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General Hospital on course to
privatise sanitation Panchkula, January 6 To be patterned on the GMCH, Sector 32, Chandigarh, a strict set of terms and conditions has been formulated by the department to make the hospital infection-free and place it among leading hospitals in the state. Under the guidelines to be adopted by contractors, toilets have to be cleaned at least twice daily and all rooms cleaned with a broom and mop every day. Outdoor broom sweeping and garbage disposal two times a day and cleaning of roads, lawns and complexes will also figure in the contract. Maintenance of mortuary and helping the hospital staff in conducting the post-mortem examination will be the responsibility of the contractor’s staff. To save the hospital from the monopoly of a single contractor, the institute is open to the negotiation of rates with the second and third-lowest firms to bring them on a par with the lowest offer for preparing a panel of firms as an alternative arrangement for running hospital services”, the tender document says. Sources said the proposal to privatise sanitation was an outcome of the acute shortage of sanitation staff at the disposal of the hospital. With the hospital functioning with a skeletal sanitary staff, sanitation work has been the first casualty. |
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Rotary medicare team to train Cambodian doctors Chandigarh, January 6 “It was an altogether different experience for our 19 member Rotary medicare team, as we spent a fortnight tending and treating patients in Cambodia, the first Asian country ever visited by us on a philanthropic mission”, informed Mr Rajendra K. Saboo, past world president of Rotary International. He along with other team members, including Mrs Kawal Bedi and Dr G. S. Kochhar, shared their experiences with the media here today. Seeing the suffering and misery of the people of Cambodia, we feel that a fortnight was just not enough to reach out to all so we have decided to shortly start a training programme, where the Rotary will bear the entire expenditure for updating the skills of Cambodian doctors. The team which returned from Cambodia, has already started receiving applications from Cambodian doctors. Guided by the spirit of “service beyond borders”, the Rotary medicare team, including 14 doctors, had gone to Cambodia on December 15. About 2,500 patients were treated by the team, which performed a large number of surgeries at Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, where the medical facilities are inadequate and scarce. “The people of Cambodia were so overwhelmed by our visit that till the last minute they could not believe that people from another country would come to treat them and that too free of cost,” said Mrs Bedi, the team leader and District Governor, Rotary International District 3080. She said since the medical facilities in Cambodia were very poor, the Rotary medicare team would pay another visit to the country in October. In the past Rotary teams have made several trips to the African countries of Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania, Malavi, Nigeria and Ethiopia. During their stay in Cambodia, the team treated 498 patients for eye ailments, 372 for dental, 371 for ENT, 949 for gynaecological problems and 121 for orthopaedic surgery. The three city doctors, who were part of the team, included Dr G.S. Kochhar, Dr Shobit Ghai and Dr B.R. Jain. Mr Saboo said in March next year a Rotary team would be visiting Madagaskar, a country plagued by poverty and having the lowest per capita income. |
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Drop in anti-polio drive figures Chandigarh, January 6 “We admit that this number is almost 10,000 less than last time, but we believe that it is not because some children have been left out, but because of the eviction of thousands of families from Palsora, Colony Number 5, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Colony and Lal Bahadur Shastri Colony,” explained a senior health official. He added that during the house-to-house drive during the last two days, the medical teams could hardly find any children who were not immunised. On the first day when polio drops were administered at the booths, 1.08 lakh children were immunised. On the second and third day, when house-to-house drive was undertaken ,10,000 and 5,000 children were covered, respectively. |
Mandeep beats Amit in thriller Chandigarh, January 6 Mr Devender Kapoor, tournament director, said today the matches under-14 section were held. The tie between Mandeep Gill and Amit Chauhan was the most thrilling match of the day. Results: Mandeep Yadav b Arjun Gauba 6-0; Arjun Khanna b Jonathan 6-1; Akshay Chopra b Karan Bhai 6-0; Mandeep Gill b Amit Chauhan 6-5 (7-4); Gauravinder Toor b Jaivardhan Gupta 6-1; Anshul Kadiyan b Abhik 6-0; Balwinder Singh walkover Tanveer Sandhu; Sidharth Singh b Prabhjot Singh 6-1; Akshat Joshi b Aman Khura 6-0; Ruben Budhwal b Vikramjeet Singh 6-0; Arwinder Pal Singh b Chetenya Verma 6-4; Munish b Mukul 6-0; and Digvijay Singh walkover Navdeep Singh.
