Bathinda, December 6
As per the promise made by the district administration with the protesting unemployed linemen here yesterday, the Chief Minister (CM) Parkash Singh Badal met the members of the state committee (including state president Pirmal Singh) of the Unemployed Lineman Union (Punjab) here today and invited the union leadership to Chandigarh on December 11 for holding talks to resolve the matter, relating to their demand appointment of 4,000 linemen in the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL).

In the meeting, besides the CM and the union leadership, the chairman of the PSPCL, the Power Secretary and the advocate general would also reportedly take part. However, state president of the union Pirmal Singh said, “Though the CM had given time to them for holding talks over their demand but their 24-hour chain hunger strike outside the Mini-secretariat here would continue till the matter is finally resolved.” State press secretary of the union Nirmal Singh Mahla said in case the matter is not resolved at the December 11 meeting, the union would chalk out the further course of action.

Pirmal Singh said the counselling of the 4,000 linemen had already been done, but they had not been issued orders by the PSPCL for appointment. He also said these unemployed linemen had been facing harassment for the last 14 years as the state government had not recruited any lineman during these years.

Meanwhile, about 40 unemployed linemen today participated in the chain hunger strike that would continue till 12-00 noon tomorrow. After that another group of the protesters will replace them. The chain hunger strike was started by 10 persons, including five women relatives of unemployed linemen, outside the Mini-secretariat here yesterday following a more than two hours’ long road blockade and dharna in front of the main bus stand here. The protesters today neither held any rally nor raised slogans outside the Mini-secretariat as they have been continuing their chain-hunger strike peacefully, but they have put up a tent there to continue their protest.

Besides the tent, a large number of protesters were seen relaxing on the mattresses. They have also brought quilts to protect themselves against chill during the night. A ‘langar’ (community kitchen) has also been arranged at the dharna site for the protesting unemployed linemen. A mobile water tank has been stationed there for providing drinking water. State press secretary Nirmal Singh Mahla said the state government had not given employment to the unemployed linemen during the last 14 years.

Citing his own example, he said he had completed his two years’ apprenticeship 13 years ago, but could not get employment so far. He said besides him, there were many unemployed linemen, who had completed apprenticeship even before him. He said they would not move from here till the government accepted their demand, with regard to appointment of 4,000 unemployed linemen. 

Bathinda, December 6
The strike by mini-bus operators in the city today proved to be a massive trouble for the passengers at various bus stops. Uninformed villagers at different bus stands of the district were the worst-affected.

Mini-bus operators demand waiving of the token tax, issuing of special permit for marriages and other private functions without condition, waiving of the stand fees and increase in the route length from 25 km to 45 km and other long-pending demands.

The local bus stand today wore a deserted look in view of the strike.

The Tribune interacted with a section of passengers waiting for their relatives or friends to drop them at their respective villages.

"We came from Ganganagar in Rajasthan and waited for a mini-bus for Bibi Wala village for over two hours and then we came to know about the strike. We then contacted our relatives, who are now coming to take us," said Ramandeep Kaur.

Unaware of the strike by the bus operators, one Mahinder Kaur said she never waited for a bus for such a long time. After she came to know about the strike, she had no other option but to wait for another transport to reach her village, which is around 14 km from Bathinda city.

Jagtar Singh, a labourer from a village near Multania, said the strike by mini-bus operators had delayed his journey by three and a half hours. "Had I boarded a mini-bus from the bus stand, I would have reached my village at 3 pm. Now I am forced to wait for a long-route bus, which is expected after 5 pm, and I would reach my place not before 6.30 pm," Jagtar said.

Mithu Singh, a resident of Badbar in Sangrur, rued that he was not having enough money to board a long-route bus, charges of which are more than a mini-bus. "I have also visited the railway station where people are discussing about cancelled trains due to farmers dharna near Rampura and other railway blockades by the farmers," he said.

A young girl Manpreet Kaur from Beer Behman village said she was quite disturbed due to the strike as she had came to Bathinda alone today and was quite upset over going back alone.

Not only the passengers but hawker selling eatables at the bus stand too expressed their anger over the strike.

"My earning dropped significantly due to the strike by the mini-bus operators as only handful of passengers arrived today. I used to sell 100 packets of pop corn everyday but managed to sell only 20 so far," said Shambhu at the local bus stand.

Bathinda, December 6
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal here today held a meeting with the officers to take stock of the on-going development works in the city and nearby areas. He also directed the officicials concerned to complete the same in the stipulated period.

In the meeting, Deputy Commissioner KK Yadav, senior superintendent of police (SSP) Dr Sukhchain Singh Gill and mayor of Bathinda Municipal Corporation Baljit Singh Beer Behman also took part.

The Chief Minister took stock of the on-going development works, including railway under bridge on Mansa road, railway over bridge on the Badal road, sports school, Hockey Astro Turf Stadium at Government Rajindra College, Bathinda, and the works at Chak Fateh Singh Wala village.

The Chief Minister also inspected the works, being done for preparing jogging park at the Rose garden here last evening.

