Amritsar, July 25
The Municipal Corporation (MC), Amritsar, has contemplated replacing conventional streetlights with energy efficient LED lights. The move coincides with the expiry of the contract for the maintenance of streetlights in the city.

The project is going to be a reality soon, as the mandatory nod from the House has been obtained. The project will encompass the replacement of about 15,000 streetlight points with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) based on energy efficienct equipment.

Under the pilot project, the areas identified are Lawrence Road, Civil Lines, Sub division wards 8, 9, 11, 21, 22, 49, 50, 51, and 52.

Officials said the "energy savers" installed in the existing tubelight transmissions had outlived their lives and there was no rationale to replace these.

Mayor Bakshi Ram Arora said these energy savers were installed around seven years ago. Instead of replacing them, we decided to introduce the latest and much efficient system of streetlighting in the city.

“If we talk about the savings, say for the existing streetlight points at the Civil Lines and Lawrence road sub-division areas, we would be saving at least 672.78 kilowatt units. This implies that there would be a net saving of Rs 8.47 lakh per month on power bill. Definitely for the whole city, the savings would be multi fold,” he said.

“At present, we are installing this new technique on an experimental basis. If the trial run is conducted successfully, we could replace all streetlights with the energy efficient ones LED lights,” he added.

MC Commissioner DPS Kharbanda said the MC would not have to spend a single penny on this project. “Whatever savings we could obtain through LEDs, the 90 per cent of this would go to the firm hired for the job and 10 per cent to the MC’s kitty. Above all, the electricity bill, too, would be borne by the firm itself. This contract would be given for 10-12 years. If it succeeds, we will extend it to the whole city. It would be the liability of the firm for maintenance. Moreover, the streetlights which would be replaced with LED lights in a phased manner would also be the MC’s property,” he clarified.

Meanwhile, officials have been instructed to take the measurements and prepare a report. On the basis of this report, the tenders for hiring the firms would be floated.

Technically, officials would have to replace the existing sodium vapour lamps with mercury vapour because each existing bulb is of 250 watts.

Amritsar, July 25
While the Municipal Corporation's house tax department has expedited its exercise for the recovery of house tax dues from the defaulters, it has failed to recover a whopping Rs 10 crore from government offices like police and education departments. Now, it is planning to renew its efforts in this regard.

In a step to realise the house tax dues from the defaulters, the MC’s house tax wing has renewed its efforts to recover the "dead amount" to the tune of a whopping Rs 10 crore.

This amount has to be recovered from government offices like the departments of forest, police, education and other government-run institutes. Besides, most of the properties have either changed hands or have been demolished, which was posing a hindrance in tracing their case history.

An amount of around Rs 24 crore was the total House tax recovery target, out of which around half the amount has yet to be recovered.

House Tax Superintendent Shushant Bhatia said around Rs 2 crore had been recovered and a strategy was being chalked out to recover the major amount of Rs 10 crore for which there were negligible recovery chances earlier.

“We are going to issue them fresh notices. Those who deposit the amount up to August 31 would not be charged any interest, whereas the others would be imposed interest rate between 13-18 per cent as penalty for the non-payment of dues after this date”, he said. It has been learnt that over 1,500 cases of "objections" have been lying pending before the house tax sub-committee.

Amritsar, July 25
The Kotwali police station arrested three alleged criminals in two separate cases here today.

Sukhiwnder Singh Randhawa, SHO, Kotwali police station, said Raghu Kumar, a resident of Guru Nanak Pura, was arrested along with 100 capsules of habit-forming drugs.

In the second instance, Pritpal Singh, a resident of Lalu Ghuman village, and Pankaj, a resident of Batala road, were arrested along with a stolen bike and 80 capsules of proscribed drugs. The police also seized four mobile phones from their possession.

The SHO said the accused had confessed their involvement in 10 cases of theft and loot which they had executed in the Galliara area around Golden Temple, Attari border and railway station areas, where a huge number of tourists come to watch the Retreat Ceremony. Investigations revealed that the accused had recently come on parole from the jail.

Meanwhile, the Amritsar (Rural) police has nabbed three persons, identified as Jaspal Singh of Bhagtupura village, Gurmit Singh of Sarangra and Baljit Sing of Usma village, with narcotic substances. — TNS

Amritsar, July 25
The Civil Lines police has booked a head constable posted in Tarn Taran district for allegedly using criminal force against a woman for outraging her modesty.

The incident occurred at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital, where her brother was admitted for treatment. The victim’s brother, Sahib Singh, was lodged in Amritsar Central Jail under the Excise Act and was admitted to the hospital for treatment.

The victim, a resident of Jhabal (Tarn Taran), told the police that the accused head constable, identified as Major Singh, was deputed with the jail guard to keep an eye on him. She was attending to her brother in the hospital.

She alleged that the accused was in an inebriated condition and made advances towards her. She said when she resisted his attempts, the accused abused and physically assaulted her. She alleged that he caught hold of her from her hair and pushed her down. She said when she shouted, the accused fled from the scene.

