Chandigarh, November 4
Fourteen minor incidents of fire were reported on Diwali night. However, no major loss was reported from any part of the city.

A fire broke out at the office of the Food and Supplies Department, Haryana, situated on the third floor of the 30 bays building in Sector 17.

The Fire Department received a call at 8.34 pm yesterday after which two fire engines and a hydraulic platform-cum-turn table ladders were sent to the spot. Firefighters reached the third floor of the building with the help of a ladder and controlled the fire within 20 minutes. An official of the Fire Department said some documents and furniture items, which were kept in the balcony, were destroyed in the fire. The reason of the fire could not be ascertained, he said.

Besides, the Fire Department also received calls from residential areas in Sectors 20-D, 21-D, 45-C, 15-A, 49, Ramdarbar and Mauli Jagran. However, these were minor fires. In a majority of the cases, crackers had caused fire in rooms. In all the cases, the fire was controlled within 15 minutes.

Besides, two calls of fire on vehicles were also received. A motorcycle caught fire in Sector 34 while a truck was damaged in a fire in Mani Majra.

Firefighters remained on their toes throughout the night and managed to control the fires on time. An official said most fires were controlled immediately as fire engines had been deployed in sensitive areas. 

Chandigarh, November 4
It was a dark Diwali for eight residents who lost their eyesight due to serious eye injuries caused by the bursting of crackers yesterday night. A total of 219 eye and burn cases were reported from various hospitals in the tricity. While 45 cases of eye and burn injuries were reported from Panchkula and 30 from Mohali, 144 such cases were reported from the the PGI, the GMSH, Sector 16, and the GMCH, Sector 32, till this afternoon.

A consultant at the Advanced Eye Centre, PGI, Dr Reena Bansal, said the number of vision- loss cases could go higher as there were 11 more Diwali-related sensitive eye injury cases at the PGI in which doctors felt the chances of the patients regaining vision were bleak.

From left (first row) Munish, Vishal & Lakshay; (second row) Shubham, Vivek & Mandeep; and (third row) Khushboo, Naveen & Pooja, who received eye injuries while bursting crackers on Sunday night. Tribune photos: Manoj Mahajan

The PGI received 45 serious cases of eye injuries and four cases of minor burn injuries. The GMSH received 80 cases of which 18 were related to eye injuries. The Deputy Medical Superintendent, Dr G Dewan, said none of the patients had serious injuries and they were sent home after being given treatment.

In the GMCH, 15 cases eye injuries were reported, of whom two were admitted, while the others were discharged after being given treatment. Four minor eye injury cases were reported from a private eye institute in the city today.

According to sources at the PGI, 18 patients had an eye rupture and required surgical treatment. Doctors said patients with "blunt trauma" also had serious internal eye injuries. While 15 patients were from the tricity, the rest of them were referred from outside.

According to doctors at the PGI, the number of children who received injuries during the Diwali celebrations this year was more as compared to previous years. While 22 children received serious injuries this year, last year only three children had suffered serious injuries due to the bursting of crackers.

Dr Reena Bansal of the PGI said there were some cases of serious injuries in which the victims were not bursting crackers but were accidentally hurt. She expressed shock that despite so much awareness being spread regarding the importance of observing a green Diwali, the number of children who received serious eye injuries had increased drastically.

Doctors said this year most of the injuries occurred due to bursting of crackers in hands by the victims. Interestingly, the parents of a majority of the children who were injured did not buy crackers for them and the children got injured while bursting crackers in their neighborhood with their friends.

Ravi Kumar, father of Vishal Kumar (7), said this time he had asked his son to celebrate a green Diwali to avoid any untoward incident. However, while he had gone to the market to buy some material for puja, his son's friend called him to burst crackers and he got injured. Manish Kumar (9) from Sangrur received serious eye injuries and burnt both his hands while he was trying to burst crackers in a bowl.

Won't burst crackers all my life, says 5-year-old

"I will not burst crackers for the rest of my life. I got injured yesterday and my eyes have bee paining since then. I am on medicines and have received painful injections," said five-year-old Shubham of Kaithal in Haryana, who was the youngest eye patient referred to the Advanced Eye Centre at the PGI last night after a cracker hit his eyes.

No lessons learnt

Learning no lessons from the incident in which he received a serious eye injury on Diwali three years ago, Ludhiana-based Lavpreet Singh (12) still preferred to burst crackers. Lavpreet visited the Advanced Eye Centre of the PGI on Monday as even after two major surgeries in Ludhiana, he has not been able to regain full vision. His father, who accompanied him to the PGI, said he could not stop him from bursting crackers.

