Bathinda, July 24
The failure of the Municipal Corporation of Bathinda (MCB) to de-silt main sewer and narrow sewers before the monsoon today cost dear to residents of the city.

Heavy rainfall on Wednesday flooded the low-lying areas in no time making a way for sewer-mixed rain water to enter houses and shops.

The GT Road, which also carries the trunk sewer system of the entire city, soon turned into a rivulet. Water entered the low-lying shops near the bus stand, while the roads of the entire Civil Lines area were submerged under the rain water.

A motor used for pumping out sewer water was soon put to task on Power House Road, but the water could not be drained even after two hours of the downpour.

Had the main sewer been de-silted, the problem of waterlogging could have been solved to an extent. However, of the Rs 3.5-crore outsourced work on de-silting sewer awarded to Bali Boy Constructions, Panchkula, only 15 per cent has been completed.

Municipal Commissioner Uma Shankar Gupta said the work was to be completed in a year. “With the de-silting work started nearly four months ago, around 25 per cent of the cleaning work should have been completed by now, but the company has been slow in executing the project,” he said.

Gupta said the corporation had served show-cause notices on the company which had lesser number of trained experts than required to run the project.

Not only the main sewer, but even the smaller sewer lines in the city have not been de-silted properly. The de-silting of the main sewer has been outsourced, but the sewer lines in the city are to be cleaned by 150 employees of the Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board (PWSSB).

Officials of the civic body said PWSSB employees had not been working efficiently. During one of the visit to Guru Nanakpura area on Monday, the MCB team found manholes full of silt, despite the PWSSB employees claiming that they have completed the cleaning work.

Similarly, residents of the Paras Ram Nagar area alleged that despite their plea, the sewer lines in the area had not been de-silted.

“Two months ago, we have given a written representation requesting that sewer lines in our area be cleaned. Nothing was done and today’s downpour led to rain water entering the shops near the State Bank of Patiala branch,” said Vijay Kumar, a resident of Paras Ram Nagar.

Two pumping machines installed at the Thandi Sarak pumping station pump out water from Paras Ram Nagar, Railway Colony, Jogi Nagar and Pratap Nagar. The MCB officials said the machines stopped working for a while due to a power cut, but soon resumed operations after the gensets were put on.

The Sirki Bazar area was the worst affected where soon after the downpour, shopkeepers had to drain out rain water from their shops.

Similarly, Mal Goda Road, Post Office Bazaar, Amrik Singh Road, GT Road from Civil Hospital to Hanuman Chowk and Power House remained flooded.

In the Gurukul Nagar area, where new sewer pipes have been laid, the area remained waterlogged. Area municipal councillor Jagrup Singh Gill said the contractor, who laid sewer, did not remove its plugs and neither cleared the manholes before commissioning it.

“We have got three plugs removed after the commission of the project in the area, but the problem of waterlogging still persists,” he said.

Bathinda, July 24
As many as 44 private schools in the district have been issued a warning by the District Education Officer for upgrading their infrastructure to meet all the parameters laid under the Right To Education (RTE) Act, 2009, in a week’s time.

The schools were found to be lacking during an inspection conducted on July 18. A total of 328 schools of the district were checked. As many as 273 schools in the district were found to have met all the rules and regulations, 11 were found to have closed down on their own during the months intervening April 1 and July 18.

“The schools which have been served the warnings either lack ramps for the students with special needs or don’t have proper toilet facilities or other important facility for students. The schools have been given a week’s time to put their act together. These schools will be inspected again and those found lacking during the second inspection as well will be asked to close down,” said Amarjit Kaur Kotfatta, DEO (elementary education).

The Education Department had earlier, in March, inspected as many as 422 schools in the district. Out of these 94 schools lacked several of the important facilities and hence, were asked to close. Some of the remaining 328 schools, which did not meet some rules, were given conditional affiliation on March 31.

“We decided to check all the 328 schools again to see if they had infrastructure required for a school under the RTE Act. The schools which are found to be lacking during the inspection next week will lose their affiliation,” the DEO said.

