Schools’ ‘annual charges’ burden parents
Amritsar, August 12
While public schools, even those belonging to educational societies, are charging hefty donations from new students at the time of admission, they are not sparing even the existing lot of students as they are being levied substantial amount as annual charges. Parents say it is adding to the burden on their pockets.

After 4 days, police makes no headway
Amritsar, August 12
Four days after two Muzzaffarpur (Bihar) based jewellers were robbed and injured by unidentified persons, the police department is still groping in the dark.

College donates Rs 1.25 lakh for Uttarakhand flood victims
Amritsar, August 12
Staff members of Global Institutes contributed a cheque of Rs 1.25 lakh towards the Prime Minister National Relief Fund, started by The Tribune, for the people affected in the flash floods in Uttrakhand.

Roads inundated by morning showers
Amritsar, August 12
Increase in illegal encroachments and lack of green belt, added to water logging woes, as a short but heavy spell of showers inundated the key city roads this morning. 

Amritsar, August 12
Rising prices of onion have brought tears to the eyes of the common man. Common people are already reeling under skyrocketing prices of essential commodities.

Today price of a kilogram of onion was Rs 52 in the wholesale market, which was Rs 35 a week ago. On the other hand, onion was sold over Rs 60 a kg in the retail market.

A wholesale onion dealer, Charanjit Singh, said presently the stored onion were being supplied in the local market, while supplies from the fields of Maharashtra and Gujarat have dried up. He said these two states fulfilled the major demand of onion in the local and Punjab market.

About the new onion crop, he informed that it would start coming from parts of Haryana and Rajasthan in the northern India, besides Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in southern peninsula in September and October. He anticipated that the soaring prices would come down from the next month.

Meanwhile, residents resented the high increase in the onion prices and they complained that it was burning hole in their pockets.

Samirti Mehra, a housewife, said constant rising expenses in running kitchen were gobbling up major share of the family's income and there was no respite for the middle income group families.

A daily wager, Lakhwinder Singh, said onion was no longer poor man's vegetable and they would have to stop using it in their meals. He added that he would resume its consumption after its prices came down.

Amritsar, August 12
Even as the district administration has banned the sale of sand on the roadsides, a few shopkeepers are openly flouting the ban as the administration looks the other way.

Such shops can easily be spotted on the GT road here and on the roads leading out from the city. The district administration had banned the sale through an order issued on June 8.

The official press release of the district administration had claimed that the motive behind the ban was to clear the bottlenecks for smooth flow of traffic. The move aimed at regulating the prices of the mineral as it was reported that the prices were skyrocketing.

Rajat Aggarwal, Deputy Commissioner, had issued the ban orders under Section 144 of the CrPc. However, even after more than two months of passing of the orders, the administration has taken no notice of the violations.

The ban orders had claimed that sand could only be sold at three places in the district - Transport Nagar, Market Committee, Ajnala, and Grain Market, Rayya.

But sand heaps are mostly seen on places adjoining the roads, causing a problem for the general public and endangering their lives. 

Amritsar, August 12
The rains in the city have played a spoilsport for the NCC cadets preparing for the coming Independence Day celebrations at Guru Nanak Dev Stadium here. With only two days left for the event, the NCC cadets are working hard to synchronise their moves with each other.

However, instead of concentrating on the parade, they are occupied with saving themselves from slipping on the slippery ground. The rainwater was seen standing in the ground.

The cadets were seen playing it safe to save themselves from falling on the slippery ground and thus getting injured. A few had even taken off their shoes to move in the waterlogged ground.

The water was also seen standing at many spots on the track meant for march-past. The loose soil on the track has turned muddy after the rains. The heavy vehicles transporting materials for the celebrations are turning soil muddy.

Students were seen practicing for their events on the stairs as the water was standing on the ground. A student said, “The ground would not dry in two days and who knows there could be more showers.” A official present at the spot said that the venue could be changed if more showers were there. The official said it was very unlikely that the ground would dry up in two days.

During the Independence Day celebrations last year, the venue had to be changed to the adjacent cricket stadium because of the ground condition. Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Rajat Aggarwal inspected the place today and held a meeting with officials to take stock of the preparations being made for the celebrations. He said the efforts were being made to get the ground ready for the day.

Amritsar, August 12
While public schools, even those belonging to educational societies, are charging hefty donations from new students at the time of admission, they are not sparing even the existing lot of students as they are being levied substantial amount as annual charges. Parents say it is adding to the burden on their pockets.

