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Friday,
May 10,
2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Govt learns of company
monopoly the hard way ‘Suspend HPSC chief, members’ Haryana to file review plea
on mining verdict Discretionary quota plots can be transferred Policy for waiver of power bills |
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Provide quality seed to farmers: expert Behold! This gold is old HPCC endorses Bar resolution Rs 400 cr for improving
power supply Urban Act to cover 33 towns Scholars on Surdas to be honoured 2 gangs stealing cars busted Kavi darbar on May 14
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Govt learns of company
monopoly the hard way Chandigarh, May 9 The state government had recently cancelled the mobile phone connections of all ministers, including the Chief Minister. The service was being provided by a company at present enjoying the monopoly of linking all centres of the state. The state government had hired the company for 18 mobile phones used by functionaries of the state government, including 11 Cabinet members. The phones had the roaming facility as well. However, the Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala, reportedly faced inconvenience in using his phone during his recent trip to Mumbai. He reportedly called up Chandigarh and talked to a senior bureaucrat regarding the problem with his mobile. The bureaucrat then called up the private company’s Ambala office and gave its representatives a thorough blasting. Soon after the state government asked the company to withdraw its service. The Speaker of the Assembly as well as the Deputy Speaker also had the services of the same company. However, their phones were not affected as the connections were obtained by the Assembly and not the state government. The ministers, who had no inkling of the state government’s decision, were puzzled as their phones suddenly went silent. The phone numbers, etc, fed by them into their mobiles also got erased. However, on Tuesday the phones again became live. It was the same company which was providing the service and the phone numbers also remained unchanged. The service was apparently restored following patch-up between the government and the service provider. However, as the connections were resumed through the use of new cards, the phone numbers and other information which got erased from the phones could not be restored. The decision to re-hire the company was taken by the state government following an assurance by the company that there would not be any lapse in its service in future. However, the state government too was in a fix following its decision as no other mobile phone service covered the entire state. The Chief Secretary as well as other senior bureaucrats use the service of a different company for their official mobiles. But the one providing service to the bureaucrats covers Chandigarh and Punjab in its local network and therefore is not of any use to Haryana ministers. “We can make a choice only if other mobile companies come to Haryana”, stated a senior government official. |
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‘Suspend HPSC chief,
members’ Chandigarh, May 9 Mr Surjewale, leading a delegation of the Haryana Youth Congress, presented a memorandum to the Governor, Babu Parmanand, urging him to remove Mr K.C. Bangar and others for having turned the HPSC into a “front organisation of the INLD”. “The underlying idea (of appointment of civil servants through public service commissions) was that the democratic system could be maintained only if civil servants were appointed solely on the basis of merit so that they did not blindly follow the orders of their political masters”, stated the memorandum. The memorandum added that the recent selections made to the HCS and allied services constituted the most glaring example of destruction of the institution of the PSC. The Chairman of the HPSC, Mr Bangar, had selected Jagdeep, son-in-law of his brother, who was also the INLD president of an assembly constituency (Narwana) represented by the Chief Minister, it alleged. The memorandum urged the Governor to invoke Article 317 of the Constitution and suspend the Chairman and the members of the HPSC and also stay all appointments made by them. The Governor was also requested to make a reference to the President of India for conducting an investigation through the Supreme Court under Article 145 of the Constitution. Earlier, talking to reporters here, Mr Surjewale said that the HPSC should be renamed the “Haryana Relative Service Commission” as a tribute to the services offered by it to kin of various influential government functionaries. The IYC chief, who was accompanied by his Haryana counterpart, Mr Satwinder Singh Sandhu, said the youth Congress unit of the state would constitute a “public commission” of eminent lawyers and educationists to probe the recent results announced by the HPSC. He also alleged that Mr Bangar’s appointment as HPSC Chairman was a “gift” to him by Mr Chautala for having worked as his election in charge during the last assembly poll.” At that time Mr Bangar was the VC of Guru Jambeshwar University but it did not stop him from working for Mr Chautala in the elections,” Mr Surjewale said. |
