Bathinda, November 25
In a landmark judgment, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) today gave a go ahead to start the construction work of the Solid Waste Treatment Plant (SWTP) on Mansa Road. The case had been lying pending in the Tribunal for the last over two years as a section of residents had opposed the construction of the plant around the residential area.

The model proposed by the NGT for the setting up of the plant in Bathinda would now be replicated in all the other plants in Punjab.

The Municipal Corporation Bathinda (MCB) failed to shift the site of plant away from the city as the modalities over the cost to carry garbage could not be revised between the Punjab government and the private company setting up the plant. “Since the cost floated by the company to carry garbage from city area to a faraway place was ‘quite high’ the government refuse to shift the site from near the city area to a far off place,” said an official.

The city residents alleging that the setting up of such a plant in the vicinity of residential area would affect the health of the people by polluting air and water demanded its shifting.

After hearing pleas of both the parties the NGT reached on the conclusion that the plant could be set up but by following the norms strictly. The Tribunal directed the Punjab government to form a committee headed by Secretary local bodies and members from the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to monitor the progress of construction with pollution level within the norms.

The opposite parties, including MCB, Commissioner, Dalwinderjit Singh, XEN, Sandeep Gupta, and government servants were present in the Tribunal in Delhi along with complainants advocate Guriqbal Chahal and Captain (retired) Mal Singh.

MCB officials stated that the work on the construction of plant would begin by December 15 and its first phase—segregation of waste—will be concluded by December 2016. In the second phase, the process of producing power from the waste would begin and 12 MW power would be sold by the private company (JITF) to the Powercom.

The project worth Rs 66 crore will be built within the perimeters set by the Tribunal and in case if someone complains over the level of pollution crossing during the construction (of project) the process (of construction) could again be stalled anytime with the intervention of the NGT.

With the onset of the construction work of the project the process of collecting garbage from 17 Urban Local Bodies (ULB) in Bathinda and adjoining districts would gain momentum. The entire waste brought at the plant would be crushed completely and the residue would be used to produce electricity.

One of the complainants in the case captain (retd) Mal Singh while talking to TNS over phone from Delhi said that initially the NGT has allowed construction of the plant but in case of any flaws detected either during the construction period or thereafter the entire process could be stalled by the Tribunal again.

There is a room of strict action by the Tribunal in its judgment in case the company goes awry.

• With the passing of today’s judgment in favor of the MCB the officials who were forced to visit New Delhi at least once in a month during the hearing of NGT heaved a sigh of relief and announce to look forward for the construction of the Solid Waste Treatment Plant (SWTP).
• The area residents who had been fighting the case for the past over two years too got a respite and stated that they too heaved a sigh of relief as they now got rid of the huge expenditure which was incurring upon the visits to Delhi every month.

Bathinda, November 25
Negating the claim made by the Chief Parliamentary Secretary Sarup Chand Singla during a press conference yesterday about the decision of the next mayor of 
Bathinda will be from Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), district president of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), Parminder Goyal today stated that the decision about which 
party the mayor would belong to and the seat sharing between the two alliance parties was yet to be taken.

He, however, added that there was no fight between the two parties and that the leaders of both the parties would come together to contest the upcoming Municipal Corporation elections in the presence of the state president of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) Youth Wing, Mohit Gupta, while launching the online registration and membership drive.

Elaborating on the division of seats between the two parties, Goyal stated that the sharing will be done like before and the increase in the number of wards was no cause of tussle between the two parties as it was just a matter of couple of seats.

He further added that leadership of both the parties was focusing on finding out strong candidates for handing out tickets for the elections to ensure total defeat of the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

He also took the opportunity to state that it had not been decided that the chair of mayor will go to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and added that this was a matter of discussion between the two parties.

Mohit Gupta stated that the online membership in the state has been started as part of the online-membership registration campaign launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He also added that the party was targeting college students through the campaign as the youth of the state could effectively work towards eradicating the menace of drug-addiction.

Bathinda, November 25
Frequent queries submitted with the state Education Department under the Right To Informarion (RTI) Act has made the department sit up and take note of the fact that the schools have been showing exceptional laxity when it comes to maintaining records of students, staff and school in general under various components.

At a monthly meeting conducted at the Teachers’ Home here today, the principals, heads and in-charges of all the medium, high and senior secondary schools were told to ensure that the records are updated to make it easier for the department to answer RTI queries and also prepare files to be submitted in situation of a court case.

