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Solid waste management: Home-to-home garbage collection begins in the city
Protesting EGS volunteers block traffic on Bathinda-Mansa road
A harassed commuter (in pink turban) argues with protesting ETT teachers (EGS) during the traffic blockade by the latter in front of the Civil Hospital in Bathinda on Friday |
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Sessions court reduces jail term awarded to man
Civil Hospital
A week after its inception, mediation centre gets 5 cases
Computerised Farads to be available
again
Meeting reviews poll preparations
Pharmacists stage protest march
Members of the district unit of the Sangharsh Committee Punjab State Pharmacists Association take out a protest march near the Mini-secretariat in Bathinda on Friday.
Tribune photo: Pawan Sharma
ACRs will now be annual actual performance assessment reports
GZSCET Prof presents paper at Venice
Bathinda secures third place in junior netball
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Solid waste management: Home-to-home garbage collection begins in the city
Bathinda, December 9 The 18 urban bodies include Bathinda, Abohar, Bareta, Bhikhi, Bhuchho Mandi, Budhlada, Gidderbaha, Goniana, Kotfatta, Malout, Mansa, Maur, Raman, Rampura Phul, Sangat, Sardulgarh, Talwandi Sabo and Tapa. Sandip Gupta, assistant engineer, Municipal Corporation Bathinda (MCB), said garbage would be collected, transported and dumped in an organised manner. The project has been entrusted to the Urban Waste Management Limited, Bathinda, under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The company has taken under its wings all the 70 to 80 sweepers working with the mohalla committees within the municipal limits. "Besides the sweepers under the MCB and those working with other 17 urban bodies would now be taken on the rolls of the company," said Harshvardhan, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Jindal Urban Infrastructure Limited. The MCB has formed mohalla committees. It has also provided rickshaws to sweepers. Rs 1,000 per month would be given to each mohalla committee as maintenance charges of the rickshaws. Meanwhile, the role of existing permanent sweepers of the MCB would be confined to cleaning streets and de-silting the drains. Starting from Ganesha Nagar, the garbage would be collected in two kinds of bins. Every household would be provided with two covered bins. During the public awareness programmes to be held soon, people would be sensitised to segregating the waste as biodegradable and non-biodegradable. "Once the waste is assigned to bins as per their classification, the sweepers would collect these in covered vehicles and compactors and transport it to the trucks assigned to take it to the dumping ground," added the corporation officials. Harshvardhan said in the next 45 days, the segregated waste collection would be extended to all the 18 urban bodies. The waste collected would be dumped at existing dumping places of each urban body. In Bathinda, this waste would be collected in 26 acres behind the Roshan Lal Oil Mills on the Mansa road where the processing plant is proposed to come up. "During these 45 days, we would be extensively working with the sweepers, getting their details tabulated, antecedents checked etc. We would also sensitise them to garbage management. These sweepers would be the part of the maiden solid waste management project in this part of the region," he added. No environmental clearance for the plant yet
The proposed plant to be set up on 26 acres in the Ward No 29 of the city has not yet got environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). During the meeting of the MoEF conducted on November 25, the ministry raised certain objections pertaining to the project, which would now be sorted out. "In any case, the plant will not be functional before a period of an year and a half," said the corporation officials. 300 tonnes of garbage to be dumped daily
Once the processing plant is commissioned, 300 tonnes of solid waste collected from 17 urban bodies situated in the 60 km radius of the city, would be dumped on 26 acres behind the Roshan Lal Oil Mills on the Mansa road daily. Around 80 big vehicles and 600 rickshaws would be collecting this waste. After the processing plant comes up, garbage would be recycled. |
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Protesting EGS volunteers block traffic on Bathinda-Mansa road
Bathinda, December 9
Demanding the immediate arrested of the sarpanch, accused of slapping the EGS volunteer and release of an EGS volunteer Amandeep Kaur, whom the Bathinda police had arrested, around 300 volunteers blocked the traffic today. The volunteers first staged a protest at the Gole Diggi and then moved to the area opposite the district courts. After registering protest for half an hour there, the agitators moved towards the railway overbridge on the Bathinda-Mansa road and sat on dharna at the elevated rotary. The entire traffic from Mansa to Bathinda, Dabwali to Bathinda and vice-versa remained affected. The bus passengers remained stranded in the traffic jam for over three hours. The dharna started at 4 pm and was later lifted at around 6:15 pm. The agitating EGS volunteers said that the Deputy Commissioner, Bathinda, gave them a patient hearing. "The Deputy Commissioner has assured us of arranging a meeting with the Chief Minister on December 11. We will wait for a facsimile intimation of the meeting tomorrow. If the government does not respond tomorrow, we will again go on protest," said the EGS volunteers. While the dharna was lifted at 6:15 pm, the traffic could not be cleared before 7 pm. In order to avoid the blockade, people took the route via Baba Deep Singh Nagar to enter the city. Unable to support such a huge inflow of traffic and subsequent railway crossing on the stretch, the narrow road got choked up. Most of the streets in Baba Deep Singh Nagar have been dug up to lay sewer lines, which added to the woes of the commuters. While the two-wheelers negotiated their way out from the narrow labyrinth of roads, the four- wheelers, buses and trucks were the worst hit. Traffic chaos led to brawls and exchange of heated arguments amongst the commuters. No police official was deployed to navigate the traffic and lessen the chaos.
