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Commuters left stranded
Panchkula, January 31 School and college students, employees of various Haryana government offices, patients coming back after a check-up at the PGI or other hospitals in Chandigarh — all were left stranded near the Panchkula-UT boundary near Housing Board light point. In the absence of rickshaws or sufficient buses of Haryana Roadways, they had to walk for some distance before they could get on to another public transport (Haryana Roadways bus or share autorickshaws). Though Haryana Roadways had parked their buses to ferry passengers, these buses were too less to deal with the passenger rush. While an estimated 4000 passengers commute in CTU buses between Chandigarh and Panchkula daily, another 2000 commute daily in Haryana Roadways buses on this route. Mr Satwant Singh, a resident of Sector 9, who was coming back from the PGI, said that commuters were being harassed for no fault of theirs. Led by Mr Ramesh Chander and General Secretary, Mr Raj Kumar, members of the INTUC union of Haryana Roadways created a blockade near the Sectors 7/ 8/ 17/ 18 roundabout and refused to allow any CTU bus to go further. They were protesting against the Chandigarh Administration for impounding a Haryana Roadways bus that had started a new route from Sector 21 here to PGI, Chandigarh. "CTU plies as many as 60 buses to Panchkula, while Haryana Roadways is allowed to ply only 16 buses, and only to the ISBT, Sector 17, Chandigarh. With the introduction of the Grid System on January 23, they have added 16 buses on this route. We, too, decided to introduce a new route from Panchkula to PGI from today. When the bus (HR-68-0648) reached PGI at 8 am, the bus was impounded. The rules provide that Haryana Roadways be allowed to ply as many kilometers in Chandigarh, as CTU buses ply in Panchkula," said a senior official in Transport Department, Haryana. The CTU authorities, however, said that Haryana Roadways had no claim over the bus service to PGI or any other destination in the city, except the ISBT. "The Chandigarh Administration gazette Notification dated November 1, 1998, provides that local bus service in Chandigarh was to be managed only by the CTU, to the exclusion of any person or agency" informed a senior official. He added that the CTU had no problem running the local bus service without aid from either Punjab or Haryana Roadways. These two Roadways need to transport their passengers to the city for visits to government offices, hospitals or educational institutions, besides other important spots," he said. By the afternoon, Financial Commissioner, Transport, Haryana, and senior officials of Chandigarh Administration intervened, and the CTU bus service was restored by 4 pm. A meeting of the CTU and the Transport officials of Haryana, along with employees' union members will now be held tomorrow to resolve the issue.
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Beware men! finding marriageable women gets tough
Chandigarh, January 31 Releasing data regarding household, marital ratios and migrant population of Chandigarh at Panjab University today, the Deputy Director Census Operations, Mr P.K. Chaudhary, said a severe adverse sex ratio of 642 was noticeable in the age group15 to19 years. In the 20 to 24 years age group the sex ratio had decreased to 425 and reduced to 267 in the age group 25 to 29 years. Stating that since men marry women a few years younger to them the “marriage squeeze” would make the situation even worse in the coming years. “There is a noticeable deficiency of females in the younger age group age as against males in the higher age group,” he highlighted. However, Mr Chaudhary also brought good news for city residents. “The number of postgraduates in Chandigarh is highest in the country. In Chandigarh it is 21.6 per cent of the total literate population of the city, while the national figure is 6.7 per cent of the total literate population. More heartening is the fact that here the proportion of female literate population with education levels above graduation is higher (22.8 per cent) than males (20.7 percent). This is contrary to the corresponding proportion for India where the number of graduate males is more than the graduate females. Other than Chandigarh, it is only in Kerala where the number of graduate women is more than graduate men,” said Mr Chaudhary. Pointing out another interesting trend with regards to migrant population in Chandigarh, the data released showed that while the largest number of migrants to Chandigarh included Punjabis, the next highest in number were persons from Uttar Pradesh and not Haryana as was normally believed. “When we came across these figures we too were surprised. So we crosschecked them twice. But it is true. In 2001, 26.5 per cent migratory population of the city was from Punjab followed by Uttar Pradesh at 23.8 per cent. Haryana is third contributing 15.1 per cent to the migratory population followed by Himachal Pradesh at 9.4 per cent. Bihar is 5.5 per cent and Jammu and Kashmir 1.1. per cent,” said Mr Chaudhary. Overall, the number of migrants have increased in absolute terms from 201,865 in 1971 to 565,236 in 2001 but the proportion of migrant population in the total population had shown a decline from 78.5 per cent in 1971 to 62.8 per cent in 2001. Chandigarh’s total population in 1971 was 257,251 and in 2001 it was 900,635. While employment and family shifts were the two main reasons for migration, the proportion of migration for employment has increased in the case of UP and Bihar but declined for Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh from 1991 to 2001. Data relating to households in Chandigarh showed that more than 8 lakh people lived in normal households in the city. The houseless constituted only 0.03 per cent of the total population (999,635). Five per cent of Chandigarh’s population was aged above 60 years and 1.7 per cent population was physically challenged. Out of the total physically challenged population, 54.2 per cent were suffering from visual disability while 25 per cent were suffering from other physical disabilities. Over 11 per cent of the physically challenged were mentally challenged.