No. of eye injury & burn cases up

Hospital- 2013/ 2012

PGI- 49/ 24

GMSH 16- 80/ 86

GMCH 32- 15 27

Total- 144/ 137

Mohali, November 4
A major tragedy was averted due to a holiday on Vishwakarma Day today when a blast ripped apart two reactors at a perfume manufacturing unit here.

The incident occurred at 5 pm at the Work Well unit in Phase VII, Industrial Area, in the town.

Assistant Sub-Inspector Ram Darshan said the impact was so strong that pieces of the tin roof of the unit fell over 50 metres away. "Windowpanes of nearby factories were also broken due to the impact of the blast," the ASI said. About 15 workers are employed in the unit. As today was a holiday, the workers were not present at the unit.

The owner of the unit, Harcharan Singh, said he suffered a loss of about Rs 4 lakh. "However, I am thankful to the Almighty that he has saved my workers and me," he said. 

Panchkula, November 4
The mystery shrouding the death of a youth, Dinesh (27), whose highly decomposed body was found from a bed box along with burnt coal in his flat on Saturday, has deepened further as the postmortem has revealed "congested viscera", which, doctors say, is in the case of poisoning. The doctors suspect foul play in the incident.

“The viscera is totally congested, indicating poisoning. No signs of any injury or asphyxiation due to burnt coal has been found during the postmortem,” said the head of the postmortem wing at the General Hospital, Sector 6, Dr Sunil Gambhir.

The police, on the other hand, has termed it a case of suicide. It has not made any efforts to get the handwriting on the "suicide note" matched with the help of forensic experts.

According to one of the neighbours in the society, "three or four" room-mates of the victim are missing. The neighbour said friends would often pour in at the flat till late at night. However, the police said one room-mate had already left the house in September.

The investigating officer in the case, Assistant Sub-Inspector Jai Singh, said they were yet to receive the postmortem report. He said the victim had sent a message to his landlord, who resides in Mumbai, saying that he would vacate the house on October 17 and he had cleared all dues.

Dinesh's body was found in a highly decomposed state on Saturday under mysterious circumstances in a bed box along with burnt coal in a locked flat in the Mansa Devi Complex, Sector 6, Panchkula. The body appeared to be around 10 days old. Twenty pages of a dairy, being termed as a suicide note by the police, were found from the room. The pages were reportedly written on October 22.

Dinesh, who was employed with a private company in the MDC, was putting up in a rented accommodation. The suicide note mentioned betrayal by a girl and no support from family members.

The police has termed it a strange case of suicide, saying that the victim put a tray of burning coal in the bed box and lay inside after closing the bed box.

First of all, cycle tracks have to be designated and well-maintained to bring about proper connectivity of the cyclists towards these tracks. Other vehicle-owners like motorists should be fined, if they use these tracks. Similarly, cyclists should be penalised by the traffic police, if they do not use these tracks. Secondly, cycling parking sites should be properly designed on these tracks. Locking system, along with this, should also be introduced. Cycling has a great advantage of petrol saving and controlling pollution.

Commuting in the city by a privately-owned transport, be a four-wheeler or a two-wheeler, still remains a preferred choice for many, thanks to the state-owned public transport service run by the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) that is struggling with the shortage of buses and inadequate operating crew. What needs to be done to make the public transport user-friendly and an efficient mode of transport. Send your suggestions along with a passport size picture to openhouse@tribunemail.com 

Le Corbuiser, the man who raised buildings and Sectors of the City Beautiful nearly 50 years ago, had the far sight of providing dedicated cycle tracks in almost all parts of the city. Yet, people governing the Union Territory, it appears, have lost the sight of the concept over years. The cycle tracks have been completely ignored as a result of which, cycling in the city is increasingly becoming a nightmare.

Kolkatta, another city of dreams, founded and developed by the Britishers, has gone through the same phase. The descent was on same lines. The cycle corridors disappeared, consumed by the swelling roads. And when the authorities can't find any place for cycles, they just banned it from as many as 174 tracks. Will Chandigarh experience the same and put the joy on two wheels in lock and key forever?

