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H A R Y A N A |  |
 Sunday, March 28, 1999 |
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Norms flouted to favour kin
of VIPs? JEs
to get promotion benefits |
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 Government agencies may face wheat storage problem FATEHABAD, March 27 — Government procuring agencies at Fatehabad are likely to face problems during the coming wheat season. |
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Hooda,
Bhajan camps' rallies on same day Jindal
dubbed 'opportunist' |
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Norms
flouted to favour kin of VIPs? ROHTAK, March 27 — Are norms for examinations being flouted by Pandit B.D. Sharma Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) in order to help wards and kin of certain influential persons? There are reports that the examination work has been taken away from the Dean and given to a professor junior to him. According to sources, the institute authorities on February 12 wrote to the Dean asking him to relieve the academic staff. The staff was then told to report to a professor of the Microbiology Department for work related examinations and entrance tests. No reason was stated for the transfer of this responsibility. It is pertinent to mention that the Dean had been made responsible for organisational work related to all examinations whether they were the nature of entrance tests or for the purpose of award of degrees as per a notification issued on January 1, 1998, by the office of the Financial Commissioner and Secretary to the Government of Haryana, to the Director, PGIMS, here. The post of the Dean was created a year ago and Dr S.R. Siwach, a senior professor and Head of the Medicine Department appointed on the post. Normally the examination work is supervised by Maharshi Dayanand University to which the institute is affiliated. But the Haryana Government took away the powers of the Vice-Chancellor to conduct the pre-medical entrance test (PMT) and all postgraduate courses on January 1 this year. The government set up a five-members committee headed by the Secretary and Commissioner, Department of Education, to supervise the examinations. The Director of the PGIMS was made member-secretary. The Registrar of M.D. University and Commissioner and Secretary, Health and Labour Departments, respectively, were other members on the committee. As a result, the exams for MD/MS courses which were earlier to be held on March 14 were postponed and rescheduled. The exams of the MBBS, BDS and BAMS are conducted in May-June every year. According to the sources, the decision to take over the examination work from the Dean and to hand it over to a professor who is not only junior to him but who holds no administrative post in the PGIMS is being viewed as 'controversial' as far as the holding of free and fair examinations is concerned. It is learnt that a candidate preparing to appear in the coming MD/MS examination is working as demonstrator in the same department headed by this professor. This candidate is the son of a doctor practising at Bhiwani who is reported to be close to the "top brass" of the state government. Another aspirant for the MD/MS courses this year is reportedly a daughter of a minister in the Haryana Government, yet another candidate in this category is a relative of another minister. It is reported that some candidates belonging to influential families had earlier migrated from college to this institute. There are about 100 seats in MD/MS courses here. When contacted, the
Director of the PGIMS, Dr D.S. Dubey, said the professor
in the microbiology department had been asked to help in
organising the examinations. He said he did not know why
the Dean was not involved in this work. He claimed this
decision was not taken by him but at a higher level. It
was the prerogative of the government to authorise
anybody for the examination work, he added. |
Government agencies may face wheat
storage problem FATEHABAD, March 27 — Government procuring agencies at Fatehabad are likely to face problems during the coming wheat season. With the heavy arrival of wheat a certainty, the agencies do not seem to be prepared. According to sources, 9.70 lakh bags of wheat had arrived in the local grain market last year. Going by reports of better crop this season the sources expect an increase of up to 25 per cent over the last year's arrivals. They expect that 11.5 lakh to 12 lakh bags of wheat might arrive in the local grain market this year. But the procurement agencies may not find sufficient space to score the wheat. A glance at the fate of wheat procured by these agencies last year will suffice to have an idea of what is in store for the agencies. The Food and Supplies Department a state government procurement agency, stacked 1.40 lakh bags of wheat in the sheds of the new unutilised vegetable market on the Hisar road, out of this the agency has been able to lift only 38,000 bags. As many as 1.02 lakh bags belonging to the agency are still lying stacked under the sheds. Likewise out of 60,000 bags of wheat stacked by the agency under the additional sheds of the local grain market, only 24,000 bags have been lifted, while 36,000 are still lying stacked under the sheds. Confed, another agency, which procured wheat last season, stacked 2.14 lakh bags of wheat under the sheds of the new vegetable market, in the last procurement season, but the agency has been able to lift only 51,857 bags of wheat in the whole of year and about 1.62 lakh bags of wheat belonging to the agency are still stacked in the market. With over three lakh bags of the wheat procured last year still lying stacked and arrival of about 12 lakh more bags expected in the coming month, the agencies will find it difficult to manage the heavy glut of wheat. An official of the Food and Supplies Department confided on the condition of anonymity that the agencies were not yet armed to deal with the situation. The authorities, he said, were contemplating of storing the new arrival of wheat with private millers. Mr Nachhatar Singh Malhan,
