Jawan recalls assault on Thangtop
By Amarjit Thind
Tribune News Service

CHANDI MANDIR, July 26 — “I and a fellow jawan faced the brunt of a fusillade of bullets from the enemy for more than three hours at the Thangtop glacier in order to protect a sizeable assault party which had managed to reach within 50 yards of the well fortified enemy positions”, recalls jawan Ramesh Kumar, at present convalescing at the Command Hospital here.

He was the only soldier to be injured in an aborted attempt to capture the strategic Thangtop peak in the Third Glacier area in the Kargil sector. This area reportedly continues to be occupied by the infiltrators and attempts are underway to dislodge and recapture the posts.

The 30-year-old jawan of 12 Jat Regiment is a resident of Rajpur village in Sonepat district. His eyes mirror the hardship and problems faced by the assault team which was unfortunately detected by the enemy minutes before the assault could begin. “It was a case of losing the ‘surprise element’ which has been a vital feature in the capture of various areas in Operation Vijay,” he said.

A previous attempt, some days earlier, had been aborted as the enemy had detected our movement and had done heavy shelling in the base camp area. But the post was strategically important and had been gained at considerable cost during the 1971 war, he said.

“We had been assigned the task of capturing Thangtop and accordingly a 44-strong heavily armed assault team was assembled. We had our dinner and started the ascent at about 8.30 p.m. on July 19. A jawan and I were assigned the task of laying a communication line and were some distance behind the main party.

“After a hard and arduous trek in pitch dark conditions, the party had taken cover behind some boulders and were some 50 yards from the enemy bunkers which were dimly visible against the skyline. There was no movement.”

On the other hand, our job had been compounded since we could hardly see a thing in the dark. We had to securely lay the line and were racing against time. In the meantime, the assault party had radioed base camp that they were lying in wait.

We reached our objective at about 3.30 a.m. and informed the base camp that we were in place. This information was then radioed to the leader of the assault party.

By this time, it was nearly dawn and some movement might have been detected by the enemy who fired two para flares lighting up some of the area. The jawans who were coming to fetch us were spotted by the infiltrators who targeted them through sniper rifles.

Even though we had lost the surprise element, but to salvage the mission it was decided that the main party would lie still. After sniper fire failed to get any of us, heavy firing was resorted to. We fired back and this continued for the next couple of hours. It was daylight by this time and seeing our determination artillery fire was brought down on us.

One of the shells landed on some boulders which started rolling on to us. While others managed to roll away, I was crushed under a boulder and became unconscious. I was pulled out at about noon by the others but I had broken my collarbone, hip and leg.

The firing was sporadic but artillery shells were still landing irregularly. By this time the weather had begun to deteriorate and the entire area was engulfed in mist which helped us to pull back at about 4. 30 p.m.

“Even though it pains me to lie here knowing we could not accomplish our mission, the only consolation is that at least everybody lived to get into another fight. My aim is to get well and have another go at the enemy,” he adds with determination.

Hotels lack adequate parking space
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 26 — In the absence of adequate parking space, the visitors to two hotels run by the Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Development Corporation (CITCO) are an inconvenienced lot.

The visitors to Hotel Shivalik-view and Hotel Mountview allege that for want of sufficient parking area on the premises of the hotels, they have to park their vehicles outside the hotels. This exposes the vehicles to the risk of being stolen.

The problem is compounded when social or marriage functions are held. With not sufficient area for parking, the guests are forced to park their vehicles on the roads outside the hotels. Besides being a security risk to the vehicles, this is a traffic hazard as vehicles are parked on both sides of the roads.

Not only this, the vehicle owners are doubly disadvantaged since the the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in one of its directives recently, had disallowed the parking of vehicles on the roadside. Apart from the fear of the theft of vehicles, they have to contend with the thought of vehicles being towed away by the traffic police.

Mr Gurpreet Singh, a regular visitor to the Mountview, alleges that he rarely finds space to park his car. Though the two hotels have small parking areas of their own, the Chandigarh Administration should have set an example for other hotels to follow by developing proper parking lots, he adds.

Though CITCO has spent a large sum on the renovation of the two hotels, the development of the parking area has not been given attention. In the Mountview, the parking lot of the expansion wing of the hotel is yet to be opened to the public.

The situation is no different in the Shivalikview. As a part of the parking space is used for serving food at the time of marriage functions, not enough space is left for parking. Moreover, the underground parking is not fully utilised.

Shortage of passport forms continues
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 26 — The Regional Passport Office in Sector 34 here has been facing shortage of passport application forms for the past six months with long queues of people not only outside the passport office but also at nearby shops having photostat machines, which seem to be doing brisk business by selling copies of these forms.

According to the authorities, the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, has already been contacted several times regarding the problem of shortage of these forms. The last letter to this effect, according to sources, was sent on July 13 to the ministry concerned. Meanwhile, the photostat copies of the form are also considered as authorised forms.

Interestingly, the photostat machines that are situated within the vicinity of the office have already kept ready-to-deliver photostat copies of the application form at a rate of Rs 10. The application form is otherwise given free of cost by the Regional Passport Office to the applicants.

“Now that the forms are not in easy supply, it is easier to buy forms from these shops itself, since Rs 10 is not a very big amount. Otherwise, the photocopy of this form , which has eight pages (printed both sides) and two index cards, would be costlier from anywhere outside. About double this amount of money”, said Mr Chandi Lal, who was standing in a queue outside a photostat shop.

With a long unmanageable queue outside this shop, there obviously is little space for either the elderly or the fairer sex to even try and get anywhere near to get the forms. Of course, most women were being escorted by their brothers, husbands or fathers!

