Fifteen years ago, Vikram Dhiman was employed as an attendant at a scooter service station in Sector 16, Panchkula, and from there he entered the world of finance and became a multi-millionaire. He came in contact with businessmen and police officials, and started doing business. He reportedly invested money of influential persons on a higher rate of interest, but his business went down due to a slump in the market

Chandigarh, November 8
Students of the PEC University of Technology had a real feel of Formula1 (F1) on the first day of the three-day PECFest today.

During the event, a contest, "F1 Pit Stop Challenge", is being organised wherein the participating teams from various colleges have to change four tyres with the best stop pit time.

Students present a dance item on the PEC campus as part of PECFest on Friday; and (below) an F1 car on display. Tribune photos: S Chandan

What's more exciting is that the teams get a chance to use their skills on an F1 racing car parked on the campus for the competitive event.

The Pit Stop Challenge saw various teams, comprising nine students each, participate in the contest.

The four "tyre changers", one at each corner of the car, had the sole responsibility of removing the car's single locking lug nut from each tyre and then reinstalling it on the new tyre.

Ankush, one of the participants, said it was great fun participating in the event that gave him a chance to work on the F1 car. The teams participating in the event were also given a chance to wear special suits worn by the Pit Stop crew.

Sarishti Katyal, a PEC student and member of the organising team, said the top three teams winning the competition would get Sahara Force India merchandise. “The Pit Stop Challenge is conducted across the country and the team that tops among all winning teams will be declared the ultimate Pit Stop Challenge champion, which will get a chance to view the F1 race in 2014,” Sarishti said.

Chandigarh, November 8
The Registering and Licensing Authority (RLA) is going ahead with tomorrow’s auction of 183 vanity registration of vehicle numbers.

Officials in the RLA said the auction was being held for the left over numbers in series CH01-AR, CH01-AS, CH01-AT, CH01-AU and CH01-AV. Most of the numbers, including 0001 from the CH01-AV series are being put under the hammer.

Regarding the question being raised during the hearing of a PIL in the Punjab and Haryana High Court over the imposition of ‘high additional’ registration fees by the authorities, the officials said the case pertains to Punjab and Haryana over charging additional fee while auctioning vanity numbers. There were no instructions regarding the holding of tomorrow’s auction.

It may be mentioned that the RLA has initiated a move to keep out the non-serious bidders. Various options being considered by the RLA was reducing the time from the existing one month to deposit the bid money, or barring the bidders from four subsequent auctions were being considered.

Mohali, November 8
To begin development works in the IT City and Medicity, the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) has started taking possession of its acquired land in the area.

Notably, about 80 per cent of the land in question was being used by the farmers of nearby villages on which they sown crops.

“We have asked them to vacate our land after harvesting the crop. To stop them from further sowing of crop on the land, the GMADA today sent an earthmoving machine and other equipments to dig the land,” said a senior official of GMADA.

The GMADA has constituted one main committee and six sub-committees, consisting four officials each, which would check any such encroachment in future.

Notably, the GMADA has acquired about 1,600 acres of the land to develop the projects.

Chandigarh, November 8
After three private schools, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Sector 47, have challenged Municipal Corporation’s (MC) property tax record.

Amita Sharma, principal, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Sector 47, said they had cleared their dues and no amount of property tax was pending.

She submitted that their school had received two recovery notices from MC on September 23 and September 24 regarding the payment of property tax amounting to Rs 7, 82,270 and Rs 5,73,163, respectively. They deposited the total amount of property tax of Rs 13,55,433 on September 25 through cheque in the bank. The MC should update their record, she said.

But, the list of property tax defaulters which was submitted by the officials of property tax branch to the MC Joint Commissioner, Rajiv Gupta, shows school’s name in the defaulter’s list.

Gupta said sometime data is received late from the banks due to which schools, which have cleared their dues, still remain in the defaulter’s list. He has now directed the bank to provide a complete statement of all the schools on weekly basis.

He said they would update their record and would soon send fresh notices to the defaulter schools. — TNS

Chandigarh, November 8
After over a six month-long successful run of the daily Superfast Express train between Chandigarh and Amritsar via New Morinda and Sanehwal, the Railways is anticipating to commence another train between the two cities.

