The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

CHANDIGARH CALLING

CULTURE is a very important dimension of human development. Art is a significant facet of culture. And the act of going to a designated place is tourism. The four-day Basant Utsav (February 10-13) planned by the Environment Society of India (ESI) combines the three aspects.

For the first time a number of social and cultural organisations in the city are presenting their arts and crafts at the festival on different dates. There are Tamil Manram, Kerala Samagam, Kannada Sangh, Utkal Sanskriti Sangh, Bangia Sanskriti Sammelan, Himachal Sabha, Uttarakhand Yuva Manch, Kashmir Sahayak Sabha, Ladakh group, Gujarati Mandal, Jhang Sabha, Bahawalpur Welfare Association and the Federation of Migrant Group from N.W. India, now in Pakistan. The Song and Drama Division of the Government of India, will present a cultural programme.

On Basant Panchami, the spring tree plantation will be launched on the campus of Government Museum and Home Science College, Sector 10, Chandigarh. Besides kite-flying display by CAPE and fancy dress show will be held among various age groups in the Leisure Valley, Sector 10. The DAV Senior Secondary School (Lahore) is organising a painting contest among the children of various age groups on February 11 in the Leisure Valley.

Various competitions on cut-flowers, garlands, bonsai, gajra, garden will be held at Government Home Science College, Sector 10, Chandigarh at the Flower Show from February 12.

No parking

No Parking, screams a board fixed outside the Sector 23 temple. Every Tuesday and Saturday, there is a large turnout at this temple of the devout, who come to offer prayers and distribute prasad among poor and needy who line up outside.

To decongest the area, the police has put up a board to prevent people from parking their vehicles outside the temple. If someone does, he gets a challan by post after someone from the Traffic Police, probably Homeguards attached to it, jot down the number and pass it on to the authorities concerned.

Mr Vineet Khanna, a physically handicapped social activist who moves about in a specially crafted Sumo vehicle, also frequents this temple. Since he has to lie in the bed all the time, a special stretcher carrying him is unloaded from the vehicle as and when he comes to pay obeisance at the temple. He was surprised to get a challan for parking his vehicle outside the temple in February last year. This is, he says, how the police treats people with extreme disabilities.

Dark, crowded

The claims of postal authorities of providing quality and courteous services notwithstanding, all is not well with the Sector 29-D post office here.

The other day, there was a long queue of those who wanted to pay their telephone bills. Some wanted to buy postal stationery, a few others had come to deposit or withdraw money from the post office saving bank and yet some others wanted to send a registered letter or a money order.

Since the post office has only one multistation counter and only one clerk, there were heated exchanges between people in the queue as it was growing longer every moment. The sole clerk at the counter was feeling handicapped as there was no light. Though a number of tubelights are fitted, only one or two were working. Rest all were either fused or had some technical problems that prevented them from illuminating the hall.

When people protested, the employees kept on working silently. Probably they had been repeatedly complaining to the authorities concerned but no one was listening either to them or to the general public, which suffers because of the apathy of those who are to take action on such complaints.

This outlet needs more manpower and better facilities for the public.

No plastic bags

The city might have failed to ban plastic bags but, the Education Department, UT has come up with a novel idea. The department now plans to issue circulars to all schools to ban plastic bags and ask the students not to carry them to school. And if any plastic bags are to be found with the students, they are to be discarded by the teachers.

This, the department hopes, would not only give the message of 'no plastic bags' to the students but would also encourage children to spread the message further in their homes and eventually the city at large.

Uniform sales tax

The laudability of the philosophy of introducing a uniform floor rate for sales tax in all States and Union Territories notwithstanding, the haphazard implementation of the scheme has created problems instead of solving many.

For example, in Chandigarh, those dealing in computer terminals, accessories and spares and those dealing in tyres and tubes are upset over the new rates of sales tax notified on the evening of January 27 with the instructions of immediate implementation.