secretary, local market committee, said five government
procurement agencies the Food and Supplies Department,
the State Warehousing Corporation, Hafed, the Haryana
Agro and Confed had been assigned the job of wheat
procurement this time. He said that the market committee
had a capacity to store 45,000 bags of wheat. |
JEs to get
promotion benefits ROHTAK, March 27 — Nearly 5,000 junior engineers of the Irrigation Department in Haryana will get the benefit of promotion to the post of SDOs in their service time after the government amended their promotion conditions recently. The state government has decided that an all-time 45 per cent promotional quota will be reserved under this category. This long pending demand of junior engineers was accepted by the government on March 19 last and had been sent for official notification. According to official sources, after the amendment the junior engineers will be promoted to the post of SDOs on seniority basis when the seats of promoted SDOs fall vacant. Earlier, only 43 per cent seats, which were vacated by the promoted SDOs, were filled up by the junior engineers. Rest of the posts 57 per cent were filled by direct recruitment. Mr Kanha Ram and Mr Yashpal Dhull, president and general secretary respectively of Haryana Diploma Engineers' Association have thanked the Chief Minister, Mr Bansi Lal and the Irrigation Minister, Mr Harsh Kumar, for the decision. They said the vacant posts of SDOs had been included in the common pool so far resulting in a continuous decrease in the number of promoted SDOs. They said the number of promoted SDOs had decreased to 37 in Irrigation Department due to this reason. Mr Jagdip Singh Sangwan, a former general secretary of the association, said the number of junior engineers, who could avail the promotion opportunity now might reach 110 in the Irrigation Department alone. He said the amendment concerned was already done in Public Health Department in December, 1998 availing which 20 junior engineers had been promoted to SDOs. However, resentment prevails among the staff members of Public Works Department (PWD) over no amendment in their promotion conditions. They alleged certain officials had been misguiding the Chief Minister in this regard for their personal interest. A delegation of the association met the Chief Engineer on March 24 last and demanded the amendment. Meanwhile, the association
has sought timely implementation of their demands raised
at the annual conference concluded at Jind on November 7.
The minister concerned in the presence of Mr Surender
Singh, M.P., had reportedly accepted their demands which
include increase in the promotion quota, abolition of the
departmental examination and pay scales of SDO and
executive engineer to the junior engineers after a
service of five and 11 years respectively. |
Hooda,
Bhajan camps' rallies on same day CHANDIGARH, March 27 — The Haryana Congress infighting has spilled into the streets. Four major groups of the party led by the party chief, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, a former Chief Minister, Mr Bhajan Lal; a former party chief, Mr Birender Singh; and a former Rajya Sabha member and former party chief, Mr Shamsher Singh Surjewala, respectively, have been so far fighting with each other within the forewalls of the party structure. It is another matter that they never made a secret of their differences with each other. But now for the first time in the recent history of the Haryana Congress, the Hooda camp and the Bhajan Lal camp are organising parallel rallies on the same day in the same district. On March 28, while Mr Bhajan Lal will organise a rally at Panipat, Mr Hooda will address another rally at Israna in the Jat belt of Panipat district. Interestingly, both camps are trying to undermine the status of their own rallies. If the Bhajan Lal camp describes the Panipat rally as a district-level rally, the Hooda camp terms the Israna rally as a block-level function. But their efforts to mobilise people from outside the district are not hidden from anyone. Mr Bhajan Lal has gone on record to claim that the gathering at his district - level rally would be more than that at Mr Hooda's state-level rally held at Jind. Mr Hooda is yet to make a counter-claim. Mr Birender Singh too is holding his own rallies. Recently he addressed a rally at Kaithal organised by a former Minister and former MLA from that town, Mr Surinder Madaan. Mr Surjewala is active under the banner of the Bharat Krishak Samaj. He heads the Haryana unit of the Samaj. The Bhajan Lal camp has given more than broad hints that the AICC President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, has approved the series of district-level rallies the former Chief Minister plans to organise in the state in the coming months. As a token of Mrs Gandhi's approval, the AICC General Secretary, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, who is the in charge of the party affairs in Haryana, the Bhajan Lal camp suggests, will also address the Panipat rally. If this happens it would be a coup of sorts for the former Chief Minister, who has been cornered by the Hooda camp in the Haryana Congress for a long time. However, in a statement here yesterday Mr Hooda not only denied that he was planning to cancel the Israna rally but also discounted the possibility of Mr Mukherjee's presence at the Panipat rally in a diplomatic manner. He said he did not have any intimation regarding the participation of Mr Mukherjee in the Panipat rally. The Hooda camp says it is
