The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

Fee on land sale deeds hiked
By Rajmeet Singh
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — The Revenue Department has substantially hiked the minimum fee for the registration of land sale deed falling in over 280 villages of the SAS Nagar and Kharar subdivisions. The hike varying between 7 per cent and 60 per cent has became effective from last Monday.

The hike is also effective in the villages under the Majri subdivision which are being acquired for Anandgarh. Since the cost for the acquisition of land is decided on the basis of registration deeds in past one year, the hike will enable the government to offer the acquisition cost for the land in the villages at the enhanced rate. The minimum fee for registration deed has been increased from Rs 3.25 lakh per acre to Rs 5.50 lakh per acre — a hike of 40 per cent. In case of Kansal village the fee has been increased from Rs 6 lakh to Rs 7.50 lakh per acre.

Sources in the revenue department said land in at least 28 villages in Ropar district was being acquired for the proposed Chandigarh-Ludhiana railway link. Over 1350 acres of land was also being acquired for further expansion of the town.

In 83 villages of the SAS Nagar subdivision the hike in the fee varies between 7 per cent and 35 per cent on the basis of the type of land which has been classified in two five categories — fertile land, less fertile land, baren land, land falling in seasonal rivulet and land within abadi. In case of Mauli Baidwan and Badmajra villages the fee for the fertile land has been increased from Rs 3.25 lakh per acre to Rs 5 lakh per acre.

For the Matour, Kumbra Madanpur, Mohali villages falling within the town the minimum fee the registration of residential plots has been increased by at least 20 per cent. For the abadi land in Raipur Khurd, Chila, Mauli Baidwan, Safipur and Badmajra villages no change has been made in the existing fee structure. The fee for the fertile land falling along the SAS Nagar- Kharar road and SAS Nagar- Fatehgarh Sahib road has been increased from Rs 7.50 lakh to Rs 9 lakh.

However, the minimum rates for the registration of residential property in the town would continue to be Rs 3600 per sq yard. The fee for the commercial and industrial property in this urban conglomerate also remains unchanged at Rs 18,000 per sq yard and Rs 800 per sq yard, respectively. The sources in the Revenue Department said the minimum fee for the registration of land sale deed of the three categories of urban property in the town was hiked only last year. The existing rate of Rs 3600 per sq yard for the commercial property was resulting in loss to the Revenue Department, said an official of the Revenue Department.

* The minimum fee for the registration of land sale deeds in villages of SAS Nagar and Kharar subdivisions hiked.

* The hike came into effect from September 18.

Hike in land sale deeds may create problems
From Shashi Pal Jain

KHARAR, Sept 20 — The hike in the minimum rates at which the land sale deeds falling in the Kharar sub-division would be registered has not only increased financial burden on the purchaser but created many new problems for him.

According to information collected by this correspondent the minimum rate for the registration of land sale deed in Kharar city for irrigated land has been increased from Rs 4.5 lakh to Rs 7.50 lakh per acre. Now every purchaser who wants to buy land in Kharar will have to pay about Rs 21,000. Similarly the rate of residential plots in Kharar and Kurali has been increased to Rs 30,000 per marla. Now the parties have to obtain an Income Tax Clearance from the Income Tax Department if the deal is more than Rs 5 lakh they will have to get the sale deeds registered in parts.

The minimum rate in 112 villages falling in Kharar tehsil has also been revised and it has been fixed at Rs 5 lakh for fertile land, Rs 4 lakh for low yield land, Rs 3 lakh for baren land and Rs 1 lakh for Gair Mumkin, nadi land. Similarly the minimum rate for residential plots in these villages has also been increased to Rs 8000 per marla. In some villages rates have been increased to Rs 7.50 lakh per acre and these villages are Chanalon, Kurali, Khuni Majra, Sante Majra, Mundi Kharar, Chajumajra, Khanpur etc.

Similarly the department has increased the minimum rates in 88 villages falling under the Majri subtehsil of Kharar subdivision. The minimum rate in these villages has been increased to Rs 3 lakh per acre for irrigated land, Rs 2 lakh for barani land, Rs 1.5 lakh for banjar land and Rs 50,000 for gair mumkin and nadi land. The rates would be double for the land adjoining the national highway and one-and-a-half time for the land adjoining link roads of the above mentioned new rates.

Prof Balwant Singh, secretary CPM Punjab and Mr Rajbir Singh, vice-president of the Sarb Hind Shiromani Akali Dal have criticised the administration for this hike. They said it would put additional financial burden on the farmers and the common man.

