Jalandhar, May 20
The way for the future development of the district’s reputed Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Nehru Garden, has been finally cleared. While its staff had been regularly trying to get the school building declared unsafe, the school finally received a certificate in this regard by the PWD about a week ago.

The Tribune had highlighted the plight of the school (among many others in the district) in a news report “More than thousand schoolchildren continue to sit in unsafe buildings” on April 24.

Expressing relief, school principal Gurinderjit Kaur said, “It is a relief to get the building declared unsafe. Now the way for us to receive grants for the construction of the new building will be cleared.”

We had been sending letters to the PWD for a long time, but finally received the response about a week ago,” she said.

While another building near the school's kho-kho ground had been declared unsafe earlier, the principal said the work on its demolition would begin soon.

While the school has received the much-needed respite after receiving an unsafe certificate for its building, many other schools languish because they have still not been issued unsafe certificates.

This is despite the fact that the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in recent orders, had asked the government to identify unsafe buildings in the state.

These schools include government schools at Basti Peerdaad, Boota Pind as well as Government High School, Kalra; Government High School, Khurdpur; Government Primary School Ramnagar and Government Primary School, Fatehpur.

Except the Kalra school, in the rest, students continue to sit in unsafe buildings even as the PWD hasn’t declared them unsafe formally.

At Khurdpur, over 100, at primary about 22 and at Fatehpur about 20 students sit in unsafe buildings.

Barring exceptions, students continue to sit in unsafe buildings because they do not have any other place to seat students.

In many cases, staff is scared to report unsafe buildings for fear of action against them.

District schools like Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Nakodar; Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Nurmahal and Government Boys Senior Secondary School, Adampur are being run in unsafe buildings.

Jalandhar, May 20
For all purchases that have been made by the Punjab traders from outside the state from April 1, the local Excise and Taxation Department will now issue online C-forms.

The system will help the traders making inter-state purchases save themselves from the rigorous grind of making repetitive rounds to the office of their respective assistant excise and taxation commissioners, apply for the same, stand in long queues and still return empty handed or with inadequate number of forms.

Explaining the new process, AETC-II Rajbir Singh said the C-forms would not have to be sought from the head office. “Instead these would be generated in our systems locally through a software to be installed in the coming days. From now on, manual forms would only be issued to traders who have made purchases on or prior to March 31 this year. For the new quarter, we will generate the forms on software depending on the reports of purchases made with us by various trading firms,” he said, adding that Punjab had followed a pattern that already existing in some other states.

Asked if the traders still would have to come to his office or could apply for the same online sitting at his place, he said, “The modalities are yet to be worked out. But I think visits would be required, or else authentication would be difficult.”

Getting the C-forms has been a pain in the neck for city traders, who are often seen jostling with one another to get the copies of the same from the sales tax offices concerned. The businessmen or their employees have had kept a track of the availability of forms every now and then, spend one full day to run around office superintendents, ETOs and distribution counters to get copies of the same after hours of standing in queues. Mad rush has often been observed in the sales tax office at BMC Chowk during the days of availability of the forms.

“Even worse is that we do not get the requisite number of forms that we demand despite spending so much time and energy. At times, when we reach the distribution window, there are no forms left, leaving us completely helpless,” complained Taranpreet Singh, a trader, now expressing hope that the online system could bring in a welcome change. 

Jalandhar, May 20
The routine of nearly 1,500 residents in the Krishan Nagar locality here was upset today as they did not get any water supply in the morning.

This was thanks to a four-and-a-half-hour-long unscheduled power cut in the locality on Monday morning.

The day of the residents of the Krishan Nagar locality, falling under ward 30, started with power cut as the power supply remained disrupted in the area from 5.10 am to 9.40 pm.

Residents of this locality faced a lot of inconvenience, as a majority of the inverters installed at their premises were exhausted during the power cut.

Further aggravating their problems, the tubewell supplying water to their locality could not run due to the power cut.

An aged resident of the area, advocate Diwan Chand Mohindru said he could not even take his bath in this scorching heat and kept on feeling uneasy during the entire day.

Diwan Chand said the MC officials should ensure power supply during the hours of water supply for the convenience of the general public.

Meanwhile, a transformer located near Namdev Chowk also went out of order after sparking on Monday afternoon and power supply was badly affected to nearby areas due to this faulty transformer.