Gagandeep Singh, in charge, Majitha road police, said a case under Section 354-B of the IPC had been registered against the policeman. He said he was deputed along with another policeman to keep an eye on Sahib Singh. While his accomplice was absent from duty, he came on duty in a drunk state.

New constructions juxtaposed with centuries-old buildings in Amritsar are a common sight. Photo: Vishal Kumar

Heritage status

The gradual pulling down of houses, markets and areas in the name of development is diluting the city's claim to get the world heritage status

Amritsar, July 25
Deputy Commissioner Rajat Aggarwal and senior police officials today appeared before the National SC Commission's vice-chairman, Rajkumar Verka, in various cases.

The commission directed the city police commissioner to probe the cylinder-blast case which had led to the death of two children in Maqboolpura area last month. Family members of the victims had approached the commission while alleging that the incident resulted due to negligence of employees of an illegal gas agency operating in the area.

Sawinder Kaur, a family member, had alleged that the accused, who is the owner of the gas agency, had assured to bear expenses of the treatment of the six family members, who sustained serious burn injuries in the blast that occurred on June 4.

She told the commission that the two employees of the agency came to their residence on June 4 for refilling the gas cylinder. While Goldy remained outside the house, Paramjit Singh and Laddi came inside for the refill. She said she asked them to stop immediately, but they said nothing would happen. Meanwhile, Laddi lighted a cigarette which led to the blast. Besides Ranbir (2), Amanbir (1), Shivdarshan (4), Luxmi (6), Jyoti (25) and her mother Chhindo, Laddi also sustained burn injuries, she added. Shivdarshan and Amanbir died on June 9.

Amritsar, July 25
Prof Rakesh Kumar Mahajan from the Department of Chemistry of the Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) has been awarded bronze medal by the Chemical Research Society of India (CRSI), Bangalore. This medal would be conferred on Prof Mahajan in recognition of his contributions and research in the field of chemistry.

Prof S Chandrasekaran, president, CRSI, said Prof Mahajan would receive this award in the forthcoming annual meeting of the society during the 16th National Symposium in Chemistry (NSC-16) which is scheduled to be held at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, from February 6 to February 9, 2014.

Prof Mahajan would present an invited talk to highlight his current research activities. Earlier, the Indian Chemical Society bestowed him with PK Bose Memorial Award-2009, at the Annual Convention of Chemists, Raipur in December 2010.

He has been a visiting scientist to several foreign countries, including Italy, Japan, Spain and South Korea and also delivered numerous invited talks and tutorials in various national and international conferences. He has the honour of being a chairperson for many technical sessions at several workshops and conferences. His organisational skills have been well manifested in the form of convener, organising secretary and chairman in many conferences/ seminars/ workshops.

Amritsar, July 25
The Punjab Technical University (PTU) has adopted three technical institutions -ITI Ranjit Avenue, Government Institute of Garment Technology and Mai Bhago Government Polytechnic College (Girls) -in the city.

A decision in this regard was taken after a meeting between Punjab Technical Education Minister Anil Joshi and PTU Vice-Chancellor Dr Rajneesh Arora. Talking about the arrangement, Joshi said the PTU would boost basic infrastructure and facilitate teaching staff, besides initiating new courses from time to time.

He said the PTU would start BSc (Fashion Designing) course for girls at the Government Institute of Garment Technology on Majitha road, which would prove beneficial for local girls. He said a centre of excellence had been set up at the ITI Ranjit Avenue where a course on tourism would be launched which would train the students in tourism management, besides developing English language skills in them. He said the ITI would also enter into a tie-up with the SGPC and the city hotels so that they could be provided guides for helping tourists get acquainted with the city’s rich culture and heritage. He said the PTU was also launching a technical course for Armymen so that they could avail job opportunities after retirement. He said the government was making concerted efforts to ensure that more and more youth attain technical education and get jobs.

Amritsar, July 25
Employees of various state government departments are awaiting salaries for the month of June.

“All transactions were stopped after July 11 on verbal orders. Though no such orders have been received in written, the payments have been stopped,” said an employee from one of the departments of the district administration, wishing anonymity.

Water supply, electricity and telephone bills of government institutions, too, had been stopped. Instead of solving financial crisis, the move would increase the burden as the water supply, electricity and telephone departments would charge a fine on the bills after the due date, said another employee.

Other employee said, “Many employees have failed to get salaries as the district treasury does not have funds for the same. We are facing a problem in managing our monthly expenses. At least, the state government should ensure that all employees get their salaries on time.”

DC Office Employees Association president Asunil Kumar said many employees do not have any other source of income, except salary. “They have to borrow money for the tuition fees of their children, besides running the household activities.” The salaries should be disbursed as soon as possible.

Punjab Ministerial Staff Association general secretary Jagdish Thakur said few employees had brought the issue of non-disbursement of salaries to the notice of the associations.

He said in lieu of the services provided by the government employees, the state government should ensure that the employees get their salaries on time.

Meanwhile, officials of the district treasury said the problem would be solved with in two or three days and all pending bills would be cleared on priority basis.