Sirsa, October 15
A standoff between “katcha arhtiya” and “pucca arhtiya” over the mode of payment and the Sirsa Grain Market Traders Association’s announcement against selling their crops to exporters against Form-D has led to a fall in the prices of “muchhal” basmati paddy in the local grain market.

The prices have plunged from Rs 1,700 per quintal four days back to Rs 1,450 to 1,500 per quintal in the past four or five days.

“Though some of this decline is due to a general trend, at least a fall of Rs 50 per quintal is due to the decision of the association, which has limited the number of buyers,” alleged Mohinder Popli, a representative of the “pucca arhtiyas”.

He said several members, who shared his views, wanted the entry of exporters in the grain market, to provide remunerable prices to farmers and early procurement of the crop, but those at the helm of affairs in the association were not ready to listen.

Surinder Minchnabad, president of the association, however, said that the decline in the prices was not attributable to the standoff.

He said the association had taken this decision as a measure to save the traders from any kind of problem in future.

“It has been noticed in the past that some exporters have neither made the payments nor supplied Form-D, leaving the traders in the lurch, as they lost their payments and had to pay VAT on the crops through their nose,” Minchnabad said.

He said there was no restriction on farmers and they were free to sell their crops anywhere in the state, if they found the prices lower in the Sirsa market.

He said the decision was taken unanimously after it was noticed that at least Rs 1.50 crore from the last year’s payments were still unpaid by the exporters.

All traders, he warned, would stage a dharna in front of the trader, who violated the decision taken by the association.

The procurement of “muchhal” and “Pusa 1121” varieties of basmati paddy has been affected in Sirsa due to the face-off resulting in a fall in the prices.

“Katcha arhtiyas”, who deal directly with the farmers, want their payments from “pucca arhtiyas”, who work as a bridge between them and the exporters and millers, to give their payments within five days against the present trend of nine to 21 days.

The “katcha arhtiyas” have also refused to sell their crops directly to the exporters on two grounds --- one, they are not ready to trust their payments with outsiders and two, they do not want to sell their crops against Form-D, a facility given to exporters to purchase paddy without paying VAT.

Traders fear that if the exporters do not supply Form-D in time, they will have to pay VAT enjoyed by the exporters. 

Chandigarh, October 15
The Haryana Government has decided to involve gram panchayats in the maintenance of supply of power to villages and act as facilitators and motivators in assisting the power utilities to collect power bills and reduce power theft.

Officials of the UHBVN said the role of gram panchayats as facilitators and motivators would be to create awareness among electricity consumers and defaulters to make regular payments of the power bills. They would persuade those residents who have kundi connections to get regular electricity connections to avoid any penalty. They would highlight these issues in the regular meetings of the gram sabhas.

Though the decision to involve the gram panchayats in the billing process was taken a couple of months back, a formal notification to this effect was issued only last week.

Announcing incentives for their role as facilitators and motivators, the Power Department has decided that the panchayats will be given incentives on a monthly basis at the rate of 20 per cent of the increase in revenue over and above the benchmark, which was the average of last three years for the corresponding month.

The benchmark will be applicable for two years after which the average of last two previous years’ revenue realised will be set as the new benchmark. The increase in revenue due to any tariff increase will not be considered in the incentive collections but the increase in revenue due to load growth will be included.

A one-time incentive of Rs 200 per connection on any additional new connection or regularisation of kundi connection will be given. Incentive to the villages where gram panchayats show good recovery by giving additional hours of power supply will be provided.

The Power Department can consider giving two hours of additional power supply where the collection efficiency in the village was more than 90 per cent on a sustained basis. But the scheme will be fine-tuned to include provision of 100 per cent metering of connections by electronic meters and recovery of some arrears also in each billing cycle of two months, 10 per cent of the past arrears will also be paid by the village to be eligible for extra power supply for the subsequent month. The incentives will be given to the panchayats of qualifying villages wherever additional power supply of two hours was technically feasible. 

Nilokheri, October 15
Governor Jagannath Pahadia today stressed on the need for speedy development of villages and said the development of the state and the country was not possible without developing the rural areas.

“Development of villages is the key to development of the state and it is beyond imagination to develop the state and the country without developing the villages,” he said while inaugurating a seminar on “Role of Panchayats in Development”.