Many of the tracks are blocked with garbage and debris. Untrimmed branches of overgrown trees pose a threat to the safety of the cyclists dangling dangerously close to the level of their head. A major impediment is the way cycle tracks merge into the main roads short of the roundabouts. At many places, the traffic lights are synchronised to provide one minute window for the bicycle riders to pass through. But, at other places, cyclists are often trapped in the gush of motor vehicles honking at them as if they are second rate citizens.

Statistics explain the gravity of the situation. In past nine months alone, 21 cyclists were killed and 65 others suffered injuries in over 100 road accidents in the city. A total of 97 cyclists were killed and about 160 injured in 310 road accidents in last three years. This year has been clearly particularly harsh.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has also induced some hope by directing the UT Administration to maintain the tracks and provide safe space to cyclists on the roads. The police has to put its thinking cap on and provide safe riding for the bicycles as per the order instead of looking for lame excuses. The motor drivers too need to show respect to cyclists by giving them the "right of way", like in Developed Nations. Every cyclist's contribution by way of easing congestion on roads and preventing carbon emission is tremendous.

Barcelona in Spain provides a good example. It has created a special "ring" for bicycles that runs parallel to the roads. It even has "bike stations" from where bicycles can be rented out. It remains to be seen whether Chandigarh, being one of the most planned cities of the world, can show the way to the people of the region by making it a "cyclists' paradise". 

Chandigarh: Privately owned transport, be a four-wheeler or a two-wheeler, remains the preferred choice for commuting among the city residents.

Courtesy: A struggling state-owned public transport service, being run by the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU), that is marred by a shortage of buses and inadequate operating crew.

The total number of motorised vehicles in Chandigarh has increased over 70 times from around 12,345 in 1971 to around 8.70 lakh. Official figures reveal that since 1966, when the CTU started with a 30-bus fleet, only 438 more buses have been added till 2012. The population of the city, meanwhile, has grown from 2.50 lakh in 1970 to 11 lakh in 2012. As per the national yardstick, for a population of one lakh, there should be 27 buses. By that parameter, there should be around 300 buses for the local service alone.

In existence for nearly five decades, the CTU—with a fleet of 236 buses on 70 local routes—covers 47,000 kilometres to ferry around 1.83 lakh passengers everyday.

The aging fleet of around 70 white-and-blue semi-low floor buses is giving operational problems to the CTU, compared to the modern and comfortable new green and red low-floor buses that the passengers prefer to ride on, but remain inadequate in number.

Commuting in and around the city on local buses, moreover, is nothing less than a riddle for these people. Commuters end up asking fellow passengers about the route or have to make desperate enquiries at the ticket counters.

Frequent users of the CTU service lament the poor accessibility and service frequency. Despite a service frequency ranging between 20 minutes and an hour and a half, depending on the length of the route, the CTU buses, at times, run behind schedule owing to various reasons.

There remains confusion about buses running on the grid system (now partially diverted routes) and those running from point to point. For many destinations, two buses have to be changed, but there are no route plans to guide the commuters. Though the bus number is mentioned at the bus queue shelters, the route and time taken to reach the destination is given a miss.

Half of the buses in the 468-bus fleet of the public transport undertaking have either outlived their operational period or are nearing the end. While the four-year-old fleet of 100 low-floor AC and semi-low floor non-AC buses have brought respite, the 70 white-and-blue low-floor buses that were inducted nearly a decade ago are falling to pieces. Officials admit they are forced to keep these jittery buses running to cope with the shortage. The effective strength of all the low-floor buses is around 160, apart from the long-route buses put on local routes. As per estimates, there should be around 300 buses for the local service alone.

I have to change two buses to reach my school. There should be direct service between different points to facilitate commuting. Ashish

I prefer to travel on the green, low-floor buses. These are comfortable as compared to the old ones running on the local routes. Kamal

The frequency of service needs to be increased. At times, buses do not ply as per the schedule, making us wait for long. Raj

Students should be given passes in the AC buses and more buses should run during the opening and closing time of educational institutes. Tarlochan

Chandigarh, November 4
As the city celebrated the Festival of Lights, the UT police control room was flooded with calls pertaining to various incidents of crime. The UT police control room number 100 received a whopping 2,700 calls last night. Vehicles were dispatched to the spots in response to 307 calls. Last year, the police control room had received 283 calls on Diwali.

A police official said 307 calls at the control room last night were spot related while the rest were informatory or even repetitive calls.

Police sources said as many as 134 calls out of a total of 307 pertained to quarrel and 51 were accident-related calls. More than 15 calls were from residents complaining of noise pollution and bursting crackers by residents after 10 pm which was the permissible time. A total of 21 calls pertained to fire due to crackers.