Festive mood on freshers night
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — Mujhe mast moharan jeene de was the mood tonight in every girl’s hostel of Panjab University celebrating their ‘freshers’ night’, welcoming the new comers to the hostels. Other than this popular song from ‘Fiza’ which was played in each one of the four hostels, girls danced to the famous hindi pop number ‘piya piya’ and sang old traditional Punjabi songs right from piche piche aanda, peer tere jaan di, lambi judai to dama dum mast kalandar giving a festive mood to the whole university.

The hostellers were charged with excitement and danced to the tunes of the songs being played. Modelling was the main item in all hostels and various rounds of modelling were interspersed with the other items. Sarojini Hall had a hoard of items and in an excellent presentation regaled the inmates and guests with skits, a dandiya performance and a specially directed ‘‘parody for national integration’’ giving glimpses of musical India. At Kasturba Hall inmates as audience provided a highly interactive show of music, dance and beauty with almost every member of the audience getting in a comment or two for the performer. Lakshmi Bai Hall, had decided to declare other than a ‘Miss Fresher’ and a ‘Miss Elegant’, the best singer and the best dancer of the evening. Mata Gujari hall had decided to declare their ‘Miss Fresher’ as ‘Miss Mata Gujari Hall’.

The respective wardens of the hostels welcomed the Vice Chancellor Dr K.N. Pathak, who made it a point to visit every hostel and give his good wishes. He welcomed the students to the new session. The Dean Students Welfare Mr V.K. Bansal, accompanied the Vice Chancellor. The guests of honour at various functions gave away the prizes to the winners.

‘Finish work on highways in time, or face action’
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — States which do not manage to finish work on national highways within the specified time frame will face action as allocations on national highways in their jurisdiction will be reduced or maintained at a par, while states doing well will be getting more funds, said Mr Hukumdeo Narayan Yadav, Union Minister of State for Surface Transport, while talking to mediapersons here today.

The national highways are maintained by the Surface Transport Ministry, while work is carried out by state authorities on payment of 9 per cent service charges. Besides this, Rs 3,000 crore, collected from cess on diesel and petrol, will be used to have rural link roads, the minister added.

When asked why the allocation of the funds was not based on the consumption of diesel and petrol in that state, Mr Yadav said this was not possible as various parameters had to be seen before allocations were made.

Without giving a specific time frame for completion of four-laning project of the Delhi-Amritsar section of the national highway, he said work was going on. By 2003, the Golden Quadrilateral project to connect the four metros and the north-south and east-west connections would be completed. The project is coming up at a cost of Rs 50,000 crore.

The minister also proposed that funds for national highways be deposited with the Chief Engineer, National Highway, of each state and not routed through the state government, as was the case now. The states tend to misuse the money for their own needs, while neglecting the highways. Getting back this money becomes a problem.

He suggested that a special account should be opened, which should be controlled by the Chief Engineer and senior engineers of the Union Government. The aim of his visit was to review progress of the work on national highways in the region.

The issue of four-laning of the outer Dakshin Marg in Chandigarh, which is a part of National Highway 21, was also raised in the meeting. A team of the Chandigarh Administration informed the minister that a technical proposal had been submitted and with increasing traffic, the need was to have four-lane road with divider.

The issue of four-laning of the Chandigarh-Ambala road was also raised at the meeting.

COMMUNITY

NDA policies destructive: Chandra Shekhar
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — The former Prime Minister, Mr Chandra Shekhar, today campaigned in favour of the Sarb Hind Shiromani Akali Dal candidate, Mr Prem Singh Chandumajra, who is contesting the Sunam byelection to the state Vidhan Sabha.

Prior to leaving for Sunam, addressing mediapersons at the Chandigarh Press Club, Mr Shekhar said it was for the first time that he was campaigning for a candidate in a state byelection. His explanation was simple: he was opposed to the policies of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance of which the Shiromani Akali Dal was a partner. The policies were taking the country on the path of “destruction”.

It was another matter that Mr Gurcharan Singh Tohra and Mr Chandumajra were his “friends”. So was Mr Parkash Singh Badal. But wherever something went wrong and was against the interests of the country, “I must oppose, hence, my decision to campaign”, he added.

Mr Ravi Inder Singh, MLA and a former Speaker, welcomed Mr Chandra Shekhar to the press conference, where former Jathedar of Akal Takht, Bhai Jasbir Singh Rode, was also present.