The fruits of development must reach the poorest among the poor and marginalised sections of the society and it is possible only if the panchayats played a proactive role and made every villager “partner” in process of development, he added.

Highlighting the role of the panchayats in a democratic set up, the Governor said the state government had vested enough powers in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) by devolving financial and administrative powers in respect of 10 departments to the panchayats and every panchayati was given a grant of Rs 50 lakh annually for developmental works, he added.

Observing that the emphasis was now on “decentralisation of powers” so that people at the grass root in the urban and rural areas could identify their needs and priorities and formulate the policies accordingly. Pahadia said the role of panchayats in village development was akin to the role of a farmer in harvesting the crop.

Dharamvir, Chief Parliamentary Secretary, opined that villagers should be consulted about their developmental priorities through gram sabha meetings before formulation of schemes and programmes.

MC Gupta, chairman of Haryana region, Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), said the line of demarcation between the villages and towns had blurred ant it is high time that integrated developmental schemes were formulated for villages and towns without any discrimination. 

Gurgaon, October 15
The striking workers in the remaining three entities of Maruti Suzuki today vacated the plants’ premises they had virtually held captive since October 7.

Shiv Kumar, general secretary of Maruti Suzuki Employees’ Union, spearheading the agitation, officially declared this evening that the workers had vacated the premises. He said the premises were vacated in view of the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The union reiterated that the district administration must redeem its promises it made to the workers to effect an agreement between them and the management. All the workers would have to be taken back in job by the management, he added.

The Labour Department and Maruti’s management also confirmed that the plants’ premises were freed from the workers.

The authorities continued with the pressure they mounted since yesterday which made the workers of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) to vacate the plants’ premises, late last evening. The eviction of the workers of the other entities from the plants’ premises today was a foregone conclusion.

The workers, after vacating the premises, have resorted to sit-ins, some distance from the main gates of the respective plants.

Gurgaon Police Commissioner SS Deswal yet again warned this evening that any breach of norms by the workers would not be tolerated.

Jind, October 15
Experimenting with newer concepts in agriculture and farming has not been common due to risks involved and problems connected with size of land holdings. But Bhoop Singh, a farmer of Julani village in the district, has a different approach and believes in taking up challenges. He has become the first farmer in the district to grow two leading crops of paddy and cotton in the same field. This has attracted the attention of the Agriculture Department, which has decided to study this experiment.

Bhoop Singh said the idea of growing paddy and cotton at the same time was worth trying as there had been lot of water present underneath the soil that could have an adverse impact on cotton crop, which required less water and humidity but paddy crop, which required more water helped in consuming that extra wetness in the field. As a result it proved complimentary to each other. Moreover, the growing period of both crops was nearly the same.

Claiming that he tried this concept on one acre of land though he owned over 25 acres. This was done mainly to harvest two crops at one time to get good returns in view of the climatic conditions and the rising cost of production. This concept had not only attracted the attention of farmers of his village and the nearby areas but also of officials of the Agriculture Department. The department had informed Bhoop Singh that it would inspect his field shortly to see first hand the novel experiment in farming.

Manbir Redu, who conducts a farming camp regularly in the area, said this experiment needed to be popularised for better returns in the farming sector.

Sirsa, October 15
A police party from the Sadar police station here has left for Panchkula to serve notices on Vishwash Gupta, husband of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s adopted daughter, and his parents in a case of harassment for dowry lodged against them.

A spokesperson of the police said the police party led by ASI Inderjit Singh would serve notices under Section 160 of the CrPC on Gupta and his parents, asking them to appear before the Sirsa police for investigations into the case.

Gupta’s wife and the dera chief’s adopted daughter, Honeypreet, alias Priyanka, had lodged an FIR against her husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law under Sections 498-A, 406, 504, 506, 323, 307 and 34 of the IPC.

She alleged in her complaint that she was married to Gupta on February 14, 1999, at Sirsa, and his parents had given enough dowry, including Rs 2 lakh in cash and 50 tolas of gold. She alleged that her in-laws started harassing her for dowry soon after the marriage as they wanted more dowry, including a big car.

She alleged that her husband and father-in-law beat her up on November 4, 2002, and it was with the intervention of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh that the marriage could be saved at that time.

She alleged that she was thrown out of her house on July 16 this year and her in-laws left Sirsa on that day.