Meanwhile, amid tight security arrangements, the Diwali celebrations passed off without any untoward incident in the city. The local police had pressed more than 1,000 police personnel, including 12 DSPs, 30 inspectors and 300 women constables into service. They were deployed at all the sensitive points in the city round-the-clock.

Tight security arrangements were made in areas where clubs and hotels are situated, especially in Sector 26, Sector 35, Aroma light point and Sector 17 Plaza. Besides, nakas were laid across the city to maintain law and order to check traffic rules violations, especially drunk driving.

The number of calls at the control room was 30 per cent higher than the daily average calls.

Mohali, November 4
Residents of Mohali witnessed a safe Diwali this year with reports of minor fires being received from the town and surrounding areas.

No loss of life or major damage to property was reported in incidents of fire on day of the Diwali yesterday.

Ravinder Kumar, station fire officer, said here today that six incidents of minor fire were reported from Mohali and surrounding areas. Three of the fire calls were received from the town itself while the remaining three from nearby areas.

He said that two calls had come from Phases X and XI . While waste material lying in an open area had caught fire in Phase X , dry vegetation in Phase XI had caught fire . A motor cycle had got burnt in another fire which broke out near a jhuggi colony in Phase II.

Some wood and plastic material lying on a rooftop near Kapur Chowk in Kharar had caught fire while minor damage to household goods was witnessed by employees of the fire brigade in a fire which broke out in a house on the Landran road in Kharar.

In Jandpur village piles of cowdung cakes had caught fire, added Kumar.

Panchkula, November 4
Watching fireworks cost many Panchkula residents dear. Of 45 patients suffering burns in Panchkula, around 35 were spectators, including a 60-year-old man, Ramu, from Saketri, who has suffered burns on his entire body.

Ramu was sitting outside when splinters of a "rocket" fell on him. Ramu has suffered burns on his entire body. “I was not even bursting crackers and just watching fireworks sitting outside when splinters fell on me,” said Ramu, who was admitted at the general hospital sector 6.

Of the 45 burn cases reported at the general hospital, 7 were of eye injuries. A 12-year-old boy, identified as Sunny, who has suffered an eye injury, has been referred to the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, Chandigarh. Fifteen of the patients are children, the youngest being 3 years old.

Seven children in the age group of 3 to 14 were reportedly just watching fireworks. Yajak (6), a resident of Sector 15, was injured when he picked a cracker to see if it had caught fire. It exploded all of a sudden bursting and injured his hand.

Most of the cases were reported from Vikasnagar, Saketri, Budanpur,Rajiv colony, Sectors 7,9,14,15 and 19.

During the week preceding Diwali the Panchkula-Ambala Commissionerate Control Rooms got 271 calls. These calls involved issues that were solved on the spot and no case had to be registered nor a follow-up warranted after their instantaneous resolution.

Mohali, November 4
Exploding a cracker cost dear to 12-year-old Naman from Mundi Kharar, when it went off all of a sudden. The explosion caused injuries in the both eyes of the boy.

The cases of Devraj (10), Raju (10) and Aman (21) were similar as these youngsters suffered injuries in their both eyes while playing with firecrackers on Diwali night. A 42-year-old woman lost partial vision in her one eye due to firecrackers.

According to the data collected from four major hospitals, about 30 cases of firecracker injuries, including 14 cases of eye injuries, were reported last night at various hospitals of the town. Most of the patients were in the age group of 10 to 20 years.

The Mohali Civil Hospital’s senior medical officer, Dr Adesh Kaur, said as many as 18 cases, including eight cases of eye injuries were reported. “All the patients were discharged after treatment today”, said Dr Adesh Kaur.

“Naman, Devraj, Raju and Aman suffered injuries in both eyes while 10-year-old Shameem’s right eye was injured during cracker bursting,” said Dr Adesh while adding that none of them sustained serious eye injuries.

Two patients, a seven-year-old girl and a 28-year-old person, were admitted to Fortis Hospital for treatment of burn injuries. “Both the patients were discharged after treatment”, said a spokesperson of the hospital.

At Sohana Eye Hospital, a total of five patients reported for eye injuries while the burn injury department of the hospital also received four patients. Of five eye patients, three were children below the age of 10. “Six-year-old Parth Sharma, Birkamal (5) and Roshan (9) suffered injuries in their eyes last night. Of a total of four cases of burn injuries, three are children below the age of 10,” said a doctor at Sohana Hospital. 