PU team An eight-member Panjab University women ball badminton team will take part in the All-India Inter-Varsity Ball Badminton meet to be held in Jawaharlal Technology University, Kukatapalli in Hyderabad from January 9. The team is: Anisha Bhatti (Captain) of Government College of Education, Sector 20; Dilraj Kaur, Priya Thind, Vandana, Roma Pamey and Paramjit Kaur (all from the GGS College for Women, Sector 26); Poonam of Government College for Girls, Sector 11; and Talwinder Kaur of the Dev Samaj College for Women, Sector 45. Mr Baljinder Singh Banwait will accompany the team as coach-cum-manager.
Yoga teams A 12-member yoga team, both in men’s and women’s section’s have been selected to represent Panjab University in the All-India Inter-Varsity Yoga Competitions to be held at Bhagalpur in Bihar from January 10 to 13. The team is: men: Surinder Singh, Paras and Jatinder (all from PU); Manish of SDC-32; and Dinesh and Pawan (both from DAVC, Abohar). Women: Poonam, Anita, Ruchi, Sudesh, Pinki and Gurpreet. Mr Navin Kumar is the coach and Meetu manager of the team.
Cricket tourney Manav Asopa, who scored 72 runs and claimed two wickets for 21 runs, enabled Century Steel Industries in beating Satluj Cricket Academy by 18 runs and won the Second Satluj Cup League Cricket Tournament played at Satluj Public School, Sector 4, Panchkula, on Monday. Brief scores: Century Steel Industries: 261 runs for nine in 40 overs (Manav Asopa 72, Narinder Walia 55, Ravi Verma 52, Vaneet Chawla 22, Karandeep 4 for 33 and A. Multani 2 for 27). Satluj Cricket Academy: 243 runs all out (Jai Kapil 84, Tejwinder Gill 48, Pawan Jha 36, Navneet Thapar 29, Nitish Chopra 21, Umesh Kaira 3 for 19, Rubal Kapil 2 for 31, Ajay Bhardwaj 2 for 29 and Manav Asopa 2 for 21). |
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Waugh’s heroics leave Indian fans disappointed Chandigarh, January 6 Cricket lovers were following the game since 5:30 am, hoping for an Indian win. Waugh and Simon Katich, the first innings hero for Australia, had other ideas. From a precarious 194 for 4, Waugh and Katich remained together till the score was a safe 338, when Waugh was caught in the deep. Three balls later, the dangerous Adam Gilchrist was out. However, with only five overs left for the day, Katich and Gillespie batted out any Indian hopes of a win. Surinder Singh Baijee said it was a great game of cricket. India should have won the match and the team had played better than what was hoped, he added. The team had the upper hand during the entire match and it was the Australians who had their backs to the wall, which was moral a victory, he added. The cricketing world now knew that the Aussies can be put under pressure, he further said. Local cricketer, Vikram Sharma, said wicketkeeping let India down badly. Parthiv Patel should be shown the door as he missed chances of Ricky Ponting and Waugh at a critical juncture, he asserted. Had Patel utilised the chance given by Waugh, India would have won the match, he claimed. Also unluckily all bad umpiring decisions went against India and the team were short by one bowler, he stated. Rajesh Purohit said he had hoped that the Indians would bowl out the Aussies, who had been set a target of 443. ‘‘With the wicket turning, I felt India had a chance. However, hats off to Waugh,’’ he said. He added that he had been watching the series with great interest and it was one of the facinating Test series played by India. |
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Mount Cable, United India win Panchkula, January 6 Brief scores: United India: 147 all out in 24.5 overs (Sanjay Bhatia 43, Ram Pal 31, Ajay Sharma 27, N.K. Sidhu 21,Pawan Sharma 4 for 22, Pushpinder 2 for 21, Manjeet 2 for 27); J.L. Morrison: 124 all out in 23.2 overs (Minal 39, Abbu 30, Pawan 24, Om Sharma 22, Amarjeet Kumar 5 for 17, Ashok 2 for 21, Munish 2 for 27). In another match, fine batting by Deepinder Singh, who scored an unbeaten 62, enabled Mount Cable Industries defeat Haryana Tourism by 58 runs. Brief scores: Mount Cable: 159 all out (Deepinder Singh 62 not out, Jagdish 26, Arun Sethi 25, Dhirender Pal 3 for 27, Ranjeet Rana 2 for 26, Shekhar 2 for 27 , Pankaj Sharma 2 for 29); Haryana Tourism: 101 all out (Arun Sood 49, Shekhar 21, Dilbagh Dahiya 20, Pankaj 3 for 22, Harjeet Bobby 2 for 22, Udai 2 for 21, Manvinder 2 for 23). |