Among other parameters, the teams will check whether the ground on which the schools are built are registered in the name of the school or not, whether they have fire safety certificates, building safety certificates and trained teaching staff members or not.

As per the RTE Act, the schools should have separate bathrooms for the girls and boys, proper rooms for laboratory and office of the head of the school, students should be charged fee according to the rates set by the government etc.

The schools should also meet the student-teacher and student-classroom ratio as per the RTE Act, make toilets, seats, portable water, playground available to the students, ramp facility for the students with special needs, a library with furniture and adequate stock of books, 25 per cent seats reserved for students belonging to the financially backward section and a boundary wall to ensure safety of the schools.

Bathinda, July 24
As many as 1,653 newborn girls of poor families of Bathinda district would be benefited from the Bebe Nanki Laadli Beti scheme in its first phase. The scheme was launched this financial year to improve sex ratio in the state.

Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishor Yadav said under the scheme, a financial aid of Rs 61,000 would be given to the girl child from time to time till she attains the age of 18 years. Only the girls who were born after January 1, 2011 and whose families were having annual income of Rs 30,000 would be entitled for benefits of the scheme.

He further said an amount of Rs 2,100 each would be given at the time of birth, attaining age of three years with complete vaccination, attaining age of six years with admission to class I and attaining age of 14 years with admission to class IX.

Finally, when the girl child will attain age of 18 years with admission to senior secondary (class XII) she will be provided a sum of Rs 31,000. A scholarship of Rs 100 per month from class I to VI and Rs 200 per month from class VII to senior secondary will also be given to the beneficiary child.

Yadav said the scheme had been launched keeping in view the poor economic condition of the families concerned. The financial assistance accorded to the families would help them encourage girls to go for higher studies.

Moreover, these families would have not to worry about the girl child’s upbringing as the help by the government would be enough for catering her future needs till the completion of 18 years’ age, the DC claimed.

He said there would be no bar, even if the family had a girl child earlier too. Even the newborn girls abandoned after January 1, 2011 and growing up in orphanages and children homes would also be covered under the scheme.

District Programme Officer Shashi Tyagi said blue cards issued by the State Food Supply Department would be acceptable as proof of income from these families to get benefit.

She said 265 applications had been received from the Bathinda Block, 283 from Maur, 312 from Nathana, 102 from Phul, 306 from Sangat, 92 from Bhagta, 246 from Talwandi Sabo and 47 from Rampura. All these applications had been forwarded to the state government for its approval. She said applicants must bring blue card and birth certificate with them. Anybody could file the application for getting the benefit of the scheme within two years of the birth of the girl child.

Bathinda, July 24
The students of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of the Punjab Technical University Giani Zail Singh campus (GZS-PTU), Bathinda, have completed the project regarding the e-governance web modules assigned by the Directorate of Technical Education and Industrial Training, Punjab (DTE&IT).

It took four students almost ten months to complete the project. The DTE&IT chose the students of PTU GZS campus for the project. The students, Rahul Garg (team leader), Manmeet Singh, Pankaj Arora and Ekta Khippal, implemented the project to the satisfaction of the DTE&IT.

Under the project, a website has been designed which handles all the information regarding students and staff details, accounts, placement, training, scholarship, infrastructure and leave, etc. of government and private polytechnic colleges of Punjab.

Through this website, all the colleges can send the information to the DTE&IT. This enables the DTE&IT to get the information with reliability and without any delay. This conversion of manual system to e-governance will save time, labour and paper work.

The hard work of these students was acknowledged and on July 15, the students were given appreciation letters by the Director, Technical Education and Industrial Training, Chandigarh.

Dr Paramjeet Singh of the faculty of Department of Computer Science Engineering was the coordinator of the project.

Campus director Dr Jasbir Singh Hundal supported the team. He said the students working on such real life problems have more confidence and are more employable than the others.