Mohali, November 4
Waking up on the issue of garbage dumping in the seasonal rivulet, ‘Patiala ki Rao’, the Mohali Municipal Corporation has directed its contractor in the job to cover the garbage with layers of soil and plant herbal saplings on it.

Giving details, the Mohali MC Commissioner, Uma Shankar Gupta, said the contractor has been given a deadline of 45 days.

“Within the span of 45 days, he would have to cover the heaps of garbage with soil layers and then would plant herbal saplings on it,” said the commissioner.

With the step, the problem of stink in the area would also be solved, added Uma Shankar. He added that the indications have also been installed on the both sides of the rivulet to prevent further throwing of garbage on the riverbed. “We have installed indications on both the sides of the rivulet and directed the officials not to throw the garbage between the marked indications. This way, there would be no further throwing of garbage on the riverbed of ‘Patiala ki Rao’, said Uma Shankar Gupta.

Notably, the issue was recently highlighted in these columns under a special campaign against scattered garbage in the Tricity.

The garbage of the entire town is being thrown at this unauthorised site for the past six years by the authorities while the designated site is around four kilometers away from the present site.

When asked why the garbage was not being dumped at the designated site, the Commissioner said it was not possible due to protest of the residents of the area. The authorities have also acquired 51 acres land to for dumping garbage at Samgholi village in Dera Bassi. As the landowners of the site at Samgholi have approached the Supreme Court for price enhancement of their land, the matter has been pending there.

Chandigarh, November 4
The passengers of a Delhi-bound flight of Jetflight were left stranded for hours at the Chandigarh domestic airport after the air-conditioner of the flight malfunctioned here this evening.

The flight, which was scheduled to take off by 5.40 pm, was reportedly delayed by nearly four hours. Till the filing of the report at 9.25pm, the repair work was on.

The stranded passengers alleged harassment by the officials of the private airline company. According to some passengers, they were kept in the dark over the exact situation. According to the Air Traffic Control(ATC) officials, Jetflight had been asked to take off at 9.30 pm. “The flight is not cancelled. It has been delayed. It will take off at 9.30pm,” said the station manager of Jetflight.

“If there was any problem with the aircraft, the authorities should have done some temporary arrangements. I have already missed my connecting flight from Delhi to Bangalore,” said Neetu Goel.

“There was no need to keep the passengers in the dark. The authorities are only offering false promises instead of taking care of the stranded passengers,” said Vikas, director of a mobile company.

“There was some problem in the engine and the airport authorities will not let the private company park the plane here for the entire night. They, somehow, need to take off but most of the passengers didn’t want to take risk, so they are asking for refund and cancellation of their tickets,” said a source in the airline. 

Chandigarh, November 4
Disappointed with the repeated incidents of question-paper goof-ups Panjab University (PU) has debarred the paper-setters who committed mistakes while setting up the question papers for the exams held in April 2013.

The PU authorities, who believe that repeated mistakes in the question papers have tarnished the image of university, have written to the Board of Studies in all the departments informing that the paper-setters against whom the complaints were received for question paper error have been debarred from paper-setting till further orders. Controller of Examination (COE), Parvinder Singh, stated that the Board of Studies of all the departments have been informed about the teachers who have been debarred from the assignment. “We have made the list of the teachers debarred from the duty of paper setting to ensure that they are not given responsibility of paper setting,” COE.

A total of 44 complaints in undergraduate courses were received by the university in 2013 exams out of which 21 were disposed of by giving grace marks and 19 were rejected by the Board of Studies. Among postgraduate courses, 40 complaints were received, out of which grace marks were awarded to students in 12 cases. The university has also decided to create a question bank for all the subjects which would be used to set the question papers by a panel of experts decided by the university to put an end to the errors in the question papers. The move is expected to streamline the paper setting.

Initially, the university has written to all the sciences departments asking them to invite questions for undergraduate courses. The COE stated that a bank of questions will be created and a panel of experts will be formed which will select the questions from the question bank and set the question paper. “The panel of experts will check the formation of all the questions to be used in the question paper and ensure that the questions are from within the syllabus which will address the problem of mistakes made by the paper setters,” COE stated.

Presently, the question papers set by the paper setters are not seen and they are directly sent for printing. The system adopted by the university has no provision of checking errors in the question papers.