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7-km Stretch of Sirhind canal to be desilted
national pulse polio programme-2012 |
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May be illegal, but underage girls continue to work as maids in city
Youth commits suicide, 3 booked
KVM to organise environmental & farming fest in May
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7-km Stretch of Sirhind canal to be desilted
Bathinda, April 15 XEN (Irrigation) Nirmaljeet Singh Brar said the water flow in the canal had been stopped from April 10 to April 30 considering the wheat harvesting season. The Irrigation Department has already floated tenders for the work through e-tendering and expects the work to begin in next three to four days. It would take 10 days to de-silt the 23,000-feet or roughly the seven-km stretch of the canal passing through the city. Interestingly, nobody in the department remembers when the canal was last cleaned. Even the oldest of its employees says that the canal has not been cleaned at least for the last 30 years. The canal originates from the head waterworks in Ropar and splits into three near Doraha -- namely the Bathinda branch, the Patiala branch and the Abohar branch. "The oldest rest house at Bassian (Raikot tehsil) in Ludhiana district dates back to 1890 and lies on the Bathinda branch. We think the canal has never been cleaned since then," said officials of the Irrigation Department. For the last many years, the canal has been braving the pollution caused by urban bodies, silt carried down the hills along with water and other material. Since the canal is 'kuchcha' from inside, years of silting had only lessened its water carrying capacity. In the city, the rising water-level has touched the banks of canal and posing a threat of water getting spilled over and entering the public property. "We were wary of the water breaking boundaries and causing damage. This Rs 45-lakh project would free the canal of all these impending dangers," XEN Brar said. The choked sections of the canal as well as the silt have also been posing problem of irrigation in the villages situated at the tail-end of the canal. The villages fall in the constituencies of Lambi, Gidderbaha, Bathinda (rural) and Bhucho. For a long past, farmers of these villages had been raising the issue of unavailability of water for irrigation from the canal system. Irrigation officials said cleaning of the canal would ensure proper flow of water to the tail-end villages too. Lining project sent to CWC for approval: XEN
The state government has sent a proposal for the lining of the canal to the Central Water Commission. On the lines of the Bhakra Main Line (BML) canal, the sides of the Sirhind canal would be lined, while the bed would remain ‘kuchcha’. Distributaries to be cleaned
More than 150 villages around 10 to 15 distributaries originating from the canal would be benefitted from the cleaning. The Teona feeder system such as Doomwali minor, Kot Guru minor, Mithri minor, Killianwali minor, Badal minor and Ghamyara minor would be benefitted. Similarly, distributaries originating from the Rai Ka feeder system such as Lambi distributary, Mann minor, Lal Bai distributary, Sukhchain minor, Jangi Rana distributary, Teori distributary and Jangi Rana minor would gain from the cleaning. Where would the excavated waste go?
It is impossible to clean the canal bed manually. Machines such as Poclain Hydraulics with big wombs would be used to excavate the silt from the Sirhind canal’s bed. The excavated silt would be dumped in the 100-feet wide pits dug up along the canal. |
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national pulse polio programme-2012 Tribune News Service
Bathinda, April 15 Chief Parliamentary Secretary Sarup Chand Singla inaugurated the drive in the district by administering the drops to children at the dispensary in local Ganesha Basti. Singla appealed to the people to ensure that their children falling in the age group of 0-5 years are vaccinated to prevent them from the polio disease. Civil Surgeon Dr Iqbal Singh said 1,75,212 children have been identified to be covered under the programme. Of these, as many as 84,158 were administered the polio drops today. The Health Department has set up 702 booths, formed 53 transit teams, 37 mobile teams and 1,350 teams for house-to-house facility for administering the drops. Besides, 2,398 volunteers have been deputed for the purpose. The 53 transit teams will cover children dwelling in ghettoes near bus stand, near rotaries in the city, brick kiln manufacturing units, marriage palaces and fields. The Civil Surgeon added that 148 supervisors and 20 district supervisors have been deputed to regulate the exercise in the entire district. On April 16 and April 17, teams would visit from home-to-home to ensure that no child is left unvaccinated. Prominent among those present on the occasion included a member of the District Health Advisory Committee Dr Om Prakash Sharma, District Health Officer Dr RS Randhawa, assistant civil surgeon Dr Satpal, deputy medical commissioner Dr Vinod Garg, District Immunisation Officer Dr Manpreet Rupal, District Mass Media Officer Usha Singla, Rotary Club president Harmeet Grover and members of different NGOs.
