Chandigarh, August 7
Even as detractors of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in the Haryana Congress have sharpened their attack against him for bias in development, it is Hooda who has managed to win the first round by cajoling Panipat (Urban) legislator Balbir Pal Shah. The Panipat MLA had submitted his resignation earlier this week, but has now decided to withdraw it after Hooda’s appeal.

Power Minister Capt Ajay Yadav today visited Shah at his Panipat residence and successfully persuaded him to take back his resignation that he had submitted to Speaker Kuldip Sharma last Sunday. Though, Yadav said he was on a personal visit to Shah’s residence, it is learnt that he was on a mission to pacify Shah and assure him on behalf of the Chief Minister that development works in his constituency will be undertaken on priority.

Captain Yadav tried to downplay his visit to Shah, saying it was a routine visit as both had been legislators for years. But after his visit, Shah appeared mellowed down and it was obvious that Capt Yadav played the conciliator and assured Shah on behalf of Hooda that his concerns would be addressed.

Shah has announced that he would not insist on his resignation being accepted, but at the same time he will not take the resignation back. “I did not try to threaten anyone by my resignation nor am I a blackmailer. I resigned because development works were not being undertaken in my constituency and I cannot betray people who have voted and supported me,” he told visiting mediapersons.

Five times MLA, Shah has been demanding that the work on Drain Number 1 should start immediately. Besides, he has been pressing for starting the work on the canal-based water supply to the city, disposal of sewerage water and for providing other civic amenities. Interestingly, a number of civic projects like repairing of roads, etc., have been completed without tendering and receiving work orders. The contractors are now asking for their money from Shah, while the BJP has demanded a vigilance probe into how work could be done without tenders.

On Tuesday, the Chief Minister, while calling Shah his elder brother, had urged him to reconsider his resignation. Today, Shah said since Hooda had called him brother, it was his duty to respond. “Therefore, I will leave it to the speaker to accept or reject my resignation.” But he made it amply clear that if his conditions were met, he would not press for his resignation. Shah, however, also announced that he would not contest the next Assembly Elections, but would remain in active politics.

On the other hand, Rajya Sabha MP Birender Singh has intensified preparations for the August 20 rally at Jind, where Congress President Sonia Gandhi is expected to participate. Birender Singh has continued to hit out at Hooda accusing him of “unequal development” in the state. He has rubbished the joint statement of ten party MLAs, who has said yesterday that their constituencies did not face any discrimination. Birender has questioned the validity of their joint statement.

Hisar, August 7
A day after Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda flaunted figures to claim judicious development across the state, his senior party colleague and Rajya Sabha MP Birender Singh refuted him by terming the figures misleading.

Birender Singh said: “The inflation went up steeply after 2004-05 and an explosive economic growth was seen afterwards. The state budget climbed from Rs 9,000 crore to Rs 24,000 crore during my tenure as Finance Minister, which was the best period for the state’s economy. The allocation of development funds, too, went up proportionate to the economic growth”, he stated. He demanded that the government should disclose the funds allocated to Rohtak, Jhajjar and Sonepat districts to get the real picture.

Sticking to his allegations of lopsided development, he said nine districts of the state had been neglected in terms of development during the present regime.

“The districts, including Panchkula, Ambala, Yamunanagar, Kaithal, Karnal, Jind, Kurukshetra, Panipat and Bhiwani have lagged behind in terms of development projects. The information procured under the RTI Act reveals that the Chief Minister announced 1,261 development works for Rohtak, while 60 for Panipat since 2005, which clearly indicates the sentiments of the people,” he said.

Justifying the dissenting voices being raised by Kumari Selja, Rao Inderjit Singh, Ishwar Sharma, Kiran Chaudhary, Balbir Pal Shah and others, Singh stated that their concern echoed the sentiments of people in their constituencies.

Karnal, August 7
Ministerial staff of the state government today observed a pen-down strike to press for their long-pending demands.

Among others, the ministerial staff demanded pay scales on par with Punjab.

Ministerial Staff Association general secretary Satish Sethi said employees of the government, boards, corporations and universities also took part in the strike. However, the government claimed that the routine government functioning was not affected.