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Sessions court reduces jail term awarded to man
Bathinda, December 9 Amrik Singh, 45, from Bhatha Basti area of Mansa, was booked on May 14, 2006 for causing the death of a person due to negligence. The trial court had awarded him two years of imprisonment under section 304-A of the IPC and a six-month sentence under section 269 of the IPC. He appealed before the sessions court. Considering the poor economic condition of the accused, his age and the trial he has been facing since 2006, the court reduced his sentence to ten months. In another case, the court of the District and Sessions judge acquitted Harpreet Singh of village Bangi Ruldu, Talwandi Sabo. In his complaint, Harpreet's brother Sukhdeep Singh had alleged that on June 1 this year, Harpreet was cleaning his licensed .32 bore gun which accidentally went off and a bullet hit Sukhdeep. Sukhdeep was later taken to the Adesh Hospital for treatment. The complainant alleged that this act could have killed him and hence, he lodged a complaint with the police. However, later, in the court, the complainant Sukhdeep Singh as well as his wife Sarabjit Kaur turned hostile. The court observed that there was no other evidence that can be used to connect the accused Harpreet Singh with the commission of the offence. Giving him the benefit of doubt, the accused Harpreet Singh was acquitted.
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Civil Hospital
Bathinda, December 9
It was not just the OPD block of the Civil Hospital but also the Women and Children Hospital, situated on the same premises, that was virtually deserted. However, some patients, who get themselves examined by particular doctors, were seen waiting for them in the OPD block. But when they were informed about the mass CL by the doctors, they left. Some of the patients even said that had they known about the mass leave by the doctors in advance, they would not have taken the trouble of visiting the hospital as it resulted in great harassment for them. Due to the mass casual leave by the doctors, hundreds of patients were forced to return to their homes from the OPDs of both the hospitals. Even the registration counter that issues registration slips at the new OPD block today was deserted. However, the registration slips for the emergency cases were reportedly issued. It was learnt that eight to ten doctors today went to Chandigarh to participate in a dharna, organised there in support of their demands, which include granting of six post-graduate (PG) increments to the doctor at the time of the implementation of the new pay scale every time, enhanced grade pay to the doctors on the Central Government's pattern after 20 years of service, house rent on non-practice allowance (NPA) and the Deputy Civil Surgeon's designation for the senior medical officer. Earlier, in the last week of November, following a call by the Punjab Civil Medical Service Association (PCMSA), the local doctors had worn black badges to protest against the non-issuance of notification, on implementing their already accepted demands by the state government. Talking to TNS here today, the Senior Medical Officer (SMO) of the local Civil Hospital Dr Satish Goyal said all the 26 doctors, including SMOs, working in both the hospitals, were today on leave. However, the doctors were performing the emergency duties in the morning, evening and at night besides conducting the post-mortem and X-ray. Besides, the doctors were also on on-call duty, he added.
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A week after its inception, mediation centre gets 5 cases
Bathinda, December 9 The cases referred by different courts have been assigned to different mediators, who are specially-trained lawyers from the Bathinda Bar Association. These cases would be decided within three months. The period could be extended by one month if the mediator feels a need to do so. The mediator plays a crucial role in bringing the case to an amicable conclusion. Judicial officers said not only cases from the district courts, but even from the women cell could be referred to the mediation centre. The judicial officers have already issued a letter to the women cell under the Bathinda police to refer cases to the centre. Three mediators appointed at the Bathinda courts are advocates Bharpur Singh Khatra, Ranjit Singh Jalal and Seema Sharma. While the centre was inaugurated on Sunday, the first round of mediation started from Thursday. Seema Sharma, who conducted the mediation today, said the litigants were receptive towards the procedure being adopted. "The first thing is to convince the litigants that their case would be kept confidential. No one wants to wash his/her dirty linen in the public and we, as mediators, too ensure that everyone's privacy is respected," Seema said.