Mr Deepak Vohra, a senior manager of a leading tyre company, says that almost all major tyre companies, who have their offices in the city, would be forced to close down their establishments following a major hike in sales tax on tyres and tubes by the administration.

For example, he says, that sales tax with surcharge on tyres of trucks, cars and scooters is 13.2 per cent in Chandigarh compared to 8.8 % in Punjab, 10 % in Himachal and Haryana.

Tyres of farm applications have also not been spared in Chandigarh. With a tax of 13.2 % while it is 5 % in Haryana and 10 per cent in Himachal and 8.8 per cent in neighbouring Punjab. The difference in rates after payment of taxes on a pair of truck tyres from Punjab comes to Rs 850. The tyre dealers and their companies have made representations to the Administration. So far no action has been taken on their memoranda.

Same is the case with those selling computer terminals and peripherals here. Until January 27, sales tax on computer peripherals here was 2.2 % which has now gone up to 8.8 % while in neighbouring Panchkula it is just 2.1 %. In Delhi, sales tax on computer terminals is just 4 per cent.

As a sequel to this hike, most of the hardware dealers would either shift their operations to Panchkula or elsewhere as they maintain that they cannot even meet establishment expenses with steep fall in their sales because of difference in tax.

In fact, Haryana is yet to introduce floor rate of uniform sales tax because of ensuing Assembly elections. Himachal Pradesh, too, has deferred the implementation of the UST.

Geeta, Parneeta win doubles crown
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, Feb 6 — Geeta Aggarwal, an employee of the Food Corporation of India, and Parneeta, justified their top seeding when they beat Saroj Chaudhary and Bhavna in two straight games, 15-6, 15-7, to capture the women's doubles title on the penultimate day of the Chandigarh State Badminton Championship at the Sector 42 Indoor Hall today.

Oscar Bansal beat Aman Sethi to win the under-10 singles' title. Manpreet beat Neeraj Kapoor, 15-7, 15-6, to clinch the under-13 boys' title.

The other results were as follows: Under-16 girls' doubles — Harleen and Shilpa b Renu and Kanika, 15-2, 15-1; under-13 boys' doubles — Manpreet and Gurkirandeep b Aman and Harwinder, 15-0, 7-0 (conceded); Neeraj and Oscar b Abhimanyu and Munish, 15-2, 15-10; under-19 boys' singles — Deepak Sidhu b Varun Sharma, 15-4, 10-15, 15-8; under-16 boys' doubles — Narinder and Robin b Manpreet and Rahul, 15-7, 17-16; under-16 boys' singles (final) — Puneet Bansal b Akash Sethi, 15-11, 15-9; doubles final — Manpreet and Gurkirandeep b Neeeraj Kapoor and Oscar Bansal, 15-13, 12-15, 15-13.

Veterans' (above-35) doubles final — Jatinder Mahajan and Anil Mittal b Col Raj Parmar and Major Rajiv Mehta, 11-15, 15-12, 15-12; singles — Dr Ashok b Vijay Sharma 15-12, 15-5; above-55 singles — Satish Bhatia b T.K. Dogra, 15-2, 15-1; Cecil Parvez b G.S. Bajwa, 15-3, 15-9.

Under-13 girls (final) — Harleen b Shilpa 11-5, 11-5; under-13 singles final — Manpreet b Neeraj Kapoor, 15-7, 15-6; doubles final — Shilpa and Mehak b Harleen and Seema, 13-15, 15-11, 15-8; under-19 girls' doubles — Shilpa and Harleen b Neha and Mehak, 15-5, 15-7; men's doubles semi-finals — Amit Sachdeva and Rajnikant b Gurdev and Varun, 7-15, 15-0, 15-8; under-13 boys doubles finals — Manpreet and Gurkirandeep b Hardeep and Sunil, 15-2, 15-3.

Cricket trials: Trials to select the Chandigarh team for the Katoch Super League Cricket Tournament will be held at DAV Senior Secondary School, Sector 8, on February 7, according to Mr Mohinder Singh, Secretary of the Chandigarh Cricket Association affiliated to the Punjab Cricket Association.