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M.S. Malik clarifies Chandigarh, May 9 Alleging that the news reports published in The Tribune, “Controversy over HCS exam(October 23, 2001)” and “VVIP wards make it to select list — HCS results may trigger row(May 5, 2002)”, were aimed at tarnishing his image, Mr Malik said he was selected in the Indian Army as a commissioned officer and had fought gallantly during the counter-insurgency operations in Mizoram and in the eastern sector. He said he was a highly decorated soldier and had always stood on merit. After the military service, he said, he was inducted into the Indian Police Service by the UPSC. He was awarded the Police Medal for Meritorious Services in 1986 and the President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Services this year. Mr Malik said his daughter did her BA with honours and post-graduation in psychology with distinction from Panjab University. She passed her LL.B examination too with distinction and also qualified the National Eligibility Test (NET), on the basis of which she was selected as Lecturer in Government College, Sector 42, Chandigarh. She was selected as Lecturer by the HPSC in 1997. |
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Haryana to file review plea
on mining verdict Faridabad, May 9 While the district authorities have claimed that the court’s order has been implemented strictly with the sealing of the mines of about 23 lease holders which come under the purview of the order, senior Haryana Government officials have been busy since yesterday deliberating on the consequences of the order. While a meeting was held at Haryana Bhavan yesterday, another meeting followed today to chalk out the final strategy regarding, filing of the review petition in the court tomorrow. The court is likely to be closed for summer vacation from Monday. According to sources and information received here, the government has finalised its petition and other documents to be presented before the court. The Private Secretary to the Chief Minister, Advocate-General of Haryana, Director, Mining, and Deputy Commissioners of Faridabad and Gurgaon attended the meeting. It is learnt that the state government’s review petition will seek relief from the court on some of the aspects which include removal of the ban on the mining of stone as it is contended that mining of stone does not affect the water level underground as claimed by the petitioners who had sought the ban. It is claimed that Badarpur sand, which is an important construction material, was mined from the upper crest of land and no water was being pumped out in such an activity and so it could be allowed. It is reported that originally a petition had been filed by the management of the wildlife-bird sanctuary situated at Jasola Bhatti village of Delhi near the Haryana border that excessive mining and draining out of the underground water had caused depletion of the water table and as a result the sanctuary had not been getting adequate water. Moreover, it had also been contended that air and water pollution in the area of the Aravalli hills in the border areas of Delhi had got affected adversely due to the mining activities. The Haryana Government will certainly defend its case in the court, said a senior official. He said stopping mining activities altogether would have hard-hitting consequences as mining had given jobs to over one lakh persons directly and indirectly. The state government will also lose annual revenue of about Rs 140 crore of which Faridabad alone contributes over Rs 60 crore. |
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Discretionary quota plots can be
transferred Panchkula, May 9 In a communication to the Estate Officers of HUDA in Gurgaon, Hisar, Panchkula and Faridabad, the Chief Administrator has clarified that with the apex court having upheld the discretionary plot allotments made in different urban estates in the state, the original allottees could now transfer these plots after the expiry of a period of three years, as mentioned in the allotment letters. It has also been decided by the HUDA authorities that the period during which the discretionary quota plots remained under litigation ( from 1996 to 2001) will be treated as “zero period”. This means that a person being allotted a plot under this quota in 1994 will be considered to have completed two years till 1996 (when the litigation began) and the third year will be considered from September, 2001, to September 2002 (after the apex court’s judgement in September, 2001). The prices of the plots in most of the urban estates where these were allotted have skyrocketed over the years. Hundreds of plots were allotted by Mr Om Prakash Chautala and Mr Bhajan Lal as Chief Ministers. However, public interest litigation was filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the allotments. The high court had then upheld all allotments made before April 23, 1996, in the case Anil Sabharwal vs State of Haryana and others. Later, in another judgement by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, dated March 21, 1997, all allotments of plots (of more than six marlas each) had been quashed. The court had also imposed a ban on the transfer of discretionary quota plots for a period of five years. Appeals against this order had then been filed in the Supreme Court. It was on September 28, 2001, that the Supreme Court upheld all allotments before April 23, 1996. Instructions for the restoration of these plots were issued by the Chief Administrator in February, 2002. This order also said that all plots allotted after April 23, 1996, had to be under the specified categories or they stood cancelled. These categories include bona fide purchasers, who had begun construction before the issuance of notice by the court, all two and four-marla plots allottees and those members of the armed forces and the police who fought against terrorism in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, as well as civilians affected by terrorist activities.