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May be illegal, but underage girls continue to work as maids in city
Bathinda, April 15 April 13, 2012: A 14-year-old girl, working at a businessman's house at Batla House in Jamia Nagar area, southeast Delhi, rescued by an NGO, alleged that she was being raped and tortured by members of the family. The girl, who was brought to Delhi when she was 11, alleged she was routinely beaten with sticks by the businessman's wife and daughter, and was recently burned with a pair of tongs. The above mentioned cases may sound shocking and we may sit in the comforts of our homes thinking that we are not the culprits. Look closer and there are chances that you would see an underage maid servant doing the dishes at your home or helping her mother clean your porch. Though there is no official data available to arrive at an estimated number of underage maids in Bathinda, but almost every other household has one. It is quite disturbing to see how a mother, who is a domestic help, takes her daughters as her unpaid help and ultimately leads to the latter becoming a fulltime domestic servant, irrespective of her age. “We read in the newspapers about the diminishing attendance of girl students in government schools. We read about their slow academic progress. But how many of us actually realise that many of these female students help their mothers and work as domestic maids after they return from schools? And then, they must help their mothers in their own household chores. Under such conditions, how can we expect them to always complete their homework and learn their lessons,” asks an official of the Education department in Bathinda, on the condition of anonymity. While the families that they belong to have a utilitarian mindset and consider these young girls as hands that earn, the houses where these girls work may be under the impression that working and earning is better for them than studying and they are having it rather easy, a comfortable way of earning a livelihood. “Our 38-year-old maid does work at 10 houses in a day. Since it is humanly impossible for her to go to all these houses herself, and that too twice a day, she sends her three daughters to three houses. Her daughters are 12, 14 and 17-year-olds. The youngest of her daughters can barely do the dishes, but the mother scolds her and makes her work. And this is not an isolated case,” says a resident of Vishal Nagar. Shashi Tyagi, District Programme Officer, says, “This happens openly across the city. According to them, they are not doing anything wrong to add to their family's income. We, as members of the civil society, must look at the root cause of the problem. As a punitive action, if we remove them from work, they would still be the sufferers. We will be able to eradicate the problem of underage labour being employed by households only if we have other avenues open for them. We have to make the people, both the employer and the labour, aware that what is happening is not only inhuman but also against India's child labour laws.” Being aware is the fist step towards rooting out the menace of employment of underage labour, agrees the District Social Security Officer, Rajwinder Singh Gill. “It is not that the government has no policies to root out the problem. It offers free education to children till a certain age, especially to girl students. The members of the financially-weaker families need to be aware of the rights and the facilities that the government offers them,” he says. “To ensure complete de-addiction, shutting down the alcohol shops is not enough as an addict would find another place to buy his booze from. Similarly, just by prohibiting these young girls from working as domestic help, we will not be able to end the problem of underage employment. If they wish to earn, they will find some other way of doing so. Although the cases of sexual harassment and torture of maids in households in Bathinda may be negligible, but imagine the plight of a kid who serves water to a kid of his age,” says Gill. He adds: “Instead of turning a blind eye to a young girl washing our clothes and thinking that we employed her mother and not her, we should strongly condemn such employment. What we begin in our house will be the story of all the houses very soon.”
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City bus ruffles auto union’s feathers
Bathinda, April 15 They auto drivers gave vent to their anger by parking buses outside the bus stand. After blocking the GT Road near the bus stand for a few minutes, nearly 150 auto drivers rushed to gherao the house of Bathinda MLA and Chief Parliamentary Secretary (Excise and Taxation) Sarup Chand Singla for over two hours. "We are not against the city bus service but the way passengers of autorickshaws are pulled out of the autos into the buses is intolerable. We fail to get the passengers as the bus drivers and conductors park their buses right in front of the auto stand and those sitting in the autos jump into the buses," said the president of the local bus stand auto union, Gursharan Singh. He pointed out that the autos failed to get passengers in view of the comfortable buses coming out of the bus stand after every 30 minutes to ferry passengers through the city and the surrounding areas. He said the members of the union had a word with Singla who assured of finding a solution to the problem. Singla has again called the union members at 2 pm tomorrow to discuss their problems. The members of the auto union alleged that the drivers and conductor of the city bus service provoked them by sounding out the passengers right in front of the auto union. Since travelling in these buses is quite economical than in the autos, most of the passengers opt for the buses instead of the autos. "But there are more than 1000 autos in the city and most of their owners have a poor background and are supposed to pay Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 as monthly instalment for the autorickshaws they drive," said Gursharan Singh. "Moreover, the bus drivers and the conductors are bullying us. They take out the keys of the autos and enter into heated arguments with the auto drivers," he added. No PRTC official or a representative of the city bus service could be contacted for their comments.