During his stay at Bathinda, Badal also met the representatives of various associations and members of the Panchayats.

The CM said the main aim of the SAD-BJP government is all round development of the state and facilities to every section of the society.

He said his government would not leave any stone unturned for providing basic amenities, like drinking water, sewerage system and electricity.

Bathinda, December 6
Eyeing the urban voters, the Punjab local bodies department has waived off the interest levied on the house tax and announced that all illegal water and sewerage connections would be regularised at “nominal” fees.

The Municipal Corporation, Bathinda (MCB), has announced that house tax could be paid till March 31, 2012, without paying any interest or surcharge on it.

Terming it a populist move of the government ahead of elections, one of the SAD municipal councillors pointed out that in 2009 too, just before the Lok Sabha elections, the government had issued a similar notification.

“First, the government issued notices to the defaulters of house tax payments and then withdrew the same. This time, the government went a step ahead and instead of issuing notices, it declared a waiver of the interest on house tax,” said a municipal councillor pleading anonymity fearing backlash from colleagues.

The government has also announced regularising the illegal water and sewerage connections. As per a rough estimate, there are around 10,000 illegal connections in all the 50 wards of the BMC. “There is no exact figure of the illegal connections in the city. The field staff does not report each illegal connection they come across. In many cases, the persons using illegal connections enjoy patronage of the MC officials themselves,” added a senior municipal councillor.

The holders of illegal connections need to pay just Rs 500 as a one-time fees and can get their connections regularised. The letter issued from the local bodies department, however, does not differentiate between illegal connections in authorised and unauthorised colonies of the city.

Interestingly, if the government regularises illegal connections in unauthorised colonies, it encourages such colonies to expand. “The Bathinda Development Authority (BDA) has already started the procedure of regularising illegal colonies and such populist moves do little to discourage illegal colonies from mushrooming further,” said a BDA official.

BMC authorities pointed out that for the last three to four months, efforts were being made to convince people to voluntarily disclose their illegal connections and get the same regularised at very nominal costs.

“However, time and again political pressure came as a major hurdle in implementing this project. Under immense political pressure we were not even able to disconnect the illegal connections,” one of the MC officials revealed.

Assistant commissioner of the BMC Kamal Kant said applications were being taken to regularise the illegal connections.

Bathinda, December 6
With the year drawing to a close, the government teachers feeling heat of preparing utility certificates of the grants spent, tabulating the list of things received and preparing list of beneficiaries to whom they have distributed the things received from department.

The government teachers alleged that they are laden with the non-academic work. "There are multiple agencies whom we report to," said one of the teachers.

These teachers report to the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), the Director General of School Education (DGSE) for all the projects running under Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) as well as the Punjab education department.

Teachers of the senior secondary schools said that till now they were occupied with the work of distributing cycles to the girl students under Mai Bhago Scheme of government. "The education department is trying to deliver maximum number of things for students such as cycles to the schools so that even if the election code of conduct comes into being, these things could be later distributed in students," said one of the teachers.

Not only the cycles, but government schools are also being provided furniture for schools in a haste. Today many schools got furniture to be used for different purposes, but its use has not been specified.

"We don't know whether the chairs and tables provided are to be used for computer lab or the other classes," said another teacher of senior secondary school in the district. And code of conduct would also come into force, even the officers are making it surely that things are delivered to schools before code of conduct comes to fore.

In the recent most directions, the education department has directed all the schools to foot bills and utility certificates of the Rs 3,000 grant given for making cabinet for storing the LED TV provided for Edusat programmes in all these schools.

During the meeting held with principal secretary education Hussan Lal on November 18, many schools pointed out that shortage of the clerks in schools had hit their functioning hard.

The Government School Mehma Sarja in-charge had pointed out that the school had no clerk to deal with office issues. As a result she is unable to disburse salaries and meet with other demands of administrative set up, similarly, Government Senior Secondary School Goniana in-charge pointed out that there was no clerk at school.

"Around 15 cases of amount disbursal retired teachers are pending. I am being threatened and served court notices, I don't now what to do. We should be given immediate help," she had demanded.

Bathinda, December 6
Status of your work related application is now a touch away as for the convenience of people who submit work application forms at the various counters of the local Suwidha Centre, a touch screen kiosk has been installed today.

Now, anyone can check the status of their application by just uploading the token number on the touch screen kiosk. The token number is mentioned on the receipt, issued by the Centre staff to the person concerned after receiving the form from the applicants.

The touch screen kiosk which started functioning drew attention of many who were seen seeking knowledge about the functioning of the touch screen kiosk. They were told that any applicant could know the status of his/her work, like birth certificate, residence certificate, caste certificate, copy of order, copy of document, arms licence and Shagun Scheme, by just touching the screen to upload the token number. So now he or she has no need to visit the Suwidha staff to know the status of his/her work.

Besides, the Suwidha Centre authorities have also planned to provide more facilities to the people through this touch screen kiosk. These proposed facilities include some types of important information, like important telephone numbers, location of offices (room number and floor) situated on the premises of the Mini-secretariat.

