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State to change pension policy Stolen idols recovered from waterworks
DYFI dharna against allowance conditions
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3 cities to come up in Haryana: Hooda
House occupied by neighbour, allege couple
Refresher course on farm experiments
Additional allowance for widows in Haryana
One held for selling pirated CDs
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State to change pension policy
Chandigarh, December 9 The bill will propose that state government employees recruited from January 1, 2006, onwards, will draw their post-retirement benefits in a manner that will be different from what is applicable for the employees recruited before that date. The employees recruited after January 1 will contribute 10 per cent of their basic salary in a fund. The State Government too will contribute an equal amount in the fund every month in the employee’s account. When the employee retires, a certain portion of the fund will be invested in a scheme floated by a bank or any other reputed financial organisation that gives monthly return to the employee. The remaining portion of the fund will be handed over to the employee for using anyway he deems fit. The Central Government had made similar changes in its pension policy about two years back and it is now time for the State Governments to follow suit. In fact, the pension scheme to be introduced in the Assembly by the Congress Government was contemplated by the previous Om Prakash Chautala-led government as well. But since it was at the later stage of the Chautala regime, the proposal was not given shape fearing adverse reaction from the voters. Official sources said that at present the pension bill of the employees was costing the state exchequer about Rs 900 crore annually. While the pension bill has been increasing in the state by about 10 per cent annually, in the next two to three years the jump is expected to go beyond the 10 per cent limit. This is because a large number of people were recruited in the late sixties following the creation of the state of Haryana in 1966. Many of these employees will be retiring during the coming years. On the other hand, it has been estimated that only Rs 6 crore will be payable by the government annually against the pension scheme of employees recruited after January 1. Even though the contribution of the government will go up as and when the salaries of the employees get an upward revision, it will never be in the same scale as the expenditure on account of pension now. The benefit accruing from the step, however, will have a long gestation period as the employees recruited before January 1, 2006 will continue to draw their pensions in the old pattern. |
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Stolen idols recovered from waterworks
Hisar, December 9 The Senior Superintendent of Police, Mr A.S.Chawla, said considering the sensitivity of the matter, the Navy authorities had been requested to send a team of divers for the operation. The team of seven divers, led by Commander J.S.Shanmugam and accompanied by CIA Inspector Inder Singh Kundu from Hansi, reached the Mahabir Colony waterworks here this morning and began the exercise to extricate the idols. A number of people, including local residents and members of the Jain community, had assembled around the waterworks to witness the recovery. The divers had a tough time extricating the idols from the mud beneath the waterworks. Six persons have been arrested in the case and of the 53 stolen idols, 40 had already been recovered. Another idol had been found from the waterworks earlier. The arrested persons, including Naveen, Rajpal, Suresh, Surender, Satender and Sachin, had disclosed that the plan to steal the idols was prepared by them and their accomplices Rishi and Ram Kumar while they were undergoing imprisonment. While they successfully stole the idols worth about Rs 100 crore from the temple in the last week of October, they were not able to find suitable buyers for the idols. The police had launched a hectic operation to recover the idols and arrest the persons involved in the theft. Police parties were rushed to Delhi and Rajasthan. In the meanwhile, some of the gang members were arrested by the police. On the basis of information received from the arrested persons, the idols were recovered. |
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DYFI dharna against allowance conditions
Fatehabad, December 9 The memorandum said the government had attached several conditions with the unemployment allowance, which were quite unreasonable and denied the payment of allowance to a majority of unemployed. The government, according to the district secretary of the DYFI Mr Ramesh Jandli, had put certain conditions which included of age of the applicant should be between 21 to 35 years, landholding should be less than 2 hectares and they should be registered with the employment exchange for the past three years. Further, those candidates whose family worked with any government department, were not eligible. He said over 95 per cent of the unemployed youths were rendered ineligible due to these conditions. The DYFI demanded that the age limit be decreased to 18 years, all students be included in it, the condition of registration with the employment exchange be waived and the other conditions too be made lesser stringent so as that all unemployed could get benefit from it. |
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3 cities to come up in Haryana: Hooda
