Jalandhar, April 27
The Right to Education Act prohibits government-aided schools from accepting any fees from students up to the eighth standard, but the way some aided schools have been minting money from poor patients in the district, has been the cause of anger among poor parents, who have alleged that great anomalies in the charging of fees exist and school authorities haven’t reduced rates despite repeated requests.

Parents of a school, particularly in a very backward area of the city, have complained that the school has been charging increased admission fees without considering their plight.

Notably, the parents in question belong to the poorest of the poor strata of society. The guardians of the children in question include rag-pickers, scrap dealers, vendors and widows living in one of the most addiction-ravaged areas of the city.

While most of the parents said they shifted their children to the said school from a private one in the vicinity in the hope that they would be relieved of their burden, the opposite happened as the school, despite promises of granting fee concessions, hasn’t kept the promise.

Parents of over 20 children from about 10 families that The Tribune talked to revealed that the aided schools they had been studying in had been charging varied rates as admission fee from students of various classes.

Starting from Rs 225, these parents are being charged rates of up to Rs 500 as admission fees by the school and most of them include families which barely have a monthly income of Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 per month, out of which they saved money for their kids.

Glaring anomalies exist as children from same classes and social backgrounds are being charged very different rates and parents said the school staff had been minting money depending on the parents’ response.

Archana, whose husband is a vendor at the local railway station, paid Rs 425 for both her children (girl in III standard and boy in Vth). They are paying Rs 50 and 70, respectively, per month as fee.

Guriya paid Rs 400 for both of her kids studying in 1st class as admission fee. For her third kid - in nursery - she paid Rs 175. Her husband is also a vendor at the city railway station, and reportedly earns Rs 100 to 200 per day.

Archana’s sister (standard VI) paid Rs 500 as admission fee.

Laxmi (I standard) and her brother Suresh (IInd) paid Rs 350, each, as admission fee. Their mother hunts for scrap in the day, leaves home early in the morning and comes back late in the evening. They live in a one-room home.

Rahul (IIIrd), Ashok (Ist), Neela (IInd) and Karan (Ist) were also charged fees. Their mother picks scrap and the eldest brother Rahul also goes to pick scrap after school on most days. One of them were charged Rs 425 as admission fees. They said their mother was working day and night to collect money to be able to pay it.

Pushpa, who sells scrap, said the school took Rs 225 for each of her sons (both in class IV).

Barring these families, Amala Devi paid Rs 500 as admission fee for each of her four kids studying in classes VIth (two children) ,VIIth and IIIrd.

Jyoti, whose husband is a daily wager painter, paid Rs 350 (Ist) and 450 (VIth class) for her children as admission fee and Satya, a scrap dealer, who lives in a little rented room that doubles up as a kitchen, paid Rs 400 for each of her children as admission fee.

Since most of the kids in the locality go to the same school the list in never ending.

None of the parents were given receipts

Talking to The Tribune, Amla Devi and Jyoti among some other parents said, they made repeated requests to school authorities to pardon or decrease the fees of their children. The staff member charging the fee told them to write an application which, they were not be able to give to the principal, because she is not in the town. They said they had to come back from school every time because the principal wasn’t there.

When contacted, the principal said, “We have a capacity of 300 students, but are teaching as many as thousand only because we want to serve the people of the locality. We have a staff to handle only 300 children and our requests to the government have gone unheeded. If any of the parents have any qualms, they can come to me on May 2 (I will be returning then) and their problems will be addressed.”

18-20 schools charge fees

While the school came to light due to the gross plight of the people in the locality, sources say about 18 to 20 aided schools in the district have been charging fees from their students. Sources said due to the government abandoning aided schools with meagre (less than 50 per cent) staff, schools are left with no option but to charge money from students for the staff they recruit on their own.

While teachers across government-aided schools presently fight a fierce battle for their inclusion into government schools, claiming burdens and lack of funds, the malpractice prevalent in some of the schools in the city had proved to be a major dampener for their otherwise justified fight.

Jalandhar, April 27
Unlike previous years when the Punjab Government and Punjab Technical University had allowed its affiliated 100-plus engineering colleges to conduct admission at their own end to fill BTech seats till October 31, this will not be the case in the new session.

A recent order of the Supreme Court stipulates that that no admission shall be conducted after August 15. The order of the court reads, "The admission to academic courses should start as proposed by August 1 of the relevant year. The seats remaining vacant should again be duly notified and advertised. All seats should be filled positively by August 15 after which there shall be no admission, whatever be the reason or ground."