In his opening remarks, Mr Shekhar briefly spoke on several issues, both national and international. These ranged from the emergence of the concept of globalisation to the World Trade Organisation, liberalisation to Veerappan, Kargil war to economic policies, dis-investment and privatisation of public sector undertakings, creation of smaller states and even on the outcome of the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee’s visit to the USA etc.

Mr Chandra Shekhar recalled his association with Punjab, where during the Emergency he was jailed in Patiala for 18 months. He, however, regretted that the Akalis, who then spoke of writing a new chapter, had forgotten all that they spoke and promised.

His refrain was that under the WTO regime both agriculture and small-scale industry would suffer, while, public sector undertakings were already “on sale” whether these were loss or profit making. Invariably these were being sold off at a loss.

Making policies was one thing but ensuring their proper implementation was quite another. To him what mattered the most was a “food security” for all and remunerative returns to the farmers, who were reportedly committing suicide, even in some prosperous states.

He chided the BJP-led NDA Government for its economic policies and wondered where was that “sound foundation” on which the economic edifice was sought to be built. There was stark poverty in the country, which statistics could not describe.

On Mr Vajpayee’s visit to the USA, he said it was only India, which was looking up to, Bill Clinton while the Americans were not. Moreover, only the press was saying that the visit was “successful”, “I do not see any tangible outcome”, he quipped. He parried more questions on the plea that the Prime Minister was his friend and he addressed him as “guruji”.

On the kidnapping of Dr Raj Kumar, Veerappan’s demands and Supreme Court’s remarks against Karnataka, he said it was a “sensitive” issue.

He, however, maintained that whenever he spoke on any issue inside or outside Parliament, he was always ignored and never taken seriously. Eventually turn of events proved him right.

“Discos’ time limit should be extended”
From Our Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — Chandigarh Administrations’s decision to allow dancing shows to twirl all over the polished floors in discotheques till midnight has brought a smile on the faces of teenyboppers, set free by parents but kept under check by the police.

Welcoming the move, they insist that the permission to set the night on fire should be granted till early hours of the morning. “If our parents do not object to our jiving in clubs and parties, why should baton-waving cops be allowed to spoil the night by bringing down the curtain on revelry”, they insist. Discipline and decorum at the discotheques and other public places, they add, should be ensured.

“Cops should not intervene. Stigma is attached to late night parties, but the scene is altogether different. The crowd, contrary to what people believe, is decent. The age limit should, however, be enforced and kids below 18 should not be allowed” .

Manprit Sekhon, student

“Not only should the time be increased, but more discotheques should be opened in the city. Chandigarh being a dead and dull city, needs something more exciting. Not only this, the eating joints should be kept open till late at night. The police should ensure safety at night”.

Rahul Mirakhur

“The time for late night discos should be extended beyond midnight on Saturdays and Sundays. It is okay because in discotheque the trend has changed, the atmosphere is cordial at these places. Age limit should be restricted to 18”.

Himani Sharma, student

“Night should be lived, but within limits and with the consent of parents. There is nothing wrong with the new generation going to the discotheques and staying there till late at night. I do not see any reason why anyone should object to it”.

Neetu Gulati, student

“Night life is must at each and every place and there is no survival without enjoyment. Irrespective of age, every body should come to the discotheque and enjoy life to the fullest. In this city, night life should be upmarket and it should not become a desert after 8 in night.”

Vikas Singla, student

“Chandigarh is a dead city and there is no source of enjoyment here. The Administration should come forward and join hands with the young generation to make good arrangements for night life. No extra force is needed for the security arrangements if the night life is geared up. Family members can very well enjoy in the discotheque. Parents should restrict children from enjoying their life. Late night parties should not be stopped, but should be encouraged.”

Sardool Singh

“Chandigarh is a dull city as everything closes by 10 at night. Night life should be kept alive in the city. Eating joints restaurants and shops should remain open till 12 at night. More of night life can attract more tourists. More of disco culture should be introduced in the city. Girls should come to late night parties in groups and should be in a secure environment.”

Masha Gill, student

“Night life should have been cultivated 10 years ago. The night starts at 12 midnight, but in the city everything closes by 10 at night. In a city of educated and mature citizens, night life should remain alive the whole night as in Mumbai and Bangalore. The Administration should also cooperate with the people. The basic law and order problems in the city are due to repression of feelings of the youth. People from respectable families also agree to this and wish to have a jovial night life in the city.”