Sethi said if the government failed to accept their demands, the association would organise a march towards the Vidhan Sabha on the second day of the coming session. At least one member of clerical staff from each office would participate in the march.

Sethi said, “The responsibilities and service rules are the same for the ministerial staff in Punjab and Haryana, but in Punjab the employees are drawing Rs 13,048 more per month.”

“When everything is equal, why Haryana is not implementing the Punjab scales," he said. He said despite having three rounds of talks with the Finance Minister, Financial Commissioner (Finance) and a meeting with the Chief Minister, their demands had not been accepted.

Kurukshetra, August 7
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) jointly took out a procession against killing of five soldiers along the border in Jammu and Kashmir and burnt the Pakistani flag near the old bus stand here today. They raised slogans against the provocative act and hoped that the Congress-led UPA governments would take a strict action against it. BJP district president Dhuman Singh Kirmach said Pakistan had many times violated the ceasefire agreement, which should not be tolerated.

Chandigarh, August 7
The online registration of the First Information Report (FIR) against persons involved in the theft of electricity is gaining momentum in the state, as 4,321 FIRs have been registered by the irrigation and power police stations since January.

Chairman and Managing Director, UHBVN and DHBVN, Devender Singh today said 2,255 FIRs had been registered in July alone, which is over 50 per cent of the FIRs registered during the past seven months. Earlier 99, 102, 111, 87, 494 and 1173 FIRs were registered in January, February, March, April, May and June, respectively.

He said the vigilance and enforcement wing has imparted training to the sub-divisional officers of Haryana Power Distribution Corporations regarding the prompt registration of FIRs online. Instructions had been issued to lodge FIRs online to avoid delay against the defaulters.

He said the Discoms plan to provide 1,000 laptops and printers to supervisory staff for on-the-spot action in such cases. Minimum three laptops and printers would be provided to each operation sub-division. A copy of checking report and the assessed amount will be given to the defaulting consumer immediately after detection of irregularity.

The Discoms have already fixed 12-hour time for lodging complaints or daily diary reports with the police. It will be the responsibility of the sub-divisional officer to report the theft in the stipulated time period failing which disciplinary action will be initiated against him.

He said adequate staff will be made available to the vigilance wing in a phased manner. Discoms will conduct special checking of petrol pumps, shopping malls, theatres, hospitals and other high value consumers. It is being planned to launch a state-level campaign to detect the cases of theft of electricity.

ADGP Mohinder Lal said that prompt registration of the cases of power theft will be ensured by police stations. Police and power department will jointly come forward for massive crack down to unearth the cases of theft of power.

Bhiwani, August 7
Even as the Haryana government has floated fresh tenders for printing textbooks for students of Classes I to VIII, the Mumbai-based publisher firm has held the Haryana Board of School Education (HBSE) responsible for the delay.

In a statement issued today, the firm - Printek Graphix (I) Pvt Ltd, alleged board officials did not cooperate with them and even supplied the relevant documents and CDs of the print matter late, leading to delay in supply of books.

“The firm got the purchase order on December 4, 2012. On March 6 this year, it the exemption certificate for text paper and cover paper. Due to delay in exemption certificate/approval for new paper mills, the paper price was hiked almost 20% in the market which was burden on the printing firm,” it stated. The firm further alleged that that CDs provided to it not was properly programmed or saved and to sort out the issues within a short period wasn’t possible. It is also alleged that advance payment against printed materials wasn’t released to it.

HBSE secretary Anshaj Singh, however, refuted the firm’s arguments stating that the delay was in cover page exemption certificate. Even from the day of furnishing the certificate, the firm failed to adhere to 90-day deadline.

He said board officials were misinformed about the stock of books in Rohtak godown as there was stock of fewer books then intimated by the printer. He said the board had served notice to cancel the entire work order of the firm and sent a communication to the firm in this regard.

Hisar, August 7
The number of MBBS seats in the state has risen to 800 now as compared to only 350 in 2005 and efforts were on to increase the number of seats in Medical College, Agroha, from 50 to 100.

