HEALTH

Door-to-door polio campaign
Our Correspondent

Chandigarh, April 5
Over 12,595 children, below the age of five, were administered polio drops on the second day of third Pulse Polio Immunisation campaign this year. In an attempt to ensure complete coverage, house to house "spot and vaccinate activity" was carried out by the workers.

According to the Director of Family Welfare, Dr M.P. Minocha, children who missed taking the drops today also, could get vaccinated tomorrow as well. Dr Minocha said, “With mass immunisation, we will be able to eradicate the disease in a very short time".

The UT Health department had initially set up 461 booths, including 51 mobile teams, to cover all sectors and villages in the city. In order to ensure coverage of all children, including the ones who were travelling, seven booths were also set up at entry points from Panchkula, Mohali and the PGI side.

Apart from 1,800 health department employees and anganwari workers, 
voluntary organisations like Rotary International, Lions Club and Servants of People Society were involved in the national immunisation campaign. The tentative dates for the next two round of pulse polio campaign have been fixed as October 10 and November 21, informed health officials.

SPORTS

City ecstatic over Yuvi’s performance
Arvind Katyal

Chandigarh, April 5
City is ecstatic over the magnificent performance by the Yuvraj Singh who scored his maiden century on the first day of the second Test at Lahore. Monish Aggarwal, a former Ranji player and now a selector of the Punjab junior team, said Yuvraj has now matured himself into a world class batsman and in the present series has further authenticated his confidence. He and Irfan Pathan took the Indian team out of troubled waters and with aggression and proper planning.

Parveen Singha a sports teacher with Yadavindra Public School, Mohali, said a great knock by Yuvraj and that too at the critical time has aroused the hope in the match. At one time, when Indian middle order was on the verge of collapse, both Yuvraj with the able support by Irfan consolidated the team strength and frustrated the efforts of the Pakistan bowlers. The score of 287 put up by India is a reasonable score and in the coming days, it will be test of Indian bowlers.

Simranjit Singh Baltana, a Mohali-based cricketer, “Yuvraj was of the opinion that now the inspiration of all junior players who were now looking this talented hard task master as one of their ideals in the world of cricket. He has really proved his worth in the hour of crisis. Yuvraj has also proved that whether it is a Test match or a one-day, he can perform at its best to put his team on strong footing.

According to Jashanpreet Singh Kohli, a cricket player of St John’s High School, ‘Yuvraj is one of the most energetic and skillful player who today played a bold game which included few classic strokes which won applauds from cricket experts. Yuvraj who was earlier considered to be a one-dayer batsman has proved in his maiden Test series with Pakistan that he was good for India whether for one-dayer or Test.

Roller hockey camp begins
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, April 5
Twelve girls and eight boys have reported on the first day of the month-long training camp of Indian roller hockey team being held at the skating rink of KB DAV Centenary School, Sector 7. Ms Madhu Bahl, Chairman, Roller Hockey of the RSFI, said tomorrow eight more boys were expected to arrive from Jammu. She said the selection trials for the final list of selected players will be done on April 8. She said Mr Dhaliwal of Ludhiana will be the head coach and four coaches, Harpreet Singh, Gulrattan Rathore, Rajesh Anand and Balwinder Singh, would assist him in both boys and girls sections. Ms Bahl said the timings of the camp has been fixed as 6.30 am to 8.30 am and from 5 pm to 8.30 pm when they can practice under the floodlights. 
She said the focus would be on physical conditioning and improve the speed of the skaters.

ADMINISTRATION

Verma tells Adviser to reorganise Sec 17 parking
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 5
The UT Administrator, Justice O.P. Verma, today asked the Adviser to prepare a conceptual plan for reorganising parking, especially in Sector 17. At a coordination meeting, Justice Verma said the original concept of pedestrian plaza in Sector 17 got defeated when vehicles were allowed inside the market, opposite shops. The doorstep parking concept in Sector 17 had led to vehicular congestion, pollution and traffic bottlenecks.

He said the new plan should envisage shifting the parking to the peripheral areas of Sector 17 and keeping the inside area clean and green, open only to pedestrians. Justice Verma said multi-storeyed parking would have to be planned in the peripheral areas of Sector 17 and people should be encouraged to walk rather than avail themselves of doorstep parking.