According to the plan some important internet sites’ link (like railway, Bathinda Municipal Corporation, Bathinda Development Authority, NREGA, Shagun Scheme) will also be given to the touch screen kiosk.

Information, relating to fee, required documents, days for processing the application form for the services, being provided by the Suwidha Centre, could also be checked after the uploading of the same by the Centre soon.

After the installation of touch screen kiosk, Deputy Commissioner K.K. Yadav and the in-charge of Suwidha Centre assistant commissioner (Under training) Kumar Amit, IAS, visited the centre. They gave some instructions to the in-charge of the Suwidha Centre staff Jaswinder Singh so that people could be provided more and more facilities through the touch screen kiosk.

Earlier, the Suwidha Centre has launched an SMS service for the convenience of the public, visiting Suwidha Centre to get their works done through it. By using the SMS service any person can check the status of his/her work, pending with the Centre, even by sitting his/her home, by way of sending an SMS from his/her mobile phone on the helpline number (9646777918) of the Centre.

Bathinda, December 6
The additional district magistrate, Bathinda, Bhupinder Singh, has imposed a complete ban on the use of loudspeakers in the city, including the religious places, between 10-00 pm and 6-00 am. The ban has also been imposed on playing of orchestra, band and DJ during the period.

Besides, the sound of loudspeakers should also not go outside the marriage places and the houses where the loudwpeakers are being used. Besides, written permission from the authorities concerned was must for using loudspeaker, orchestra etc. The orders will remain in force till February 4, 2012. 

Bathinda, December 6
The University of the New South Wales, Sydney, Australia has invited the principal of the Giani Zail Singh Engineering College of Engineering and Technology (GZSCET) Prof Dr Jasbir Singh to present his research paper entitled domain switching mechanism in ferroelectric potassium nitrate: poly (vinyl alcohol) composite films.

He would present his research paper at the fifth international conference on Electroceramics being held in Sydney from December 12 to 16. The university of Western Sydney, Australia has co-sponsored the conference. 
Dr Hundal’s paper is a joint publication with his PhD student Dr Navneet Dabra.

This research work has been carried out in collaboration with Prof. Rabinder Nath Kaura of the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

Dr Hundal and his research group have been working on polymer-ceramic composites as alternative materials for using in computer memories, RAM, VRAM.

Prof. Sean Li of the University of New South Wales would chair the conference. The plenary speakers include the names of Prof. (Dr.) Alexandra Navrotsky from the University of California Davies (USA), Prof James Scott from the University of Cambridge (UK) and Prof Harry Tuller from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) Electroceramics, who have had a profound impact on the electronics revolution.

Dr Hundal said the ceramic materials that have been especially formulated for specific electrical, electromagnetic and optical properties can be tailored for their use as insulators, ferroelectric materials, highly conductive ceramics, electrodes, MEMS, energy convertors, sensors and actuators.

The international conference on Electroceramics (ICE) is a biennial event created to provide a platform for researchers and engineers to exchange knowledge and advances related to this emerging field of science.

Bathinda, December 6
Twenty-five students of Pratibha UCMAS Abacus Center visited Pushpa Gujral Science city with their course instructors Rahul Ahuja, Gagan Sharma and Neetu Wilson.

Principal of Swami Vivekananda Girls College Raj Gupta said that students of UCMAS also celebrated 92nd birthday of Prime Minister I K Gujral during the laser show at laser theatre by cutting the cake in the presence of general manager of Pushpa Gujral Science City Dr. Munish Soin, Managing Director UCMAS (Pb) Satbir Singh Dhaka and public relation officer UCMAS Surinder Saini.

Bathinda, December 6
The workshop on adolescence programme being run at the government schools would be held at the Teachers’ Home on December 9. The training workshop would be held for the nodal teachers, who would educate the students from classes ninth to plus two on adolescence and its issues.

In the co-educational schools, male and female teachers are appointed to educate the male and female students, respectively. However, in the case of school being an all girls’ school, both the nodal officials appointed would be females.

The teachers of 50 senior secondary schools include from Ballo, Bir Talab, Chuhar, Mehraj, Bhaini Mansa, Chathewala, Dulewala, Ganga, Gurtheri, Hamirgarh, Jhanduke, Kesar Singh Wala, Kothe Chet Singh, Mahinangal, Bhai Bakhtaur, Sidana, Lehra Bega, Lehra Dhulkot, Poohli,Mirjeana and others.

Bathinda, December 6
The 49th Installation Day of the Punjab Home Guards and Civil Defence was celebrated here, today. The Home Guard Jawans, performing duties in various parts of the district and other staff members were present on the occasion.

At this function, a message, sent by the DGP-cum-Commandant General, Punjab Home Guards and Director, Civil Defence, Punjab, Chandigarh, Dr Ganesh Dutt Pandey, was also read out, in which the achievements of the Punjab Home Guards and the Civil Defence were mentioned.

The jawans were also assured that the state government would provide various facilities to make the department high-tech and better facilities for the training of the jawans.

At the end of the function, the district Commander, Punjab Home Guards, proposed vote of thanks. On the occasion, ladoos were also distributed among the jawans.