Father of a student, on the condition of anonymity, said his two children were studying in Classes IV and V in a leading public school of the city. Though both children were admitted in the school years back, the annual charge came as a rude shock to them every year. He said the annual charge was raised to Rs 6,000 this year from Rs 5,000 last year. Apart from this, the school drew out about Rs 2,000 more from their pockets under various heads, which also included Rs 400 for school publication, Rs 380 for legal work, Rs 380 as examination charges, Rs 300 as development fund, Rs 300 as building fund, Rs 300 as pupil fund, Rs 500 computer fee, Rs 110 for service unit and others, he added.

Even as some of these schools have constituted management committees comprising parents, they hardly raised their voice. Harried parents did not raise their voice, fearing wrath of cash-rich and politically well-connected school managements, he said.

Parents of another student, who were sending their ward to a prominent school of the city, said Rs 12,000 were annually charged from them, apart from the quarterly fee. They were perturbed that the annual charge would be a regular feature till their ward completed schooling.

An advocate and a father of two school-going children, on condition of anonymity, said about two years back the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had directed all its affiliated schools to develop their own websites containing comprehensive information about the school and its management.

However, in its latest circular, the board, in an attempt to make the functioning of the schools more transparent, had attached a three-page form, seeking detailed information, including the fee structure, salaries paid to teaching and non-teaching staff and mode of payment of salary.

Among the other details sought were: particulars of teaching staff, area of school campus, name of trust/ society/ company associated with the school, names and addresses of the school management committee members and infrastructure facilities. The note added that all information must be updated from time to time.

He stated that the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in a judgment delivered in 2012, had restrained the schools in Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana from hiking fees without obtaining prior permission from their rspective education boards and councils. "No fee and other charges shall be enhanced by any school, situated within the territorial jurisdiction of this court and affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education, Punjab School Education Board and the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education, without prior approval of the respective board/council", a division bench comprising Justice S K Mittal and Justice TPS Mann had held.

The Bench had also directed the schools to submit their profit and loss statement for the past five years to their respective Board which they were affiliated to. Also, no CBSE affiliated school could prescribe books published by publishers other than the NCERT, he added.

District Education Officer Satinder Bir Singh said levying of annual charges, even on old students, was ethically and morally wrong on the part of private public schools. However, the education department did not have any jurisdiction over the fee structure of the schools, unless it was directed by the government.

Rajat Aggarwal, Deputy Commissioner, said he would seek legal opinion over the issue and would act accordingly. 

In its latest circular, the Central Board of Secondary Education, in an attempt to make the functioning of the schools more transparent, had attached a three-page form, seeking detailed information, including the fee structure, salaries paid to teaching and non-teaching staff and mode of payment of salary. Among the other details sought were: particulars of teaching staff, area of school campus, name of trust/society/company associated with the school, names and addresses of the school management committee members and infrastructural facilities. 

Amritsar, August 12
Four days after two Muzzaffarpur (Bihar) based jewellers were robbed and injured by unidentified persons, the police department is still groping in the dark.

There have been no definite clues about the robbers till now. However, the police is yet to record the statements of the victims, Subodh Kumar and Varun Kumar, who are recuperating at a hospital here. Their condition is stated to be out of danger.

Both the traders were shot at and attacked with sharp-edged weapons by motorcycle-borne unidentified persons. The accused robbed them of around half kg of gold jewellery, it was learnt. But the exact loss was yet to be ascertained.

Arun Sharma, SHO, Sultanwind police station, said the police was working on various angles, including the suspected involvement of employees of the jewellers working in the family jeweller market near Tahli Sahib Chowk, located on Sultanwind road.

“The employees of the jewellers are the first suspects as only they knew about the movement of the jewellers coming from outside Punjab. But we also not ruling out the possibility of involvement of miscreants from outside the city,” said Arun Sharma.

Earlier, Harjit Singh Brar, ADCP Crime, had pointed out that the accused had fired from a country-made 9mm pistol. The said firearm was owned by city-based gangster who was wanted in many similar cases, he had said. 

Amritsar, August 12
Increase in illegal encroachments and lack of green belt, added to water logging woes, as a short but heavy spell of showers inundated the key city roads this morning. The encroachments and concrete pavements led to closure of water outlets, leading to waterlogged roads.

The city has an old obsolete topography, coupled with a rise in population with no proportionate enhancement in infrastructure. The other prominent issue is the increasing concretisation. The pavements and medians along the road are laid with paver blocks. Instead of water being absorbed by the ground, it tends to flow on to the roads.

