Anti-Drugs Day
Giving new life to drug addicts
Amritsar, June 25
Within a couple of years, Swami Vivekanand Drug De-addiction Centre, situated at Government Medical College here, has succeeded in evacuating hundreds of youth of the district out of the web of drug addiction and also rehabilitating them.

The official notification and the stipulated norms copy is yet to be received from the government. But looking at the policy outline, we expect to collect around Rs 100 crore. The aim of the policy is to provide basic civic amenities to residents of these areas and improve the circulation pattern of the streets and roads, thereby having a check on the trend of the haphazard growth. Once a colony is approved, it offers many civic amenities and services like roads, sewerage, streetlights and other works
— Bhupinder Singh, MC Commissioner

Amritsar, June 25
Officials of the Excise and Taxation Department here today confiscated 5 kg of pearls, 32 pieces of diamond-studded gold rings and 5 kg of saffron, all worth about Rs 58.70 lakh, from one Vipan Kumar of Mumbai.

Assistant Excise and Taxation Commissioner Amritsar-cum-Deputy Director Investigation Hardeep Bhanwra said sleuths of the department, on a tip-off, detained Vipan Kumar after he left the railway station without informing the office of the Excise and Taxation Department functioning over there.

As per the state government rules, 6.05 per cent tax is applicable on saffron, while 1.1 per cent on valuable items like gold, gems and pearls.

The detained person claimed that he owned all merchandise and was here to deliver these to the traders. Later, his questioning revealed that he was an employee of a private courier company. He came in Frontier Mail and was heading to deliver the consignment.

The tentative cost of these items in the market is about Rs 45 lakh of 5 kg pearls, Rs 11 lakh of 32 pieces of diamond-studded rings and Rs 1.80 lakh of 2 kg original saffron and about Rs 90,000 of 3 kg saffron packed in small pouches used for "puja".

The entire material was being ferried without documents. Vipan had neither produced the sale and purchase bill nor filed electronic information collection (EIC). It appeared to be a case of tax evasion. Dealers of the precious and costly objects did not inform the excise and taxation department before transporting these items to Punjab.

As per the excise and taxation laws of the state, any material worth more than Rs 2 lakh, being transported in the state by road, rail or by air, needed to be disclosed in advance to the Excise Department through the EIC available on its website.

Traders resort to these illegal practices to evade tax (a nominal 1.1 per cent on the value of the product). But if the tax violation is detected, the owners have to shell out a penalty of 51.1 per cent of the value of the confiscated material.

The modus operandi of delivering the precious metals and stones seemed similar to the "angariya" system, akin to the hawala system. The "angariya" system is very popular in the western part of the country.

Amritsar, June 25
Two undertrials lodged in Amritsar Central Jail were nabbed by the jail authorities for possessing narcotics and mobile phone on the jail premises today.

Sukhwinder Singh, alias Sonu, son of Tarsem Singh and a resident of Jandiala Guru, Amritsar, was caught at the visitor’s room with 5 gm of intoxicant powder.

Deputy Superintendent RK Sharma said the accused was standing at the door of the visitor’s room and intended to get back to barracks with the intoxicant powder. “On his suspicious actions, the jail guards present there frisked him and recovered a packet of intoxicant powder from him," he said.

A case under Sections 22/61/85 NDPS Act, 42 Prisoner Act was registered against him with the Cantonment police station.

In another instance, undertrial Jatinder Singh, alias Sonu, son of Ajit Singh and resident of Hawlian Rajataal, was nabbed with a mobile phone while he was loitering inside the jail premises.

He was caught with a Nokia-make mobile phone having Airtel SIM and battery. He was hanging around near the temple located inside the jail premises. The jail guards detected his suspicious activities and recovered the mobile phone from him.

A fresh case under Sections 420 IPC, 42 Prisoner Act 1994 was registered with the Cantonment police station in this regard.

Amritsar, June 25
Within a couple of years, Swami Vivekanand Drug De-addiction Centre, situated at Government Medical College here, has succeeded in evacuating hundreds of youth of the district out of the web of drug addiction and also rehabilitating them.

The number of outpatient drug addicts and follow ups, who were once admitted at the centre, has been growing in all these years. The figure was 173 from August 28, 2011 to December 31, 2012. It rose to 3,667 from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012 and went to 5,418 between January 1, 2013 and May 31, 2013.

The fast-growing figures point towards a wide spread of the problem and a keen desire to come out of the grip of drugs.