a usual practice that whenever a party general secretary
in charge of the party affairs in a particular state
visits that state, the Pradesh Congress Committee is
informed in advance. Mr Mukherjee, who is to inaugurate a
three-day training camp of the Youth Congress h ere on
March 29, has already intimated his itinerary to the
Haryana Congress which has its headquarters in
Chandigarh. But so far he has not informed the PCC about
his plans, if any, to visit Panipat on March 28. He is
scheduled to return to Delhi from Calcutta tomorrow
afternoon. |
Jindal
dubbed 'opportunist' CHANDIGARH, March 27 — Mr Rajeev Jain, general secretary of the Haryana Vikas Party, has termed Mr O.P.Jindal a former MP, as an "opportunist" who was now speaking against the Haryana Government as he was unable to make the HVP president and the state government dance to his tunes. Mr Jain, who was reacting to a statement made by Mr Jindal that appeared in a section of the press yesterday charging that there was corruption in Haryana, said Mr Jindal should first set his house in order before pointing an accusing finger at others. He said a prominent national daily had carried a front page story highlighting the financial irregularities being committed by one of his industrial units. He said the Haryana Government had been taking a number of steps to check corruption. The institution of Lok Ayukta had been set up to check graft at high places and even the Chief Minister would be under his ambit. All kinds of discretionary quotas of the Chief Minister had been abolished to give top priority to merit. The administration had been made more efficient and transparent. Jobs were now being given only on merit, he claimed. He asked Mr Jindal to recollect his days of association with the HVP which gets its accounts audited besides furnishing return of income tax. He pointed out that the
way Mr Jindal had formed a morcha after leaving the HVP
it was evident that his move of spreading casteism by
forming such a unit would not succeed and that had proved
true with his joining the Congress. He alleged that Mr
Jindal was in the habit of ditching others. Even now when
he had merged his Haryana Sarvjati Party with the
Congress, there was no mention of his three associates,
Mr Ashwani Kumar Chopra, patron, Mr Arvind Sharma,
Vice-President and Mr Raghu Yadav, general secretary of
the so-called morcha constituted by Mr Jindal. |
No clue to
woman's murder SIRSA, March 27 — The mystery behind the murder of Ms Durga Nathani, an old lady, whose dead body was found by the Sirsa police on Thursday from a hut near the local railway station remain unsolved. According to sources Ms Nathani, a resident of Karnataka, had been living in a hut near the local government railway police post for past more than 20 years and was allegedly murdered on Monday in her hut. During post-mortem it was found that she was not raped and was reportedly murdered with sharp-edged weapons. The police has registered
a criminal case under Section 302 of the IPC. |
2 killed in
accident REWARI, March 27 — Rajinder Rastogi (28) and his brother-in-law, Ashok Kumar Rastogi (46), died on the spot when their Maruti van hit tree on the Rewari-Narnaul road near Sundroj village 8 km from here, yesterday. They were going from Nangli Bahari village, 35 km from here, to Delhi when the accident occurred. The victims, bodies were
handed over to their families after a post-mortem
examinations. |
MC chief
reinstated SHAHABAD, March 27 — The President of the local municipal committee, Mr Surindra Sharma, who was suspended by the Director, Local Government Department, Haryana, on January 29, following his arrest and registration of a case against him in connection with a blockade on the GT road where the motorcade of the Governor was to pass, took over as the President of the civic body here yesterday. The Appellate Authority accepted his appeal and set aside his suspension orders on March 24. Mr Sharma, who was in the judicial lock-up in connection with the above case since January 8, was released on bail on March 25. The government has now,
vide the same order, asked him to show cause, within a
week, why action should not be taken against him in
connection with the case. |
'Farmers
Fair ' from April 2 ROHTAK, March 27 — An All-India farmers' fair and exhibition on Agro-industries and rural technology organised by a non-governmental organisation will be held at Chhapar village in Jhajjar district from April 2 to 5. According to Mr Sukhbir, convener of the fair, the event was first of its kind in the rural areas of the state. He said it would bring together input resource entrepreneurs and farmers. Exhibitions, seminars,
lectures and conferences involving research experts and
scientists would be held. |
Dacoit
arrested FARIDABAD, March 27 — Sunder, an alleged dacoit, wanted in several cases of murder and loot, was arrested by the police and sent in judicial custody for 14 days yesterday. He was also wanted by the
police for the alleged murder of a woman and a man
recently, a police spokesman said today. |
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