Bathinda, January 18
Some residents of the city, under the aegis of the Legal Empowerment Awareness Forum (LEAF), today filed a case against the District Collector accusing his office of wrongly fixing the collector rates for land on the basis of which the property tax is paid.

Secretary general, LEAF, Rajneesh Rana, said the property tax is being calculated on the basis of collector rates, which were fixed after an “expert committee” decided on the rates.

Rana alleged that instead of including experts, the committee had a handful of class-III employees from different departments, who just endorsed the rates the DC had proposed. “Instead of holding a healthy discussion or deliberating upon different rates, the members of the committee meekly endorsed the rates that the government had already fixed,” he said.

The collector enhanced property rates not on bona fide and legal grounds, but on the ground of political expediency. The rates were hiked at a time when the real estate sector in the state was witnessing the lowest slump ever. This resulted in the collector rates getting enhanced by up to 200 percent in many cases.

The District Collector, Bathinda, summoned a meeting on March 29, 2012, to fix collector rates for the year 2012-13. He invited a large number of people such as MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Cabinet Ministers Janmeja Singh Sekhon and Sikander Singh Maluka, MLAs Ajaib Singh Bhatti, Darshan Singh, Sarup Chand Singla and Jeet Mohinder Singh, Mayor Baljeet Singh Bir Behman, some officers and representatives of property dealers and real estate developers etc through a letter issued on March 28, 2012.

In the meeting held on March 29, 2012, the participants merely endorsed decisions already taken to enhance collector rates, irrationally and illegally without any discussion or deliberations, he said.

The petition states that no committee of experts was constituted as statutorily required and that most of the participants in the meeting were ineligible instead of being responsible officials of the departments concerned. Some were merely class-III employees, such as registry clerks, reader and HRC etc. A large number of invitees did not come.

Rana alleged that the rates were fixed to put maximum burden on the people. He pointed out that no consultations were made and the the whole exercise was carried out in a hush-hush manner. No explanatory note giving a concrete proposal was given, he added. Similarly, not even the then existing collector rates or documents required to form an opinion were supplied to the invitees to help them in forming their opinion and no survey was conducted to get a first-hand information about the ground realities.

As per the law, the collector should fix the minimum market value of land and properties located in his district locality-wise and category-wise, in consultation with a committee of experts consisting of officers of the department of public works (building and roads), department of revenue and rehabilitation, Punjab Urban Development Authority, departments of local government, rural development and panchayats, horticulture/forest/town planning/industries or any other.

The collector has falsely claimed to have enhanced the rates in consultation with the officers of various departments and representatives of nambardars, real estate developers, property dealers etc, the petitioner has alleged.

As per information culled out by the LEAF, in the meeting held on March 29, 2012, no representative from the PWD (B&R), Department of Forest/ PUDA/ Horticulture/ Local Government/ Rural Development and Panchayats, Industries, and representatives of Nambardars, property dealers was present.

District Collector KK Yadav could not be contacted for his comments as he was away on leave.

Bathinda, January 18
Members of the Bathinda Association of NGOs (BANGO) today staged a rally demanding a complete ban on the availability of China-made kite string in the market. Many schoolchildren also participated in the rally.

Starting from street number 6, Bhana Mal Dharamshala, the rally went around areas like Nai Basti main road, Mall Road, Fire Brigade Chowk, Qila Road and reached the Old Thana chowk where the shopkeepers were appealed not to sell China-made kite strings that have proven to be death traps for animals, birds and have even left people injured.

Coordinator of BANGO, Ramneek Walia, declared that whosoever gives information about stocks of China-made kite string would be given a cash award of Rs 5,000.

Bathinda, January 18
Taking advantage of the biting cold, thieves these days seem to be giving sleepless nights to the authorities of the government schools by stealing LPG cylinders, computers and other costly gadgets.

Thieves deprive schoolchildren of the material that enhance their learning skills as it takes many days to restore the stolen material.

While hardly any theft is reported in the private schools, the government schools remain on the radar of the thieves. As many as 20 computers, a dozen LPG cylinders and computer parts have been stolen in the last few months from various government schools in the district in more than a dozen cases of break-ins.

While the police claim that drug addicts are behind the ever-rising incidents of theft, the school authorities lament that the department sometimes takes the teachers to task for the missing material. “The thieves take advantage of vacant school buildings and break in after the school hours. They break open the locks and take away the gadgets or whatever they can lay their hands on,” said Paramjit, Investigating Officer in the theft case.

Though the Punjab government has filled a few posts of watchmen in some government schools, yet most are still bereft of a foolproof security system.

DEO (Secondary) Harkanwaljit Kaur, while admitting that the problem existed, said at least one theft is reported in a month in Bathinda. “The problem has been brought to the notice of the state government and the matter is usually taken up during the meetings,” she said.

The schoolteachers rued that it becomes a Herculean task for them to bring the matter to the notice of the police and lodge an FIR.

“The school functioning is disturbed and the studies are affected in following the legal procedure. We have to make rounds of the police stations, get the Non-Traceable Report (NTR) from the police and keep its copies for record,” said a senior government teacher, pleading anonymity.

