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| Tuesday, March 13, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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BSP to get majority in UP: Mayawati Hooda’s warning on lowering of MSP Safeguard farmers’ interest: Bal Ram Jakhar Walkout in Haryana House Schools dominate question hour Foreign
envoys hail India’s reforms |
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Restructure power sector: panel Haryana to be surplus in power: CM Telecom revenue down by 15 pc Ruchika molestation case adjourned Decision on cabs flayed New management system launched Abducted child found dead 2 dead, several hurt in mela
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BSP to get majority in UP: Mayawati Ambala, March 12 Talking to mediapersons during a brief stopover during her onward journey to Ludhiana, Ms Mayawati said “either we are going to form the government in Punjab or it will not be possible to form the government without our support”. Ms Mayawati said that right now, not much attention is being paid to Haryana. “We are concentrating on those states where the Assembly elections are going to take place within a year like in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. Comparatively we are paying more attention to North India but we have our presence in south India as there is a party MLA in Tamil Nadu”, she said. She said that the party leadership was confident of securing an absolute majority in Uttar Pradesh. “We are going to contest the Assembly elections alone,” she stated. Ms Mayawati said that performance of the ruling party is there for everyone to see. “The situation is similar in UP as well as Punjab. There has been no development work and the reserve category people have been marginalised. Farmers are not happy with the state governments”, she said Earlier in the day, Ms Mayawati spoke to the party activists at the Circuit House, Ambala Cantonment. She asked them to work together for the party and not fight with each other. She pointed out that even when Mr Kanshi Ram had called them to Delhi, they had fought in front of him. Ms Mayawati has told the state president to bring 20 party activists, 10 in his favour and 10 who are against him, to Delhi on March 25. |
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Hooda’s warning on lowering of MSP Panipat, March 12 This was announced by the HPPCC president, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda at a meeting of the office-bearers of the HPCC, members of AICC and PCC, party legislators, district and constituency presidents here at PWD-rest House yesterday. Referring to the incident at the Bhiwani rally, Mr Hooda, said that the incident was a pre-planned one and some people with vested interests were perturbed over unity efforts of Congress leaders in the state. This has been admitted by the organiser of the rally Mr Dharmvir MLA, who has promised to identity those who created chaos at Bhiwani rally. He also announced that he would take disciplinary action against those elements. Mr Hooda lambasted the Chautala government alleging that Mr Om Prakash Chautala came into power by making false promises on electricity and power. Now when the Chief Minister himself was back tracking on these promises, the people of the state were feeling cheated, he added. The HPCC president reiterated that if the procurement price of wheat was reduced from Rs 580 to Rs 520 per quintal as speculated the media, the Congress Party would gherao the national capital as it was surrounded by Haryana from three sides. |
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Safeguard farmers’ interest: Bal Ram Jakhar Jind, March 12 Mr Jakhar said about 75 per cent of the people were directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture. But due to the anti-people policies of the Vajpayee government majority of them were feeling ignored. He said the cost of agriculture inputs had increased to a great extent and it was difficult for the farmers to recover their cost of production. He said during the past three years the rates of diesel, fertilisers, insecticides had increased manifold, but the government had failed to provide remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce. Speaking at the convention, Mr Surjewala said there had been a distress sale of paddy during the past two years and the farmers suffered huge losses. He said wheat would start arriving in the market within a month but the government had not announced its support price so far. Mr Tajinder Pal Mann, Mrs Kartar Devi, Mr Hiranand Arya and Mr Nirmal Singh, all former ministers were among those who addressed the convention. Mr Randeep Singh Surjewala, President of the All-India Youth Congress, was present on the occasion. |
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Walkout in Haryana House
Chandigarh, March 12 The Congress leader said by declaring in the Press that the Budget would be “tax-free” when the House was in session, Mr Chautala had breached the privilege of the Vidhan Sabha. He was supported by a former Finance Minister, Mr Mange Ram Gupta, Mr Jai Prakash Barwala, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Mr Karan Singh Dalal(RPI). When Mr Dalal wanted to quote a rule, Mr Barwala was heard commenting on the educational qualifications (or lack of these) of the Speaker. Intervening, Mr Chautala said after the Gujarat earthquake even the Prime Minister had stated that the Union Budget would be harsh. Such policy statements did not amount to leakage. The Town and Country Planning Minister, Mr Dhir Pal, said “tax-free” and “leakage” were two separate things. By saying that the Budget would be “tax-free”, no advantage had accrued to anyone. Hence, there was no “leakage”. But the Opposition continued to press its point. The Finance Minister, Prof Sampat Singh, could not commence his Budget speech for 25 minutes. When the Speaker found “nothing serious” in the Opposition allegation, the Congress and RPI MLAs walked out of the House.