Mohali council scraps sanitation contract Mohali, January 6 At a general body meeting of the council certain members of the Opposition emphasised that since new tenders were being called for the sanitation work, the town should be divided into zones and the work allotted to different contractors. At present the entire work has been allotted to one contractor. However, council officials pointed out that since one financial estimate had been prepared for the entire job, it would not be possible to engage more than one sanitation contractor. The President of the civic body, Mr Kulwant Singh, said if possible, the town would be divided into four zones and the sanitation work allotted to different contractors. The proposal for the cancellation of the sanitation contract has come up for the second time in the House. Earlier, the issue was discussed at a council meeting on October 13, but at that time the House had decided to give three months’ time to the contractor with the hope that he would bring about an improvement in sanitation. However, no improvement was noticed by the authorities concerned. The contractor had not been engaging the number of employees specified in terms of the agreement and was also not regularly lifting garbage from certain areas. The contract for the town’s sanitation work, including the industrial area, had been given to a private party on July 19. The work order, which had been given for three months, expired on October 18 and was to be extended only if the work was found to be satisfactory. The civic body had been issuing notices to the sanitation contractor from time to time for unsatisfactory work and heavy deductions were made from the bills presented by the contractor. The deductions were made in July last year (Rs 57,040), in August (Rs 1,96,448), in September (Rs 1,56,690), in October (Rs 1,09,153) and in November (Rs 2,08,448). The problem of stray cattle was also discussed by the House. Following the cancellation of the contract with a private party for catching stray animals, the work is now being done by the civic body itself. “The biggest problem was that there was no place to keep animals caught by council employees as the civic body did not have a proper cattle pond,” lamented Mr Kulwant Singh. He said the council would write a letter to the government asking as to what should the civic body do with the animals that were caught by the council staff. He said a writ petition was already going on in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in connection with the problem of stray animals. The court had directed that PUDA should provide land to the Municipal Council at a price lower than the market rate. The house also cleared the proposal of buying new tyres for two vehicles and handing over a new tubewell sunk in Phase XI to officials of the Department of Public Health. A representation put forward by employees of allowing them to take loans from banks because of low rate of interest was also cleared at the meeting. |
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Councillors seek MC chief’s
resignation Mohali, January 6 In a press note released here today, which was signed by Mr Amrik Singh, Mr Manjit Singh Sethi, Mr Manmohan Singh Lang, Mr Manjit Singh and Mrs Harbans Kaur, the councillors demanded that the Punjab Chief Minister should order a high-level inquiry into the alleged financial irregularities and corruption in the civic body. They said that the council president had failed to get the sanitation work done from a contractor. Heaps of garbage could be seen lying in different parts of the town and the working of the council was exposed by the SDM when he had carried out an inspection on the directions of the Ropar Deputy Commissioner. The problem of cattle pond had not been sorted out and the contract with a private party to catch stray animals was also cancelled. The octroi contractor kept fleecing and harassing residents of the town but no action was taken against him inspite of a large number of complaints. The councillors said that the development work in the town had come to a standstill. A number of roads had potholes. The council did not have funds to carry out patch work. The council president, Mr Kulwant Singh, said that the opposition councillors had no other work except demanding his resignation. He alleged that they had always tried to create obstacles in the way of development. He said that they had been levelling various allegations against him and the civic body but had failed to give any proof in this regard. |
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Fire officers’ meeting
held Chandigarh, January 6 The subjects discussed included “Modern fire services”, “Life of fire equipment”, “ Uniform of personnel and other recruitment norms”. Those who attended the meeting included Mr G.S.Bajwa, local Chief Fire Officer, Mr S.K.Gosain, Station Fire Officer, Sector 32, and senior fire officials from Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana. |
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SHO shifted Chandigarh, January 6 He was replaced by Inspector Mani Ram, who was earlier posted with the traffic police. Inspector Dhanraj, posted with the police line, has been sent to the traffic police. Mr Chauhan has been in news recently for dealing with high-profile cases of alleged assault on the granddaughter of the late Chief Minister Beant Singh. |
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