He said that till the stolen material, including the LPG cylinders, utensils or computers are replaced, the school functioning remains disrupted. Mahinderpal, coordinator of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) wing of the Education Department, said the stolen computers are always replaced with new ones.

“For instance, all the five computers stolen from Phool Mandi, three computers from Harnam Singhwala and one computer from Bhagta Bhaika schools were replaced with new ones by the insurance company,” he said.

He added that the computers and its parts are insured with two companies which replace the stolen goods after completing all the formalities, which is a time consuming process.

Deputy DEO (Secondary), Krishan Kumar Gupta said by the time computers are restored, a lot of time is wasted as it usually takes 15 days to a month or even more.

He said though the police fail to trace the stolen material, it is made available to the students by the insurance company.

Bathinda, January 18
If Nirvair Singh were to have his way, the use of pesticides in agriculture would be reduced considerably in the state. Showing the way for using fly ash from rice-shellers and finely ground coconut coir to increase the yield without the use of pesticides, Nirvair presented his ideas at the first exhibition of the Innovators’ Club organised by Central University of Punjab (CUP) on its Bathinda campus.

Nirvair, a resident of Sukha Singh Wala, owns a nursery and apart from providing seeds and plants to the farmers, he also explains to them ways of minimising the use of pesticides and still get a good yield.

“Consumption of pesticides in Punjab has risen over the past decades and has come to dangerous levels now. Experts and governments have been spending time and money to look for ways to reduce this usage and also prevent people from getting ill due to prolonged use of pesticide-ridden agricultural produce. I am just doing my bit in making farmers aware of natural ways of getting rid of pests and nurturing the plants,” Nirvair said.

“Use of fly ash in agricultural processes has been a matter of discussion and study for the past two to three years. I am not an expert but want to make the farmers aware that fly ash from rice-shellers carries nutrients which are beneficial for the agricultural soil and also prevent the growth of pests,” Singh added.

He also propagates the use of finely-ground coconut coir and vermiculture to increase the yield. The combination of all these measures and controlled use of these natural byproducts is not only cost-effective but good for the consumers’ health as well, he stated.

Bathinda, January 18
Units numbers I and II of the Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant, which were renovated between March 2004 to March 2007, have created a post renovation and modernisation works record of running continuously without tripping.

Chief Engineer of the plant, TK Gupta, stated that the plant has broken an old record of continuous generation for 54 days. He added that the renovation and modernisation work of the GNDTP unit IV is in full swing. — TNS

Bathinda, January 18
As many as 1,75,162 children from 2,49,126 households would be covered under the pulse polio campaign to be held in the district from January 19 to January 21.

Civil Surgeon Dr Ajay Sahni said that 698 booths, 40 transit teams, 33 mobile teams and 1,266 teams will visit door-to-door to ensure that all the children in the 0-5 years of age are administered the polio vaccine.

Bathinda, January 18
The Bathinda police today foiled an attempt by members of the Unemployed STR Teachers’ Union to take out a protest march in the city. The police locked the gates of the Teachers' Home to prevent them from holding a rally. The teachers didn’t give in and kept raising slogans against the state government.

A deputation of the union was allowed to meet the ADC (D). The union was assured that their meeting with Punjab Education Minister Sikander Singh Maluka had been fixed for January 21.

Believing that the news of a possible meeting with the Education Minister had mollified the protesters, the police unlocked the gates and allowed the teachers to take out a peaceful march from Teachers’ Home to Hanuman Chowk.

Pointing out that he had little hopes from such meetings, president of the union, Devinder Singh Muktsar, said the union had been fighting for its rights for long and the government was yet to offer any concrete solution to the problem. He said in the past, too, several meetings had been fixed with the Chief Minister, Education Minister and senior officials of the Education Department but in vain.

He said during a similar meeting on January 8 with a panel of ministers, the teachers were assured that they would be reinstated in the schools on contractual basis. But even 10 days after the meeting, the government is yet to begin the process of issuing appointment letters. The members of the union threatened that if the meeting on January 21 also failed to bear fruit, they would intensify their stir.

Bathinda, January 18
Members of the Democratic Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Cook Front, Punjab, will stage a protest outside the residence of Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Manish Tiwari tomorrow.

The union, which had earlier been protesting against the Punjab government's decision to hand over the contract for preparing and providing mid-day meals to the students of schools under the Municipal Corporation, are now demanding a hike in their wages.

Elaborating on the demand, president of the union Jal Kaur said by paying the MDM cooks only Rs 1,200 per month, that too for only ten months in a year, the government was treating them like bonded labour.

District president of the union Sinder Kaur Sivian said ever since the contract had been given to a private firm in the district, the staff members of several schools were troubling the mid-day meal cooks employed there.

They also pointed out that the neighbouring state of Haryana was paying its MDM cooks Rs 2,500 per month and the Punjab government needed to learn from this.

They also demanded that their salaries be directly transferred to their bank accounts and the state government should extend the insurance benefit to the cooks who should also be given training at the block level. They also demanded recruitment of more cooks in schools where their number is less as compared to the students.