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Schools dominate question hour Chandigarh, March 12 Mr Chautala said the previous regime led by Mr Bansi Lal had upgraded 380 schools without ensuring that these schools met the norms for upgradation. As a result, subsequently the elevation of these schools was cancelled. Some of these schools went to the court, challenging the government’s decision and a few of them got favourable judgement. The government was considering the upgradation of the schools whose pleas were upheld by the court, he said. The Chief Minister added it was not easy to meet the norms for upgradation. “The schools do not have adequate rooms. Some of them have been damaged by floods and the maintenance of the schools is also poor,” Mr Chautala said. He, however, added that the INLD government had constructed three times more rooms for the schools than the two previous governments led by Mr Bansi Lal and Mr Bhajan Lal. Earlier, the Minister of State for Education, Mr Bahadur Singh, faced a barrage of questions from various members on the upgradation and maintenance of schools. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislator, Mr Jagjit Singh Sangwan (who was not present in the House), and Mr Shashi Parmar of the INLD, asked questions regarding the upgradation of schools in their respective constituencies. The Education Minister told Mr Sangwan that there was no move to upgrade the middle school of Bhageswari village in Dadri constituency. Mr Parmar was told that upgradation of Government Primary School, Sirsa Ghogra, was under consideration but there was no proposal for upgradation of the primary school at Baund Kalan. To Mr Ramesh Kumar Khatak’s question on the repair of government senior secondary schools and primary school buildings in Baroda constituency, the Education Minister said there was no allocation of constituency-wise funds for schools. Replying to Mr Lila Ram, Mr Bahadur Singh said there was no proposal for setting up any new school for girls at Model Town, Kaithal. The Education Minister also replied in the negative to Mr Banta Ram’s question on whether there was any proposal for setting up a senior secondary school for girls in Radaur constituency. Mr Chautala, in reply to a question of Mr Balbir Singh, said that Harton (Haryana State Electronics Development Corporation Limited) would set up computer training centres in urban and rural areas of the state which would become operational by June-end. In reply to a question by Mr Karan Singh Dalal, Mr Bahadur Singh said that there were 1553 posts of science teacher in senior secondary schools in rural and urban areas of the state. One- third of the posts (1001 teachers in position) have lying vacant, he informed.
