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Central jail staff, inmates face threat to health
Chemist shops at govt hospitals without cooling system for drugs
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Weaned off drugs, youth fall prey to the menace again
Durgiana Committee to compensate 80 families
Outsourced ticket counters go out of service
Railway Board approves development of station
Workshop held on promotion of e-commerce
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Central jail staff, inmates face threat to health
Amritsar, August 31 Even as the Amritsar Central Jail authorities have approached the Municipal Commissioner to clean the jail premises glutted with stagnant water and garbage, but in vain. In the absence of adequate disposal system, the staff residing on the jail premises in Gumtala, has been living in a pitiable condition. The situation worsens when the city receives rainfall, making it difficult for the employees to reach their homes located inside the premises. Deputy Superintendent of Jail RK Sharma said despite repeated pleas, no action was taken either by the Municipal Corporation or the Public Health Department. The inmates and the jail staff are exposed to health hazards due to unhygienic conditions prevailing here for the past several months. Sharma said the jail officials had also requested the civic authorities to provide garbage trolleys so that the waste collected does not get scattered all over. Earlier, pits were dug up inside the jail to dump the garbage but they (pits) too got filled up to their capacity and the refuse kept on piling up in every nook and corner of the jail, he further said. “We have been repeatedly urging the civic authorities to listen to our grievances but they have turned a blind eye to the issue. It would be a really difficult situation if there is an outbreak of epidemic inside the jail. I have urged the Municipal Commissioner to do the needful but we are still awaiting their response,” the Deputy Superintendent of Jail said. Family members of the jail staff say that during the rains, it becomes really difficult for them to reach their houses as the whole stretch gets swamped with mud and water. “It is quite evident that we are living under such unhygienic circumstances. But the MC authorities are doing nothing to address the problem,” said a resident. The MC authorities, however, have been evading the issue by saying that the jail premises come under the jurisdiction of the Public Health Department. But it has been learnt that the MC had sent a team to inspect the garbage disposal system inside the jail premises. “A team of eight sanitation employees was formed to clean the jail premises. But after a survey conducted by the MC staff prior to starting the drive, the idea was given up by the civic officials. It would have taken at least two months and required at least 15 garbage lifting trolleys to do the job,” said an MC employee pleading anonymity. MC Health Officer Dr Yogesh Arora said, “First of all, I am not aware of any kind of communication from the Amritsar Central Jail authorities to us. Secondly, the Amritsar Central Jail comes under the jurisdiction of the Public Health Department and we are not responsible tfor keeping it clean.” A nightmare n Over 250 supporting staff and 3,600 inmates in the Amritsar Central Jail are facing the threat of the outbreak of an epidemic as the jail premises are glutted with stagnant water and garbage n Family members of the jail staff say that during the rains, it becomes really difficult for them to reach their houses as the whole stretch gets swamped with mud and water n Earlier, pits were dug up inside the jail to dump the garbage but they (pits) too got filled up to their capacity and the refuse kept on piling up everywhere in the jail Claims and counterclaims We have been repeatedly urging the civic authorities to listen to our grievances but they have turned a blind eye to this. It would be a really difficult situation if there is an outbreak of epidemic inside the jail. I have urged the Municipal Commissioner to do the needful but we are still awaiting their response — RK Sharma, Deputy Superintendent of Jail A team of eight sanitation employees was formed to clean the jail premises. But after a survey conducted by the MC staff prior to starting the drive, the idea was given up by the civic officials. It would have taken at least two months and required at least 15 garbage lifting trolleys to do the job — An MC employee First of all, I am not aware of any kind of communication from the Amritsar Central Jail authorities to us. Secondly, the Amritsar Central Jail comes under the jurisdiction of the Public Health Department and we are not responsible for keeping it (the jail) clean — Dr Yogesh Arora, MC Health Officer
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Chemist shops at govt hospitals without cooling system for drugs
Amritsar, August 31 Barring a few, none of the chemist shops or stores at government hospitals has air-conditioning or refrigeration facility. The Employees State Insurance (ESI) hospital which has five stores for safekeeping medicines does not have even a single air-conditioner. The condition of the government dispensaries in rural areas is even worse. These days, when the government supplies a number of medicines to be given free to all patients at the out-patient departments (OPDs) and general wards, the quality of drugs suffers in the absence of cooling systems. "Many medicines need to be stored at a temperature below 20 degree Celsius. However, none of the stores in the hospital does have air-conditioners," a pharmacist at the ESI hospital said. He said they had requested to the hospital management to arrange for the same. At most of the private chemist shops, qualified pharmacists are not available in gross violation of the guidelines. No medicine can be sold by a person except a qualified pharmacist. During the raids conducted by the Health Department teams at chemist shops, the pharmacists were found not present at a dozen of shops. The drug department had issued notices to all such shops. Civil Surgeon Dr Yash Mitra said instructions would be issued to all the institutions to store medicines as per required.
