Workshop for horticulture experts ends
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, May 21
A two-day workshop for horticulture experts organised at Punjab Agricultural University concluded here today.

Addressing the experts, Dr J.S. Mann, Director (Horticulture), Punjab, said the climate of Punjab was not conducive for cultivation of fruits due to which the area under fruit cultivation had reduced from one lakh hectare to 38,000 hectare. He said the lack of fruit-processing facilities had further discouraged the farmers from taking up fruit cultivation.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr K.S. Aulakh, Vice-Chancellor, PAU, said the area under fruit cultivation was quite less and any efforts to increase productivity of fruit crops would not only help in diversification, but also help in solving problems of deteriorating soil health and declining water level.

Dr G.S. Nanda, Director (Research), said the university had produced virus-free kinnow and 2,000 plants of this variety would be supplied to farmers by September this year. Dr Jaspinder Singh Kolar, Director (Extension Education), said fruit processing should be given top priority in order to motivate farmers to take up fruit cultivation.

PPSC-selected lecturers’ plea
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, May 21
The PPSC-selected College Lecturers Association has called upon the Punjab Government not to cancel its selections and issue its members appointment letters to ensure justice to them.

The PPSC had selected college lecturers for various subjects before the arrest of Ravinderpaul Singh Sidhu, Chairman of the PPSC. The selected lecturers have formed an organisation known as the ‘PPSC-selected Colleges Lecturers Association to safeguard their rights.’

Prof Antar Jyoti Ghai, convener of the association in a statement here today said so far as the selection of the lecturers was concerned, no bribe had been given for selection. The Vigilance Bureau, Punjab, has not made even a single disclosure about bribe in the selection of lecturers. Nor any of the persons arrested in the PPSC scam so far had named any lecturer who had bribed the authorities for selection.

Prof Ghai said that even the two-member board constituted by the PPSC to probe recruitment scam had said nothing about the selection of lecturers in its report submitted to the Punjab Government. She claimed that the interviews for the lecturers were conducted in a very fair manner and that subject experts had been called to interview the candidates. She asserted that majority of the selected lecturers had outstanding academic record. ‘Many of them are position holders, including winning medals, with M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees and all these facts can be checked from the records of the Punjab Public Service Commission’, she added.

Prof Ghai maintained that most of selected lecturers belonged to middle class families and were not in a position to even bribe otherwise. The posts of lecturer too were not lucrative to earn crores by hook or by crook. In view of the circumstances there was no justification in scrapping the selection of lecturers, she emphasised. However, she welcomed the drive against corruption launched by the government.