• Fined for filing false case
• Bandh postponed
• Recruitment date

Bansi Lal calls Home Dept careless
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Jan 29 — Haryana's Home Department drew flak during question hour in the Vidhan Sabha today from none other than the Chief Minister, Mr Bansi Lal, for being "careless" in preparing the "note for pad" for the Home Minister, Mr Mani Ram Godara, and himself.

The Home Minister was replying to a question on law and order by Prof Sampat Singh (Lok Dal) and Capt Ajay Singh (Cong). When Prof Sampat Singh asked how many vehicles had been recovered from thieves arrested by the state police, Mr Godara shuffled his papers for a long time but could not find an appropriate answer.

Coming to the rescue of his colleague, Mr Bansi Lal too found himself in the same predicament. Ultimately, he had to accept that the Home Department had been careless in preparing an answer to the question, sending shudders in the officers' gallery. Senior officers immediately started sending information to the Chief Minister, but he was not satisfied. He promised to answer the question in detail during his reply to the debate on the motion of thanks on the Governor's Address.

The Leader of Opposition, Mr Om Prakash Chautala, welcomed the Chief Minister's gesture.

In response to the main question, Mr Godara said the number of absconding criminals in the state up to May 1, 1996, was 6,783 which had increased to 7,371 up to December last.

Mr Bansi Lal assured the House in response to a supplementary asked by Mr Dhir Pal (Lok Dal) that the state government would take steps in a phased-manner to prevent mixing of contaminated and flood waters with drinking water.

The Irrigation Minister, Mr Harsh Kumar, did not agree with Capt Ajay Singh that there was a need to set up a river water authority on the pattern of the Cauvery Water Authority.

Governor’s Address ‘pack of untruths’
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Jan 29 — Spearheading the Opposition attack on the government in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha, Mr Sampat Singh, former Irrigation and Power Minister, today said the Governor's Address was a pack of untruths which appeared to be an advertisement of a private company.

Mr Sampat Singh was speaking on a motion of thanks to the Governor for his Address to the members of the Vidhan Sabha moved by an Independent member, Mr Anil Vij.

Roads in the state were in a bad shape, the law and order had crumbled, there was no supply of power, water was becoming costlier and there was no development in the state, he said. A state in which its Governor was forced to come back to Chandigarh from Shahbad without inaugurating his scheduled function at Kurukshetra could not provide security to common man, he added.

Most of the ministers, he said, simply signed the statements handed down by the Government's Public Relations Department for publicity in the Press. The Government, he said, was obsessed with Ps — power, people, Press, prohibition and police. All these people and issues were under a great stress and these would certainly recoil on the Government as and when the situation would come.

He said the mismanagement in the power sector had further increased the power losses from 28.13 per cent in 1995-96 to 31 per cent in 1996-97 and 32.15 per cent in 1997-98. It was 33 per cent in the current financial year. He did not believe in the Government's assertion that 24-hour power supply would be available as the availability of power was only 2392 MW against its demand for at least 4,000 MW.

The burden on the agriculture sector would further increase to 37 per cent by the year 2000 and 41 per cent by the year 2003 as compared to the present level. He alleged that Bhiwani accounted for a significant position in power theft cases because of the "shelter" given to the power thieves by influential persons.

In spite of claims to the contrary, the Haryana Government had moved towards privatisation of the power sector. Demanding the scrapping of the Power Regulatory Commission and the setting of the companies for power distribution which would have private share holding, Mr Sampat Singh said privatisation was a phenomenon which was suitable only for developed countries and not the developing ones.

He said the Hathni Kund barrage project, for which a provision of Rs 1,858 crore had been made (out of which Rs 974 crore was the share of the World Bank), was an ongoing project for which the present Government could not take any credit. This Government, he said, was guilty of misutilisation of the available funds which were spent only on non-productive works. He quoted World Bank officials' derogatory remarks against some senior officials of the Government for ineffective management of the project.

Mr Harsh Kumar and Mr Karan Singh Dalal, two ruling party ministers, repeatedly intervened to give clarifications.

Mr Sampat Singh also mentioned that the Government's impatience with the agitators had resulted in 1,700 employees of the HSEB, 200 of the Tourism Department, 34 nurses and 15 commandos losing their jobs.

Ms Kartar Devi of the Congress said the Government's helplessness in bringing development in the state was clear from the repeated mentions of various schemes which were described as "under consideration" or "accepted in principle". While there were no schemes or projects for enhancing the supply of power immediately, people were getting bills even for the power not consumed. She said the Government did not consider the case of even those people whose power supply had been disconnected because of power conductor having been immersed in the standing waters of agricultural fields. Neither the connections had been restored, nor the bills for the disconnection period waived.

