H A R Y A N A

Flash floods: toll rises to four
YAMUNANAGAR, June 11 — With two more children being washed away in floods here, the toll of those drowned has risen to four. Earlier, two persons, including one child, had died in a flood on Friday.

Foolproof steps to control floods
KARNAL: Near foolproof steps have been initiated by the Haryana Government to free Karnal district from the menace of floods.

Kisan panchayat puts off stir
GURGAON, June 11 —The Kisan Sangharsh Panchayat, spearheading the agitation of the farmers, has decided to shelve its agitational programme till July 10.

Six injured in clash
SONEPAT, June 11 — At least six persons, including two policemen, were injured when irate shopkeepers clashed with members of the demolition squad of the Sonepat Municipal Council outside the ESI dispensary here yesterday.

New taxes to hit growth of industry
ROHTAK, June 10 — By imposing new taxes on industries only, the government will kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs, feels the Faridabad Small Industries Association (FSIA).

No more payment to ABB: power body
PANIPAT, June 11 — The Haryana Bijli Utpadan Nigam will not make any more payment to Asea Brown Bowri (ABB), till the job of refurbishment in Panipat thermal power station is completed.

Fall in number of blood donors
AMBALA June 11 — The number of voluntary blood donors has not remained very encouraging during 1999 in Haryana, which has caused a great worry to the Haryana health services.

Flash floods: toll rises to four
From Ashwani Dutta

YAMUNANAGAR, June 11 — With two more children being washed away in floods here, the toll of those drowned has risen to four.

Earlier, two persons, including one child, had died in a flood on Friday.

Two children, Naushad and Noushish, sons of Dilshad, a migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh, were reportedly washed away. However, the administration has not confirmed the incident. The bodies of all four deceased have not been recovered despite efforts by the administration.

Kale, son of Ram Singh of Karera village, in this district, was saved by the people from being drowned. The standing crop and pulses were damaged extensively. Though the water has started receding, even now there is still standing water in hundreds of acres of land.

A number of villagers across the Yamuna, falling in Yamunanagar district, including Rangre, Nagli, Prahlad Puri, Uchabans, Nakun and Pobari, have been flooded.

The main crop urad dal, has been washed away.

The residents of these areas have alleged that though every year during the monsoon they are affected, neither the state government nor the district administration has taken preventive steps.

It is reportedly, the first time that flash floods have been experienced in this area during the first fortnight of June.

Satbir, son of Phul Chand of Gumthala village, was drowned on Friday when he tried to hold on to a log floating in the river.

Dr J.P. Sharma, MLA from Yamunanagar, has blamed the state government for not adopting preventive measures at the right time. He demanded that the state government should announced financial help to these families who have been uprooted because of the flash floods.

Mr Rajiv Sharma, Deputy Commissioner, informed that the Subdivisional Magistrate, Jagadhari, had visited the affected areas. He said that so far there was no news about the two missing children. He further added that nobody had lodged the complaint in this regard with the police.

However, Mr K.K. Sindhu, Senior Superintendent of Police, said on the telephone today that a report about these two persons had been lodged at the Gumthala Police station in this district.

Kisan panchayat puts off stir
Tribune News Service

GURGAON, June 11 —The Kisan Sangharsh Panchayat, spearheading the agitation of the farmers, has decided to shelve its agitational programme till July 10.

It will organise a meeting on July 10 to take stock of the situation and the government’s follow-up action on a meeting of a delegation of the farmers with the Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala, held on June 5.

The farmers are demanding that the amount of enhanced compensation already given to farmers against land acquired by HUDA be waived.

The District and Sessions Court had enhanced the amount of compensation to the farmers, but the high court reduced the same,upholding the appeal of HUDA against the decision of the lower court. The farmers want that as they had already spent the money before the decision of the high court, the government must find some way out so that the enhanced amount could be waived off. The courts’ decisions relate to the time of the HVP-BJP government headed by Mr Bansi Lal. The leaders of the panchayat are piqued as they feel that INLD leaders, who used to take part in their agitations on the issue during the time of the Bansi Lal government, are now apathetic to the cause after assuming power.

The leaders of the panchayat comprise members of various political parties. Leaders of the HVP have also come forward to show solidarity with the farmers.

Six injured in clash
From Our Correspondent

SONEPAT, June 11 — At least six persons, including two policemen, were injured when irate shopkeepers clashed with members of the demolition squad of the Sonepat Municipal Council outside the ESI dispensary here yesterday.

The members of the squad, headed by Mr Sultan Singh, SDM, and Mr Y.S. Gupta, secretary of the council, had gone there to remove unauthorised encroachments on municipal land. When they started demolishing the unauthorised structures with the assistance of the police, a large number of shopkeepers and other residents, including women started raising slogans against the Deputy Commissioner and the Chairman of the Sonepat Municipal Council. They also blocked traffic and later started throwing stones at the police and members of the squad. The police then resorted to a cane charge and dispersed them. As a result, six persons, including two policemen sustained injuries. The police also took into custody some persons who were later let off.

Mr Y.S. Gupta, secretary of the council, told this correspondent that notices were served for the removal of encroachments within three days, but the encroachers defied the notices and started an indefinite dharna by erecting shamianas on the site.

Foolproof steps to control floods
Tribune News Service

KARNAL: Near foolproof steps have been initiated by the Haryana Government to free Karnal district from the menace of floods.

Mr R.R. Dudeja, Superintending Engineer, Yamuna Water Services Circle, Karnal, told TNS here that the total cost of flood protection works taken up by the Haryana Irrigation Department in Karnal district alone would cost Rs 283.28 lakh.

The major achievement of the Irrigation Department in the completion of flood protection works is the doubling of capacity of the Nissing drain. The drain had been creating havoc during the rainy season in 30 villages in the area.

