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Wednesday,
February 6, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Mad rush for tickets as alliance breaks Haryana
officers to get pay through banks Health drive gets lukewarm response Royalty: villagers protest 4 years’ RI for SP’s reader |
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4-yr term for 3 dacoits DTO clerk caught taking bribe Mobile
telephony in Haryana later this year Cong demands probe into arrests
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Mad rush for tickets as alliance breaks Mahendergarh, February 5 Some prominent leaders of the local unit of the INLD now see a chance of getting the party ticket whenever Assembly elections are held in the state. Since the announcement by the BJP of withdrawal of support to the government of Mr Om Prakash Chautala, a few days ago, the local leaders of the INLD have gone into an overdrive to project themselves as nominees for the next election. This in spite of the fact that elections in Haryana are more than two years away. Discussions with the INLD cadre here revealed that the camps of Rao Bahadur Singh, Mr Munna Lal
Sharma, Mr Ram Singh and Rao Chelu Ram are the most visible in making the poll calculations and weighing the prospects of their leaders getting the ticket. Although the trend of making poll calculations was visible in the other two Assembly constituencies, Atteli and Narnaul, falling in the district of the Ahirwal belt, it was conspicuous in the Mahendergarh
Assembly seat, which is considered to be a prominent constituency in Haryana from the point of view of the BJP. The reason is not far to seek. Mr Ram Bilas Sharma, the high profile leader of the Haryana unit of the BJP, hails from this constituency. Mr Sharma has been the state president of the BJP, its leader in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha and a former minister. From the point of view of internal politics and stature of the BJP, Mr Sharma won a record number of four times from this constituency. Also, he is considered to have been instrumental in all the major moves of the state BJP, including its alliance or dealing with the other political parties after the demise of former state president, Dr Mangal Sein. On account of his stature in the BJP, there have been allegations that he was in league with the former Chief Minister and Congress stalwart, Mr Bhajan Lal, notwithstanding his denial of the charges. His supporters also projected him as the future Chief Minister of the state, especially when chinks started surfacing in the HVP-BJP coalition government. It is an open secret that the INLD supporters voted against Mr Sharma leading to his defeat in the constituency as well as in Ballabgarh, from where he had simultaneously contested as a BJP nominee in the last Assembly election. This despite the fact that the BJP had poll pact with the INLD. The general feeling is that the INLD cadre got the cue from Mr Chautala. It was clear that the move of the INLD would help the Congress nominee, which apparently did in the final reckoning. Post-elections, the INLD supremo continued with his
moves, which suggested that his party was trying to project the Congress MLA from Mahendergarh constituency, Rao Daan Singh, at the cost of Mr Sharma. The predominant theme in the constituency in at least more than two decades of elections in the state has been that the BJP always gets this seat in alliance with other political parties. Also, the nominee of the BJP won from here only after it allied with other parties. It is in this context that the prospective nominees of the INLD have started girding up their loins in wait for the next elections in the state. They are sure that there is not even a remote possibility of the two parties coming together, at least in Haryana. |
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Haryana officers to get pay through banks Chandigarh, February 5 This decision was taken at a meeting of Administrative Secretaries held here today under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary, Mr L.M. Goyal. It was also decided that the system of disbursing salaries through banks would be implemented in a phased manner in the case of Class III and Class IV employees. In the first phase, Class III and Class IV employees of the district and subdivisional headquarters of Ambala, Hisar, Rohtak and Panipat would be covered. It was also decided that the retirement benefits of the employees would be released on the day of their retirement. Another significant decision taken at the meeting was that powers relating to the withdrawal of the GPF and leave encashment would be delegated to the heads of the departments. It was also decided that training for one week would be provided by the Haryana Institute of Public Administration to every official of the Haryana Civil Secretariat as well as of the Financial
Commissioner's office on their initial recruitment or promotion to a higher post. Another one-week compulsory training would be provided by the HIPA to officials after every two years, the Chief Secretary directed. The Chief Secretary also directed the Administrative Secretaries to ensure that the heads of departments working under their supervision allotted account numbers under the Group Insurance Scheme to the employees who did not have the numbers. Regarding transfers made on the request of government servants, no travelling or daily allowance would be paid, he said. The Chief Secretary also instructed that employees holding public dealing positions should be shifted after every three years. |
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Health drive gets lukewarm response Fatehabad, February 5 The emphasis of the health authorities is to bring all patients suffering from the STD’s to the camps and treat them so they do not become soft targets of AIDS. The district have been divided into two zones for the programme. The department has been organising 11 health camps at hospitals and community health centres in the district from February 1 to 8 more such camps will be organised from February 9 to 16. But the problem is that not many patients have been reaching to the camps. Only 25 to 30 women have been visiting the camps daily despite the fact that the department has been providing vehicles for their transportation. The more concerning aspect of the whole thing is that the number of men coming to the camps is near zero. This is despite the fact that the ratio of the STDs in males and females is 79.21. With such a low turnout, the success of the much-hyped programme appears to be doubtful. Health workers involved in the programme rue that they have not been getting sufficient medicines. The Civil Surgeon, Dr V.K. Dogra, admitted that the turnout in the camps had not been very satisfactory. Particularly the male patients had not been visiting these at all. He attributed in low turnout to the male psyche in this part of the country, who try to hide the disease from the other villagers out of social disgrace. He said even when it came to family planning operations, the number of males coming forward for vasectomies is much less than the women coming for tubectomies. He, however, said even if the department was able to bring out all female patients to these camps, its purpose could be served to a large extent as the males usually get themselves treated in private hospitals for these types of diseases while the women usually do not reveal this to anyone and suffer silently. Regarding the shortage of medicines, the Civil Surgeon said the department had sufficient stock of medicines and these will be supplied to the camps from time to time. |
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Royalty: villagers protest
Hisar, February 5 They had to hold the meeting at Kanwari in view of ban on meetings in and around Khanak. The meeting which was addressed by several senior leaders of the CPM demanded the immediate removal of checkposts set up by the contractors on all exit points of the mining site and framing of a state mining policy. The leaders who included Mr Phool Singh Sheokand and Mr Prithvi Singh Gorakhpuria alleged that politically influential persons were backing the contractors and the administration was extending all help to them in making illegal collections. Khanak has been tense for about a month when these checkposts were established. Two days ago there was violence when angry villagers burnt down the checkposts and clashed with the police.