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Computerised Farads to be available
again
Bathinda, December 9 The data entry operators and other staff members, working at the Farad Kendra, had gone on strike on September 26 in support of their demand - regularisation of services. Since then, no computerised farad of Jamabandi has been issued by the Kendra so far as the company, that had provided data entry operators, had terminated their services as they remained on strike despite the notices issued to them by the company for joining service. Before the strike, the Kendra had been issuing 40 to 45 farads of Jamabandi on all working days and was earning about Rs 60,000 per month. Due to the strike, not only did the people suffer a lot, but the Kendra also suffered monetary losses. After the dismissal of the old data entry operators, new operators were recruited in the second week of October. Later, some of the old operators were also recruited. The training of the new operators is near completion while the old operators are clearing the backlog of entries of the revenue records of 40 villages of the Bathinda area by computerizing the same. It is learnt that the backlog entries of all 40 villages would be cleared before the last week of December. However, the Kendra will start issuing the farads of Jamabandi of some villages after 10 days, as their revenue records would be computerised by then. District System Manager of the Kendra Lavneet Bansal said they would start issuing farads for some villages after 10 days while by the end of December, the people would start getting farads of Jamabandis of all 40 villages from this Kendra. Assistant System Manager Sandhaya Birla said after the completion of the entries of revenue records of all the 40 villages, they would paste a notice outside the Farad Kendra, informing the people to get computerised farads from there. Besides, the field kanungos and Patwaris would also be asked not to issue the farads manually, she added.
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Meeting reviews poll preparations
Bathinda, December 9 He said this while addressing a meeting of the officials held here yesterday. Among those who attended the meeting were the SSP Dr Sukhchain Singh Gill, the ADC Bhupinder Singh Rai, the ADC (Development) Dr Abhinav Trikha, Bathinda SDM Sandeep Rishi, Talwandi Sabo SDM Gurmeet Singh, Rampura SDM Sukhdev Singh and Tehsildar (Elections) Harphool Singh Sohal.
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Pharmacists stage protest march
Bathinda, December 9 Some of them carried black flags in their hands. They also raised slogans against the state government and in favour of their demands, urging the government to implement it immediately. They are demanding a They also sought district pharmacy officer designation for the chief pharmacist grade-I posted at the Civil Surgeon office and creation of deputy director (pharmacy) post at state-level, besides the creation of new posts of pharmacist at hospitals and community health centres. They also demand several allowances for the pharmacists, including 25 per cent of the basic pay as non-dispensing allowance, Rs 500 per month as academic allowance and Rs 1,000 per month as patient care allowance. Ravinder Goyal said as many as 50 per cent posts of drug inspector should be filled by promotion from the chief pharmacist cadre. The pharmacists should also be given the right to practice as medical practitioner after 10 years of service. For the effective implementation of the Pharmacy Act and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, the chief pharmacists should be given inspection rights at the block-level, he added. Later, they submitted a memorandum, enlisting their demands, to the District Revenue Officer for forwarding it same to the state government.
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ACRs will now be annual actual performance assessment reports
Bathinda, December 9
Aimed at increasing the efficiency of government departments, the reports would no more be confidential rather these would be made public. “This is being done to inculcate the feeling of self-introspection into the government employees and improve their performance,” said Ramesh Kumar Rehbar from the Mahatama Gandhi State Institute Public Administration, while holding a seminar on the annual actual performance assessment report at the local circuit house. Rehbar said, “The ACRs have been phased out since April 1, this year. The move would be beneficial for the hardworking and honest government employees. The government decided to do away with the ACRs after meticulously studying the shortcomings of this system.” MGSIPA project coordinator Mandeep Singh said the seminar was held to educate employees of the district administration about the new system. The MGSIPA is also instituting awards for the hardworking employees terming them as the best employees. The employees would be awarded to inspire others.
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GZSCET Prof presents paper at Venice
Bathinda, December 9 In a press statement issued here today, the college spokesperson stated that Prof Gupta presented a paper on the criteria of selecting 3PL provider: a literature review. Prof Guptra's research would help the industry in selecting the right business partner for the long-term association. The paper was presented at the international conference on Electrical, Computer, Electronics and Communication Engineering (ICECECE) held from November 28-30 at Venice, Italy. The World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (WASET) organised the conference. Prof Christos Grecos, School of computing, University of the West Scotland, UK, chaired the conference session. Over 400 delegates from 56 different countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Holand, Italy, Poland, Russia, Rumania, Switzerland, UK and US presented the paper in the conference.
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Bathinda secures third place in junior netball
Bathinda, December 9 The players, Deepak and Baljinder Kaur are the students of Khalsa Senior Secondary School Bathinda. The school management’s president Rajinder Singh Sidhu and principal Nazar Singh Dhillon honoured the students. — TNS
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A home-to-home garbage collection was started from the Ganesha Nagar area near the Bal Bhawan here today. The activity is a part of the upcoming solid waste management plant
The incident in which an EGS volunteer was slapped at Gidderbaha resonated in Bathinda today as the victimized volunteer's colleagues blocked the traffic on the Mansa-Bathinda
road
Under the banner of the Sangharsh Committee Punjab State Pharmacists Association, the members of the district unit of the association, led by the district president Ravinder
Goyal, today took out a protest march near the Mini-secretariat here against the non-acceptance of their demands by the state government.