ADMINISTRATION

IFS probationers visit Sukhomajri
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Feb 6 — A total of 32 Indian Forest Service (IFS) probationers today visited the Sukhomajri project at Sukhomajri in Haryana and later the Chhatbir zoo to study the conservation work being done here and the forestry available in the area. The group then went to Sukhna Lake to study the soil conservation project here.

Mr H.S. Sohal, Director, Environment, Union Territory and Chief Wildlife Warden and Deputy Conservator of Forests, informed that these probationers were here to study the integrated water-sharing approach at Sukhomajri and also the management of the cooperative water sharing project in the village.

On the issue of Sukhna Lake, Mr Sohal said that an intensive soil conservation project was being carried under which the UT Administration was spending an annual budget of Rs 1.5 crore.

One of the probationers, Mr Raja, who hails from Tamil Nadu and has been allotted the Punjab cadre, and who had earlier been working as a scientist-forestry on the Sukhomajri project, said: "This has been quite interesting, especially so because I had been working with the very same project that now I had the opportunity to experience up close".

Meanwhile, Mr Munish Mullick, in charge of the group, and the Associate Professor at the Indira Gandhi National Academy, Dehra Dun, informed that this trip of the IFS probationers was part of their out-of-class training in which they got to visit various parts of the country and learn about the various aspects of forestry and wildlife and ecology.

Sharing his experiences about the Chhatbir zoo, where these IFS probationers learnt about zoo management, Mr Mullick, who belongs to the UP cadre, said that they had spent almost two hours at the zoo and "it was heartening to see that even with a population of 57 tigers all appear so healthy and robust".

But one of the probationers did mention that the upkeep of the zoo was wanting in many areas and expressed concern about the hows and whys of private vehicles being allowed inside the premises. "This would disturb the animals and this is certainly an issue which needs to be researched more".

Ms Kamalpreet, group leader and an IFS probationer from Chandigarh, said: "The experience has been fairly interesting. As Forest Service Officers we are more exposed to wildlife sanctuaries, etc but I feel that zoos have an important role to perform since the common man has more access to them than to sanctuaries."

Her batch-mate, Ms Sashwati, who hails from Orissa, said that this had been more of a pleasure trip for them of all and added that at the same time they had learnt a great deal about the eco-system of the place.

Tomorrow the group would also study the city plantations in Sector 43 and also how to remove encroachments and have plantations in the railway station area, besides an in-depth study of the soil conservation in the region.

According to Mr Mullick, these probationers, who joined the service on May 1, 1998, underwent 16 months of professional training at the academy that included a tour to Himachal hills, West India tour of Rajasthan and Gujarat, an extensive South India tour of Kerala and an East India tour included the Andaman islands. And it was only recently that the Sukhomajri project had been added to this list.

PUDA reserves land for govt staff
Tribune News Service

SAS NAGAR, Feb 6 — At least 35 per cent of the land for cooperative house building societies in urban estates of the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA) has been fixed for the societies of the Punjab Government Employees. In the earlier policy on allotment of land for cooperative housing societies, there was no provision of reservation for different categories of societies.

The decision, applicable for all urban estates of PUDA was taken at a meeting of the Finance and Accounts Committee held recently. Under the Punjab Government Employees' category are the societies consisting of employees working in state government departments, boards and corporations, retired employees of the Punjab Government, those working in state universities, including Panjab University, government-sponsored cooperative organisation and hundred per cent owned public sector undertakings.

At least 5 per cent of the land had been reserved for ex-servicemen and the remaining put under the general pool. A proposed 5 per cent quota for NRIs was, however, not approved. Earlier, PUDA used to reserve 30 per cent of land for cooperative societies. Then after consultation with the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) and Delhi Development Authority (DDA), some changes have been made to meet the increased demand of housing.

However, a decision regarding the price of the land in different urban estates has not been taken.