Data on working and non working population pointed at some disturbing figures. Of the total population, 62.2 per cent are not working. Out of these over 40 per cent are men and the rest women. “The incidence of non working men and women is rather high in urban Chandigarh” said Mr Chaudhary.
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MC to take over 4 villages in first phase
Chandigarh, January 31 The house was unanimous in seeking clarifications from the administration that how much grant would be given to them for developing these villages and also for how long will the grant be given. The councilors also demanded that the administration should regularise the ‘abadi’ outside the lal dora or give alternative site to scattered houses outside the lal dora before demolishing them. They also demanded the simplification and early notification of the village byelaws to be notified and the residential area to be declared. It may be mentioned here that the administration had given three months to the MC to take a decision on taking over 14 villages. In its pre-session meeting held yesterday, the Congress had discussed the matter at length. The councilors put forth their argument in support of taking over the villages in a phased manner. The BJP councillors were, however, of the view to let the UT develop the villages as model villages before taking them over. The councilors proposed that only four villages - Palsora, Maloya, Kajehri and Halomajra -should be taken over at the initial stage. The councilors also demanded that details of the financial burden involved in taking over the villages needed to be worked out. The pending issue of erection of an electric furnace in the existing electric crematorium at Sector 25 was finally approved and passed by the House. It was also discussed as to how to make this mode of cremation more sought after. Meanwhile, the proposal to register workers engaged for house-to-house garbage collection in various sectors was deferred. The issue of purchasing second hydraulic platform-cum-turn table ladder for fire wing of the MC too has been deferred till the next meeting. Earlier in the day, before the meeting began, the councilors taking turns gave congratulatory speeches for MP Pawan Kumar Bansal and thanked Ms Sonia Gandhi for inducting him as Minister of State for Finance.
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Punjab students win space instrument design contest
Mohali, January 31 The international competition held during IIT Bombay’s annual tech fest attracted entries from over 60 student teams worldwide. But it was our team of Kanwalpreet from IETE, Chandigarh, Daljit from IET, Bhaddal, Navdeep from Government Polytechnic, Khoonimajra, and Sudhanshu from CEM, Kapurthala, that beat some of the best IIT brains of the country to win the first position. Interestingly the IIT, Bombay team came third, the II position also being lapped up by none other than another team from IET Bhaddal. The four, pursuing different engineering streams, are friends and decided to get together and enter the competition when it was announced in September, 2005. “The problem which we took up was called GRIP, one of the most challenging events. GRIP stands for Galactic Recovery Instrumental Probe which we had to design for this competition,” said Kanwalpreet. The GRIP competition is exciting. “According to the Techfest site, one of the most ambitious projects ever conceived by humans in their quest for space exploration is the International Space Station (ISS). It is a joint effort of 16 countries as part of which a state-of-the-art laboratory complex would be in orbit. Construction of this space station began in December, 1998 and is expected to end by 2010,” said Daljit, adding that the GRIP problem is built into the assembling of modules for the ISS. The make-believe problem is that in 2009 when the ISS is on the verge of completion, a small meteor collides with it. A fuel cell from the power chamber of the station is lost in space and is situated beyond the reach of a human space walk. The GRIP is then dispatched by the station and it moves on a network of rails to recover the cell and restore the station’s working. “We had to make a wired/wireless remote controlled machine, which could move on a grid of pipes 1250 mm high, retrieve the cylindrical fuel cell below it and put it in a hollow cylindrical container. Since time is of great importance the probe which traversed this network fastest is the winner,” related Kanwalpreet. “Our machine -we named it Punjabi Hummer- did it in 4.3 seconds. The IET, Bhaddal team came second and they managed it in over five seconds. IIT, Bombay, was third,” recalled Daljit, adding that they went through seven different elimination rounds during the competitions. The all smiles group came back with Rs 20000 cash prize and more than that a lot of glory.