As a result, residents of the areas located near Namdev Chowk also faced hellish conditions in the scorching heat.

Jalandhar, May 20
The visitors to the Municipal Corporation building near Nehru Garden Chowk here have been facing problems for several months, as all four lifts in the just four-year-old complex are not working, thanks to the absence of repair and maintenance of the lifts.

Aged and disabled persons are the worst sufferers, as they find it more difficult in reaching the departments concerned using stairs in the multi-storeyed building inaugurated in 2009.

Interestingly, most of the public dealing departments, including house tax water supply and tehbazari, are located on the third floor. An aged person, Raghbir, of Gopal Nagar was seen trying to reach the third floor for getting his work done at the water supply office while taking rest several times while using the stairs.

The lifts worked properly only for a few months after the inauguration of the building about less than four years ago. So much so, several persons were stuck in the faulty lifts for several hours and they were evacuated after breaking the lifts twice over a year ago.

The president of the Handicapped Welfare Society advocate Ashok Sharma had submitted a memorandum to the MC joint commissioner Babita Kler over a month ago for getting the lifts repaired at the earliest, but to no avail.

Sharma said either the lifts should be repaired immediately for providing relief, especially to the handicapped, or the public dealing offices should be shifted to at least first floor.

Meanwhile, a majority of Congress councillors, accompanied by former MLA Jagbir Brar, Rajinder Beri and leader of the opposition in the MC house, Jagdish Raj Raja staged a three-hour dharna from 10 am to 1 pm outside the MC office for putting pressure on MC officials to get the lifts repaired without any delay.

Beri said the Congress would again stage a dharna outside the MC office on Tuesday for taking up the matter with the MC officials and the ruling SAD-BJP alliance for putting an end to the inconvenience caused by faulty lifts to residents.

Jalandhar, May 20
More than 1,000 government employees have been deployed for the counting duty tomorrow for the Zila Parishad and Block Samiti polls held yesterday. The counting will begin at 11 centres at 8 am and is likely to go on till afternoon.

While three candidates of the total 21 of Zila Parishad and nine candidates of 194 zones of 11 samitis have already been declared winners unopposed, the counting will bring out mandate for 447 candidates who have contested from 185 samitis. There will be 14 tables laid out at each counting centre.

In a bid to assure secrecy of votes polled in favour of any political party for a particular booth in a village, guidelines had been issued by the State Election Commission on April 12 to the counting staff to mix votes of all booths of a particular panchayat samiti before beginning to do the manual counting but this has been done away with following subsequent orders passed on April 29.

As per the instructions issued earlier, the counting staff was to first open one box, make bundles of 50 votes each, open more boxes and repeat the exercise before mixing these all. It had then been emphasised to follow this procedure so that the political party agents who would be there at the counting centres do not get to know as to voters of which villages were more in their favour and which not and later try to make their assessment or try to settle scores.

RO-cum-SDM Phillaur Jasvir Singh said there had been some confusion of sort, but now they had been told to follow the old pattern of counting, going booth-wise. DTO-cum-RO Rurka Kalan, too, endorsed the statement of his counterpart.

Jalandhar, May 20
An incident of the alleged interference in the working of government school by an acquaintance of the school management committee members surfaced at the Government Primary School, Bhargo Camp, today.

A teacher of the school alleged that a member of the locality's welfare committee interfered during her regular lessons and checked the copies of her students during her class.

She alleged that he threatened her when she opposed the interference.

School teacher, Upma, said, "A resident of the locality, Ramesh Karanvir, has been checking copies of the students even though he is not a member of the school management committee. He has no right to interfere in the working of the school."

"While a day earlier, he had snatched copies of students. Today, during the meeting of the school management committee he threatened me and said that I was not teaching the students properly," she said.She said Karanvir tried to raise hand at her when she prevented him from taking one of her student's notebook.Upma said she had previously also brought the issue of interference by the said individual to the notice of the District Education Officer and the BO.

Ramesh Karanvir, when contacted, conceded that he had been checking copies.

He said, "The students in our locality are all poor and the said teacher has not been teaching them properly. I only want quality education for these children."

When asked whether he was a member of the school management committee, he said, "I am not a member of the school management committee but I am a regular donor. I have grown trees, donated fans and water purifiers to the school. I am concerned about the children."