D.K. Khera, advocate

The timing of late night parties and discotheques should be extended till 2 at night. The young generation should be set free to enjoy life. In the 21 century girls and boys should be given equal liberty and should be allowed to stay out till late at night. Wrong notions have been attached to late night parties and discos.”

Siddharth Sharma

The city is mature enough to handle night life easily . More of places where one can enjoy night life with families should come up in the city. But at the same time, I would not feel secure to send my daughter alone late at night. Being modern does not mean forgetting our ethics and culture. Security should be maintained. If discipline and decorum are maintained, there is no harm in late night parties. The time for late night parties on Saturdays should be extended.

Seema Bhalla, fashion designer

“The timings for late night parties and discotheques should be increased from 12 till late at night. Families come to enjoy here and get disappointed when it gets closed by midnight. The people start coming at 10:30 at night and by the time they really get into the dancing shoes, it is closed. Disco culture is meant for the people who can understand it and are mature enough to take it.”

Surinder Singh, owner of a disco

“Night life is a must in a modern city like Chandigarh. Whenever you are rejoicing at late night parties and other public places and you get in the mood, it gets closed at midnight. The children should be made familiar with night life by parents so that it does not seem new to them at a later stage. Chandigarh is a dead city.”

Rupinder Randhawa, housewife

The startling world of radioactivity
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — Valuable scientific facts about radioactivity, the concept which revolutionised scientific thought as well as the entire concept of civilisation, are mounted on the walls of the Alliance Francaise Art gallery in Sector 36. The exhibition which has been put up by the art gallery in active collaboration with the French Atomic Energy Committee, offers a comprehensive insight into what radioactivity is all about. The exhibition marks the centenary celebrations of the discovery of the concept.

For easy comprehension by the general public, the frames have been designed in a rather innovative manner and each of them divulges information on a specific aspect. The collection is put up under the following heads: Introduction, Discovery, Natural, Artificial, Applications, Detection, Effects and Future. Under each head, bits of relevant information have been stored for view, and to add to the appeal of the scientific information the frames have all been done up very brightly.

The expository begins with a detail on the history of radioactivity which was discovered some 100 years ago by Henri Bacquerel, Pierre and Marie Curie. It talks about how Henri, in 1896, discovered that uranium emits invisible rays spontaneously. Additions to the discovery were made by Marie and Pierre Curie who discovered in 1898 that uranium is not the only substance which emits radiations. The couple discovered two more radioactive substances and named them Polonium and radium. They also coined the term Radioactivity.

Interesting facts about radioactivity:

* Henri Bacquerel, Marie and Pierre Curie shared the Nobel Prize in 1903 for contribution to research on radioactivity.

* The heart of all matter is the nucleus which contains positive protons and neutral neutrons. Negatively charged electrons revolve around the nucleus.

* Atoms are so small that 100 million atoms placed side by side will occupy just 1 cm of space.

* The unit of radioactivity is bacquerel. One bacquerel equals one nucleus transformed per second.

* When a nucleus of unstable atom transforms, it emits three types of radiations: alpha, beta and gamma.

* The food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe are all mildly radioactive.

* The first artificial radioactive atom was discovered in 1934 by transforming aluminum into radioactive phosphorous.

* When the nucleus of one gram breaks, it emits energy equal to energy consumed by a family in an industrial city for one full year.

* Fission was discovered in 1939 when it was found that uranium, when bombarded with neutrons, emits energy.

* Radiotherapy can be used to cure cancer if only the affected part is targeted. The concept can also be used to preserve mummies.

* Exposure to over 1000 doses of radioactivity can cause death.

Rai launches Nigehbaan
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — Nigehbaan, the quarterly magazine of the Chandigarh police was launched by the UT Adviser, Ms Vineeta Rai, at a brief ceremony at the conference hall of the UT Secretariat here this morning.

Those who attended the ceremony included Home Secretary R.S. Gujral, UT IGP B.S. Bassi, DC M. Ramshekhar, DIG Ajay Kashyap, SSP, (Ops), Asad Farooqui, SSP Parag Jain, SP Balbir Singh, DPI (S) D.S. Saroya besides senior officials of the administration and the police.

Commending the department on bringing out the magazine, Ms Rai said it would help strengthen police public relations. The policies and plans being pursued by the police would be easily disseminated to people in this way. She also lauded the role of the police in trying to keep the city crime free.