The 50-bed centre was constructed at a cost of Rs 4 crore by the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board in February 2011. As many as 1,754 drug addicts have been treated since the inception of the centre.

Centre In charge Dr PD Garg said the centre was separately running an Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST) Centre, which treats “injecting drug users” on the college premises. Around 706 patients were registered with the centre, which was functioning under the guidelines of National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) and Punjab State Aids Control Society. Of these, 250 patients are regularly visiting the centre and are administered medicines which fall under the NDPS Act.

Punjab has the highest number of HIV patients who contract the disease through injections used by drug addicts. Ironically, the holy city of Amritsar topped this category.

Keeping this in view, NACO had also established the first OST centre here at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital in 2010.

Persons addicted to heroin and smack constituted a whopping 34 per cent of all drug users coming to the centre. He said mostly people aged 15 to 45 years used drugs and most of them were from rural areas adjoining the border.

The centre is also providing the inmates free uniforms and food besides giving them some monetary benefits on daily basis, through the NGOs associated with it.

Rehabilitation is considered the most important process of completely weaning away drug addicts from the menace. Trading this policy, 20 fully de-addicted youth, who belonged to economically weaker sections, were employed security guards and safari karamcharis.

Amritsar, June 25
The police has arrested two more persons and recovered Rs 22 lakh from them in connection with the robbery of Rs 67.50 lakh from the parents of aspiring medical students outside Sri Guru Ram Das Medical College at Vallah.

The police has till now identified 16 members of the gang who lured people with the promise to help them in getting seats in the medical college under the management quota.

The police so far has claimed to have arrested 10 of them. ADCP (Crime) HS Brar said the arrested persons had been identified as Nishan Singh and Joginder Singh.

Brar said the mastermind behind the loot Sukbir Singh, a resident of Sarai Bodal village had already been arrested. He said the absconding accused would be arrested soon.

The incident had occurred on June 1, when the accused had robbed Parminderjit Singh, a resident of Ludhiana of the money. Parminder had informed the police that he had come in contact with the accused through an advertisement in a newspaper and had visited their office in Mohali. On June 1, the accused asked Parminder to hand over the money at a tea-stall outside the college.

Brar said the accused had planned to rob the money and had intentionally called Parminder and three other families to the place.

Amritsar, June 25
A 21-day refresher course in Research Methodology in Social Sciences concluded here today at the Academic Staff College of the Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU). As many as 31 university and college teachers from all over India participated in it.

Prof Arun Kumar Grover, Vice-Chancellor, Panjab University, Chandigarh, was the Chief Guest at the valedictory session. Prof Grover highlighted the utility of the courses run by the Academic Staff Colleges for the teachers, particularly those working in the rural belt.

He said though the state universities had potential but it would take a few decades for them to come at par with the leading universities of the world. He advised the teachers to rise to the occasion and translate the dreams of visionaries like Prof Yash Pal, Prof Jahangir Bhabha and others into reality.

Prof Kuldip Singh, Head, Department of Political Science and Course Coordinator, hoped the course had succeeded in inspiring the participants to explore newer avenues in their respective disciplines.

Prof Reena Marwaha, Senior Consultant, Indian Council of Social Sciences Research, New Delhi, emphasised upon the significance of social sciences in the present era of science and technology.

Earlier, Prof Jaspal Singh Sandhu, Director, Academic Staff College and Prof Kuldip Singh, Course Coordinator, welcomed Prof Grover and Prof Marwaha respectively. Prof Sandhu said it was mandatory for the teachers in the present global scenario to keep themselves abreast with the latest developments in the field of research methodology.

Certificates were given away to the participants by the chief guest. Dr Mohan Kumar proposed the vote of thanks. 

Amritsar, June 25
The Punjab Heritage and Tourism Promotion Board (PHTPB) has put forth a proposal to construct a Phulkari museum and an open-air restaurant at the historical Rambagh Gate.

The PHTPB has recently finished the restoration of the Gate, which was constructed during the reign of legendary Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

PHTPB chief general manager, Brig Charanjit Singh (retd) said among the gates of the walled city, the Ram Bagh gate was built during the reign of the Maharaja. “ The name of the gate was derived from the Ram Bagh palace, summer palace of the Maharaja, which is situated opposite the main entrance of the palace. He said the Ram Bagh gate used to serve as the shortest route from the palace to the Golden Temple.