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Weaned off drugs, youth fall prey to the menace again
Amritsar, August 31 The government has failed to bring in a majority of them into the mainstream. The experts in
the field say the rehabilitation is an important aspect if we want to eradicate the menace. They also stressed on the formation of a national policy to check the drug abuse which has assumed alarming proportion, especially in some parts of the state. Recently, the Centre had formed an expert committee to suggest guidelines in this regard while expressing grave concern over the alarming rise in drug abuse. Dr PD Garg, Director, Swami Vivekanand De-addiction Centre, GNDH, and Head of Department of Psychiatry, Government Medical College, said about 50-60 per cent of the patients who were successfully detoxified at the centre, again got hooked on to drugs and are visiting the centre for treatment. "Though we knew that it is a lapsing disease and re-occurred in a patient once they got successfully treated at the centre, the percentage is too high and it is basically because of lack of rehabilitation policy which leads to the situation," Dr Garg pointed out. "Though the government has showed concern over this, unfortunately the rehabilitation part is still weak. The society could play a vital role in it. Once an addict is treated, he should not be left alone and efforts should also be made to bring them to the society's mainstream by providing employment and by way of regular follow-ups," he said. Dr BL Goel, Director, Dr Vidya Sagar Institute of Mental Health, said, "The government is very serious over the alarming drug abuse in Punjab. Therefore, it is opening a number of rehabilitation centres in the state.”
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Durgiana Committee to compensate 80 families
Amritsar, August 31 The committee today took the decision following the intervention of Industry Minister Anil Joshi. Majority of the tenants are daily wagers and primarily engaged in construction-related work. Durgiana Committee spokesman Harish Taneja said, "The compensation would be paid as per the award announced in May 2008. The amount would be paid to those whose names figured in the list of the government department concerned and seven other persons who possess kiraynama but their names did not figure in the list." Committee Finance Secretary Brij Mohan Prabhakar said the entire compensation amount was calculated at Rs 35 lakh and the first group of 21 tenants would get the compensation tomorrow. Land Acquisition Collector Pardeep Sabharwal, also Additional Deputy Commissioner, visited the Akhara and requested the tenants to vacate the premises. He appealed them to remove their belongings.
— TNS
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Outsourced ticket counters go out of service
Amritsar, August 31 The authorised current railway ticket windows, outsourced to private individuals by the Railways, had been operational in different parts of the city for the past many years. These ticket centres were extremely popular for easy availability of tickets and their locations on main roads. These current ticket window centres were opened up at Katra Bhai Sant Singh Chowk inside the walled city, outside Durgiana Temple, Puttalighar Chowk and at the Railway link road. Niranjan Singh, a resident of Dashmesh Nagar, said current ticket window centre at Puttalighar was a boon for the city residents on the western side. They escaped standing in long serpentine queues at the railway station and saved precious time and managed to catch the train on time. Surjit Singh of Katra Karam Singh area recalled, “One fine day he had to catch a train to Ludhiana in the morning but found the ticket centre at Katra Bhai Sant Singh Chowk closed. A little before the departure of train he reached the current ticket window booking area at the railway station. To my utter surprise I found all long queues and got the ticket after an hour.” Surjit saved the day by catching the next train to reach his destination. Senior Divisional Commercial Manager Upjeet Singh, stationed at Ferozepur division of the Northern Railway, said advertisement to hire authorised agents called Jan Sadharan Ticket Booking Sewak (JTBS) had been publicised. He said numerous interested persons had applied for the same. He said technical scrutiny of these applications was underway and a committee of the Railways would monitor and study their cases to select the deserving ones. The process would be finished and the ticket windows would be operational within a month and a half, he added. JTBS is the person who sells unreserved railway tickets through computerised unreserved ticketing system (UTM). The objective of the JTBS is to shorten the long queues at ticket counters on the railway stations and to help passengers in getting tickets comfortably at a nearby place. Normally, JTBS is entitled to charge Re 1 per ticket as commission from the passengers.