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Foreign
envoys hail India’s reforms Gurgaon, March 12 Mr Caillouet was here today along with the Ambassador of France in India, Mr De Montferrand and the Ambassador of Germany, Mr Heimo Richter, to inaugurate “Indian European Studies Centre” (IESC) at the Manangement Development Institute (MDI). IESC is a collaboration of the MDI and the organisations from some of the member countries of the European Union. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris, European Studies Centre at Strasbourg, International and Communitarian Researchs Centre at Aix, Robert Schuman University at Strasbourg-France and University of Wuppertal, Germany are the organisations supporting the IESC. The objective of the IESC is to train managers, businessmen, policy makers and leaders in the Indian private and public sectors to adapt to Europe and the European market, more especially to France and Germany, and to train Europeans to adapt to India and the Indian market. Also the aim was to make the managers, businessmen and policy makers from Europe more nuanced in the affairs of Indian market and the overall system of this country. The overarching aim is to bridge the information gap on the EU and to foster better relationship between India and Europe. Majority of the speakers on the occasion emphasised that in developing policies for Europe, it is important that the
decision maker knows about the EC treaty, internal market, the role of European Institutions, legal mechanism and issues pertaining to the movement of goods,
persons, capital and services. Also, European businessmen and decision
makers have to be abreast of the liberalisation and the reform process underway in India and its consequences. The Director of MDI, Mr Devi Singh, who presided over the inauguration
function, said that the idea of IESC was conceived about 10 months back. Its setting up will address the current and future needs of the industry and will fill the knowledge gap that exists in our understanding of the business prospects and procedures in the EU. |
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Restructure power sector: panel Faridabad, March 12 The committee has opposed privatisation and claimed that restructuring and reworking on present resources could lead the country to tide over the crisis and revive the state electricity boards (SEBs), which are facing financial crisis and huge losses. According to sources, the committee has sent its observations and suggestions in a four-page letter to the Prime Minister, Union Minister for Energy (Power) and all chief ministers. The letter says the average power tariff on industry at about Rs 5 per unit had already become one of the highest in the world. In view of this, industries had been changing over to captive power generation. It claims that planned investments in the power sector were not made in the 90’s and instead of adding power at any cost, raising power tariff to such levels resulted in the current crisis. Regarding agricultural subsidies, the committee suggested that the amount of subsidies could be brought down to Rs 8000 crore from Rs 15000 crore if unmetered supply could be corrected and other losses’ were checked to be transferred to this category. The price for power to agriculture should be ‘computed’ largely on the basis of variable cost and not on average cost. Claiming that the current model of reforms’ was not ‘accurate’, it states that a proper study of the Orissa reforms’ was required. It has urged the government to step up investments (domestic) in the power sectors, and provision of a proper balance between hydroelectric and thermal projects. It says that there is a need to invest more on the transmission and distribution system. The other aspect of the electricity sector that requires to be addressed is accelerated renovation and modernisation (R&M). The committee says, “Currently, we are unable to meet a peak demand of about 75,000 MW with an installed capacity of 1,00,000 MW and are only providing a peak supply of 65000 MW. This ‘peak supply’ to installed capacity was well below not only that of advanced countries but also some of the developing nations, including, Pakistan, Malaysia and Bangladesh”. It has urged the government not to allow disinvestments in the NTPC, BEHL and power grid corporation. |
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Haryana to
be surplus in power: CM Chandigarh, March 12 Mr Chautala made this claim before a 15-member team of the National Defence College which called on him here. The team, which is on a four-day economic study tour of Haryana, is led by the Joint Secretary and Senior Directing Staff of the college, Ms Menakshi Hooja, and includes officers from Bangladesh, Tanzania and Vietnam. An MoU had been signed to set up gas -based power projects and efforts were being made to generate 5 MW to 7 MW of power through co-generation at each of the 10 cooperative sugar mills in the state. A unit to generate 365 MW of power would come up at the Panipat Oil Refinery. The Chief Minister said the government was now encouraging farmers to go in for crop diversification in view of the reduction in the cultivable area due to the disintegration of the joint-family system and rise in the cost of living. The team also called on the Governor, Babu Parmanand, at Haryana Raj Bhavan.
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Telecom revenue down by 15 pc Rohtak, March 12 Mr A.K. Jain, General Manager, Rohtak Telecom Circle told The Tribune that the monthly average of revenue of the circle used to be Rs 1.42 crore prior to the revision of tariff which, he said, had come down to Rs 1.12 crore. However, he said the revenue collection would rise as subscribers would avail the telecom services more frequently in future in view of the reduction in tariff. Besides, there had been a considerable decline in the sale of India Telephone Cards (pre-paid cards) as almost the entire state had been covered by the new facility. However, Mr Jain claimed the reduction in tariff had allured the lower middle class people to avail themselves of the facility and they had started applying for telephone connections in large numbers. A new telephone exchange located at Sukhpura Chowk here with a capacity of 1500 lines would start functioning from March 12.
