Jalandhar, September 30
The police today seized 1,300 bags of spurious cement from a factory at Kotla village. A majority of the bags were associated with Pakistan brands. Two persons were arrested in this regard.

The police said they had received information that a large quantity of fake cement was stored at a factory in Kotla village. Acting on the tip-off, a police party raided the spot and the fake cement racket was busted.

A Mahindra truck loaded with fake cement was impounded in the case.

Initially, the police had recovered only 10 bags of cement, but during the raid at the factory, 1,300 more bags of fake cement were recovered.

The seized cement bags were bearing brand names like Mappleleaf, Muniad, Elephant and American cement, the police said, adding that the initial two brands were of Pakistan.

The arrested accused was identified as Satnam Singh, owner of the factory, and his employee Mahinder Singh. The accused had taken the godown on rent at Rs 10,000 per month to prepare the fake cement. He used to mix the Pakistani brand with another one and then used to fill the same in Indian cement brand bags for sale in local market. The police suspected that if the accused were selling brands pertaining to Pakistan, there might be some big racket operating.

Jalandhar, September 30
The recent two incidents reported in New Delhi pertaining to the sexual abuse of girl children, aged less than two, inside their playschools has raised the anxiety and concern of parents who are sending their toddlers to various playschools in the city.

The parents feel that in the absence of any regulatory authority to govern such play schools, the threat to the safety of their children has increased manifold.

“My daughter at the tender age of two and a half years couldn’t even express herself effectively. She is so innocent that she doesn’t even differentiate between a good and a bad touch. Who can assure me of her safety inside the school that doesn’t even allow me to enter inside the premises, citing security reasons? There is no authority that can be held responsible in the case of any eventuality,” said Smriti Ahuja, an event manager and a parent.

Another parent, Jaspal Singh, who has got her two-and-a-half- year-old daughter admitted to a recently opened pre-school of a reputed school chain in the city, feels that although such schools not only give the little child a “lost in the crowd” feeling, they also pose a serious threat to their security due to the massive infrastructure amidst a sea of employees and students. “Nowadays, the sexual abuse is not restricted to male to female, but also from male to male child and even from big students to small toddlers. With so many people around, the risk increases manifold, yet I have to take the risk, as it would otherwise be difficult to secure her admission in the mainstream education of that school,”said Singh. He also said that the Police Department never bothered to conduct surprise checks inside such schools running in every nook and corner of the city. In the absence of a regulatory authority to govern such schools, most of these pre-school have abysmal infrastructure and untrained teachers. Also, many parents have raised concern over the running of many such schools in the basement and top floors of various buildings that even pose the risk to their children falling from a height.

About the arrival of pre-school concept in the world, Archie Sehgal, managing director of Cynosure International Preparatory School, said the concept was derived from “neighbourhood schools” that flourished in Italy during the First World War. “Since that time schools providing mainstream education were closed for a long time. Small neighborhood schools were opened in small localities, where parents of toddlers used to send their children for early education so that there should not be a literacy gap in their children before they get ready for the mainstream education.”

She further said that nowadays, dumb folded by the much pompous publicity by some schools, parents, without checking the actual credentials of the school administration, send their children to such schools. “Although we take utmost care in securing the safety of a child in all aspects, the parents, too, should keep a strict vigil on their child’s behaviour to notice any behavioural change. They should also try to pick and drop the child themselves if possible,” said Sehgal.

Nandini Dave Maingi, an entrepreneur and a parent, also feels that parents can ensure the safety of their children by making small changes in their daily routine. “Although I have a helper at my place and despite being a working mother, I myself drop and pick my daughter from the school. Nothing is more important to me than the safety of my child,” said Maingi. She also opined that it was always better to put a child in a school running inside small residential houses near the house only, as besides providing a cozy and familiar atmosphere to the child, it will also provide a quick and easy access to the toddler in case of any eventuality. 

Jalandhar, September 30
The Municipal Corporation, Jalandhar, had made a symbolic launch of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan three days back and the Education Department had announced the launch of its Sohna School Project as part of the same programme. But now, various social and educational groups too have started volunteering and doing their bit to make the surroundings clean.