The authorities on their part were seen to be giving patient listening to all those present, but regarding the shortage of forms they also expressed their inability to do much. “There is a lot of difficulty one has to face because of shortage of forms, but once the form is procured things go on smoothly, so that is one major saving grace”, said Mrs Bala, seen struggling, in a large queue, to get her copy of the photostat form.

While the passport office is in short supply of application forms, the GPO, Sector 17, has 338 of these forms still in its stock, according to Col Tilak Raj, the Chief Post Master General, Punjab Circle. Since the postal services also carry out certain services on behalf of other offices, keeping a stock of the passport application forms also happens to be one of their functions. This form, however, is not available for free here, but at a nominal fee of Rs 3.

“Anybody coming to the GPO, for buying stamps, or sending parcels or mail or any other thing also has the facility to buy this form from the same premises. As far as our present stock is concerned, it does not come from this passport office, but from our own stock depot”, added Col Tilak Raj.

The Regional Passport Office, on its own part, is yet to ascertain when it would have a steady supply of application forms, since even the supply of the passport booklet is very erratic these days. In fact, sources also said that the erratic supply had also affected the whole process of obtaining passport, the time period of which has now increased from four weeks to almost three months.

Slump in sale of second hand cars
By Varinder Singh
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 26—The announcement of poll dates has failed to infuse a fresh lease of life in the buyer-strapped local Sector 7 car bazar, which is facing rough weather these days primarily due to an all-around slump in the second hand car market.

Unlike in the past, election time has been unable to draw buyers of second hand cars — to be used by candidates and their campaigners in the neighbouring States of Punjab and Haryana in their poll campaigns — to the market so far, thus dampening the spirits of car dealers, who were pinning their hopes on the assumption that the elections might boost the sales in the market. So, in the prevailing circumstances they have no choice but to rely on the usual flow of buyers. The number of buyers, it is learnt, is trickling down with each passing day, since the day car prices started crashing during the past one year.

Describing the market scene as 'spiritless', Mr Sanjay Kumar, a dealer, said though the major impact of the election on sales is witnessed in Punjab and Haryana, where the candidates resort to vigourous campaigning, but the local market too used to have its share, though a meagre one, as a number of candidates used to purchase cars from the local market.

Most dealers said the Union Territory had a peculiar character as far as electioneering was concerned." While in the states of Punjab and Haryana, candidates prefer to buy second hand vehicles, candidates here go in for hired vehicles," said a dealer.

"This time even that effect is nowhere to be seen. There is no increase in the flow of buyers. Rather their number has decreased, causing a sense of uncertainty among sellers," he added, saying that if he was able to sell five to six cars on every Sunday during last year, the figure has come down to just two to three. While blaming the

crashing of prices to a fall in the prices of Maruti car last year and to a general slump in the market, he added that in the present scenario both sellers and buyers felt that they would suffer a loss if they sell or buy a car or other four-wheelers.

"Such a feeling leads to a situation, where the sellers are more and buyers are fewer in numbers," said Mr Jagdish Chand, who unlike most of the dealers was straightforward enough to concede that the market was passing through rough weather and there was no ray of hope, at least in the near future. His estimate was correct, if the number of sellers who were failing to attract buyers since morning and were unable to do so till late in the evening was any indication.

Attributing the fall to a decline in the prices of Maruti, a number of dealers said had there been no such sliding, there would not have been any dip in the prices of second hand cars " Rather these would have been commanding a nice price in the market," added a trader, rating the decline in the inflow of customers to about 15 per cent as compared to last year.

Meanwhile, enquires by this correspondent revealed that the downward trend in the prices of new cars essentially had its effect on the prices of second hand cars. A 1990 model, Maruti, priced at Rs 80,000 last year, was fetching just Rs 60,000 today. So much so that a good condition 1996 model could be had for Rs 1.25 lakh and a 1998 model for about Rs 1.5 lakh.

Similarly, one could purchase a 1996 model Ceilo for anything between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 2.45 lakh. According to the traders, there were few takers for Contessa, NE 118, Maruti Van and the Premier Padmini, the most preferred saloon car of yore.

"You can have a 1995-96 model Contessa between Rs 60,000 and Rs 70,000, and all models of Fiats for about Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000. Except for the diesel version, there was no demand for the Ambassador," said Gurpreet, a dealer. He said while a 1996-97 model Sumo could be purchased between Rs 2 and Rs 2.5 lakh, a 1996 Zen was priced at around Rs 2 lakh or even less.

Slushy road causes problems
From Our Correspondent

ZIRAKPUR, July 26 — Cesspools of stinking water and slush accumulate at various places and potholes on the Zirakpur-Patiala national highway often put road users to numerous problems after a heavy spell of rain. Deep potholes and cesspools of sullage in front of shops have become a hazard for residents and visitors.

Heaps of garbage and other refuse in the market and along the drains in the streets of the town show the indifference of the newly formed Nagar Panchayat and the PWD (B and R) authorities towards the town. There is a threat of an epidmic.

Though the Administrator of the Nagar Panchayat claims that development of the township is being planned, he has hardly visited the place.

Water accumulates on the road at the local bus stop often puts commuters to great inconvenience. They have to wade through slush to catch buses. Often speeding vehicles throw mud on people on the roadside.

The condition of the road forces loaded trucks to move at a snail’s pace here. Some vehicles get stuck in potholes and often suffer major damages. Deep potholes on the roads have virtually turned into death-traps.

Mr Sunehri Lal, President, Market Welfare Association, complained that sewer pipes were blocked at many points. Flies and mosquitoes hover around exposed eatables in various dhabas along the road in the town.

Mr Ramesh Mittal, a shopkeeper, said the slush along the road affedcted their business as customers prefer to stay away from their shops.