“The Mumbai papers reported the next day that it was the first time that IITians had lost the competition to any other team,” said Daljit.
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Passing Thru
What is ESPN’s contribution in promoting hockey?
Actually, our motive is to catch the attention of younger generation and for that matter we have added a bit of glamour to the game. No game could be made popular until you have the support of the younger crowd. During the Premier Hockey League we introduced the “best banner award” to be presented daily to the viewers who carry the best slogan, besides holding SMS contests to guess lion of the day and the first goal of the match to be scored. How
do you find the response? Though profit volume is quite less, somebody has to come forward to make a start. We hope to get returns in a couple of years. Till date we have three sponsors - Adidas, ING Vyasya Life, Western Union Money Transfers. There is still a long way to go before hockey becomes popular and commercially viable across the country. The response it has got in Chandigarh was beyond our expectations. —
G. S. PAUL
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No breakthrough in infant mauling case
Panchkula, January 31 However, to prevent such a horrendous act from happening again, a local NGO, Bal Sadan, has issued an appeal saying that it would accept any child on conditions of anonymity. Bal Sadan Association General Secretary, Ms. Kalpana Ghai, and President Mr. H.K Khosla told The Tribune that they were very disturbed by the fact that a new-born infant was dumped barely five hundred meters away from their orphanage. In a statement they said, "We are deeply shocked and regret that such a untoward and bizarre incident has taken place. Ms. Ghai said Bal Sadan had a capacity to accommodate around 40 children, while the current strength was 33. Many of the children who had come to Bal Sadan as destitute or after they were orphaned were excelling in academics.
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Man under heavy debt dies on way to hospital
Chandigarh, January 31 A senior police officer said Inderpreet Singh had taken a number of loans and was under constant pressure to repay the same. He said a suicide note was recovered from the spot and would be sent to the handwriting experts for confirming its authenticity. As of now, the police was still not clear about the cause of death. The Station House Officer (SHO) of Sector 11 police station, Inspector Sukhpal Singh Rana, said, “No apparent injury marks were found on the body. It is too early to say anything at this stage as the exact cause of death could only be ascertained after the post-mortem examination”. Inderpreet Singh was reportedly found dead in bathroom by his wife Navneet Kaur around 8:30 am. Quoting Navneet Kaur, the police officer disclosed that Inderpreet wanted to go to bathroom early in the morning. When he did not come out of the bathroom for a long time, she went to the bathroom to check. There she found Inderpreet lying unconscious on the floor. She raised the alarm. Hearing her cries her father rushed to help her. They called a private doctor. The doctor asked them to shift Inderpreet to hospital. They rushed him to the Sector 16 General Hospital, where the doctors declared him, “dead on arrival”. According to the “suicide note” purported to be written by the victim, he held no one responsible for this extreme step. The note was handed over to the police by Navneet Kaur and the police would send it to the handwriting experts. Father of a six year-old-daughter, Inderpreet had been living with his in-laws. He was running a readymade garments shop in the Sector 11 booth market. The police has informed his family in Karnal about the incident. The police has initiated inquest proceedings under Section 174 of the Cr. PC.
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Army officer in dock for posting sensitive info on web
Chandigarh, January 31 This instance comes in the wake of a series of reported security leaks, which have left the services red-faced. The most recent is the leak of sensitive information from the Navy’s War Room in Delhi. Earlier, there were reports of the personal laptop belonging to the General Officer Commanding, 10 Corps, Bathinda, being stolen. Sources in the intelligence revealed that the officer had set up his own family web portal and had listed out his complete personal particulars, contact details and service details on the site. The site carries information like the cost of defence works undertaken by him, number of helipads constructed and maintained under his command in a particular period and other aspects pertaining to operations, logistics and emergency situations. “Information of this nature can be damaging, specially when some adversaries have a very strong and active cyber warfare setup”, an intelligence officer said.
