemes aimed at their welfare and underlined the need for close coordination between the implementing agencies and the prospective beneficiaries.

He described the PIC a forum from where a common man can dispel his misgivings regarding any welfare scheme launched by the government.

Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Zila Parishad, Jalandhar, Amandeep Singh Bains, began the awareness campaign with a comprehensive lecture on MNREGA and Indira Awas Yojna. Balwinder Attri, Assistant Director, PIB, Jalandhar, addressed the audience on Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Project and Rural Telephone services. Dr. Paramjit Singh, Horticulture Officer, Shahkot, concluded the opening day of the campaign by making the audience familiar with the new horticultural techniques.

Jalandhar, March 24
At a juncture when the country is still struggling to control the common form of tuberculosis (TB) disease, two more dangerous variants of the killer disease, extreme drug resistance tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), are emerging as a grave threat before the nation.

Both these variants, which were detected by the experts few years back, have put the TB experts across the globe on tenterhooks as the strains of the bacteria responsible for XDR and MDR TB are resistant to the popular and safest drugs used to treat TB worldwide. Besides India, the east European and African countries are also bearing the brunt of high incidence of MDR and XDR TB.

In Indian context, the threat can be gauged from the fact that even the routinely used diagnostic procedures and tools, provided at the TB clinics across the country under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), are unable to detect the presence of XDR and MDR TB causing bacteria in the patient’s sputum.

The most worrisome is the fact that the patients infected with XDR and MDR strains of TB spread the same bacterial strains in the community and led to increased prevalence of XDR and MDR TB, but not the common form of disease.

“MDR and XDR TB developed in those patients who fail to stick to the 6-9 month long medication period required to treat TB. Such patients ultimately developed resistance to the commonly used anti-TB drugs,” said Dr Kuldeep Sachdev, Chief Medical Officer at Central Tuberculosis (TB) Division of Centre Government.

The studies proved that prevalence of MDR TB among those patients, who would have already undergone routine TB treatment, is 12-13 per cent in the country. The figure is 3 per cent in case of fresh cases reporting to the TB clinics, he added.

Dr Sachdev said 43 new labs have been established in the country for the diagnosis of XDR and MDR TB patients. He said that 25 such laboratories have already started functioning and rest would be ready to use during this year.

Jalandhar, March 24
The Regional Passport Office (RPO) launched a single-window answering system on Tuesday.

It would enable the people to know the status of their passports on the spot after a fixed waiting period. Earlier, the applicants had to go to various sections at the office to get the needful done, PRO Perneet Singh pointed out.

Now, the applicants will submit their enquiry forms at the information counter and the form would be sent to the sections concerned which in turn will provide the information to PRO. A standard time has been fixed for all queries. “In case of any discrepancy, I will take a decision on the spot,” he added.This would ensure that the people did not have t make the rounds of the RPO and the service would function as a permanent lok adalat every day, he said.

In deportation cases where no objection certificates are required from our embassies, consulates and missions, an email would be sent on the spot to allow us to clear the case, he added. Following this, a standard form will have to be filled by the applicants for all his queries. Besides curtailing travel by people from far-flung areas, the system would provide better service and ultimate customer satisfaction, he added.