B A T H I N D A    E D I T I O N

Cancer cases up in Muktsar dist
Muktsar, September 30
The number of cancer cases is on the rise in Muktsar district. At the two-day special check-up camp organised at the Civil Hospital here on September 28 and 29, at least 24 people have been diagnosed with this lethal disease and seven of them are reported to be suffering from breast cancer.

Cotton farmers fume at lack of fire-fighting equipment
Abohar, September 30
Owing to delayed arrival in cotton markets of the southern states, growers here are being offered a decent price but they are worried over the failure of the state government to provide fire-fighting tenders to the local Municipal Council despite repeated reminders over the past nine months.

Protesters train guns at Congress MP
Abohar, September 30
The delay in making the Sriganganagar-Hanumangarh broad gauge rail link operational has triggered a stir beginning with a dharna by the members of the Railway Passengers Association and Daily Commuters Association at Sadulshehar, 30 km from here today.

Two killed in separate mishaps
Abohar, September 30
Sohan Singh of Hindumalkot was killed as he lost control over the bike that he was driving. The two-wheeler rammed into a tempo that was parked outside JP Park in Nai Abadi here today.

Bizarre messages fuel sanitation drive
Muktsar, September 30
To spread the message of total sanitation, the state water supply and sanitation department has come up with a bizarre idea. It has put up posters, showing man and dog both answering the call of nature in the open, with the message, "Kutte di taan mazboori ho sakdi hai, par tuhadi nahi (It may be a compulsion for dogs, but not for you).

BEd teachers hold protest, want demands met
Muktsar, September 30
The activists of the B.Ed Teachers Front lodged a protest outside the District Education Office here today, highlighting various issues, including their promotions.

Cancer cases up in Muktsar dist
Archit Watts
Tribune News Service

Muktsar, September 30
The number of cancer cases is on the rise in Muktsar district. At the two-day special check-up camp organised at the Civil Hospital here on September 28 and 29, at least 24 people have been diagnosed with this lethal disease and seven of them are reported to be suffering from breast cancer.

The health authorities said that as many as 942 people were examined during the camp and a majority of them had come for follow-up.

During the camp, the fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) test was done on 96 people. Besides, blood tests were done of 170 people, X-ray examination of 72 people, ultrasound test of 134 and pap smear test of three persons.

“In the clinical examination, seven new cases of breast cancer have been detected, five of larynx cancer, three of prostate cancer, four of esophagus cancer, two of basal cell carcinoma, one each of blood cancer, ovarian cancer, uterus cancer and two people have been detected with pre-cancer conditions,” said Dr Gulshan Rai, Civil Surgeon, Muktsar.

“The number of cancer patients may increase, as 24 suspected women have been referred for mammography test. Besides, the reports of blood, pap smear and FNAC tests are yet to come,” he said.

It may be mentioned that Muktsar district in the Malwa belt of Punjab has recorded 136 cases of cancer per lakh population - the highest in the state.

In the past 10 years, over 1,100 people have died of cancer in the district.

The poor and rich both have been afflicted by this deadly disease.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal lost his wife Surinder Kaur to cancer in 2011.

Former Chief Minister Harcharan Singh Brar’s son Kanwarjit Singh Brar Sunny, ex-MLA, Muktsar, too died of cancer.

Though doctors claim that cancer is curable, if detected early, in Muktsar district, no government hospital is fully equipped to detect cancer at an early stage.

People have to go to major towns for detection and by the time they reach there, it is mostly too late.

Cotton farmers fume at lack of fire-fighting equipment
Raj Sadosh

Abohar, September 30
Owing to delayed arrival in cotton markets of the southern states, growers here are being offered a decent price but they are worried over the failure of the state government to provide fire-fighting tenders to the local Municipal Council despite repeated reminders over the past nine months.

The Jalalabad municipal council has withdrawn its fire tender that landed here on July 16. The council here had grounded both its fire tenders early this year and told the government that it had no money to get the vehicles repaired. Since then, some cotton ginning and pressing units had been gutted besides the Power Corp sub-divisional office. The matter was taken up with the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister and the Minister for Local Bodies but no one has been able to bail out the council here. Most factories are not well equipped to control fire if it breaks out, well placed sources said.

Sources said the cotton acreage in India has reached 11.1 million hectares, unchanged from the previous year, according to the latest Weather Watch Group report. With a more benign south-west monsoon in terms of temporal and spatial distribution of rains this year, the prospect of higher yield is real. In 2012, cotton production reached 34 million bales (of 170 kg each) while this year, 35 million bales look a distinct possibility. The area under cotton cultivation in neighbouring Rajasthan and Haryana has been cut down by 40 and 20 percent, respectively.