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Rodrigues lays stone of EWS houses
Chandigarh, January 31 Mr S.N. Sahai, Chairman, Housing Board, and Mr Amar Nath, Chief Executive Officer, while briefing the Governor, informed that out of 688 EWS flats, 288 had been planned in Sector 38 and the other 400 in Sector 49. The unit area of a EWS flat would be 425 square feet, including one large room, a kitchen, a bathroom, a toilet and veranda. Another scheme envisaging the construction of 160 one bedroom flats in Sector 49 would have 648 square feet unit area provided with all facilities. Similarly, another scheme of 112 two-bed room flats in Sector 49 would have a unit area of 1,145 square feet comprising two bedrooms, a drawing-cum-dinning, a kitchen, two toilets, a store and a scooter garage. All these complexes would have all modern infrastructure facilities such as a primary school, a shopping centre, religious site, anganwari, a community centre, a nursery school, green belt, park/open spaces, parking areas, rainwater harvesting, electric and water meters, earthquake resistance structural design and self closing flush cork. For one bedroom and two bedroom flats in Sector 49, space for car parking, provision for TV and telephone point and provision for inverter and stabiliser had also been made. General Rodrigues asked the senior officers of the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) to introduce the latest, innovative and low cost housing technologies in future housing schemes with the provision of an efficient support structure to meet the day to day needs of people. Laying the foundation stone in Sector 38 (W), he said these ambitious projects envisaged empowering the poor and downtrodden and providing them the basic facilities needed for decent human existence. With a view to upgrading the lives of the disadvantaged, General Rodrigues suggested the introduction of pre-fabricated housing concepts as a transit accommodation before their shift to the proposed housing complexes. He said this concept had proved a realistic modern alternative to overcome growing needs.
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2 ex-servicemen in search of justice
Chandigarh, January 31 They have alleged that their plots have been sold to other parties by the colonisers. And this was despite the order of a Kharar court “restraining the defendants (colonisers) from interfering in the peaceful possession of the plaintiffs over their plots. The defendants are left with no title over the same”. Mr Baljit Singh and Mr Harnek Singh, who is a special attorney of his wife Gurtej Kaur, had purchased the plots in some colony in Daon village in December 1991.The colonisers had the general powers of attorneys (GPAs) of a landlord of Balongi village. As the defence personnel were posted in far-flung areas, they could not undertake any construction on their plots. However, when after retirement they wanted to construct houses, a rude shock awaited them as their plots had allegedly been sold to another parties. This was allegedly done by cancelling the previous GPAs with the landlord and entering into fresh GPAs with other persons, the defence personnel alleged in a representation to the DGP, Punjab. The new buyer, Mr Janak Raj Ghai, who had started digging the foundation of one of the plots, No 110, even showed us a sale deed executed in the Office of the Sub Registrar, Mohali, alleged Mr Harnek Singh. Mr Harnek Singh alleged that though they had approached the Punjab Governor, the Chief Minister, the DGP and the DC and the SP, Ropar, nothing seemed to have been done in the matter. The colonisers, Mr Harnek Singh alleged, were flaunting their links with politicians and police officials. The Punjab Government should come to the rescue of the defence personnel like us, who had invested their hard-earned money and wanted to lead a peaceful retired life, he added.
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Jhuggi dwellers hold protest
Chandigarh, January 31 The protesting jhuggi dwellers, under the leadership of Mr Rajinder Prasad Jain, raised slogans against the Assistant Estate Officer. They said the process of issuing the allotment letters under the rehabilitation scheme was being delayed. The Assistant Estate Officer said the allotees should themselves approach the Estate Office. It may be mentioned that recently the administration had decided to speed up the process of evacuating the jhugggi dwellers following pressure from the university authorities. Around 20 acres would be freed from the jhuggi dwellers. Under the scheme, the jhuggi dwellers are to be shifted to a rehabilitation site adjoining the existing site. For residents, who are running pottery making and other related business, alternative sites in the craft centre in Maloya had been proposed. Sources in the administration said initially 1,200 plots under the economic weaker sections
(EWS) scheme were earmarked for the jhuggi dwellers, but later the number was increased to 3,000. There were a few takers as the condition of eligibility of being a resident of the city prior to 1996 was the major hindrance. The sources did not rule out the possibility of the relaxation of the eligibility condition. The jhuggi dwellers, however, said around 400 genuine allottees, who were found eligible during the draws held in 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005, had so far not been issued the allotment letters. They claimed that applications of a number of eligible persons had gone missing from the Estate Office. The draw of lots for around 1,000 plots was yet to be held. The lack of basic amenities to the existing allottees was highlighted by the manch.
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Oil conservation fortnight held
Chandigarh, January 31 He also spoke about various activities undertaken prior to and during the fortnight. He also said these activities will be continued so as to create a mass movement for conservation. During the fortnight, various activities like industrial seminars, clinics at transport undertakings, truck sammelans, LPG and kerosene conservation clinics were organised in coordination with members of the oil industry. Drawing, painting and quiz contests were organised in various school to teach innovative ways of conservation of petroleum products. Cycle rallies and mass rallies were also organised in different parts of Chandigarh to spread messages of oil and gas conservation in various segments of the society.