Sirsa, October 15
Ashok Tanwar, Congress MP from Sirsa, today said that Dariyapur, a village located between Sirsa and Fatehabad, had been selected for setting up of a football academy in his constituency.

Speaking to mediapersons, Tanwar said the village panchayat had voluntarily offered land for the academy. Ajay Maken, Union Minister for Sports, had announced the setting up of a state-level football academy in the Sirsa parliamentary constituency during his visit here sometime back.

Listing the development activities taken up during his tenure as MP, Tanwar said out of 36 “Aarohi Model Schools” being set up in the state, 12 had been sanctioned in his parliamentary constituency. The MP said the government had decided to construct a new building for Government College set up earlier this year at Ellenabad.

The college is running in a building owned by a trust and Tanwar said local people had complained that the building was too far from the town. 

Rohtak, October 15
The local police has announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for anyone providing a clue regarding two murder cases that took place in Ismaila village of the district.

It has also sought cooperation of residents in tracking down the criminals involved in various cases. The residents of the village had blocked the National Highway No. 10 for four hours recently to protest against the “failure” of the police to nab the culprits responsible for the death of a minor boy.

A police spokesperson said a decision to provide the cash reward was taken after officials investigating these cases could not collect the required information about the culprits involved. While one of the case pertains to death of Manish, a three and half years old minor boy, whose body was found in a pond in Ismaila village on September 26.

Another case is of the murder of Satbir a resident of the same village. It is reported that while the police had not been able to identify the culprits involved in the murder of Manish, the six accused allegedly involved in another case had, however, been identified but they had been absconding and had been declared as Proclaimed Offenders (POs).

Satish Balan, SSP, has said a cash reward of Rs 25,000 each would be given for providing clues about the culprits in both cases. He said while identity of the informers would be kept a secret, he said arrest of the criminals was must to ensure law and order in the village, which had witnessed several cases of crime in the past few years.

He said the six POs wanted in the murder of Satbir included two women. They were identified as Mohini, Asha, Sonu, Zile Singh and Sant Kumar. The murder had taken place on March 18, but all accused had been absconding since then. 

Sirsa, October 15
The INLD-supported Tek Chand Chhabra and Om Parkash Bagri have been elected president and vice-president, respectively, of the Dabwali municipal committee in an election held for the two posts yesterday.

In a special meeting held for electing two office-bearers under the supervision of SDM Munish Nagpal, 18 councillors of the municipal committee caste their votes. Nine of these councillors were perceived to be the Congress supporters, 8 INLD supporters and one was the BJP supporter.

Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar and Dabwali MLA Ashok Tanwar, who are ex-officio members of the committee by virtue of their posts, also voted in yesterday’s election. INLD’s Chhabra polled 11 votes against Congress’ Bindiya Mahant to become the president, while INLD’s Bagri and Congress’ Saroj Sethi polled 10 votes each.

The decision for the vice-president was left on the spin of coin, which went in favour of Bagri.

Ajay Singh Chautala alleged after the election that the Congress stooped to the extent of seeking support of the BJP councillor and yet lost election for both posts. MP Ashok Tanwar said despite reverses, his party would extend full support and cooperation to the newly elected office-bearers of the municipal committee and would ensure development of the town.

Rewari, October 15
On a tip-off, the CIA police raided a hideout near the bus stand of Dharuhera and arrested two hardcore criminals, Lala Gujjar and Karan Gujjar of Rewari city, last night .

In a bid to extort a ransom of Rs 2 lakh from a fruit vendor, Ashwani Kathuria, in the New Sabzi Mandi here on October 1, they had injured him with a pistol pallet in the eye. They have been on the run since then. They were produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Rajesh Kumar Bhankar, today who remanded them in police custody for four days.

Earlier, the police had announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for anyone providing a clue leading to their arrest. SP Yogender Nehra said the duo had also looted a motorcycle from a city youth in Sector 4 here on September 29 at gunpoint, whereas the duo along with a third accomplice, Rohit, had opened fire on a city youth, Sandeep, injuring him grievously at the railway station complex here on September 27.

Rewari, October 15
Irate farmers of Sangwari and several surrounding villages yesterday resorted to a traffic jam on the Delhi-Jaipur highway at Sangwari village, 10 km from here, to express their resentment against the acute paucity of DAP fertilisers here.

They complained that they had been going from pillar to post for the past one month but no DAP fertilisers had been made available to them by the authorities concerned.