The Divisional Railway Manager, Ferozepur Division, Northern Railway, Naresh Chander Goel, said the exact date of the launch of the train was not certain as official communication in this regard was still awaited. He added that any comment over its schedule, timing and commencement date could only be made after he received the written orders from the office. He said it was expected to land within a couple of days. The Ferozepur Division has its jurisdiction spread across parts of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

At present, the Amritsar-Chandigarh Superfast Express train departs from Amritsar in the morning and makes the return journey in the evening. However, there has been a demand to run a parallel train starting from Chandigarh in the morning and returning the same day from Amritsar in the evening.

Chandigarh, November 8
Rheumatic disease has emerged as a major concern affecting women and children in the past couple of years, while the awareness on the disease is relatively very poor both in patients as well as most medical practitioners. According to the PGI experts, at least 100 new cases are reported for screening at PGIMER at every clinic.“Every year, the numbers are going up if we look at our figures. There is a separate unit of rheumatology at the Advanced Pediatric Centre for handling the disease in children,” said Professor Surjit Singh from Department of Internal Medicine, PGIMER.

The experts also said that the incidence of this disease is higher among women and children, yet being ignored at least in our country. For women suffering rheumatic diseases, it becomes necessary to ensure disease stabilisation before pregnancy.

“It is very important for women to stop the medication for rheumatic disease at least six months before conception and also ensure that the disease has stabilise,” added Prof Singh.

Chandigarh, November 8
After onion and tomato, the cost of potatoes is also burning a hole in the common man’s pocket. Rising from Rs 20 per kg two days ago, the cost of some varieties of potatoes has touched Rs 60 per kg. No variety of potatoes is costing less then Rs 40 per kg in the market.

In fact, the cost of onions and tomatoes has also increased by Rs 10 per kg since yesterday. While the cost of onion is Rs 80 per kg, the cost of tomato has gone up to Rs 90 per kg. In some markets of Panchkula, tomato is being sold at Rs 100 per kg.

The rise in cost of all the basic vegetables has made the lives of residents very difficult. “The entire budget of the househ olds has been altered. Amid the exorbitant costs of all the vegetables, it was only the cost of potatoes that had kept the courage of the common people alive, now, that too has gone up”, said Geetanjali Singh, a resident of Sector 46.

Chandigarh, November 8
The municipal corporation has proposed to amend the norms linked to the operation of Sahib Singh and Empire Store automatic parking lots in Sector 17. The MC is all set to auction these parking lots on a trial basis.

A senior official of the municipal corporation said that under the revised rules the contractors would not be allowed to charge parking fees in case any snag occurred in the automation system. The parking becomes free as soon the system develops any fault, he added.

The issue will be placed before the next Finance and Contract Committee (F&CC) meeting of the municipal corporation. The MC had earlier planned to auction the two parking lots, but later added the clause in the contract.

In the two parking lots, a fully automatic parking system will be set up and the parking fee will be charged on hourly basis. The MC had proposed that for four-wheelers, Rs 5 would be paid for the first two hours and Rs 10 for every subsequent hour. For multiple entries in one day, Rs 50 would be charged. For two-wheelers, Rs 2 would be charged for the first two hours and Rs 4 for every hour subsequently.

In this case, for multiple entries in a day, Rs 20 would be charged.

The MC is yet to finalise the parking rates. The fully automated parking lot will ensure that parking of vehicles is done as per the slots available.

No additional vehicles can be parked as is being done at present.

The aim behind introducing hourly parking is to avoid congestion in the parking lots.

The project was planned after the Punjab and Haryana High Court stressed the need to solve the parking problem in Sector 17 and develop no parking zones there, so that the place is less congested.

Chandigarh, November 8
A day after the chairperson of the Art, Culture and Sports Committee of the municipal corporation proposed local MP Pawan Kumar Bansal’s name as the chief guest for the Children’s Day function on November 14, a committee member today said that he would boycott the function if Bansal was made the chief guest.