Bathinda, January 18
A separate ward for thalassaemic children would be set up in the new building of the 50-bed mother and child hospital (MCH) coming up in the neighbourhood of the existing ones. Managing Director of Punjab Health System Corporation (PHSC), Hussan Lal, said this while talking to mediapersons here today. He was in the city to review the ongoing projects on the Civil Hospital premises.

He told the doctors that the neo-natal unit was one of the best managed in the state and it also had a high number of admissions.

Lal said that to check the transmission of frequent infection in thalassaemic children, who have to repeatedly undergo blood transfusion, the new MCH building will have a dedicated ward for such patients. The building of the MCH is complete and would be handed over to the Health Department authorities within a month.

The drug warehouse on premises of the Civil Hospital, which is one of the three such warehouses being opened in the state, will be functional from February 15.

A complete online facility, it will work on software, specially designed to check the movement of drugs in the districts associated. Already the Health Department staff has been trained to run the software and monitor the movement of medicines from the pharmacy to their point of delivery in different districts.

The batch of medicines received here would be first tested. After the test reports are received and nothing unusual is found, the medicines would be distributed to the patients, Hussan Lal added.

Later, in the evening, Director, Family Welfare, Dr Jatinder Kaur and state programme manager, NRHM, Dr Vinod Gagneja visited the Women and Children’s Hospital. 

Amritsar, January 18
The Civil Surgeon kicked off an auto-rickshaw rally here today to create awareness about the polio-immunisation drive starting from January 19. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Usha Bansal, Civil Surgeon, said no case of polio had been reported from the country during the past three years.

District Immunisation Officer Dr Jaspal Kaur said teams of the department would visit around 4,68,620 homes in district to immunise children in the age group of 0-5 years. She said the department had identified around 3,39,968 children in the district. Talking about the arrangements made for the three day drive, she said that 1,410 booths had been set up for the purpose.

She said around 2,735 teams of department employees and volunteers would be working to make the drive successful.

Rotary Club Pushpinder Singh Grover, Rakesh Kapoor, Joginder, Rajesh Arora, Bimla Kumari, Dr Rashmi Vig, RK Devgan, Anu Chawla and Tripta Kumari were also present on the occasion. — TNS

Bathinda, January 18
District Education Officer (Elementary) Dr Amarjit Kaur Kotfatta and District Isnpection Officer Kamlesh Sharma today conducted checking at two schools in the district.

While checking the Government Elementary School in Manuana, the District Education Officer said the school management had taken care to keep the schools clean and that all the teachers were present.

She, however, pointed out that the enrolment of students in the school was low as there were only 32 students there.

The DEO instructed the principal of the school, Rajdeep Singh, to make sure that the enrolment of students started increasingh from the next academic session.

On request by sarpanch Kulwant Singh Virk and head of the school management committee, Bhola Singh, the DEO assured them that funds will be released for the school to construct a kitchen shed and complete the boundary wall there. She also instructed the school management to demolish the roof on the school premises which had been declared unsafe by the Public Works Department.

While checking the Government Senior Secondary School, Lehri, the District Education Officer pulled up the school management for not keeping the premises clean.

She also inspected the new building constructed under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan (RMSA) and gave the necessary instructions.

Bathinda, January 18
The 17th Zonal Sports and Athletic Meet of the State Bank of Patiala (SBoP) began at the Civil Lines Club here today. President of the zonal sports committee, Gokul Sharma, general secretary Rakesh Jain, DK Dhawan, Narinder Bansal, Lachchman Singh, Rakesh Kaushal, Sushil Goyal, PC Singla, Ravi Narula, Karan Singla and several other senior officials of the SBoP were present during the inauguration of the meet.

Giving details, Jain said as many as 300 employees from 141 branches of the bank in the Bathinda zone were participating in the meet.

He said employees from branches located in Bathinda, Faridkot, Fazilka, Ferozepur, Mansa, Muktsar, Churu, Hanumangarh and Sri Ganganagar, were participating in badminton, carrom and table tennis as well as in athletic events like 100m, 200m and 400m races, shotput, musical chairs, sack race and triple leg race competitions.

Narinder Bansal said the employees securing the first three positions at the zonal meet would get an opportunity to participate in the inter-zonal sports meet to be held at head office, Patiala, in February.

DGM Gokul Sharma encouraged the participants to excel in the sports that they were engaged in. Elaborating on the importance of sporting activities, he said apart from keeping a player fit, sports also developed a spirit of healthy competitiveness among the players which helps in progressing in several other spheres of an individual’s life. 

Bathinda, January 18
The local police today arrested two couples, including a newly-wed couple, with 31 kg of poppy husk and also confiscated a Maruti car from their possession.

Senior Superintendent of Police Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said the drug peddlers were arrested by a team from the Nathana police station.

Bhullar said a patrolling team under the supervision of DSP (D), Ranjeet Singh, and SI Jugraj Singh were combing the area from Ganga village to Bhaini when the police team pounced upon the accused.

The accused have been identified as Rajpal Singh Amandeep Kaur of Matta village in Faridkot, Kuldeep Singh and Mandeep Kaur of Nathpura village.