She pleaded the case of refunding the money of at least those unemployed youth who were not selected in the recent police recruitments. She emphasised that there could be no development in the state so long as the anti-social elements were given shelter by the influential people.

She urged the Government to get the norms for below-poverty-line people revised by the Central Government so that they were at least able to secure ration-cards for benefit under the PDS.

Mr Satwinder Rana (Congress) talked of the discriminations in the development of different areas in the state. He claimed that in spite of the Government's declarations, water was still standing in several fields in the state.

Earlier, Mr Anil Vij, who had moved the motion of thanks, appreciated the institution of Lokpal in Haryana which had been set up to check corruption which flowed from top to bottom.

Draw of lots for HUDA houses in February
From Our Correspondent

PANCHKULA, Jan 29 — The draw of lots for group housing societies at Panchkula, Faridabad and Gurgaon under the Group Housing Scheme-98 will be held on February 11, 13 and 14, respectively.

The group housing scheme was floated in 14 towns of Haryana in May last.

In case of Sonepat there was only one application.The draw of lots for the 10 other towns will not be held as there were no applications for these towns, said a HUDA official.

For Panchkula 330 societies had applied while for Gurgaon the number of applicant societies was 209. For Faridabad, all 51 applicant societies would be allotted plots as there number is less as compared to the land earmarked by HUDA for the purpose.

The other towns for which the housing scheme was floated were Karnal, Ambala, Rohtak, Panipat, Bhiwani, Sonepat, Rewari, Kaithal, Kurukshetra, Hisar and Bahadurgarh.

The Chief Administrator of HUDA, Mr P. Raghavendra Rao, when contacted said more impetus was being given to the state government employees, especially in Panchkula. Keeping this in mind the state government had increased the percentage of land reserved for societies of the employees from 10 per cent to 25 per cent in this township.

Asked about the towns which did not attract even a single application, he said the land earmarked for the purpose would be sold as plots.

College teachers to get salary soon
From Our Correspondent

YAMUNANAGAR, Jan 29 — Thousands of college teachers of Haryana have not received their salary for the past two months.

Prof Harbhajan Singh, former President, Haryana College Teachers Union, said here today that a deputation of the college teachers met the Education Minister, Mr Ram Bilas Sharma, Finance Minister, Mr Charan Dass Shorewala, and Additional Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, Mr D S Deshi, yesterday at Chandigarh and apprised them of the difficulties being faced by the teachers. They have been assured that their salary would be released soon.

Mr Singh said that demand drafts for the payment of their salary for November and December ’98 have not been received by respective colleges.

Mr Singh further emphasised that the teachers had not been given the salary of 26 days from August 11, ’98 to September 6, ’98. The teachers had participated in a nationwide strike the call for which was given by the All India Federation of University and College Teachers Organisation (AIFUCTO). Mr Singh said the teachers compensated the loss of study of students by taking extra classes and forgo the winter vacations. Mr Harbhajan Singh blamed the Haryana government for not releasing the salary for 26 days. He urged the government to release the revised UGC scale to the college teachers.

He said that the pension scheme for college teachers has been hanging fire for many years.

He said that since April 1, 1995 Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra and Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, have already accepted and implemented the pension scheme.

Numbers indicator of achievements?
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Jan 29 — The Haryana Government perhaps believes numbers are a great indicator of achievements to prove this point, the Minister of State for Public Relations, Mr Attar Singh Saini, says his Government has held 66 Cabinet meetings and taken 1,092 decisions during the past two years and eight months since the assumption of its office on May 11, 1996. This amounts to an average of one meeting of the Cabinet every fortnight.

He said as compared to this, the previous Government led by Mr Bhajan Lal had convened only 55 Cabinet meetings and decided 1,275 issues during its entire tenure of five years. Not only this, the Government led by Mr Devi Lal and his associates, which kept on changing the Chief Minister frequently from June 1987 to April 1991, convened merely 51 Cabinet meetings and took 1,224 decisions.

Mr Saini said the HVP-BJP Government, led by Mr Bansi Lal, was committed to make Haryana a welfare state in letter and spirit on a socialist pattern. It was this aim which prompted the Government to hold Cabinet meetings frequently to take decisions on important issues without any delay so as to ensure that the benefits of the schemes must reach those for whom these were being implemented.