Committee member Saurabh Joshi said that in the meeting committee, the chairperson did not propose Bansal’s name as the chief guest for the Children’s Day function, but in the minutes it was mentioned that the chairperson proposed Bansal’s name. Minutes of the meeting were tampered with only to give political benefit to Bansal, he added. He said that he would boycott the function if Bansal was made the chief guest. According to the minutes of the meeting, Joshi had proposed that the UT Adviser or the MC Commissioner should be made chief guest. Whereas committee chairperson Gurbax Rawat and another member Sat Parkash Aggarwal proposed Bansal’s name, minutes reads.Rawat denied that the minutes of the meeting were tempered with. She added that Aggarwal had proposed Bansal’s name and she had seconded it. The Mayor would take the final decision on the issue, she added. 

Chandigarh November 8
The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) is likely to get more teeth with the UT Administration appointing its new chairman and members today.

Former UT Adviser Pradip Mehra who retired in 2011 from the UT Administration has been appointed as the chairman of the PCA and, PK Srivastava, former UT Inspector Director General of Police (DGP), who retired last year, has been appointed as its member. The third member is a social activist Zoya Sharma.

The three-year term of the Police Complaints Authority (PCA), Chandigarh, ender in September last week and there has been no hearing of the PCA ever since. There are over 60 complaints pending with the PCA.

Constituted in 2010, the PCA decided over 100 cases in the three-year tenure. On several occasions, the PCA passed strictures against the UT police and also recommended the senior police officials to take action against several SHOs and other police officers for not taking action.

However, several recommendations were not abided by the police as they conducted their own inquiry following PCA orders. On October 16 last, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had directed the administration to amend its notification that had reduced the PCA to only a "recommendatory" body. Referring to a Supreme Court judgment, the High Court had ordered that the PCA's directions would be binding in nature. Aggrieved, the Chandigarh Administration had recently filed an appeal against the High Court order.

The beginning of the PCA will begin next week.

Chandigarh, November 8
Four new cases of dengue were reported today from different parts of the city, bringing the total number of cases to 77 this year, so far.

The malaria wing of the Health Department claims to have geared up field activities and is keeping a close watch on the vectors prevalent in the city.

Chandigarh, November 8
With an active participation of more than 5,000 college students, PECFest - 2013 at the PEC University of Technology commenced with a bang today. The Day 1 began with FBB Green Marathon encouraging youngsters to protect environment. Apart from this, the day saw scores of people from different colleges of the region coming and taking part in various competitions.

Competitions such as ‘wordict’, ‘logo quiz’ and ‘guess who?’, along with literary events like ‘cross-swords - conventional debate’, JAM and colourful and vibrant events like face painting, graffiti and mug painting took place.

The highlight of the day came in the evening when the main stage was lit up by the stars of the ‘Walk of Fame’. Organised in association with Femina Miss India, the contestants mesmerised the audience with their glamour and show.

The evening also brought to stage students showcasing their talent in PEC’s famous fashion and dance show, “Groovz and Glitterati”. The night ended in a spirited note with Bhangratheque bringing a more Punjabi musical vibe to the day and guest appearances by Gippy Grewal and Gurpreet Ghuggi.

PECFest is the annual cultural fest that will have performances by the rock band, Parikrama, in the coming days.

Chandigarh, November 8
This time, there is no need for parents to make a beeline in front of schools for buying admission forms. In its fresh directions regarding the common admission schedule released today, the UT Education Department has made it mandatory for schools to make the admission forms available free of cost on their websites.

As per the common admission schedule, the admission process in the entry-level classes for the next academic session will begin from coming November 29 in both government as well as private schools in the city.

The parents making beeline for getting admission forms of some of the reputed schools was a common scene every year in Chandigarh. But as per the latest directions, parents can now easily download forms of all schools from their respective websites. Besides, the forms will also be available at school counters, too.

Moreover, the forms will be available free of cost. As per the guidelines, the parents need to submit Rs 50 as part of registration fee at the time of the submission of admission forms. DPI (s) Kamlesh Kumar said the changes in the common admission schedule had been made to reduce the overall hassle of parents. Every year, buying admission forms of most of the private schools was a big problem. — TNS

November 29, 2013: Display of information relating to admission by each school on the notice board, website of the school)

December 1 to 20, 2013: Issuance of registration forms

December 20, 2013: Last date for submission of forms

January 10-20, 2014: Draw of lots, display of select list and waiting list

January 21-25, 2014: Deposit of fees of selected children

January 29-31, 2014: Display and deposit of fee from waiting list students