Karanvir claimed that his brother's son is a student studying at the school.While the teacher said she had brought the issue to the notice of the DEO, Karanvir said he would take the matter to the DGSE.The matter was brought to the notice of the police; so far no complaint has been registered.

Head teacher Paramjit Kaur could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.

DEO Kuldeep Sharma said, "Any interference in a school's working by outsiders will not be tolerated. I have taken cognizance of the matter and due action will be taken."

The DEO said, "The matter will be brought to the notice of the DGSE and we will act according to his instructions."

Jalandhar, May 20
Sonali Sharma, president of the district segment of the SSA/RMSA/CSS Teachers Union, Punjab, today submitted a memorandum regarding the union's demands to Nakodar MLA Gurpartap Singh Wadala.

Sharma along with parents of the CSS teachers and members of the state committee and other district heads of the union demanded that the Hindi CSS teachers arrested at Bathinda be released unconditionally.

"Parents and families of some of the teachers in jail were in dire straits since their arrest on May 1, 2013," they said.

Cases of such teachers include Ankush, a teacher from Ludhiana district, whose father is ill and wife is pregnant. Teacher Neeru from Hoshiarpur is also the sole support for her mother who is sick while her elderly father is unable to tend to her in Neeru's absence.

Parents said it was unfair on the part of the government to lock up teachers like criminals for making genuine demands.

District president Saloni requested the MLA to look into their demands and speak to CM Parkash Singh Badal whenever he meets him.

Their demands include unconditional release of arrested teachers, release of 13-month pending salary of CSS teachers, regularisation of SS teachers and permission to meet the CM.

Jalandhar, May 20
The cast and crew of “Jatts in Golmaal” was in the city to promote their film. “Jatts in Golmaal will tickle your funny bone and leave you in riot of laughter,” said Gurpreet Ghuggi.

The actors of the flick, Aarya Babbar and Sameksha, said, “The movie’s genre is comedy. It is full of best one-liners and laughter scenes.”

The film is set to hit theatres on May 24.

Directed by Ksshitij Chaudhary, it stars Aarya Babbar, Sameksha, Jaswinder Bhalla, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Binnu Dhillon, Karamjit Anmol, Sardar Sohi and Harpreet Johal among others.

The story, screenplay and dialogues have been given by Naresh Kathooria (Carry on Jatta fame). The music has been composed by Jatinder Shah, who had already composed music for films like Mirza, Jatt and Juliet, Singh v/s Kaur and Carry on Jatta). The lyrics are by Raj Kakra, Veet Baljit and Kumar.

The film is releasing under the banner of the HM Music and has been produced by Manmohan Singh Jandu, Harveen Singh, Harpreet Singh, Jasbir Singh and co-produced by the Lovely Group and Ranbir Singh Atwal.

“In the movie, Aarya Babbar is a protagonist who wants to fly back to Canada by hook or crook. All the confusion and comedy of errors that evolves during his journey forms the crux of the movie,” said Sameksha.

Jaswinder Bhalla will take audience by surprise portraying a character he has never played before.

The film will see playbacks by Mika, Sukhwinder Singh, Roshan Prince and Sunidhi Chauhan. Veena Malik will be also be seen in a Punjabi song for the first time.

Phagwara, May 20
Maan Singh Namdhari (10), a Class V student, drowned into the Sutlej near Phillaur last night.

He had gone to the bridge on the river along with his parents to immerse some wheat and rice in the river as a remedy told to him by an astrologer. Mohan Singh, a resident of Shiv Puri, said his son could not spot a gap on the footpath of the bridge and fell into the river. He raised an alarm to save his son from drowning and informed the police. The rescue operation by the Phillaur and Ladhowal police could not save the boy and even the divers could not locate the boy till late last night. — OC

Phagwara, May 20
Three trolleys of wood were reduced to ashes, while the tyres of a trolley were burnt in a fire, which broke out at the Dera of baba Shah Fateh Ali near here on Sunday. Fire tenders controlled the flames this afternoon. The cause of the fire could not be known.

In other three incidents of fire, heaps of wheat straw were reduced to ashes in the fields of Chachrarri, Samrali, and Mehtan villages on Sunday afternoon. Fire tenders from Phagwara and Jalandhar doused the fire after hard labour.