Bathinda, July 24
The Punjabi University Campus, Maur, marked the beginning of its fifth academic session 2013-14. Dr Manjit Singh, coordinator, neighbourhood campuses, Punjabi University, Patiala, was the chief guest on the occasion while ML Garg, superintendent engineer (SE), Irrigation Department, was the special guest.

Dr DK Madaan, principal of Maur campus, welcomed the guests and said the campus has been running BCA, MCA, PGDCA, M.Sc (IT), B.Com (P), MBA (IC), MBA and BA (Girls) courses. He added that the campus has been of great help in improving female literacy rate in Bathinda district as close to 81 per cent of the students in some of the courses at the campus are girls.

Addressing the gathering, Garg laid emphasis on personality development and co-curricular activities. He also assured the students of help in their placement and personality development workshops.

Dr Manjit Singh welcomed the new students to the institution and laid stress on acquiring quality education which will be of great help in boosting their career. He said the students should lay emphasis on acquiring knoeledge.

Bathinda, July 24
Unable to collect the dues of sewer and water bills and house tax on time, the Municipal Corporation of Bathinda (MCB) has extended the last date of paying for the facilities to August 31.

Earlier the last date of paying taxes was fixed at May 31 after which the pending bills were to be taken with penalty or interest.

In a press statement issued here today, Municipal Commissioner Uma Shankar Gupta said the consumers would not have to pay any interest or penalty, if they pay the pending taxes by August 31. “The obstinate consumers do not want to pay for the services they avail. Despite holding several rounds of campaign for sensitising the people on the issue, a small number of people have turned up to pay the bills,” said officials of the civic body.

Of 65,000 households in the city, only 15,000 have legal connections from which revenue of Rs 2.5 crore to Rs 3 crore is collected every month. However, the collection and subsequent income of the MCB could be higher if all the connection holders pay their dues. — TNS

Bathinda, July 24
As many as 142 patients were provided free consultation during the cancer detection and prevention camp held at Max Super Speciality Hospital. People availed of free consultation with the specialists besides undergoing various cancer screening tests like sonography, chest X-ray, ultrasound, stool, urine and spit examination.

A team of experts from Max Hospital comprising surgical oncologist Dr VP Kalra, radiation oncologists Dr Rajesh Vashistha and Dr Manjinder Singh Sidhu counselled the people for cancer-related concerns and educated them about the significance of early detection of disease.

Dr Aniruddha Suranglikar, General Manager, Operations, said with the aid of medical technology, the fight against cancer has become accomplishable. However, people need to be educated to prevent it. — TNS

Bathinda, July 24
Maa Shakti Mahila Mandal, an NGO in Model Town phase I, today donated Rs 1.51 lakhs for the victims of the Uttarakhand tragedy.

The NGO today gave a cheque for Rs 1.51lakhs to the Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishore Yadav. Yadav appreciated the efforts of the NGO in helping the people in distress. President of the NGO, Anita Goyal said the money was collected through donations from different people.

Bathinda, July 24
Singer-turned-actor Jazzy B’s live performance in Bathinda on Tuesday night was marred by a star-struck crowd. The singer performed at Jaipalgarh village in Bathinda as a part of the promotional campaign for his first film, ‘Best of Luck’.

The singer’s fans had started queuing up outside the venue since 6 pm and eagerly waited for the live performance by not only Jazzy B but also Gippy Garewal who also stars in the film.

After a long wait the singers, along with the film’s actress Simran Kaur Mundi, finally arrived at the venue. While Gippy’s fans had to settle with his pleasantries, Jazzy B was all set to enthral the audience.

Jazzy B began his performance by paying a tribute to his mentor, Kuldeep Manak. He also made his love for his guru loud and clear with the t-shirt that he wore.

He also made his love for his guru loud and clear with the t-shirt that he wore. The shirt had the face of the legendary singer etched on it and it read ‘Ustad Manak Ji’.

As he started performing at 9.30 pm and belting out some of his chartbusters, the crowd, largely comprising of youngsters, went crazy. They sang along, cheered him on, whistled and applauded his performances.