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Warmest day
Chandigarh, January 31 It was cloudy in the morning, but it was uncomfortably warn by noon with the sun shining nice and bright. The Director, Meteorological Office, Mr Chattar Singh Malik, said that though early mornings for the last couple of days have seen some clouds in the sky, the disturbance has not been strong enough to carry rain. “The current likely to cause rain is still at a distance. Though there is no immediate prediction of a rainfall, it is likely to rain in the coming days,” he said.
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Admn defends revised power charges
Chandigarh, January 31 A press release here today said that “the UT has no power generation of its own and the requirements are met through purchase from various central agencies and the BBMB. The average purchase price per unit was Rs 3.2 while the average sale price per unit was also Rs 3.2 with introduction of the new tariff. The release added that “the concept of fixed prices has been introduced to charge for making available electricity at the doorstep, whether consumed or not. Accordingly, the monthly minimum charge of Rs 35 per KW has been done away with.
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Dr Zakir felicitated
Panchkula, January 31 The chief guest Gen B.K.N. Chhibber (retd) observed that each literary work of the poet, novelist, short story writer and philosopher, Dr Kashmiri Lal Zakir, is a classic in itself. His writings represent the cultural and social ethos of humanity as a whole, be it the novels on tsunami, plague, Emergency or the Partition. Presiding over the felicitation function, Mr Parveen Kumar, Additional Deputy Commissioner, said while the Padma Shri award is in recognition of Zakir’s eminence as a prolific writer, it should serve an inspiration for him to propagate the richness of Urdu in Haryana. Poet Shamas Tabrezi led the literary personalities for presenting the analytical overview of the writings of Dr Zakir.
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30 kg charas seized; two held
Chandigarh, January 31 Giving details of the seizure, sources in the NCB said acting on a tip-off, officers in the NCB deputed its sleuths, led by SP O.P. Sharma, at the railway station yesterday night. The bureau had the information that the contraband was being smuggled by Pooja Express running between Jammu and Jaipur. At around 12:30 am the sleuths intercepted two persons on suspicion. Their searches led to the recovery of 30 kg of pure quality charas. The accused have been identified as Nasir Bhatt of Anantnag district in Jammu and Kashmir and Naresh Kumar of Baroda. The accused had kept the contraband in their briefcases. Preliminary investigations revealed that the contraband was being smuggled from Anantnag to Jaipur. A case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, has been registered. Spokesman for the NCB stated that the local unit of the NCB in co-ordination with the state police had organised 12 drug law enforcement-training courses at various places in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. |
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Cyclist robbed of mobile phone
Chandigarh, January 31 Shop burgled:
Mr Sunil Aggarwal of NAC Manimajra filed a complaint with the police alleging his shop in Sector 26 was burgled and a safe containing about Rs 8000, his passport and other important documents had been stolen. He told the police the theft came to light when his neighbourhood shopkeeper called him on Monday morning to inform him that the locks of his shop were broken. A case has been registered in the Sector 26 police station. Car stolen:
Held for stealing:
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Mumbai police in city to find locker holder
Chandigarh ,January 31 The police is trying to establish the identity of Arun Ronaldo. His address in Mumbai was found to be wrong. He has 17 passbook which showed he had transactions in Chandigarh. The teams visited the Syndicate and Allahabad Banks besides, the State Bank of India and the State Bank of Patiala. Identity of the account holder could not be confirmed. Majority of the addresses and signatures of the guarantors have been found to be wrong. One of the guarantors had the name of a resident of Dera Bassi. Sources said the lady informed that her initials were similar to that found in the records, however, the document did not bear her proper signatures.
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Academy booked for cheating students
Chandigarh, January 31 Giving details, sources in the Sector 17 police station, said a case of cheating had been registered against CANAM Academy on the basis of a complaint filed by Balwant Singh of Googla Doada village in Jammu and Kashmir. It was alleged that the institute had taken Rs 6,000 from the complainant to get him enrolled with Madhya Pradesh Bhuj Open University. Later, the complainant found out that the institute had duped him, as they were not authorised to represent the university. The matter was reported to the police. The SHO said the institute had taken money from over 200 students for admitting them in different courses. He said the institute maintained that it was an authorised one and also produced documents supporting their claims.
— OC
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Chemist shops raided in Nayagaon
Mohali, January 31 Mr Kumar told Chandigarh Tribune that 12 types of drugs were seized from Khurana Medical Hall in Nayagaon. He said five types of drugs were seized from Bobby Medical Store in Nayagaon while four types of drugs were seized from Happy Medical Hall in Kansal.
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