All plague patients stable
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 4
The condition of all five patients diagnosed with plague in the solation ward is stable. No new patient has been admitted to the PGI with a similar disease since February 23, 2002. The control room will provide helpline services from 9 am to 5 pm now instead of round the clock as announced earlier. The telephone number of the control room is 74601

Chandigarh, March 4
Almost every other day, we come across a new sport association said to be formed for a new sport discipline about which most of the people are not aware, what to talk of how and where it was played. But what is really surprising is that the persons who control its administration and management do that just to remain in limelight.

The basic purpose of all these so-called real protectors of sports is to earn income from various sources and to build links, connections with those in authority. In the recent past, there have been many cases of new sports associations coming up whose main guardianship rests either with a coach or with the persons who were already at the helm of affairs of some sports body.

Speaking about this trend Kulwant Singh, a reputed hockey player, said this trend was not good for sports. He said, there should be some regulation by which new sport disciplines which are going to be introduced should must first submit in detail the total layout plan for the new sport alongwith the infrastructure available. He said the local authorities should also make it a rule not to recognise any such new body coming up, unless it fulfils the desired obligations.

Another sportsman Dharminder Batra said why there cannot be a regulation stipulating that an office-bearer of one association should be allowed to hold an other office in other association. He said on one hand, we were not giving due concentration to our already recognised sport disciplines and Olympic disciplines and on the other many new associations were being formed not just to promote sport but to fill their own coffers, which was sad.

Kanwalpreet Singh, another former sportsman was of the firm view that coaches and the persons who work in the sports departments of various states and UTs should not be allowed to hold any office-bearer position in any association even if it may be of an honorary nature. He said these new sports bodies officials also try to influence the businessmen through the government officers.

Gurvinder Kaur, a sportswoman, said now a days, it was very difficult to concentrate on one game, since the office-bearers of these new associations urge the college authorities for participation in other sports also as the organisers have to show their strength as far as number of teams participating is concerned. She asked why don’t the authorities make it a rule not to mislead the genuine sportpersons from shifting their respective sport, just to please these so-called sports promoters?

Chandigarh, March 4
Problems in the paid-parking system, recovery from cable operators and taxi operators and long-held purchases of the Municipal Corporation will come up before the 95th meeting of the Finance and Contract Committee (F&CC) to be held sometime next week.

The ruling Congress is also keen to get through the election of chairmen and vice-chairmen of 10 committees of the Corporation this week to avoid accumulation of work before the committees.

The elections were also likely to be held on that day, party sources told the Chandigarh Tribune.

The official agenda is, however, likely to be decided 24 hours before the meeting. One of the most ticklish issues before the Committee is paid-parking scheme as complaints regarding shortcomings in the paid parking scheme had to be resolved immediately in the wake of court directions to the MC to make sure that no inconvenience is caused to the residents. Contractor’s intransigence to honour Corporation directions and subsequent legal wrangle and traders’ protest against the paid parking, will make it difficult for the Committee to take a conclusive decision.

The Committee would also have to take into consideration the fact that the parking contractor had expressed eagerness number of times to walk out of the contract in the wake of the alleged unanimous decisions by the Municipal Corporation to change terms and conditions.

The Municipal Corporation wants to avoid giving the contractor an opportunity to dishonour the contract as it would lead to letting the gains of handling the public protest against paid parking fritter away.

The Corporation sources expressed the apprehension that if the contractor walked out of the contract, the municipal body would be a loser as it would find it difficult to find another bidder for the parking contract, which had fetched Rs 1.25 crore for the Corporation and its success could bring a substantially higher bid next year.

Sources from the trader community, who unsuccessfully led protests against paid parking, said the onus of improvement in the system had now shifted to the Congress as the local MP, Mr Pawan Bansal, had agreed to many of their demands before the traders withdrew their agitation.

The meeting of the F&CC will be burdened with the clearance of heavy purchase of the Corporation, which has not been able to make major purchases of cement and bitumen since the announcement of the MCC elections.

The material is used the maximum in the summer for development activities.

The Congress which has shown inclination to improve revenue of the Corporation would also like to decide soon on recoveries from the cable operators and taxi operators.

The Corporation has already lost crores of rupees from delay in recovery from around 117 small and four big cable operators requiring the matter to be decided soon to improve the health of the Corporation.

After losing their case, taxi operators had also made an offer of a revised rate saying the rates slapped by the Corporation were the highest in the country.

Chandigarh, March 4
The Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh will launch a campaign from March 15 to remove pigs from the city.

This was decided here today at a meeting called by the Municipal Commissioner, Mr M. P. Singh, and attended by the Assistant Commissioner-I, Mr Ashok Vashishth, the Medical Officer Health, Dr G. C. Bansal and Dr M. S. Kamboj, Chief of cattle pond and slaughter house.

The meeting was held after the Administrator, Lieut Gen J. F. R. Jacob (retd), directed the Municipal Corporation to control the pig menace.

The meeting also comes in the wake of a reported roughing up of MCC staff in Daddu Majra colony while trying to catch pigs there. The MCC decided that the pig-catching staff will now be accompanied by officials of police and enforcement departments.

The Corporation staff will catch pigs and transport them out side the city and prosecute those illegally rearing pigs in the city.

Before the launch of the campaign, the MCC will issue a seven-day notice in newspapers declaring the pig rearing in the city as ''unwanted'' urging owners of pigs to remove them from their neighbourhood.

The pig menace in the city allegedly led to many accidents in sector-25 colony and scattering of filth in the sectors 15, 25 and Panjab University.

The direction of Mr Jacob came after he visited various places in the city to monitor conditions of sanitation.