She later formally unveiled the first edition of the four page colour newsletter.

Mr Parag Jain while highlighting the need, objectives and aims of the newsletter said it would serve as a vehicle for inter-organisational exchange of views, as well as serve as a means of communication with public at large. To begin with it will be a quarterly, but its periodicity and size could be increased depending on its popularity and utility.

The aim and objectives were to act as an in-house platform for exchange of ideas, to highlight the good work done by the cops, to educate the personnel regarding various policy matters and to sensitise them towards larger public issues besides discussing changing trends in crime and profile of criminals, he added.

Mr Jain also added that the newsletter would cover new initiatives in crime control, survey and analysis of quarterly crime, law and order issues, editorials on topical interest, news from the beats, sports, culture community policing, training, good work done by officers, special stories and traffic roundup for the period.

The circulation figures are private but it will be circulated free of cost. It will be sent to all the units of the local force, all resident and market welfare associations, school, colleges and university libraries, members of the Municipal Corporation and accredited members of the media and newspapers.

While Mr Bassi is the patron, Mr Kashyap and Mr Farooqui will be members of the editorial board, Mr Jain will be the Executive Editor, Dr Sagar Preet Hooda will be the Associate Editor. Inspector Jasmohan Singh will be the Assistant Editor.

READERS WRITE

Let cyclists also wear helmets
Every second day there is a report in the newspapers on the use of helmets. In India, helmets for two-wheeler drivers are mandatory in a few cities and for this there should be no discrimination on the basis of gender. The law enforcers should make it mandatory even for cyclists to wear helmets. We all know that most of our people lack the road sense. In the City Beautiful, people are mostly educated, but they show little regard for traffic rules and use a short cut whenever they find one.

People from the lower economic strata and school children use bicycles. Compulsory use of helmets by them will bring about a decline in fatal accidents. In 1990, the state of Victoria in Australia made the use of helmets compulsory and the death rate and head injuries among cyclists fell by 37 per cent and 51 per cent. Properly worn helmets, made to prescribed standards, can cushion the severity of head injury in a crash. Children are more likely to fall off their bicycles and will, therefore, derive more benefit from wearing helmets. The government should also consider subsidising the cost of helmets (at least for children) along with other measures to promote the manufacture of helmets of the desired standard.

Dr C. S. Gautam
Chandigarh

The controversy over the helmet issue (Chandigarh Tribune, Sept 12) reminds me of George Orwell’s well-known words: “All men are equal, but some men are more equal than others.” Mr G. S. Riar, president of the local unit of the SGPC, has appealed to the Sikh women to submit the challans for not wearing a helmet to the nearest gurdwaras and assured them that these would be taken care of. He has also said that the woman challaned the maximum number of times will be honoured. My only question to Mr Rial is: is he really a citizen of secular India?

According to Dr J.S. Chopra, founder president of the Indian Academy of Neurology, the “head of an individual, male or female, belonging to any religion is made of the same material.” Some women shun a helmet because it interferes with their looks. What is more important to them: beauty or the gift of life?

I have come across several Sikh women, including Dr Simran Kaur, who are in favour of wearing a helmet “for their family’s sake and for the sake of their personal safety”. In the interest of safety, all women, irrespective of their religion, should wear a helmet while driving a two-wheeler.

S. S. Jain
Chandigarh

Blatant violation
From time to time, HUDA issues notices of resumption to house owners whose houses are being used for commercial purposes. Since HUDA does not enforce this regulation uniformly, the whole exercise becomes a farce and a tool to harass innocent people while many violators manage to escape scot-free. A glaring example is a school near the Government General Hospital. Situated on a main and a busy road, it is a traffic bottleneck and a virtual death trap. Will the authorities wake up only after a fatal accident?

The school is a source of noise for the patients in the hospital who also have to bear with pollution caused by smoke belched out by the school’s fleet of seven to eight dilapidated buses. If HUDA fails to eliminate this nuisance, I appeal to the Residents’ Welfare Association of the area to take the issue to a court.

Manohar Lal Vimal
Panchkula

Dead telephones
We are running our business, offices and showroom in Sector 22-B, near Aroma petrol station. We should like to inform you that our telephones, 15 in number, have been dead since August 28.

We understand that the fault occurred when HFCL (a private telephone company) was laying its cable line. In the process of digging, they damaged the DoT lines. We complained to the DoT without any effect. Even after 18 days, our telephones have not been set in order.

