ICAR committee meeting today
HISAR, April 15 — The meeting of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research Regional Committee scheduled to begin here tomorrow will focus on problems like waterlogging, use of agro-chemicals and controlling the use of chemical fertilisers.

Long power cuts cripple units
GURGAON: Southern Haryana, particularly the district of Gurgaon, has been facing an acute power shortage for the past fortnight now. Industrial areas are specially reeling under prolonged power cuts, sometimes ranging from 6 p.m. till late into the night.

Seminar on BOT projects today
CHANDIGARH, April 15 — A one-day national seminar on "Build, operate and transfer projects for roads and bridges" will be held here tomorrow to emphasise the need for accelerated economic growth through laying of adequate urban infrastructure like roads, upgradation of highways, railway and over-bridges.

Bus conductor shot dead
PANIPAT, April 15 — Rakesh Kumar, a bus conductor of Haryana Roadways Depot,Panipat was shot dead by a gang of robbers last evening between Butrada and Karodi villages in Muzaffar Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh when he tried to challenge the robbers who were threatening to loot the bus.

5 killed, 42 injured in collision
KARNAL, April 15— Five pilgrims were killed and 42 others were injured, eight of them seriously, when the bus in which they were travelling collided head-on with a truck on the national highway near Arjaheri village, 23 km from here last night, the DSP, Mr Ajay Singhal said today.

ICAR committee meeting today
Tribune News Service

HISAR, April 15 — The meeting of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Regional Committee scheduled to begin here tomorrow will focus on problems like waterlogging, use of agro-chemicals and controlling the use of chemical fertilisers.

Briefing reporters on the eve of the two-day meeting, the Vice-Chancellor of the CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Mr J.B. Chowdhury, and the Director, Research, Mr B.L. Jalali, said the regional committee consists of members from similar agro-climatic zones. The ICAR has set up eight regional committees on the basis of agro-climatic conditions.

The Vice-Chancellor said the purpose of these committees was to provide forum for the state government functionaries and researchers to enable them to examine in depth the major gaps in the current research and training in agriculture in various agro-climatic regions of the country.

Prof Chowdhury stated that a research agenda of national significance in the areas of technology assessment, refinement and transfer had been set up for the discussion.

The meeting will be attended by all member states and union territories including Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan and the union territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

About 125 representatives, including the Director-General, ICAR, Mr R.S. Paroda, several vice-chancellors and directors of various departments related to agriculture will attend the meeting.

Prof Chowdhury said Haryana and Rajasthan were facing the serious problem of waterlogging. He pointed out that in Haryana alone there were about four lakh hectares that had been affected by waterlogging. He stated that a comprehensive masterplan adopted by the government was being implemented. The work had been started in Bhiwani and Jhajhar districts with the help of central grants.

Dr Jalali said the research agenda for the next millenium, already submitted to the Union Government, would also come up for discussions during the two-day meeting.

Moreover, the focus would also be on exploring the possibilities of institutional and industrial cooperation which would be mutually beneficial for both universities and the industry.

The ICAR Regional Committee meeting is held once in every two years. The last meeting was held at Rajasthan Agricultural University, Bikaner.

Long power cuts cripple units
From Sameer Sabharwal

GURGAON: Southern Haryana, particularly the district of Gurgaon, has been facing an acute power shortage for the past fortnight now. Industrial areas are specially reeling under prolonged power cuts, sometimes ranging from 6 p.m. till late into the night.

These conditions not only affect industrial production which is heavily reliant on captive power plants, but also leading to labour retrenchment because of disrupted work schedules. Mr D. Aggarwal, an industrialist of Udyog Vihar, says he is shocked at the grim power situation specially since over the last few months all he had been reading about the state government’s "rapid strides towards achieving a 24-hour power supply".

The power shortage has also affected water supply in the district as the HVPN tries to distribute power into two groups one-hour rotation each. Most of the water pumps are not backed up with generating sets and are therefore inoperative without power. Mr Dharambir Gauba, local Congress MLA, said many residential colonies situated at a relative height hardly get any water supply at all.

Mr Gauba regretted that the district authorities and the Municipal Committee had not taken appropriate steps regarding water supply and sewerage in the town despite repeated representations. He disclosed that he had already informed the district administration of their plan to launch an agitation with effect from May 1 if the authorities failed to alleviate the sufferings of citizens. He expressed surprise that despite the Chief Minister’s high claims, hardly has summer set in than it had become clear that these claims hold no water.

However, the HVPN Superintending Engineer, (South Zone), Mr J.S. Dahiya, claimed that the situation had arisen due to extraordinary shortfall in generation in the northern region caused by forced closure of generation station in various states and central generating agencies. This had resulted in a drop of upto 2000 MW in power availability in the northern grid.

Mr Dahiya disclosed that the Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) had reduced the supply of gas to gas-based power plants of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), causing about 400 MW shortage. Additionally, a few power stations like the NTPC (Dadri unit), the Narora Atomic Power Plant (220 MW), three units of the Ropar Thermal Power Station and one unit of the UPSEB at Anpara had been shut down for a few days. The Singrauli station of the NTPC is expected to be on a planned shutdown for a few days. The Bhakra-Beas Management Board has reduced the release of water supply by 6000 cusecs, resulting in a fall in generating units.

Through official communication, Mr Dahiya appealed to consumers to bear with the officials while they try to improve the power supply in the region within a week. He clarified that prior intimation of power failure could not be given because the frequency of the grid fell whenever the load went up in the northern region as a whole, necessitating immediate power cut measures.