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Railway Board approves development of station
Amritsar, August 31 Addressing mediapersons after paying obeisance at the Golden Temple here today, Sahu said the Amritsar railway station was among the 10 stations in the country chosen by the Railways for further development. He said each railway station would be given funds worth Rs 12 crore in a phased manner. They would also look into the feasibility of having more platforms to cope up with the increasing rail traffic, besides constructing/renovating passenger waiting halls, retiring rooms, information system, and beautification of circulation area, he added. Sahu said the Union Ministry of Tourism had also committed separate funds for the city railway station. Regarding the problems being faced by traders doing trade with Pakistan via rail route, DRM NC Goyal said they had already provided traders with extra wagons in the Samjhauta Express. “Now they don’t have any problem,” he added. On lack of security at the cargo facility here, the DRM said they had deployed RPF jawans and if traders still had any problem then they could approach him. On the proposal of bringing in rail link within the ambit of the Integrated Check Post (ICP), he said it had not been brought to his notice. Meanwhile, talking about the rail link to Katra to facilitate Vaishno Devi pilgrims, the AGM said they were working on it and it may take some more time as the terrain there was very difficult. “Last month there was a landslide and the track was shut. Now, it has reopened,” the AGM said.
— TNS
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2 hurt seriously in mishaps
Amritsar, August 31 Rajdeep was rushed to a private hospital where his condition is stated to be serious. Doctors attending on him said he sustained three fractures on his hip and had a fractured leg.
Rajdeep’s brother Gagandeep said an unidentified car’s driver lost control of his vehicle and hit his brother’s Activa (No. PB-02-BB-8120). He said after the accident Rajdeep fell unconscious. The family came to know about the incident when a passerby called them from Rajdeep’s mobile.
Gagandeep said the car driver initially tried to run away with his vehicle, but he could manage to do so. Meanwhile the Rajasansi police has started the investigations. In another incident Aman Kumar (38), a resident of Indira Colony, Majitha Road, was critically injured when his car collided head on with a Canter on the
Amritsar-Rajasansi road. The canter reportedly belonged to a religious
dera. Aman, who is married and has three children, works with liquor contractors. He was returning from Ajnala side, said Kasturi
Lal, father of the victim. He sustained head injury and was admitted to the intensive care unit of a private hospital. Kasturi said they did not know about the exact cause behind the accident as Aman was still unconscious and unfit to give any statement.
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GNDU bags Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy
Amritsar, August 31 Prof Ajaib Singh Brar, Vice-Chancellor of the GNDU and Dr HS Randhawa, Deputy Director Sports of the university received this trophy. The award money of Rs 10 lakh was also presented to the GNDU by the President for the promotion and development of sports. Before the presentation of award, a citation was also read out, which gave details of the commendable sports achievements of the university. Principal BB Sharma and principal Rekha Bharadwaj, presidents of the University Sports Committees for men and women, along with students representing sports persona were also present during award ceremony. This trophy was instituted in 1956-57 as a running trophy by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, in the name of first Union Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The trophy is awarded by the President of India each year to a university which has all round best performance in sports at inter-university, national and international competitions. Out of 38 years of its actual participation in the inter-university and other tournaments, the GNDU, has been winning one or the other positions for this trophy, since 1971-72. V-C Ajaib Singh Brar after receiving the trophy said by winning this coveted trophy for 22 times, the GNDU had maintained its supremacy in the field of sports once again. No other university in the country could boast of such performance, he said. Earlier, the GNDU had received running trophy for the year 1976-77, 1978-85 (7 times in a row), 1986-87, 1991-94 (three times consecutively), 1996-97 to 2000 (4 times in succession), 2001-02 to 2003-04 (three times in a row) and for the year 2005-06 and for the year 2009-10. The GNDU has produced six Padamshree, one Dronacharya Awardee, one Dhayan Chand Awardee, twenty-seven Arjuna Awardees and 44 Maharaja Ranjit Singh Awardees so far. Besides, the university had won three trophies of the Association of Indian Universities’ - Dr BL Gupta General Trophy for 14 times, Osmania University Platinum Jubilee Trophy for eight times and Kridmaharshi Shri Megnath Negeshkar Trophy for seven times. The University Grants Commission, on the basis of sports achievements and to give further fillip for producing athletes/players at the national and international levels, has created a centre of excellence at the university campus.
