Pathankot, July 27
Celebrations erupted in this township, regarded as the fifth largest city in Punjab, both area and population wise, as residents received the news that Pathankot tehsil has been converted into a full-fledged district.

It had been a long standing demand of various social and religious organisations and NGOs that the district status be conferred upon this town, which earlier had been accorded the status of a tehsil. The town is regarded to be the gateway to Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh and is the hub of a thriving tourism trade.

Activists of the Pathankot Zila Banao Sangharsh Committee took out a procession as news filtered in this evening that the status of the town had been upgraded.

Ashwani Sharma, state BJP president and a ticket aspirant from the Pathankot Assembly segment, said from Chandigarh that upgrading Pathankot tehsil into a full-fledged district was one of the main points in the BJP’s election manifesto during the last Assembly elections in 2007 and that promise had now been fulfilled. He said he had lobbied hard with the powers that be in Chandigarh to ensure the BJP fulfilled its promise.

Ashwani Sharma said it was in 1995 that he undertook a fast unto death to make the town a district. “The government, at that time, led by Congress Chief Minister Beant Singh, succumbed to pressure and Dhar Kalan was made a subdivision and Narot Jaimal Singh a sub-tehsil. However, it fell short of according full-fledged status of a district to the town. Now we asked the SAD leadership to fulfil our demands, otherwise the BJP would loose face in the next Assembly polls.”

An overjoyed Rakesh Sharma, president of the Pathankot Zila Banao Sangharsh Committee, who had intensified his struggle during the last few weeks, said he had already told residents that his committee would not rest till the town was made a district. Our efforts have paid off. We struggled hard to put pressure on the Chief Minister to ensure that our long-standing demand was met.”

“Initially, in 1980 Pathankot-based advocates took up the issue, which for some reason was consigned to the back burner by successive state governments. Now we are happy that our claim has been successfully backed by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal,” he said.

Cutting across party lines, Congressmen, too, claimed a moral victory for their party. Former MLA Raman Bhalla said it was during his tenure as a minister that Dhar Kalan was made a subdivision and Narot Jaimal Singh a sub-tehsil. “That was the starting point for our struggle to get the district status for the town.” His views were echoed by senior Congressman and party ticket aspirant Dinesh Mahajan.

Gurdaspur, July 27
The district administration has launched a drive to check absenteeism, which for long has been a bane in this border district, where a majority of employees play truant from their offices, by forming different teams, which will be raiding state government offices.

The Deputy Commissioner, Mohinder Singh Kainth, disclosed that he had formed special teams following reports of employees staying away from their offices en masse. He added that special emphasis would be paid on paying surprise visits to schools located in the border areas.

A team, led by Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Pardeep Sabharwal, raided the office of District Industry Centre at Batala on Monday and found General Manager (Industries) Sarabjit Singh absent from duty. Twelve officials of the ministerial staff were also found absent.

Then the team raided the Excise and Taxation Department at Batala where they found that three Excise and Taxation Officers (ETOs), namely Inderjit Singh Randhawa, Jasbir Singh Goraya and Balwant Rai, had not marked their presence. Interestingly, the Excise Department has a total staff of 13 persons and nine were found to be absent.

Sabharwal and his team also raided the offices of the Improvement Trust and the Block Development and Panchayat Officer (BDPO) at Batala where they found that a majority of employees had not marked their presence.

Sabharwal said, “We plan to take our drive further and surprise raids will now be conducted on government offices at Gurdaspur and Pathankot. We have written to the Director (Industries) to initiate action against the General Manager (Industries) and also to the State Excise and Taxation Commissioner to act against the three ETOs and other absentee staff members.

“We have reports that teachers in remote areas, particularly those touching the border, do not go to schools and we will be coming down heavily on them too.”

Tarn Taran, July 27
As many as 15 employees were found absent from duty in a surprise checking conducted by different teams of officials of different government offices in the district today.

Kulbir Singh, Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC), who headed the teams, said the whole staff of the Veterinary Dispensary, Sheron, 8 km from here, was found absent, while the health centres of Rattoke and Gandiwaind were found to be locked during the checking.

The ADC added that Gurpreet Singh, Harmit Singh and Harmit Kaur, lecturers of Government Secondary School, Bhalaipur Dogran, and Surinder Singh, Sandeep Singh, Gurwinder Singh and Gurmit Singh, officials of the Block Elementary Education Office, Naushehra Panuan, were found absent from duty.