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National conference at PTU GZS campus comes to an end
Bathinda, April 15 Representatives from various universities and colleges from across the country participated in the conference that was organized by the newly created departments of physics and chemistry of the institute. Delegates from Manipal University Manipal, Vishkarma Government Engineering College, Ahmedabad, NIT, Jalandhar, Chaudhary Devi Lal University Sirsa, Maharaja Sayaji Rao University, Baroda (Gujarat), MMU Mullana, Ambala, IIT Roorkee, CIPET Vatva Ahmedabad, GD College for Boys Udhampur in J&K, DCR University of Science and Technology at Murthal in Sonepat, Haryana, School of Biological Science, Shoolini University, Solan (HP), Baring Union Christian College, Batala, Thapar University, Patiala and other places presented their papers. Dr Buta Singh, Dean, Academics, PTU Jalandhar, was the chief guest on the concluding day. Earlier, Dr SS Gill, vice-chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health and Medical Sciences, Faridkot, had inaugurated the conference. While speaking on this occasion, Dr Buta Singh congratulated the participants and the organizers for their efforts to make the event a success. He urged the young budding scientists, research scholars and engineers to come forward and make the best use of their innovative and technological skills and researches in the favour of humanity and environment. Dr Tarlok Singh Lubana from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, was the guest speaker of the day. He explained researches and advancements in his subject of inorganic chemistry. Campus director Dr Jasbir Singh Hundal congratulated the organizers for providing a platform to the delegates from all over country to show their hidden talent and skills. Dr Hundal also presented mementos to the chief guest Dr Buta Singh and the special guest speaker Dr TS Lubana. Dr Gursharan Singh, chairman of the conference, thanked the dignitaries.
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Youth commits suicide, 3 booked
Bathinda, April 15 Suresh Devi, the mother of the deceased youth, Sonu, said her son was on his way home after praying in a local church when three youths entered into heated arguments with him and threatened him with dire consequences. Sonu then committed suicide by jumping into the water tank. A case under sections 306 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against Kuldeep Singh, Sandeep Singh, both brothers and Sony. A case has been registered at the Canal Colony police station. Ludhiana resident arrested with poppy husk A resident of Ludhiana has been arrested by the police with 6 kg of poppy husk. He was arrested by cops from the Kotwali police station during checking near the bus stand. The accused was produced in a court after registering a case against him under sections 15, 61 and 85 of the NDPS Act. Purse stolen during Baisakhi Mela
The purse of a Barnala resident was stolen during the Baisakhi Mela. The complainant, Gurmel Singh said he came to pay obeisance at Talwandi Sabo where somebody had stolen his purse. The purse contained Rs 5,000 in cash. A case under section 379 of the IPC has been registered against unidentified persons at Talwandi Sabo police station. Three booked for beating
Three persons have been booked by the police for beating a resident of Ganesha Basti. In his complaint to the police, Harman Singh said he was beaten up while he was standing in front of his house yesterday. He was rushed to the Civil Hospital with injuries. A case has been registered against Ranjit Singh of Naruana road, Surinder Kumar of Ganesha Basti and Kuldeep Singh of Namdev Nagar. They have been booked under sections 452, 324, 323, 506 and 34 of the IPC. |
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KVM to organise environmental & farming fest in May
Bathinda, April 15 The festival shall have diverse components such as traditional food, women's conference on health, food and environment, cultural programmes from different states, exhibition of paintings and photographs by children, sale of organic products, discourse with eminent experts of ecological farming in India, practical training on natural and ecological farming, exhibition on natural farming, environment and health, drama, play and film shows and literary meets. — TNS
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The seven-km stretch of the Sirhind canal that passes through the city would be de-silted. It would benefit and bring a much-needed respite to hundreds of villages.
Forty eight per cent of the children below five years in the district were administered the polio vaccine drops on the first day of the second round of the National Pulse Polio Programme-2012.
March29, 2012: A 13-year-old maid, rescued from a Dwarka home in Delhi, had been locked up for five days and starved as her employers vacationed in Thailand. She told the authorities that she was warned not to touch the food. She was pinched, hit with scales and her hair had been pulled out. Half the hair on her head was small and the remaining are uneven, an order by the Child Welfare Committee said.