(Clockwise from top left) The waterlogged Lawrence Road; a milkman carrying an umbrella to save himself from the rain; a fruit vendor protects herself with a polythene sheet; a family braves the early morning showers in Amritsar on Monday. Photos: Vishal Kumar

Secondly, for years, the AMC has been planning to buy super-sucker machines that are used to pump out water from deep drains but in vain.

In the absence of proper drainage system and no mechanism to pump out water, commuters were the worst affected.

Even the posh areas like Lawrence Road, Madan Mohan Malviya road and parts of GT road in the Putlighar area were affected.

“We, Amritsarians are used to brave knee-deep waters because the situation is like that after every rainfall. We have stopped complaining as it is a folly to expect anything from the civic administration,” said Naresh Johar, a resident.

Even the elevated road, known as the lifeline of the holy city, was down with waterlogging at many points.

MC Commissioner DPS Kharbanda admitted that the old geographical set up and faulty infrastructure was the culprit. “But, the situation will be topsy turvey once our JAICA sewerage project gets started. It will be the potential answer to the waterlogging problem”, he said.

Amritsar, August 12
First it was a UNESCO report that came as a warning for the Punjabi language and its patrons and recently the Delhi University's move to drop the graded system of Punjabi language course has led to writers, followers and torch-bearers of the language open up with their efforts to preserve, promote and protest any move to deny the language it due rights. As a hub of Punjabi literature and culture, the city has always ensured that the mother tongue of the state does not die an untimely death.

The issue came to the fore at ‘Maa Boli’ (mother tongue) festival, that was held by the Punarjyot foundation in city on Sunday.

"I would emphasise that a language never dies, instead it is killed. This implies to Punjabi as well. Punjabi is the 11th largest language spoken in the world and is not just restricted to a particular community or religion. Its vocabulary is richer than most popular languages. It is the second most popular language in Delhi itself. So, such irresponsible and thoughtless decisions do not help but kill the language itself," said Parminderjit Singh, Punjabi poet and editor of Punjabi magazine Akhar.

Parminderjit also quoted the UNESCO report, "The report, which mentioned Punjabi as one of the endangered languages of the world, was shunned by many as false and misconceived. But the fact is that it is time we realise that we have to promote the language, especially amongst the youth. I believe that Punjabi is not a very technology-friendly language in today's time but it definitely becomes important for the younger generation to fill in the gaps."

Satnam Singh Gill, the Head of Department of Punjabi at the Government College for Girls, also said the language needed a saviour. “The most common problem in Punjabi literature is that it lacks readership outside Punjab. The youth fails to understand its importance, but it is our responsibility to encourage them to take up Punjabi literature and popularise it,” he said.

With Punjabi magazines Akhar and Preet Lari almost becoming a legend and Punjabi theatre thriving, the youth too is participating to stay connected to their mother tongue. The Maa Boli festival proved the efforts were worth a shot. Lending a competitive touch to Punjabi and celebrating the mother tongue, the festival had students coming up with Punjabi poetry, speeches, literary ideas, multimedia presentations and cultural activities to promote the language.

Dr Kirat Sandhu Cheema, Director, Spring Dale Educational Society, which is the patron of Punarjyot, said it was really heartening to see the enthusiasm with which the students participated in the event. “Punjabi is our mother tongue and we all should learn to take pride in it,” she said. "The Maa Boli festival aims at enabling the youth to realise the true worth of their mother tongue and persuade them to take pride in it by helping them indulge in various literary activities, including poetry recitation, folk songs, calligraphy and declamation," she added.

Kewal Dhaliwal, the newly appointed president of the Sangeet Natak Academy and noted theatre person, said Punjabi theatre was a mass media tool to popularise the language. "Amritsar has a thriving Punjabi theatre environment and most young actors are joining in to carry the baton of cultural and language promotion through theatre."

Amritsar, August 12
After threat of water-borne diseases loomed large on Ram Nagar colony, Majitha road, the district administration sprung into action by setting up a relief medical camp in the area.

Civil Surgeon Dr Yash Mitra said a medical counter had been set up in the area to cater to the needs of the residents. Earlier, death of a resident from the area had been reported because of a water disease.

Dr Mitra said Deputy Commissioner Rajat Aggarwal had visited the place today and issued instructions to take remedial measures. Free chlorine tablets had been distributed in the area and water samples had been taken. The situation was under control and there was no threat now, he added.