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Ruchika molestation case adjourned Ambala, March 12 Former Director-General of Police S.P.S. Rathore was not present in the court. Counsel for Rathore moved an application seeking absence for the former DGP on medical ground. Madhu Prakash and Anand Prakash were present in the court On March 12, Mr Tyagi while adjourning the case had said that the case was being adjourned for awaiting of the High Court orders. The CBI had filed a charge sheet in the Ruchika molestation case against Rathore in this court in November last. The CBI had also filed an application with the court for condoning the delay in filing the challan. On December 5, the court condoned the delay in charge-sheeting and took cognisance of the charges against the then DGP.
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Decision on cabs flayed Rohtak, March 12 In a statement here today Mr Hooda alleged that the step would also affect the transport services as the government did not possess sufficient means of transportation. He appealed to the Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash
Chautala, to reconsider the decision. The former minister also alleged that the farmers in
Makrauli, Asan, Kiloi, Dhamr, Bhalaut, Basantpur, Rurki and Sukhpura villages were sore at the supply of inadequate water in minors. He said he found less irrigation water in
Asan, Makrauli and Kiloi minors during inspection. He appealed to the government to ensure adequate supply of irrigation water in minors. |
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New management system launched Panipat, March 12 Mr Pathan said the LIMS was an important component of total solution for the optimisation of refinery operation management systems. It would also facilitate maintenance of product quality as per the specifications, help build up the confidence of customers ad generate data for strategic quality control, he added. Later, Mr Pathan inaugurated a Rs 120 crore gas turbine of 30MW at the refinery plant. |
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Abducted child found dead Gurgaon, March
12 Jitesh’s parents resided in the local
Mahavirpura Colony. He was found missing on February 18.His parents
lodged a complaint with the police on February 20. The Superintendent
of Police, here, Mr Kuldip Singh, yesterday stated that Jitesh’s
body was recovered from a house at a sequestered place in Sanjay
Colony. According to the police, the parents of Jitesh recevied a
letter from the miscreants demanding a ransom of Rs 4 lakh for his
release, failing which the child would be killed. The kidnappers had
asked that the money be delivered to them on Jaitpur bridge near
Jaipur in Rajasthan and set February 24 as deadline. They had demanded
that the money be delivered at midnight. According to the police chief, following
a tip off a raid was conducted at a place in Gurgaon
and two suspects, Vinod Kumar, a native of Etawa district in Uttar
Pradesh, and Raju, a local,were arrested. During the interrogation
they allegedly admitted of kidnapping Jitesh. They further disclosed
that they had killed the child. |
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2 dead,
several hurt in mela Faridabad, March 12 According to reports, the incident occurred when a canopy of a house caved in, after it could not bear the weight of a large number of persons who had assembled on it. The people had been watching a procession held during the mela at that time. Sixty-year-old Harnandi, wife of Chandan, a resident of Kalsara village and one Kartar Singh, an employee in Delhi, but hailing from Gautam Buddha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh died on the spot. About eight persons identified as Buddhi (50), Mahender (30), Neeraj (4), Darbo, Deep Chand (45), Lala (30), Niranjan (30) and Mahender (40) got seriously injured. They have been admitted to various hospitals. The fair known as “Phool Dhol Mela” is organised on the occasion of Holi. |
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Lok
Adalat for Jagadhri Chandigarh, March 12 Mr Justice V.K. Bali, Executive Chairman of the authority, said such permanent Lok Adalats were already functioning in the state at Ambala, Panchkula, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Hisar and Bhiwani. |
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Burn victim dies Pinjore, March 12 According to sources, the deceased was a resident of Rampur Seuri village, and sustained burn injuries while preparing tea. She was rushed to the PGI. A case has been registered with the Pinjore police station. |
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2 women killed in mishaps Faridabad, March 12 According to information, Anita of Adarsh Nagar was run over by a train and killed here yesterday. In another mishap, Sheela of Mawana village was killed when the jeep in which she was travelling collided with a truck. |
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