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Municipal Corporation fails to start city bus service
Amritsar, August 31 Both past and present Commissioners of MC had just a uniform dialogue to deliver, ‘‘City bus is our top priority and will start within a span of so and so months.’’ Ironically, DPS Kharbanda during his last term in 2011, as MC Commissioner, was sure that the buses would hit the city roads in a month's time, but that was not to be. Kharbanda has again taken the charge in July. He assured that the project would be completed before the year end. Former Commissioner Dharampal Gupta and then Bhupinder Singh gave only vague replies. Several directors of the Amritsar City Transport Service Limited (ACTS), a company which was floated in 2006-2007 to run the bus service, either got retired or transferred. Except for holding meetings to find appropriate replacements, the company could not deliver any results. The present directors of the company are city Mayor Bakshi Ram Arora, former MC Commissioner Bhupinder Singh, PIDB nominee Gagan Anand, former MC Commissioner KS Kang and former Assistant Commissioner Surinder Singh. Kang retired around three years back, Bhupinder Singh has recently been transferred as PRTS MD at Patiala whereas Surinder Singh, who was entrusted with the powers of financial transaction, too has been posted as Ajnala SDM recently. It is yet to be seen whether these developments would ‘further affect’ the working of the company or not. The MC records show that the corporation had received Rs 11.66 crore (Rs 8.33 crore from the Centre under JNNURM programme and Rs 3.33 crore from the state) for this project. The MC has also spent over Rs 7.28 lakh on consultancy and Rs 12.57 lakh on advertisements, and the result till date is just nil. The introduction of bus service was conceptualised in 2007 by the Akali-BJP alliance. It was viewed that in the absence of any other mode of public transport, the visitors were often over charged by auto-rickshaw drivers. The ambitious project of city bus service died its own death due to the Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict over restricting to the LPG or the CNG driven vehicles while discouraging the diesel driven in 2010. The stay was later vacated because of the non-feasibility of CNG and LPG filling stations. Thereafter, getting nod from the Urban Development Ministry a lot of 150 buses was sanctioned and even tenders for 30 buses were floated on the Ludhiana pattern. The routes and the ticket fares were finalised. The trial runs were conducted with much fanfare by the then Mayor Shwait Malik, but later all had to be scrapped due to red
tapism.
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Workshop held on promotion of e-commerce
Amritsar, August 31 Addressing exporters, the Northern Region FIEO chairman, SC Ralhan, said, “An entrepreneur in the current global landscape cannot continue to operate through the conventional means of letters and faxes. E-commerce coupled with appropriate strategy can enable small and medium enterprises to compete with large and capital rich business houses.” This medium could also support the efforts of the exporters in achieving the desired growth in exports, he reasoned. Ralhan said as per the economic survey of 2011-12, Punjab figured among the top 15 Indian states contributing to exports. Ranked at number 13, Punjab’s exports showed a remarkable growth
of 50 per cent at US$ 4 billion in the year 2010-11. In the same year, Punjab’s share in the India’s
total exports was 1.63 per cent, comparatively lesser than the other states. Hence, there was a considerable scope of further enhancement of exports from the state. He stressed that there were various commodities in the city like woolen blankets, shawls, carpets, chess boards, food items like papad, warriyan, pickles, fresh vegetables and others, which had good export potential. The presence of the international airport could contribute significantly in promotion of trade from this region, he added. Shawl Club (India) general secretary Piara Lal Seth in his vote of thanks said the new technology offered a golden opportunity to extend the business despite investing more for the same.
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