The orders pertain to a civil appeal number 9048 of 2012 filed by a Mumbai-based engineering college against the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). The orders have been posted on the official website of the council.

For the same reason, the PTU which is yet to officially decide its schedule for centralised counselling has plans to wind up its counselling session by August 10. This will leave the colleges with just about five days to fill up management quota seats and vacant seats left after counselling. The counselling rounds are likely to start anytime after July 8, the same day, the CBSE is scheduled to declare the result of JEE.

The university had, in fact, been bowing down to the pressure of the colleges to extend the admission schedule of each session till the middle of the first semester to ensure that most colleges managed to fill up vacant seats. But the court has ruled, "We are unable to appreciate that once the academic session begins on August 1, then as to why should admission be granted upto August 30 of the year. The schedule, thus, introduces an element of arbitrariness and may cause prejudice to the students who might miss their classes for a period of one month without any justification. The university should grant/decline approval/affiliation by May 15 of the relevant year. Advertisement should be issued and entrance examination conducted positively by the end of May.

Jalandhar, April 27
With elections for Zila Parishad, Block Samiti and Panchayats scheduled for May 19, the district police is in the process of issuing directions to the arms licence holders to deposit the weapons with their police stations concerned.

While the job primarily concerns the rural police since the election code of conduct will come into force in only those areas where elections are to be held, even the Commissionerate police is to pass orders for the same for villages falling under its purview especially under Sadar police station.

DCP Sarabjit Singh said deposition of weapons would start from Monday. Asked about the arrangement for the same, he said,"Other than police stations, the services of the arms depots are also taken to keep the stock of weapons for a deposit ranging between Rs 200 to Rs 500 a month."

There are about 6,000 arms licences issued by the Commissionerate police, of whom about 40 are women. The department staff confided that women were mostly being used as dummy licence holders, either because they have all the property in their name or because their male counterparts have already availed a maximum of three licences in their own name.

In rural police, however, there are 7,901 licence holders, of whom 83 are women. Mukhwinder Singh, SP Headquarters, Rural Police, said depositing such a huge amount of weapons at police station was a big job. "So we also allow the licence holders to deposit weapons with depots at Nakodar or Phillaur. In such cases, they will just have to deposit their receipts with us," he said.

Jalandhar, April 27
The new diesel multiple unit (DMU) train being run between Hoshiarpur and Ferozepur via Jalandhar is full of dirt and immediately requires cleaning. Thanks to the railway staff which probably forgets to clean this train probably since its launch last month.

A city resident, Jitendra Sharma of the Daulatpuri locality, who often travels in this train, said, “Dirt, including empty water bottles, cigarette packets, biscuits packets, namkeen packets and so on, are lying on the floor of each of the eight coaches of this train.”

Primarily holding passengers responsible for the dirt because of not dumping the garbage in the bins, another traveller Inder Singh of Kalia Colony also blamed the railways for not cleaning the train at regular intervals.

Stating that the dirt should be removed and the coaches of this train should be cleaned regularly, they said, “The passengers travelling in this train have named it as “kure wali train” (garbage train) as the garbage here creating a lot of inconvenience to them.”

Interestingly, the DMU train was launched on March 16. The train runs from Hoshiarpur at 6.30 am and reaches Ferozepur at 11.50 am, after leaving from Jalandhar at 7.50 am. After that it starts from Ferozepur to reach Hoshiarpur at 4.25 pm after arriving at Jalandhar at 1.50 pm and departing from this railway station at 3 pm. Jalandhar City railway station superintendent (SS) Ashok Kumar admitted that the DMU train was full of garbage.

At the same time, he said, “As SS, his duty was to keep the entire city railway station clean and he was performing his duty well. As far as cleanliness in the DMU train was concerned, the DMU shed was responsible for that and they had given the work of its cleanliness to some contractor, who could throw more light on that."

Jalandhar, April 27
“It’s been six years since Punjab last saw representation in the national team. A state from which some years ago (until 2006) competent women athletes made to the national camp in hordes has not produced a single woman athlete for the nationals for long,” said a man whose job, for the past 11 years, has been to brush up the talents of national women athletes and prepare them for the international platform.

Ranbir Singh Sidhu, coach for the Indian national athletics team (women) since 2001 in the 4 x 400 metre relay and 400 metre hurdles, has been training Indian sporting talent (and before that, regional athletes), for the past 30 years.