Harpreet Singh, pharmacists of the Subsidiary Health Centre, Naurangabad, 8 km from here, and the Medical Officer of the Civil Veterinary Dispensary, Pandori Sidhwan, were also found absent.

The Medical Officer, pharmacists and Class IV employee of the Civil Dispensary, Jaura, were also found absent. An ETT teacher of Government Elementary School, Jawande Kalan, was also found absent.

Jalandhar, July 27
The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has invited online applications from the deserving students for providing them scholarships for pursing their higher studies.

A total of 2,240 students from the entire country will be provided Rs 10,000 each per year as scholarship after proper scrutiny of their application forms.

The Senior Divisional Manager of the Jalandhar Division, Gurmel Singh Parmar, said 20 students, including 10 boys and as much girls, would be provided scholarships from each of the 112 LIC divisions.

Parmar said the deserving students from Jalandhar LIC Division, including Moga, Muktsar, Faridkot, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar and Nawanshahr districts, should send online applications after going through the details in this regard at www.licindia.in.

“If the deserving students feel any difficulty in submitting their applications online, they may come to the LIC office at Skylark Chowk, where we will send their applications ourselves,” said LIC PRO S.M. Singh.

The scholarships would be provided to students belonging to economically weaker families for pursuing higher studies in i) Medicine, engineering, graduation in any discipline, diploma course in any field after passing Class XII and ii) Vocational course through government recognised colleges/ institutes or courses in industrial training institutes (ITI) after passing Class X with at least 60 per cent marks.

The annual income of the parents or guardians of the students from all sources should not exceed Rs 60,000 per annum. The last date for submitting the online application for scholarship is August 8.

Tarn Taran, July 27
Members of the Ex-Servicemen Welfare Union held a rally outside the Deputy Commissioner’s office and blocked road traffic for more than two hours against the alleged indifferent attitude of the district administration towards their demands here today.

The union members had come to the Deputy Commissioner’s office here to submit a memorandum of their demands, which include one rank-one pension.

Joginder Singh Fauji, leader of the union, said when the ADC, Kulbir Singh, did not come to the rally site to accept the memorandum, the union members staged a dharna on the road, as a results normal traffic remained disrupted.

Jagdeep Singh Momi later came to the dharna site and received their memorandum. The union lifted its dharna on the assurance given to them of sending their memorandum to the state government soon.

The ADC Singh could not be contacted in spite of repeated attempts.

Kapurthala, July 27
Taking a strong note of the absence of District Welfare Officer (DWO) Harbhajan Singh Waraich from the meeting of district officers held here today, Deputy Commissioner (DC) Harkesh Singh Sidhu has written to the Principal Secretary, Social Welfare, to take strict action against him.

According to information, Sidhu had convened a review meeting of the progress of various development projects in the district. Waraich was absent in the meeting.

At this, Sidhu instructed Kapurthala SDM Satish Singla to raid Waraich’s office. Singla found Waraich absent at his office.

At this, the DC wrote to the Principal Secretary, Social Welfare, to take strict action against Waraich, who usually remains absent from the meetings of the district administration.

Further, the DC has also taken strong note of the absence of the Executive Engineer, Sewerage Board, and instructed his SDO present in the meeting to ask the Executive Engineer to explain about his absence in the DC’s office. Meanwhile, Sidhu warned the officers not to remain absent from the meetings in future.

Phagwara, July 27
Shamsher Singh of nearby Bhaghana village has been arrested for raping his minor daughter. He had been committing the crime for the last three years.

The victim, who was admitted to the Civil Hospital for medical examination, while talking to media-persons in the hospital alleged that her father first raped her three years back when she was studying in Class IX and then her father continued committing the crime.

She was sent to the house of her maternal uncle at Sham Chaurasi village and lived there for two years, but when she returned home her father started raping her again. Her father threatened her of defaming her if she did not fulfil his demand. She said though her mother had complained to the village panchayat, but nothing was done.

She said she decided to tell the police and lodged a complaint.

Rawalpindi SHO Yogesh Chander said the police registered a case under Sections 376 and 506 of the IPC against Shamsher Singh last night.