Ambala, December 9 Haryana Excise and Taxation Minister Venod Sharma and Haryana Education Minister Phool Chand Mullana were present on the occasion. Mr Hooda said the government was also considering establishing a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Ambala. He said the modalities were being considered. He said scientific instruments industry, cloth and other industries would be benefited. To a query, Mr Hooda said the power situation was expected to improve in the next 10 days. He said currently power generation in Haryana was 2,000 MW while 2,000 MW was bought from outside the state. About 9,000 MW power was required. “Our aim is to generate 4000 MW to 5000 MW more power in the next three and a half years,” he said. He said work for additional power supply of 1050 MW at Faridabad, 1050 MW at Jhajjar, 600 MW at Yamunanagar, 1,000 MW at Hisar and 600 MW at Panipat had already been initiated. The current power crisis was due to problems being faced in the northern grid, he added. Mr Hooda said considerable foreign direct investment (FDI) was going to come into Haryana. “Samsung is going to set up a unit in
Manesar. Also, Suzuki is interested in investing in Haryana,” he said. Later, Mr Hooda gave away prizes to meritorious students of middle, matriculation and senior secondary levels at a state function organised by the Haryana School Education Board at BPS
Planetaurium, Ambala Cantt. Speaking at the programme, he said there was a need to raise the standard of education for making Haryana a fully developed state. He exhorted teachers to impart education on modern lines by making it technology oriented. He said education was a priority sector of the government and the budgetary allocation for education sector had been raised by 50 per cent. The meritorious students include Venus Anand, Deepak Kumar, Dinesh Jindal, Madhavi Aggarwal, Sunil Kumar, Anju Kumari, Neha Singhal, Shilpi Rani, Lakhanpal, Sushil Kumar, Abhishek Jain and Renu Saini. Madhvi Aggarwal was also awarded the Dr Kalpana Chawla Memorial medal for standing first among girls in matriculation. Trophies for academic excellence were awarded to 21 schools. Students who had topped in poetry and slogan writing competition were also honoured at the
function. HSEB Chairman R.S. Gujral said they were likely to introduce semester system as well as grading system. He said mathematics and English were going to be made compulsory for class X and XII. Also, computer laboratories were going to be set up. Talent groming programme was being introduced for the meritorious students, he added. |
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House occupied by neighbour, allege couple
Jhajjar, December 9 The couple, 65-year-old Bihari Lal and his wife Urmila, had gone to Delhi for treatment and stayed with their children for some months. However, when they come back, their ancestral house had been occupied. The couple in the affidavit stated that they had gone to Delhi for the bypass surgery of Bihari Lal as he was a heart patient. He stayed back with his son to recuperate fully. However, when he come back, he found his neighbour Mahender had merged his house with his own. He alleged that his house, estimated to be about Rs 20 lakh, had been demolished and jewellery and other household items worth about Rs 15 lakh had been taken away. Mahender, who is a chairperson of the Agrasen Education Trust, held that he had bought the land measuring about 550 square yard, owned by the Trust and there was no house owned by any person there. He said he did not know Bihari Lal. |
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Refresher course on farm experiments
Hisar, December 9 Organised by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the university, in collaboration with the HAU Academy of Agricultural Research and Education Management, the course was attended by 30 participants from all over the country. Dr R.P. Bajpai, Vice-Chancellor of Guru Jambheshwar University (GJU) here, gave away the certificates to the participants. Addressing the gathering, Dr Bajpai maintained it was almost impossible for the researchers to arrive at any conclusion without the application of suitable statistical techniques. The course director, professor and head of the host department, Dr Deepak Grover, stressed upon the need to chose the right statistical package by the teachers and researchers under the guidance of trained statisticians. Earlier, Dr R.S. Dalal, Director, Human Resource Management, HAU, welcomed the guests and appreciated the keen interest shown by the participants. |
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Additional allowance for widows in Haryana
Chandigarh, December 9 The state government has been giving allowance to 3,63,297 widows and 87,505 handicapped persons at the rate of Rs 300 per month. As a result of today’s announcement, these beneficiaries will get double that amount for the month of December. Mr Hooda had, earlier on the occasion of Divali and Haryana Day, announced giving one month’s additional allowance to the recipients of the old age pension scheme. As many as 9,63,720 recipients of the scheme benefited from the gesture. The State Government released an additional amount of Rs. 28.90 crore for meeting its commitment. The decision to give one month’s additional allowance to widows and physically challenged will cost the state exchequer over Rs 13 crore. |
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One held for selling pirated CDs
Karnal, December 9 As many as 998 duplicate CDs were recovered from his shop during the raid, he said the accused was arrested. An FIR under relevant Sections of the Copyright Act has been registered. |
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Karnal, December 9
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Rs 1 lakh for vehicle
No. 0001
Chandigarh, December 9 |
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