It was under him that history was created when two Punjab athletes — Rajwinder Kaur and Manjit Kaur — coached by him, first represented India in the Olympics and a couple of years later, brought home the silver medal from the Commonwealth Games held at Melbourne (2006).

In 2010, his girls struck gold both at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi 
and the Asian Games held in China.

But a man, used to watching a team full of women from the state now rues the fact that the women athletes shortlisted for this year’s camp of his batch do not have a single representation from Punjab.

The reasons, he says, are hidden deep in the folds of the government policies and staff laxities.

Sidhu, who has also worked as a coach at Jalandhar’s Nehru Garden Girls Senior Secondary School, is aware of the work which is needed right from the grassroots level and rues it isn’t actually happening.

“Sporting begins from school and the subject of physical education acts as a base for talented sportspersons. But in schools here, the theory part is unnecessarily stressed upon, which is flawed and discouraging for talented sportspersons. Sporting talent and achievement should be the deciding factor in the subject of physical education and the theory part should be done away with,” Sidhu said.

“Only 2 to 4 per cent of the teachers today are really committed to hunting out and polishing deserving sporting talent in their areas, owing to which, a lot of students lose out on precious opportunities,” he added.

“I visited Cuba in 2011 for advanced studies and realised a country with a population of merely a little over 11 million people got 68 gold medals and a total of 173 medals in the Olympics held (since 2008). They have made the best of the resources they have got, but somewhere, we are (India) unwilling to give sports the due space and importance,” Sidhu said.

He said the sorry state of mechanisms to motivate sporting (both staff and infrastructure) across state schools was a big contributing factor for the dramatic decrease in the number of athletes being produced in the state.

Speaking about the state of coaches in the state, he said while a Punjab Government policy had promised a sum of 10 per cent of the money received by winning players to coaches, the same had not been received.

He said while players were always in the limelight, the governments do not even give the bare minimum credit to coaches, leave alone funds.

“While the policy to give coaches 10 per cent of the players’ winning amount was never implemented, there have been times when I haven’t been invited to various functions held to honour the success of the very athletes whom I coached. In 2003, I was called to a function where I was to get a mere memento. I did not go. Mostly they don’t even bother to invite. Unless coaches receive due recognition and reward for their hard work, the sporting system will suffer,” he said.

Coaches in the state especially feel disheartened because other states like Haryana and Rajasthan pay their coaches much better, he said.

Even women athletes are looking to play from other states now because they pay their sportspersons better, he added.

Seeking solutions to the sorry state of affairs in the state, Sidhu said, better sporting infrastructure and three to four well-equipped centres for sportspersons, better school infrastructure for sports, and due reward and funds for players and coaches were urgently needed to make sports look up in the state.

The upcoming athletics events, slated for Sidhu this year, are the various rounds of Asian Grand Prix 2013, to be held in Thailand this May. Subsequently, his team will also be heading for the Moscow World championship in August. 

Jalandhar, April 27
Hearing 339 cases during a Lok Adalat organised by the Punjab Legal Services Authority, 252 cases were decided by separate benches set up for the purpose today.

During the compromises arrived at among parties, a compensation of Rs 2 crore was also awarded to those concerned. Seven benches were set up in the judicial courts complex in the city, two in Phillaur and one in Nakodar.

The seven benches that heard cases in Jalandhar were presided over by District and Sessions Judge JS Klar, Additional District Judges Gurjant Singh and SK Singla, CJM Harreet Kaur, judges AK Chauhan, Munish Garg, Amrish Kumar, and Manav. The cases heard related to matrimonial disputes, domestic violence, cheque bounce cases, traffic challans and summary cases.

Jalandhar, April 27
Mehr Chand Polytechnic College bagged the overall State Tech Fest Trophy in inter-polytechnic competition held at the Government Polytechnic College (Girls) for the fourth consecutive time in a row. The students of the winning team got three gold, six silver and three bronze medals in paper presentation and project making competitions. Principal Jagroop Singh honoured the winners and and distributed certificates to them.

Career counselling at KMV

Kanya Maha Vidyalaya’s department of commerce organised a career counselling programme for the students. Shikha of Indian Oil Company, New Delhi provided guidelines regarding the avenues in commerce. She imparted knowledge about courses after 10+2, job opportunities and personal skills to be developed in students before they enter the corporate world. College principal Atima Sharma said such programmes prove very beneficial for the students.