This was stated by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda at a function to mark the 84th anniversary of late OP Jindal at Maharaja Aggarsen Medical College, Agroha, in Hisar today. Inaugurated the Rs 8-crore air-conditioned auditorium constructed in the memory of former state minister and noted industrialist OP Jindal, Hooda said the present state government had also increased the annual budget of this college to Rs. 172 crore which was only Rs. 23 crore in 2005. The chief minister said setting up of Rajiv Gandhi Education City, Bhagat Phool Singh Women University, Defence University in the State showed the sensitivity of the state government towards the areas of health and education.

He said setting up of prestigious educational institute like medical college in a backward area like Agroha was the indicative of the approach and extraordinary personality of Jindal.

Member of Parliament from Kurukshetra Naveen Jindal said his father late OP Jindal had always worked for the development of this area and prosperity of the common man.

Rewari, August 7
As many as 12 students of Government Girls High School, Gokalpur, at Kumbhawas village, near here, were taken ill after they were administered iron and folic acid tablets by the school authorities on Tuesday afternoon.

When the girls complained of stomach pain, giddiness and cramps, they were admitted to the local trauma centre this morning. Chief Medical Officer Dr Vijay Singh Yadav said the girls were under observation.

Yamunanagar/Ambala, August 7
Scheduled to start its first journey on August 9 from Ambala, the Ambala-Yamunanagar-Delhi Express train has been put on hold for an indefinite period after Union Minister Kumari Selja and the railway authorities locked horns over its timings.

The minister in a formal statement had recently announced that the train would leave Delhi at 5 pm, but the railway authorities claimed the departure timing to be 1.30 pm.

This led to some friction between the railway authorities and Selja, who had been instrumental in getting the train started for Ambala and Yamunanagar which are part of her parliamentary constituency. With the Lok Sabha elections approaching fast, it was being perceived as a major poll issue by the minister, sources said. Recently, the Union Minister had announced that the train would start plying on the Ambala-Yamunanagar-Delhi section from August 9. The minister had also asked the Ambala railway authorities to organise a function on August 9, where she was to flag off the train.

The sources said it was after the residents of her constituency demanded that the departure time from Delhi railway station be changed to 5 pm for the convenience of working passengers, whereas railway board fixed the time as 1:30 pm. As the matter could not be resolved, the launch of the train has been deferred.

Hisar, August 7
A delegation of victims of the violence in Mirchpur village submitted a memorandum of their demands to the Deputy Commissioner yesterday. The delegation demanded to provide them with basic facilities at the makeshift accommodation at a farmhouse near Hisar town.

The Dalits met District Development and Panchayat Officer Sumit Kumar in absence of the Deputy Commissioner and handed over charter of their demands, which included providing them good quality tents, gas connections, electricity, daily water supply, two quintals grain to each family as per the SC direction, discharge of rainwater from the farmhouse and to ensure admission of their children to the schools.

Meanwhile, a committee comprising Session Judge Ajay Jain and Shamim Modi of Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences recorded statements of around 30 more victims at the district courts complex.

Bhiwani/Faridabad, August 7
As many as nine persons were killed in separate road accidents in the state. Five persons, including a woman and two children, were killed when a truck collided with a jeep loaded with passengers near Golakpura village on the Tosham-Behl road in Bhiwani district today. All the five victims died on the spot. Four others were injured in the accident.

The accident took place when the jeep filled with passengers was going from Behl to Tosham.

A speeding truck coming from the opposite direction collided with the jeep. The truck driver escaped from the spot after the accident. The police took the bodies to the Community Health Centre, Loharu for postmortem. The victims have been identified as Sajjan Bansal, a resident of Issarwal village, his 2-year-old grandson Yash, jeep driver Ajay, Sunil and a woman, Sumitra, from Dhani Obra.

Meanwhile, four persons were killed when their vehicle, which was carrying four stolen cows, hit the divider of a road and turned turtle near Ankhir village in the district last night. However, three of their accomplices managed to escape. Two cows also died in the mishap.

Sher Singh, Pema Khan and Farid died on the spot, while Taufiq succumbed to his injuries at BK Civil Hospital here today. The gang members had been stealing cows from villages in the past three days.