He said time had come to evolve a futuristic approach for the next 20 years to solve the problem of parking. “This may necessitate making the inner area of the Sector 17 a vehicle-free zone, restricting slow-moving traffic in areas around Sector 17, confining vehicular traffic to the peripheral areas and modern multi-storeyed BOT parking lots. He asked the Adviser to put up a complete conceptual plan of reorganising the parking within three months.

Justice Verma also gave instructions that in the future, it should be made mandatory for commercial building owners to construct sufficient captive parking in the building itself. He said this should also be made applicable to new multiplex proposals under consideration of the Administration, as parking chaos at the existing multiplex was a matter of concern.

The Administrator asked the Adviser that while contemplating manual desilting of Sukhna Lake this year, the Administration should also contemplate desilting of Sukhna Choe, which had become a breeding ground of mosquitoes.

The Commissioner, Municipal Corporation, informed the Administrator that an awareness campaign had been launched in colonies on the bank of Sukhna Choe regarding proper hygiene and sanitation.

Justice Verma asked the Adviser to tie up loose ends to ensure that new public transport system, scheduled for August 15, be launched as per the schedule. The Home Secretary informed the Administrator that tender documents had been finalised and according to the schedule, orders would be placed after technical valuation, in the second week of May.

He asked the Chief Architect to designate bus stops on new routes and also plan under-passes and zebra crossing for enabling pedestrians to cross the road smoothly. Justice Verma said presently the bus stops should be temporary and after monitoring the response of public, these should be converted into proper bus-queue shelters.

Admn signs MoU with IMTECH
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 5
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) for implementation of biotechnology policy in Chandigarh was signed today between the Chandigarh Administration and the Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), here.

Mr M.P. Singh, Secretary, Science & Technology, Chandigarh Administration, signed the MoU on behalf of the Administration and Dr Amit Ghosh, Director, IMTECH, signed on behalf of the IMTECH.

The MoU has been signed to utilise expertise and facilities of the IMTECH. It shall provide technical consultancy for biotechnology enterprises, identify projects related to bio-informatics and biotechnology to be developed and implemented, and the methodology to be adopted for design, development and manufacture of globally competitive products.

MC ‘discouraging’ beautification of open spaces
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 5
It seems that the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh (MCC) is bent upon discouraging those who beautify open spaces without encroaching upon it.

Students and staff of the Government Central Crafts Institute for Women, Sector 11, have been “virtually” threatened by the staff of the corporation to stop beautification of public land allegedly at the behest of a PCS officer who has been allotted a government house, adjoining the college premises.

The students, including the hostlers of the college, today protested outside the college premises after an Inspector of the corporation, Mr Shiv Kumar, told the college authorities to remove the plants on the public space on the orders of the senior officers of the corporation. The place of land is adjoining house no 1025, allotted the a Punjab cadre officer.

Mr Arun Sekhri, Assistant Commissioner, MCC, said the college authorities had not taken permission to beautify the open space.

He said it was a mere apprehension of the college authorities that the open space could be encroached by anyone. He said he was not aware about any move by the allotteee of the above said louse to use the open space to pitch tents for his personal and security staff.

It may be mentioned that the Chandigarh Administration had made it clear that the green belts and open spaces could not be used for pitching tents of the security personnel.

The staff had to be accommodated within the premises of the officer in question.

Talking to Chandigarh Tribune, students lamented that earlier a technocrat had used the open space to construct a servant quarter. A hedge had been raised on the open space but the corporation did not bother to remove the encroachment, said the students. Now the corporation had suddenly realised that the public land had been encroached when they were only beautifying it.

The acting Principal of the college, Mr Satwant Singh, told the Chandigarh Tribune that the Principal of the college in a representation to the Commissioner had requested that the plants should not removed. He said the students of the college had cleaned the open area as it was a ‘favourite place for anti-social elements. It had also become a traffic hazard as the open space was in front of the main gate of the college.

The Principal, in the representation, had said the earlier UT Administrator during a visit to the college had pointed out about the encroachment on the open space.

The Director, Technical Education, Chandigarh, Mr Vivek Attrey, said he was looking into the matter.