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Policy for waiver of
power bills Fatehabad, May 9 He was addressing elected representatives of panchayats, block samitis and zila parishads of the Bhuna, Bhattu and Fatehabad blocks of the district. Mr Hanif Qureshi, SP, Mr C. R. Rana, ADC, Mr R.K. Chauhan, SDM, Mr Jagmohan Bhardwaj, DDPO, Mr Baljit Singh, BDPO, and the zila parishad chairperson, Ms Kailo Devi, were present at the meeting. Mr Indora urged the representatives of the Panchayati Raj organisations to help the government to improve the power situation by the timely payments of power bills. Mr Indora informed that in Fatehabad district, a sum of Rs 8.45 lakh had been collected under this scheme so far while exemptions amounting to Rs 25.54 lakh had been availed of by the consumers. Mr C.R. Rana said line losses in Haryana had gone up to 55 per cent. The non-payment of power bills was also part of it, he said adding that rural areas of the state were the worst hit due to the loss of revenue. Mr R.K. Chauhan, Mr Qureshi and some sarpanches also spoke on the occasion. |
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Provide quality seed to
farmers: expert Hisar, May 9 This was stated by a former FAO consultant, Mr Amir Singh, while delivering the Rao Bahadur Dr Ram Dhan Singh memorial lecture at Haryana Agricultural University here today. He said seed was the most important determinant of agricultural production as the efficacy of other agricultural inputs largely depended on it. Although the seed sector had made impressive progress during the past three decades by increasing the area under improved crop varieties from less than 500 hectares in 1962-63 to over 5 lakh hectares now, yet there was a need for infusing vitality in the agricultural sector, he said. Mr Amir Singh stated that biotechnology held enormous promise in developing crop varieties with high tolerance to various biotic and abiotic stresses. However, while providing favourable conditions for the seed industry to utilise available and prospective opportunities, it should be ensured that gullible farmers were not exploited by unscrupulous elements, he stated. Talking about the new seed policy, he said with a good seed production infrastructure, India could export seed. He said the government was also working on evolving a long-term policy for the export of seed with a view to raising India’s share of the global seed export from 1 to 10 per cent by 2015. Under the new policy, the domestic seed industry would get special incentives, he added. Presiding over the function, the Vice-Chancellor, Mr Vinay Kumar, paid tributes to scientist Ram Dhan Singh. Describing him as a plant breeder par excellence, he said the country would always be indebted to him for the wheat and rice varieties he had developed. The Rao Bahadur Dr Ram Dhan Singh Memorial Award for seed technology was conferred on Dr B.S. Dahiya, Director of Research, Haryana Agricultural University, while two other awards for wheat and cotton crops were presented to Dr S. Nagarajan, Director, IARI, New Delhi, and Dr U.G. Patel, Cotton Breeder, Gujarat Agricultural University, Surat, respectively. The awards carry a cash reward of Rs 5,000 and a citation. |
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Behold! This gold is old Hisar, May 9 This is exactly what has happened to Ms Indu Bala, a former student of the local Fateh Chand College for Women who stood first in the senior secondary examination (arts group) conducted by the Haryana Board of School Education in March 1996. A lowly board official landed in the college today with the medal, a demand draft for Rs 5000 and a certificate with instructions that the college authorities locate the girl and give her the coveted mementoes. That’s not the end of the story. This official also brought along a silver medal and a certificate meant for Ms Suman also a former student of this college who stood second in the senior secondary examination (arts group) held by the board in March 1995. Incidentally, the board had issued the certificate for Ms Indu Bala in November 2001 and for Ms Suman the following month. The bank draft for Ms Indu Bala expires on May 23 next since it was issued about six months ago. Dr Shamim Sharma, Principal of the college said the college staff had no idea of the whereabouts of these two students. “In all probability both of them must have completed their education by now. Both could well be married and mothers. We will try to locate them at the earliest”, she added. Dr Sharma lamented that while the board took seven years to send the medals and the draft, the college authorities were expected to locate the girl in two weeks otherwise the bank draft would be rendered invalid. She said she could not understand why it took the board six months to send these from Bhiwani to Hisar a distance of less than 60 km. “That is if we overlook the fact that the medals should have been given seven years ago”, she said. A look at the certificates gives you an idea of the casual attitude of the board authorities towards meritorious students. The signatures of the official who has signed both these certificates do not match. Teachers of the college were taken aback. They said the medals were of little use to their former students since they had already settled down in life. They said the board should have had the courtesy to pay interest on the cash award amount which would have doubled in seven years in a bank deposit. But who cares about these niceties? Not the Haryana Board of School Education at least! |
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HPCC endorses Bar resolution