The NSS unit of Guru Nanak Dev University College, Jalandhar Welfare Society and shopkeepers on Freedom Fighter Ajit Saini Marg participated in the campaign as they held brooms in their hands and cleaned the road and footpaths along the stretch.

Principal of the college Dr Jaspal Singh Randhawa and his staff too held a broom in their hands as they encouraged the volunteers to actively participate in the campaign.

The campaign has also been going around on the social media with users taking a pledge and passing it on saying that they will neither litter in public nor spit around and only use dustbins for the purpose.

Terming the call for Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a common mission for the masses, Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishor Yadav urged the residents to not just clean their houses while also ensuring that their surroundings are cleaned a on regular basis to get rid of all kinds of diseases, vectors and other problems. He held a meeting with ADC (D) Amit Kumar, SDM-1 Dr Rajat Oberoi, SDM-2 Varinderpal Singh Bajwa and SDM, Shahkot, Dr Sanjiv Sharma besides other officials of the district administration.

The DC has directed the employees of all departments to make it to their offices at 10 am on October 2 and take a pledge on keeping their premises neat and clean. He said that the entire month would be observed as a special period for the drive during which awareness on the issue would be created in the form of a movement for which he said that he had already allocated duties to the staff of the various departments.

Yadav said that he intended that the programme be continued through out the year instead of just one month so that the staff got habituated to keeping their environment clean.

He asked the staff to give a complete plan regarding the same to the ADC (D) by tomorrow. He also directed his staff to send him pictures of the cleanliness drive on his email.

The DC asked his staff to educate people on cleaning their houses, neighbourhood, hospitals, rural dispensaries, bus stand, parks, roads, railway station, footpaths, market areas, village lanes, schools, community halls, cooperative offices, panchayat houses, angandwadi centres and areas around ponds. He asked the staff of the District Development and Panchayat Office, Anganwadi workers, ASHA workers, health workers, education officers, panchayat and panchayat secretaries besides social welfare organisations to join hands for the cause.

A UGC-sponsored one-day national seminar on 'Application of Advanced Mathematics to Business Management and Financial Sectors and Emerging Areas of Research' was organised by the mathematics department, PCM SD College for Women, Jalandhar, in collaboration with the ISIAM. 

Jalandhar, September 30
Even as the district administration has brought down the revenue targets for the current financial year to just Rs 275 crore from Rs 320 crore last year in view of the less collection of stamp duty and registration fee, the Revenue Department is still witnessing a shortfall of collection from all revenue tehsils in the district.

Barring Nurmahal and Mehatpur sub-tehsils, the collections in the remaining 10 sub-tehsils is falling short of target even in the first five months. The total shortfall in all 12 sub-tehsils from April 2014 to August 2014 has been calculated at Rs 19.11 crore.

The maximum difference in the collection and targets is coming for Jalandhar-1 tehsil where a revenue collection of only Rs 40.10 crore has been made against a target of Rs 46 crore.

With the tehsils having incurred only Rs 90.89 crore as revenue in five months, the officials have a huge target of making a recovery of Rs 184.11 crore in the remaining seven months. The revenue collection made for the month of September is yet to be reconciled with.

The Jalandhar district had witnessed a net dip of Rs 129 crore in its revenue target for the year 2013-14. It was in August 2013 that the state government had directed its sub-registrars to stop registering properties in illegal colonies after which the stamp duty collection of the district which hovered around Rs 320 crore in 2012-13 came down to just Rs 191 crore in the last financial year.

Since the owners of the properties in the illegal colonies were asked to get NOCs from the Municipal Corporation or Punjab Urban Development Authority, the registration of such properties came to a close. The Jalandhar-1 tehsil which had Rs 119 crore recovery on this account in 2012-13 came down to just Rs 89 crore in 2013-14. A bigger loss, however, came from Jalandhar-2 where revenue dipped by Rs 41 crore.

It was perhaps because of low collection that even Financial Commissioner, Revenue, NS Kalsi had come to Kapurthala to hold a division-level meeting with the district collectors two weeks back. The officials had then blamed it all on NOCs not being provided.

With the state cabinet now allowing the NOCs of illegal plots to be executed for another year, the problem of revenue officials is also set to come down drastically.