The problem lies between the DoT and HFCL and we are being made to suffer for no fault of ours. Will someone look into the matter and do the needful?

Owners of SCOs 1130 to 1139,
Near Aroma petrol station
Chandigarh

CRIME

Five arrested on assault charges
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — In separate incidents, the police has arrested five persons, including a woman, on the charges of assault and trespassing.

According to police sources, Kulvinder Singh, Balbir Singh and Surinder Kaur of Mauli Jagran were arrested for assaulting Kulwant Singh of the same area. They allegedly barged into his house, beat him up besides threatening him with dire consequences.

Similarly, in another incident, Prem Singh of Sector 34 was assaulted by Mohali resident Harjinder Singh and Sector 45 resident Jaspreet Singh.

The accused have been arrested and booked.

One injured
Rajiv Colony, Panchkula, resident Kala Devi was hit and injured by a truck, CHOIM 6512, near Darua village. The truck driver fled from the spot. The injured was rushed to the hospital and a case registered against the driver Jasbir Thakur.

Two arrested
The police has arrested Pitarsi and Rupinder Singh, a resident of Fatehgarh Sahib on the charges of eve-teasing from the Sector 17 ISBT.

Criminal case against Tehsildar
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — The Haryana State Vigilance Bureau today slapped a criminal case on Gurvant Singh Virk, Tehsildar at Panchkula and certain other persons under Sections 420, 467, 468 and 120-B for allegedly conspiring with Ajay Kumar, a registry clerk, to distort the revenue record for unlawful gains.

The Tehsildar and the registry clerk have been placed under suspension.

An official spokesman said the bureau had received a complaint from Mr Parmanand, a resident of Raly village in Panchkula district, saying that Mr Puneet Aggarwal had obtained power of attorney from Mr Daya Ram for 10 marla land of khasra No. 36. When Mr Daya Ram died, Mr Puneet Aggarwal, on the basis of NOC obtained from the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Panchkula, and conspiracy of halqa patwari, prepared a fake report. He further conspired with Gurvant Singh and Ajay Kumar, Harbans Lal patwari, Naresh Kumar and Rupender Prakash to sell the land which was not in accordance of the revenue record whereas according to the jamabandi the owner of the plot was not Daya Ram but someone else.

Investigation revealed that Daya Ram of Raly village in Panchkula district had given the power of attorney to Puneet Aggarwal of Panchkula on November 26, 1998. It was the duty of Gurvant Singh to check these documents. Therefore, it was found that Puneet Aggarwal after the death of Daya Ram prepared a fake registration in conspiracy with Gurvant Singh and Ajay Kumar.

BUSINESS

Problems in long-distance phone calls hit traders
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 20 — City residents are facing problems in getting through long distance telephones to cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta. This is resulting in loss of business for thousands of manufacturing units and traders in the city and neighbouring townships of Panchkula, S.A.S. Nagar, Baddi and Barotiwala, besides causing problems for people wanting to talk to friends and relatives.

Since this morning, it had become difficult for local residents to contact their relatives and business contacts in Delhi. A leading Internet service provider said their business runs basically from Delhi and this problem was resulting in severe communication problems. Internet connectivity is not affected as circuits of Internet are not through the problematic exchange in Delhi.

The connectivity has been erratic as the work-to-rule adopted by the officers of the department, demanding financial viability for the proposed corporation from October 1. Besides the metros, calls to various cities in the north-western region are not maturing easily. Sources said by afternoon it had become difficult to reach stations in Punjab and Haryana.

When connectivity dropped, a large number of upper-end users tried their mobile phones. But since these phones also require DoT connectivity at some level, connections were not smooth. Particularly bad was the connections to cell phone users in Delhi or Mumbai .

At the business level, the loss is unaccountable. Mr Rajeev Gupta, Secretary of the Small Scale Industries Federation of Chandigarh, said more than 50 per cent of the trade in Chandigarh was dependent on Delhi for either supply of raw material or as market for finished goods. The problem of STD calls to Delhi cannot be assessed in real terms, but the losses are huge.

Manufacturers have to call up Delhi at least 4 to 5 times a day on an average to remain in touch with suppliers, buyers or even business contacts. Several multinational companies and top Indian companies have offices in Delhi. Officials posted here have to report on a daily basis to regional or zonal offices or the headquarters in Delhi or Mumbai.