Ambala, May 9 Talking to mediapersons here today the president of the cell, Thakur Bijender Singh, stated that the matter would be taken up at a state-level conference being organised at Kurukshetra on May 12 in which several senior leaders of Congress, including Mr Arjun Singh, HPCC, president Bhupinder Singh Hooda, former MP O.P. Jindal, former Minister Ram Prakash and general secretary of HPCC Kiran Bala Jain would participate. Replying to a question he said that the Judges, whose names had surfaced in the Vigilance Bureau investigation of the PPSC, scam should tender their resignation on the moral grounds. He said that if the Judges concerned did not submit their resignations, the workers of the cell would stage a dharna against them. He said that the cell would not allow to curtail the right of information at any level. Mr Thakur said that the cell had decided to add more advocates to Congress ideology. He said that free legal aid committees of the cell would be constituted at every Assembly segment. He also criticised the HPSC for selecting the kin of influential persons. |
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Rs 400 cr for improving
power supply Panchkula, May 9 This was stated by the Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Department of Power and Non-Conventional Energy Resources, and Chairman, Haryana Power Utilities, while addressing a public meeting at Bhoj Palasra, near Morni, today. She was here to inaugurate the first phase of electrification of three hamlets under the Shivalik Development Agency scheme and also distributed non-conventional energy equipment among the villagers. She said that the government was determined to provide power to all and the electrification of the hamlets (dhanies) had been done to provide electricity to the needy villagers. The Shivalik Development Agency has identified 26 dhanies for electrification, of which three have been electrified and the remaining will be done during the next four months. Among others present on the occasion were Deputy Commissioner Jyoti Arora and Managing Director of Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, Tarun Bajaj. |
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UHBVN to open more cash
counters Chandigarh, May 9 While stating this here today, a spokesman for the nigam said the field officers might extend the timings of cash collection up to 5 pm to cope with the increased work at the centres. The timings of cash collection in these centres were from 9 am to 1 pm. He said the nigam had also decided to keep its all cash collection centres open on May 11, 12 and 15, which are otherwise holidays in the state. |
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Urban Act to cover 33 towns Yamunanagar, May 9 Yamunanagar and Jagadhri also figure in the list of selected towns. The Town and Country Planning Department has notified Yamunanagar and Jagadhri towns under the provisions of the Act. Mr Rajiv Sharma, Deputy Commissioner, said here today that Yamunanagar and Jagadhri urban areas notified under Section 7(A) Sub-Registrar. Jagadhri shall have to seek a no-objection certificate from the district Town Planning Department, Yamunanagar. In case the land falls out side the municipal limit and no-objection certificate from land falling within the municipal limit will have to be obtained from the Director, Urban Development.
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Scholars on Surdas to be
honoured Chandigarh, May 9 Dr Chander Trikha, Director of the akademi, while stating this here today, said the honour would be bestowed upon the researchers at a function to be organised to mark the Surdas Jayanti at Sihi Gram village, the birthplace of Surdas, on May 17. The Minister of State for Health, Dr ML Ranga, would preside over the function. He said some of the popular couplets of Surdas would be displayed at some important public parks in the state. He said the images of Surdas, Babu Bal Mukand Gupt and noted folk singer, Pt. Lakhmi Chand would be installed at three important places of the state during the year. Mr P.K. Chaudhery, Vice-Chairman of the akademi, and Secretary, Education, said the glossary of technical terms brought out by the akademi was being supplied to all government and semi-government offices free of cost to give fillip to the use of national language. He said the akademi would also organise a two-day workshop to impart special training in the use of technical terms to the officers, heads of departments and officials working in the government and semi-government offices. |
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2 gangs stealing cars
busted Chandigarh, May 9 While stating this here today, a spokesman said that the police had recovered one pistol and a .315 bore live cartridge alongwith Indica car (HR-10 D 9228) from Arvind son of Dayanand, Shokinder son of Phool Singh resident of Barot (UP), Sunash son of Jaikishan, Ajay son of Prem Chand, both of Delhi. An FIR had been registered in police station Kundli under various sections of the IPC. Similarly, during the checking Jasbir and Jatinder Bahadurgarh were arrested and one Maruti car (DL4CF-1249) and another car without number were recovered from them. An FIR had also been registered against them in police station Rai under various sections of the IPC. |
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Kavi darbar on May 14 Chandigarh, May 9 Stating this here today Major A.S. Shergill, Director of the Akademi, said poets and poetesses from Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, including Harbhajan Singh Komal, Dr Ramesh Kumar, Harbhajan Singh Renu, Darshan Natt, Dr Rattan Singh Dhillon, Ravinder Masroor, Dr Pal Kaur, Hari Singh Dilbar, Dr Jagtar, Surit Patar, Surjit Judge, Ravinder Bhattal, Dr Gurbhajan Gill, Sukhvinder Amrit and Gurvinder Sidhu, had been invited. The Education Minister, Mr Bahadur Singh, will be the chief guest while the Commissioner and Secretary, Education, Mr P.K. Chaudhary, will preside over the function.
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