Shockingly, the star-struck persons from the audience jostled to get clicked with the singer while his performance was midway. Figuring out that they didn’t stand a chance in the crowd, some climbed atop the stage to be clicked with him. Many had brought their children along who also wanted to be clicked.

Realising that even his bouncers had failed to manage the crowd, the singer a humble request to everyone to let him perform but the crowd had other plans. After a few clicks here and a few clicks there, the singer was whisked away by his bouncers. 

Bathinda, July 24
The state-level inter-school sports competitions will be held on July 29-30 and August 1 in Bathinda. The teams bagging the first and second positions in various sports at the zonal competitions will be participating in the state-level competitions.

The zonal competitions for various sports were held on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday across the the district. In the city, the competitions were organised at the multipurpose sports stadium besides other places.

The results of the competitions are as under:

Bathinda Zone 1: Under-14 (Boys) volleyball: 1st position: Government senior secondary school, Kotshamir; 2nd position: Government senior secondary school, Phus Mandi

Under-19 (Boys) Volleyball: 1st position: Government senior secondary school, Kotshamir; 2nd position: Government senior secondary school, Gulabgarh

Under-19 (Boys) Kabaddi national circle: 1st position: Government senior secondary school, Gulabgarh: 2nd position: Government senior secondary school, Multania

Under-14 (Boys) table tennis: 1st position: Millennium School; 2nd position: Sri Guru Harkrishan Public School, Bathinda

Under-14 (Girls) table tennis: 1st position: MSD Senior Secondary School, Santpura; 2nd position: Sri Guru Harkrishan Public School, Bathinda

Under-14 (Boys) Chess: 1st position: Sri Guru Harkrishan Public School, Bathinda: 2nd position: MSD Senior Secondary School, Santpura

Under-14 (Girls) Chess: 1st position: Sri Guru Harkrishan Public School, Bathinda; 2nd position: DAV Public School

Under-19 (Boys) Chess: 1st position: RBDAV Public School, Bathinda; 2nd position: Shri Guru Harkrishan Public School, Bathinda

Bathinda Zone 2: Under-19 (Girls) badminton: 1st position: Baba Farid School, Bathinda; 2nd position: Baba Farid Senior Secondary School, Deon

Under-19 (Boys) badminton: 1st position: Baba Farid Senior Secondary School, Deon; 2nd position: Baba Farid School, Bathinda

Under-19 (Girls) Handball: 1st position: St Joseph Convent School, Bathinda: 2nd position: Baba Farid Senior Secondary School, Deon

Under-19 (Girls) table tennis: 1st position: MSD Senior Secondary School, Bathinda; 2nd position: Baba Farid Senior Secondary School, Deon

Under-19 (Boys) Football: 1st position: Police Public Senior Secondary School, Bathinda; 2nd position: Baba Farid Senior Secondary School, Deon.

Under-19 (Boys) Dodgeball: 1st position: Government Senior Secondary School, Bir Talab; 2nd position: Baba Farid Senior Secondary School, Deon

Under-14 (Boys) Kabaddi; 1st position: Government Elementary School, Baho Yatri; 2nd position: Government Elementary School, Chandsar Basti

Bathinda, July 24
A man, posing as the station house officer (SHO) of the Civil Lines police station, U Cee Chawla, was arrested with his accomplice for threatening sales officer of Hindustan Petroleum.

In his complaint lodged with the civil lines police station, senior sales officer, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Anurag Lakra stated that Gaurav Chaudhary from Vishal Nagar and Pradeep Kohli from Sundar Nagar of Hisar had called him on his mobile phone on July 14 to enquire about his relation with one of his female tenants.

Anurag told the police he told Pradeep that the tenant was like a sister to him. Thereafter, Anurag again got a call on July 23 from Pradeep wherein he posed as the SHO Civil Lines, U Cee Sharma, and asked Anurag to report at the police station. He also allegedly threatened Anurag.

The police has booked a case against them under Sections 419 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code.