He added that the setting up of the institution of Lokpal would go down the annals of the history of Haryana as a significant step to ensure a clean public life.

41 tubewells in Faridabad by March
Tribune News Service

FARIDABAD, Jan 29 — Fortyone new tubewells will start functioning in Faridabad by the end of March this year easing the water problem in the city to a great extent.

Stating this here today Subedar Suman, Mayor of the Faridabad Municipal Corporation, said that this would increase the number of tubewells to 341. During the past four years 100 tubewells had been installed in the city.

The Mayor said that at present the tubewells supply 3.50 lakh gallons of water daily against a demand of five lakh gallons leaving a shortage of 1.50 lakh gallons. Tankers would be pressed into service to supply water in areas which suffer shortage specially during the summer months.

Subedar Suman disclosed that the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) had sanctioned a loan of Rs 20 crore to the civic body for the Rennywell scheme for augmenting water supply in the city. The Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) would also arrange Rs 20 crore for the project.

Under the project two Rennywells would be bored in the Yamuna bed near Dadesia village and another 16 deep tubewells around the village. It is hoped that the shortage of water would be a thing of the past when the scheme was completed in the next two years.

Linemen’s pay hike plea allowed with costs
By Our Legal Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, Jan 29 — A Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, today, while allowing 22 writ petitions with costs of Rs 1000 in each case, filed by Assistant Linemen and others working in the Haryana State Electricity Board, directed the payment of revised pay scales of Rs 1200-2040 from January, 1, 1986, to those who were in service on that date and from the date of their recruitment to those who were not in service on January 1, 1986.

It was petitioners' case that in a similar case of Shyam Sunder and others, the High Court had allowed revised pay scales from January 1, 1986, the date from which revised pay scales were allowed to other employees, but the S.L.P. filed by the respondents had been dismissed by the apex court.

The petitioners stated that they were also working on the same posts and were claiming the same relief. It was submitted that the pay scales of their counterparts were revised from January 1, 1986, and were granted a scale of Rs 1200-2040. But the petitioners were not given the same. They sought grant of the revised grade from January 1, 1986.

It was the case of the respondents that the L.P.A. against the aforesaid judgement had been admitted and thus was a subject matter of adjudication by the High Court and that these matters should either be decided by the L.P.A. Bench or be kept pending till a decision on the L.P.A.

The Bench rejected the plea of the respondent-board and observed that nothing had been pointed out from where it was possible to take a different view on why an imaginary date had been fixed?

Fined for filing false case
From Our Correspondent

KAITHAL, Jan 29 — Ram Pal who launched false proceedings against Raghbir had to pay a heavy price.

The Chief Judicial Magistrate, Mr Satish Ahlawat, has ordered the payment of Rs 25,000 as damages to Raghbir of Pilni village in this district. The judgement was delivered following a suit filed by Raghbir alleging that Ram Pal who, at one time, was helping him in business falsely implicated him in a criminal case of theft to take revenge. Raghbir had thrown him out from the business due to some differences.

During investigations the police found the charge to be baseless and criminal proceedings were dropped against him.

Raghbir filed a suit and claimed damages for false and malicious criminal case, following which he was arrested by the police and suffered mental agony and physical harassment. In view of the circumstances of the case and evidence on record the court directed Ram Pal to pay damages to the petitioner.

Bandh postponed
From Our Correspondent

HISAR, Jan 29 — The proposed call for Narwana bandh given by the Sarvjatiya Khap, on February 3 in protest against the increase in the cases of kidnapping, murder and other crimes in the town and its surrounding areas, has been postponed.

According to Mr O.P. Chopra and Mr Laxman Mirdha, president and secretary, respectively, of the Sarvjatiya Khap, the decision to postpone the bandh was taken after a meeting with the Deputy Commissioner, Jind, Mr Tarun Bajaj, and the Superintendent of Police, Mr Ranbir Sharma. They have given an assurance that the culprits involved in the Balbir kidnapping and murder case would be booked soon.

Recruitment date
From Our Correspondent

HISAR, Jan 29 — The recruitment in the Army which was to start from February 16 in Hisar Cantonment will now be held earlier i.e. from February 15 to 20.

Col Arun Kumar Sharma, Recruitment Officer, said here today that according to the changed programme the recruitment from amongst wards of serving and ex-armymen of Hisar, Jind and Kaithal would be made on February 15, 16 and 17, respectively. General recruitment from Sirsa and Fatehabad districts would be held on February 20.