Mr G.D. Sharma, Executive Engineer, Nardak Water Services Division, Karnal, told TNS that during the rainy season of 1999 over 202.5 sq. k.m. was affected by the flood waters of the drain. Mr Sharma maintained that the flood waters entered village abadies of over a 12 villages during the period. The villagers had expressed resentment over the low capacity of the drain as well as the inability of the Government to save them from the recurring flood menace.

The present Chief Minister, Mr Om Parkash Chautala, came to the rescue of the affected villages and directed the Irrigation Department to initiate measures so that flood menace caused by the Nissing drain could be ended permanently.

As a result of the Chief Minister’s directions, the Haryana State Flood Control Board at its 31st meeting approved the widening of the drain at a cost of Rs 54 lakh.

Mr Sharma stated that the existing bed-width of Nissing drain was 34 to 45 feet. This has been widened to 60 feet now, thereby increasing the capacity of the Nissing drain by almost 100 per cent. This would not only safely carry the flood waters, but would also save Nissing town from flooding and the farmers’ land from being inundated.

The Executive Engineer disclosed that work on the widening of the drain was taken up on May 1 and by June end the entire work would be completed. When this reporter visited the drain, about six earth moving machines were working to widen the drain. Besides, one dozer has been deployed to level the dugup earth and convert the right bank of the drain into a motorable kutchha road. This is being done to make inspection of the drain easier during the rainy season. Over 60 per cent of work had been completed.

The Deputy Commissioner of Karnal has already inspected the works and interacted with the village sarpanches to know about the progress of the works.

Mr Iqbal Singh, Sarpanch of Alipur village, commenting on the widening of the drain told TNS that “our posterity will remember this commendable work done by the government to save them from floods”. Another Sarpanch of village Barss, Mr Pawan Kumar Sharma told this reporter that the widening of the drain would solve the long standing problem of the villagers. He commended the work of Irrigation Department officials who were completing the drain on time-bound basis.

Mr Sharma further said that about 250 km-length of drain was being cleared of weeds in Karnal and widened wherever it was necessary.

The capacity of the Nissing drain has been increased from 600 cusecs to 1100 cusecs. Similarly, work on the Balu Link drain — has also been taken up, so as to complete it before the onset of the monsoon season.

New taxes to hit growth of industry
From Jatinder Sharma

ROHTAK, June 10 — By imposing new taxes on industries only, the government will kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs, feels the Faridabad Small Industries Association (FSIA).

The FSIA spokesman, Mr Rajiv Chawla said when the Chautala government declared its new industrial policy last year, industrialists had seen a ray of hope. But the recent imposition of taxes by the government were contrary to its declared intentions and have belied the hopes of the industry.

Besides the imposition of Local Area Development Tax, the local bodies have also levied fresh taxes like Fire Tax and increased House tax, license fee, etc for the industries. The government, he said, is also planning to introduce Forms ST-38 for monitoring movement of goods, though it had earlier last year abolished some of the forms.

Pointing out the differences in recently announced sales tax rates under the uniform sales tax policy, Chawla said many plastic goods and packing material in Haryana have been put in 12 per cent slab while the tax rates for the same items in Delhi were 4 per cent . He has urged the authorities to bring it at par with Delhi as in the case of automobiles.

The industries, specially the small and tiny units, were bitter at the government decision to lower the limit of HT connection from 70 kw to 50 kw. The decision has suddenly put an additional burden of more than Rs 3 lakh on the affected units.

No more payment to ABB: power body
From Our Correspondent

PANIPAT, June 11 — The Haryana Bijli Utpadan Nigam will not make any more payment to Asea Brown Bowri (ABB), till the job of refurbishment in Panipat thermal power station is completed.

The job was given four years ago to ABB to increase the capacity of four units of the power station. ABB was assigned this job after an open tender in which BHEL was also a participant.

Under the terms and conditions of the tender, it was agreed upon that within a year the refurbishment job would be completed and the capacity of the four units of the power station would be increased from 110 MW to 118 MW.

Another condition was that ABB would arrange finance for this project from its own resources, whereas the nigam agreed to release part payments to the company. It was also stipulated that in case of non- completion of the job on time, ABB would have to pay a penalty.

The total tender price was Rs 352 crore. After acceptance of tender around 20 months back, ABB started refurbishment of second unit. The nigam paid Rs 80 crore as part payment and had stopped further payments for the last two months for non-completion of job within stipulated time. On the other hand, ABB claimed to have spent around 150 crore on the job so far.

For non-payment of dues, ABB stopped work on second unit immediately.

The Central Vidyut authority summoned both ABB and the Haryana Vidyut Utpadan Nigam but, the MD, Mr P.P. Papneja, clearly said no further payment would be made till refurbishment job is completed.

Fall in number of blood donors

AMBALA June 11 PTI— The number of voluntary blood donors has not remained very encouraging during 1999 in Haryana, which has caused a great worry to the Haryana health services.

Although the professional blood donors are generally discouraged by the Government blood banks, in most of the cases of the replacement of the blood, professional blood donors are used by claiming them the relative of blood seeker, for which they are paid a handsome amount.

According to official sources, in 1999 around 17,910 units of blood were collected in the various blood banks of the state, out of which only 4,442 units were collected through voluntary donors, while the balance 13,488 units were were raised through replacement donors.

During this period, in Ambala, 2,257 units of blood were collected in the blood bank, out of which 397 units were given by the voluntary donors. In Bhiwani, 2,176 units were collected, out of which 242 were gathered through voluntary donors. In Hisar, out of 4,011 units, 2,009 were the voluntary donors, while in Panchkula, out of 387 collected blood units, 219 came through voluntary donors.