Experts estimate about 20 per cent fall in production this year. In the Malwa region of Punjab, about 5 lakh hectares was covered by cotton this year. The state had last year produced 83.36 lakh quintals of cotton and a slight improvement is expected this year, a broker said.

The Cotton Corporation of India will offer less than Rs 4,000 as the MSP f it enters the market, traders said.

Protesters train guns at Congress MP
Raj Sadosh

Abohar, September 30
The delay in making the Sriganganagar-Hanumangarh broad gauge rail link operational has triggered a stir beginning with a dharna by the members of the Railway Passengers Association and Daily Commuters Association at Sadulshehar, 30 km from here today.

The action committee has also launched a signature campaign to condemn Lok Sabha Congress member Bharat Ram Meghwal who had been repeatedly claiming that he had spoken to the Railway Minister and senior railway officials to run the trains soon. Some members of the Railway Consumers Consultative Committee too had been making “false” claims, the protesters added.

The protesters said that Divisional Railway Manager Manju Gupta had clearly stated that the Chief Railway Safety (CRS) Officer based at Mumbai will inspect the track after completion of underbridges but the MP and his associates keep on misleading the people.

The action committee members found that construction of an under-bridge on Budharwali-Kaluwala stretch was in limbo as a wall of the underbridge near Banwala had collapsed.

As per schedule, rail services were to be resumed on the Sriganganagar-Hanumangarh section after gauge conversion work by March this year but it has been delayed.

In an official release, Meghwal today blamed senior railway officials for the piquant situation and promised to send his representative to Mumbai on October 5 to fix the date for CRS’s visit for inspection. 

Two killed in separate mishaps

Abohar, September 30
Sohan Singh of Hindumalkot was killed as he lost control over the bike that he was driving. The two-wheeler rammed into a tempo that was parked outside JP Park in Nai Abadi here today.

In another incident, Mamta, a house wife, suffered burns as her clothes caught fire when she was preparing tea at her residence in Indira Nagari here. She died later. — OC

Bizarre messages fuel sanitation drive
Archit Watts
Tribune News Service

Muktsar, September 30
To spread the message of total sanitation, the state water supply and sanitation department has come up with a bizarre idea. It has put up posters, showing man and dog both answering the call of nature in the open, with the message, "Kutte di taan mazboori ho sakdi hai, par tuhadi nahi (It may be a compulsion for dogs, but not for you).

The posters may be offending, but if the officials of the department are to be believed, then it was the only method available to appeal to those who have not constructed toilets in their houses.

Yadwinder Singh Dhillon, Executive Engineer, Water Supply and Sanitation Department, Muktsar, who has designed these posters, said, "The posters have been put up at public places in the town and villages to make a public appeal that not only should people construct toilets in houses, but also use them.'

"We have learnt that in some villages, toilets made with financial assistance from the Central Government were not being used by the people. So, such weird posters were the need of the hour to spread the message of total sanitation. On seeing these posters, the womenfolk and children will definitely raise the issue with the head of their families, who will make some effort to construct a toilet in their house," he added.

Dhillon further said that as per the Central Government's scheme, the department was providing an assistance of Rs 4,600 to families below poverty line (BPL), who did not have a toilet in their houses.

Not only this, the department has made some other posters, which read as, "Pind de janbaaz, jihde aapniyan jananiyan te bacheya layi latrine nahi bna sake (Brave people of the village, who could not construct toilets for their wives and children); "Punjabiya kol mobile jyada han, toilet ghatt (Punjabis have more mobile phones than toilets).

With these posters, so far put up in Marar Kalan, Jhabelwali, Wattu, Udekaran, Wara Kishanpura, Kauni, Bhagsar and Smagh villages, the officials of the department are hopeful of improving the situation.

Giving another reason behind the idea, a senior official said that the total amount sent by the Central Government in the past for making toilets had not been utilised. Therefore, the department was not entitled to get the next installment of funds, which was increasing the worries of the officials concerned.

BEd teachers hold protest, want demands met
Tribune News Service

Muktsar, September 30
The activists of the B.Ed Teachers Front lodged a protest outside the District Education Office here today, highlighting various issues, including their promotions.

Ranbir Bhandari, president of the Front, said they were demanding promotions of primary teachers, clubbing of primary schools, inclusion of regular teachers' names in seniority lists, release of installment of dearness allowance and inclusion of the period of contractual service of two years.