The Gate and the adjoining building had been under the control of the Punjab Police and its office was located over there. After the approval of its restoration plan, the PHTPB got its occupation and restored and conserved it to its original form after consulting even rare old paintings lying in different museums, he said.

A proposal to set up an open-air restaurant atop the gate and a Phulkari museum underneath the main building has been forwarded. About 2,000 square feet area would be available for the restaurant, which would serve mouth-watering Punjabi cuisine to the visitors. Besides, two rooms are also available on the top floor which would be used for kitchen and other relevant purposes.

However, the PHTPB would have an uphill task in providing a smooth and trouble-free mobility to the tourists to the Gate, as the area around it remains choked with traffic throughout the day. Popular retail markets of dress material, vegetable, iron and steel made household items, sanitary and others are located in its vicinity. The bus stand is also not far way from the place. A majority of the visitors to the bus stand prefer to commute on this road, which further adds to the traffic chaos.

Charanjit Singh said the issue of traffic was already in their scheme of things. “A big roundabout existed just outside the Gate. A proposal to shorten it with a baradari-like structure has been mooted. Besides, I have learnt that a mobility plan of Amritsar has been prepared which would take care of road congestion and unobtrusive flow of traffic.” 

Amritsar, June 25
The Amritsar Physiotherapy Association (APA) organised a medical education session on Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy for physiotherapists in the city.

Dr Shalenderjit Singh, an orthopaedic surgeon, acted as the resource person of the session. He said platelet-rich plasma therapy was an emerging treatment in health sector which utilised the body's ability to heal itself. It was a non-surgical therapy in which injection of concentrated mixture of patient's own blood was given to relieve acute and chronic pain and accelerate healing of injured tissues and joints, he added.

Dr Rajesh Mahajan, president of APA, thanked Dr Singh or conducting the session for the benefit of medical fraternity.

Amritsar, June 25
The candidature of Paramjit Singh, for the Panchayat elections at Talwandi Malowal village, was cancelled in haste, after the reports of his being a proclaimed offender (PO) surfaced this evening.

Even as the last date of the securitisation process had lapsed last evening, this step was reportedly taken to avoid any discrepancy.

Defying this, the election officials maintained that Paramjit’s candidature was kept pending for want of getting clarification from the higher authorities.

Avneet Kumar, the returning officer, said “It cannot be called violation of stipulated norms. His case could not be rejected before receiving clarification from the court, the SDM and the concerned police station in charge and it was a time-consuming process. We rejected his papers the moment we received the negative report about him this evening”, he said.

A village resident and one of the contenders in the elections for Sarpanch seat, Daljit Singh had filed an objection with the returning officer over his candidature.

Paramjit had been declared a PO by the Amritsar Judicial Magistrate, First Class in November 2011.

Paramjit has filed his papers for the poll, slated for July 3 and had been canvassing for the votes in the village. It is ironical that the Block Development Officer (BDO) had given the accused a no objection certificate to contest the elections.

Amritsar, June 25
To promote Urdu language, the Department of Languages has decided to organise a free six-month course for the general public at its office near Sant Singh Sukha Singh School from July 1.

The holy city, which has produced noted Urdu writers like Sadaat Hasan Manto, A Hamid and Shiromani Sahitkar award recipient Sarvan Kumar Varma, is fast losing its Urdu-knowing population.

The daily circulation of newspapers of a language can be considered a criteria for judging the quantum of Urdu-knowing population. The city gets around 1,100 Urdu newspapers daily.

Subash Sehgal, who operates a newspaper agency, said “In 1986-87, there were around 3,500 copies being circulated, which declined to around 1,900 in 2000-01.” He said mostly, people above 60-65 years of age were the readers of Urdu newspapers these days.

Harnam Dass, a senior citizen, said “I have always read an Urdu newspaper. In our school days, Urdu was prominently taught and most of the students knew better Urdu than any other language.” He said the younger generation did not seem interested in learning the language as it was not a part of their curriculum at schools.

Dr Bhupinder Singh Mattu, District Languages Officer, said “The idea is to promote the language so that more people are able to read and write it.” He said the number of Urdu-reading people had gone down drastically over the past few decades.

Mattu said for the convenience of the office-going people, the class would be held in the evening. The class would be from 5: 15 pm to 6:15 pm. For joining the class, the aspirants would have to make a request to the Department of Languages office.

He said there was no age restriction for joining the course and people from any profession could join it.