This was stated by the District Education Officer (Secondary) Dr Amarjit Kaur Kotfatta during the monthly meeting, which ironically, was held after several months. The meeting was attended by heads of 90 middle, 83 high and 98 senior secondary schools of the district.

Bathinda, November 25
The Bathinda police today claim to have busted a gang of two bike-lifters with the recovery of one motorbike from their possession and clues about numerous other similar bike lifting cases. The accused have been identified as Prabhjot Prince and Lakhwinder, both in their 20s. They are the residents of Mansa district. 
In a press release, SSP Gurpreet Bhullar, said that the arrests were made following a tip off about the two accused who were arrested during a special checking by the CIA staff.

The SSP said a special drive has been launched against such cases wherein the youngsters are getting themselves involved into criminal activities. Separate cases of theft and other heinous crimes have been registered against the arrested 
persons.

The SSP stated that apart from the arrest of these two persons who were also involved in numerous other theft cases the police today issued 47 challans for over speeding and rash driving. He stated that maximum number of challans are issued by the Cantt Police Station.

The policemen deployed at the Cantonment police station rued that in a view of the sifarish they failed to issue the challan to everyone but today, they decided not to attend phone calls from unknown phone numbers and from the local politicians, especially those associated with the ruling SAD-BJP alliance which helped them in issuing so many number of challans to the motorists.

The officials said they have been directed by the Bathinda SSP to issue maximum challans with an aim to reduce the rising number of road accidents and the nuisance on city roads.

“We have issued maximum challans to the youngsters riding in a careless manner on city roads. From now onwards, we have decided not to oblige anyone and regardless to their links they all will be issued challan slips so that a message could be sent to everyone to drive safely,” said another policeman deployed at Civil Lines Police Station.

Bathinda, November 25
The teams representing Muktsar and JCD Sirsa won their respective matches played on the third day of the 1st Drug De-Addiction Champions Cricket League here today.

The matches were played at the grounds of Police Public Senior Secondary School.

In the first match of the day and fifth league match, Muktsar beat Mansa by 49 runs. Winning the toss, Muktsar elected to bat first and put together 155 runs in 20 overs at a loss of seven wickets.

Kashish was the star batsman of the team, scoring 69 runs in 58 balls. Mansa’s Amit Kumar took two wickets and gave away 19 runs in four overs.

Mansa’s batting line-up tried to match up but dwindled under the attack by Muktsar ballers and could manage to put together only 106 runs.

Mansa’s Tejinder Singh, however, put up a good show by scoring 27 runs in 26 balls. Muktsar’s Maninder took three wickets while giving away 17 runs in four overs.

In the second match of the day, JCD Sirsa beat Mansa Club by seven wickets. Winning the toss, Mansa Club decided to bat first but the team’s top order batsmen failed to put up a show as the entire team fell like nine pins with only 91 runs on the scoreboard in 20 overs.

Dharminder scored the maximum runs, 12 in 22 balls, for Mansa. Pardeep of JCD Sirsa took five wickets in four overs by giving away only 11 runs. Vikas Lamba’s score of 27 runs in 23 balls and Rajpal’s score of 23 runs in 11 balls helped JCD Sirsa win the match by seven wickets.

Eight teams are playing in this tournament.

Bathinda, November 25
A district-level workshop was held on pentavalent vaccine here today. The vaccine can probably help in reduction of mortality rate among children less than five years of age.

Nearly 240 doctors, including medical officers and senior medical officers, were present at the workshop while the Bathinda Civil Surgeon, Tejwant Singh Randhawa, presided over as the chief guest.

The doctors included four trainers, including Dr Rakesh Goyal, district immunisation officer, Dr Gyan Chand, Dr Satish Jinda and Dr Pamil Bansal.

The vaccine that was earlier available only in a few states, including the neighbouring Haryana, has now been introduced in Punjab and some other states.

The pentavalent vaccine prevents five infections namely diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B and Hib. It is being introduced in Punjab as part of the universal immunisation programme.

It will reduce the number of injections required for vaccinating children at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age. Currently an infant receive six injections (three doses of DPT (diphtheria) and three doses of hepatitis B.

However, with the introduction of pentavalent vaccine, children will now receive 3 injections instead of six injections and will also be protected against Hib infection in addition.

In India, Hib disease is the leading cause of meningitis and pneumonia in children.