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4 years’ RI for SP’s
reader Karnal, February 5 This is for the first time in Haryana that a reader of an SP, who is responsible for liaison between the district police chief and main policing jobs, has been sentenced in a corruption case. Romesh Kumar was challaned by police station city Thanesar to face trial under Section 342 of the IPC and Sections 7 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988. The prosecution story was that Mr Romesh Kumar had accepted bribe from Puro Devi in a case registered against her. On a complaint the then Tehsildar, Kurukshetra, organised a raid and recovered Rs 350 from Romesh Kumar. The learned Judge in his order stated that even some police officials connived to get the record misplaced in order to save Romesh Kumar. The judge took a serious note of corruption which was rampant and remarked “corruption is the deadliest enemy of free civilised society.” Dismissing the defence plea that lenient view should be taken of Romesh Kumar’s act as he was the only bread earner in the family and was due for promotion, the judge maintained that the offence committed by the accused was not of “trivial nature.” And for a public servant to be guilty of corruption is a “very serious matter and court should not take a lenient view in such a case”. |
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4-yr term for 3 dacoits Hisar, February 5 According to the prosecution, they were planning to loot a petrol pump and bus passengers near Alakh Pura village on October 30, 2000, when a police party, on a tip-off, nabbed them. The police seized two pistols and iron rods from them. Additional District and Sessions Judge Dharm Pal Chauhan has, meanwhile, sentenced two persons, including a woman, to seven years’ imprisonment in connection with the dowry death. |
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DTO clerk caught taking bribe Ambala, February 5 He said that the complainant, Mr Ravinder Singh of Kurukshetra, had approached the Vigilance Department after the clerk demanded money from him for giving a duplicate licence. The duplicate licence had been prepared on November 6, 2001 and Mr Ravinder had already paid him Rs 500. When he went to collect the duplicate licence, the clerk again demanded Rs 500 from him. A Vigilance Department team accompanied the complainant and when the complainant handed over the bribe, the clerk was nabbed red handed.
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Mobile
telephony in Haryana later this year Ambala,
February 5 Talking to mediapersons here, Mr Jethwani
said the purchase order was placed yesterday with M/s Ericsson
Communications Limited. “It will take about 6 to 8 months for
installation and commissioning of the mobile equipment,” he said. He
said extensive coverage area would be given to mobile telephony, which
included highways and important railway tracks. “Our roaming
facility will be one of the cheapest and we are going to set up base
stations. We stress on delivering quality service,” he said. Mr
Jethwani said registration charges had been reduced from Rs 2000 to Rs
1000 in urban areas where telephones were on demand. “This offer is
valid upto March 31,” he said. “We are also considering a proposal
for a 1000-line wireless in local loop for Shahbad, in which the WLL
service will be effective upto a range of 20 km,” he added. He
said BSNL had decided to offer discounts on the present tariffs on
long distance transmission part of leased circuits to all users. For
bandwidth 2 mbps and above, 30 per cent discount would be given on
high usage routes linking New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai,
Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Noida, Gurgaon and Pune and 20 per
cent discount on other inter-state capitals and union territories
routes. Corporate discount of 7.5 per cent on leased line charges on
balance routes would be provided if annual telephone and leased line
rental bills in long distance charging area in a calendar area
exceeded Rs 25 lakh. Discounts were also being offered for bandwidth
between 65 kbps and 3 mbps.
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Cong demands probe into arrests Chandigarh, February 5 The HPCC demanded an impartial probe into the arrests and “inhuman treatment” meted out to villagers.
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