MDU council holds emergency meeting
Tribune News Service

ROHTAK, April 15 — The executive council of Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU) has urged the government to immediately release grants to enable the university to tide over its financial crisis.

The Vice-Chancellor, Lieut-Gen O.P. Kaushik (retd), today convened an emergency meeting of the council to seek its approval for raising a loan of Rs 1.5 crore against fixed deposits to pay salaries to university employees for the last month.

The meeting was attended by 11 out of 20 members, including the Vice-Chancellor and the Pro Vice-Chancellor. Representatives of the government and the nominees of the Chancellor were reportedly not informed about the meeting.

The council said the wheat loan to the employees should be disbursed after the receipt of grant from the government. It authorised the Vice-Chancellor to raise the loan from a bank as a "one time exception".

This is perhaps for the first time in the history of the university that it has to raise loan against the fixed deposits.

Earlier, addressing a gate-meeting of non-teaching employees, the Vice-Chancellor regretted for the delay in the payment of salaries. He assured them that in the coming months, he would make every possible effort to ensure the timely payment of the salaries.

Referring to the charges levelled against him by the Chancellor, he said he would quit if charges were proved against him.

Meanwhile, the Registrar, Mr Ashok Khemka, has denied reports appearing in a section of the Press that he had directed the Finance Officer and the Joint Director (Audit) not to release the salary of the Vice-Chancellor.

Seminar on BOT projects today
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, April 15 — A one-day national seminar on "Build, operate and transfer (BOT) projects for roads and bridges" will be held here tomorrow to emphasise the need for accelerated economic growth through laying of adequate urban infrastructure like roads, upgradation of highways, railway and over-bridges.

The Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Bansi Lal, will inaugurate the seminar which will have four sessions on BOT projects, including the concept of BOT and sharing of experiences and related problems.

Mr Ashok Aggarwal, Managing Director of the TCI Infrastructure Finance Ltd, said the concept of BOT projects should be widely accepted as it helped in improvement of infrastructure without any cost being shared by the state governments. The project executing agencies, he said, had full responsibility for quality of construction as it had to receive its money over years.

While Haryana had so far only one bridge — at Bata chowk at Faridabad- under the BOT system, Rajasthan had eight — four already completed and other four in progress.

Senior functionaries of the Haryana and Punjab Governments, besides those of the Ministry of Surface Transport, National Highway authority are likely to take part.

Bus conductor shot dead

PANIPAT, April 15 (PTI) — Rakesh Kumar, a bus conductor of Haryana Roadways Depot,Panipat was shot dead by a gang of robbers last evening between Butrada and Karodi villages in Muzaffar Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh when he tried to challenge the robbers who were threatening to loot the bus.

Giving this information, the General Manager of the depot told mediapersons today the bus was returning from Hardwar last evening when some unidentified robbers travelling in the bus tried to loot the passengers.One of the robbers kept a revolver on driver’s temple and asked him to stop the bus.

Sensing danger to the lives of the driver and other passengers, Rakesh Kumar rushed towards the driver and challenged the robbers. On that one of the robbers fired at him and the bullet pierced through his heart killing him on the spot, he added.

In the meantime, the driver noticed a police jeep approaching from opposite direction and by using light signals, the driver was able to convey to the jeep driver about the danger. However, the robbers fled before the police jeep reached near the bus.

Meanwhile the roadways staff in the depot organised demonstration in protest and no bus was allowed to ply from 10 am to 1 p.m. They were demanding immediate arrest of the culprits

5 killed, 42 injured in collision

KARNAL, April 15 (PTI) — Five pilgrims were killed and 42 others were injured, eight of them seriously, when the bus in which they were travelling collided head-on with a truck on the national highway near Arjaheri village, 23 km from here last night, the DSP, Mr Ajay Singhal said today.

Four of the deceased have been identified as belonging to Delhi.

The pilgrims were returning from Anandpur Sahib to Delhi, he said.

Those seriously injured have been shifted to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in Delhi.

The deceased are Bakshi, Paramjeet Kaur, Harbans Singh all residents of Tagore Garden Extension-Delhi, and Bhagwan Dass (bus driver from Delhi). One body has not yet been identified.

Those injured have been identified as Abdul Hayat (Kashmir), Paramjeet Singh (Dabwali), Manoj Kumar (Delhi), Balwinder Singh (Ravi Nagar-Delhi), Balwinder Singh (Ravi Nargar-Delhi), Surjeet Kaur (Delhi), Pooja (Delhi), Harbans Kaur (Luxmi Nagar-Delhi) Gurbhaksh Kaur (Delhi), Tahal Kaur (Tagore Garden ext-Delhi), Kamaljeet (Luxmi Nagar-Delhi), Kuldeep Singh (Tagore Garden ext-Delhi), Hardeep Singh (Delhi), Prem Singh (Tagore Garden ext-Delhi), Trilochan Singh (Tagore Garden ext-Delhi), Dalip Singh (Geeta Colony-Delhi), Kohar Singh (Tagore Garden ext-Delhi), Pritpal Singh (Peeragari-Delhi), Harpal Singh (Tagore Garden ext-Delhi), Baldev Singh (truck driver.-Jammu Kashmir), Shyam Lal (truck conductor-Kashmir), S.P. Gandhi (Raghbir Nagar-Delhi), Manoj (Pori Garhwal), Cheena (Raghbir Nagar-Delhi), Amarjeet Kaur (Tagore Garden-Delhi), Manjeet Kaur (Pashchim Vihar-Delhi), Parkash Kaur (Tagore Garden-Delhi).

Rest of the injured were discharged after providing first aid.