Apeejay students shine in inter-school competition

Meghna, a student of class VIII of Apeejay School won the second prize in the Sahodaya inter-school English poetry recitation competition, held in Shri Hanumant International Public School, Goraya. She recited a beautiful and thought provoking poem on nature entitled ‘Why…mankind. Why?’, which was applauded one and all. Principal Madhu Sharma congratulated Meghna on her achievement.

HMV organises farewell

A farewell treat for outgoing students of PG classes was organised in Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya. The students of first year PG classes bid a heartfelt farewell to their seniors. A cultural programme was organised for outgoing students. Students played various games, participated in modeling, balloon dance and songs. The outgoing students handed over ‘vidya jyoti’ to their juniors implying thereby that they should maintain the traditions of the institution. Principal Dr Rekha Kalia Bhardwaj blessed the students and prayed for their bright future.

Institute gets grant

Punjab Technical University (PTU) has sanctioned a grant of Rs 65,000 to CT Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences for the completion of selected industry defined projects (IDPs) from the field of establishment of medicinal activity of herbal as well as synthetic moieties and their quality control. Various colleges affiliated to the PTU submitted their research projects in different fields for government funding. The PTU finally selected four research projects. Out of the four research projects, the three research projects of MPharma students of the CT Institute have been considered for the funding for the session January-June 2013. The MPharma students of the CT Institute, who have got this achievement are Karaninder Singh Badwal, Jyoti Sharma, Prabhdeep Kaur. Speaking on this occasion, Dr Manoj Kumar, Group Director, the CT Group said, “It is a remarkable achievement by the faculty members of the CT Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. At the CT Group the faculty and students are consistently supported and endorsed for the activities relating to research and development.” Dr Anil Kumar Sharma, Director the CTIPS has added that institution has been regularly carrying out such innovative research ventures in collaboration with various renowned pharmaceutical industries for the last two years.

Arya Girls College students in merit list

Rajwinder Kaur (435/600) and Sakshi Ohri (430/600) of MSc computer science semester-III from BDArya Girls College have got merit positions in Guru Nanak Dev University merit list. College principal Sarita Verma congratulated the students and head of department, Uminder Kaur, for their performance.

Jalandhar, April 27
The district Congress will file its written reply on Monday with the Municipal Corporation Jalandhar (MCJ) regarding the 'unauthorised shops' constructed on the premises of its local office located at Rajinder Nagar.

Earlier in pursuance to the direction of the Punjab and Haryana High Court issued on August 23 last year and modified on February 8 this year on the basis of petition field by local BJP leader Manit Malhotra, the MCJ provided the last opportunity to the district Congress for producing the site plan of “unauthorised” shops on April 26.

Senior vice-president of district Congress Advocate Kanwal Sachdeva met the MCJ Commissioner, Vinay Bublani, on Friday. Sachdeva asked Bublani to provide some more time to the Congress for filing its reply and stated that he would file reply on behalf of his party on Monday.

Sachdeva said Bublani agreed for that as the Jalandhar Improvement Trust (JIT) filed its reply regarding this issue on Friday itself.

In its reply, the JIT stated that the Congress had deposited the amount for the plot allotted to it several decades ago. It also reportedly stated that the site-plan submitted by the Congress had been found. Interestingly, the JIT reportedly stated that no record had been found whether the plot had been handed over to the Congress. It also reportedly stated that no sale deed of the plot had so far been executed in favour of the Congress.

Sachdeva said the reply would be finalised after consulting with other Congress leaders. At the same time, he said he would appear on behalf of the district Congress during the next date of hearing in HC on May 1.

Sachdeva claimed that the Congress provided two site plans, including one supplementary to the Municipal Committee Jalandhar (then it was not Corporation) and Jalandhar Improvement Trust in 1982.

Senior vice-president of district Congress further said, “According to Section 239 of the MC Act, if no objection is raised within six months regarding site plan submitted to, the same is deemed as passed.”

Phagwara, April 27
Local residents held a protest outside a private hospital on the Phagwara-Palahi road, alleging that negligence by the hospital staff had led to the death of a new-born child last night.

The protesters threw garbage before the hospital gate and raised slogans against hospital staff.

A local resident, Pawan Kumar, said his wife Rajni gave birth to a male infant in the Civil hospital. However, due to the child’s unstable condition, he was referred to the private hospital, he said.

He alleged that after keeping the child for two hours, the hospital authorities told him to take the new-born to another hospital. He claimed that the child died while he was rushing him to that hospital.

SHO City, Sarwan Singh Bal, along with a heavy police force, reached the spot, but the situation could only be brought under control when the hospital staff, including the doctors concerned expressed their regret over the matter.