The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Delhi and neighbourhood

	Rs 3,500-cr power project fails to take off Bijendra Ahlawat Tribune News Service Faridabad, May 17 The ambitious gas-based power project of 1065 MW at Mothuka village in the district has failed to take off even after its foundation stone was laid with much fanfare about nine months ago. The project was seen as a milestone to rid the state of the problem of power generation. The project cost was estimated at about Rs 3,500 crore and it was to be constructed by a leading private sector company based at Chennai. It was expected to start work within three years. The unexpected delay has not only caused resentment in the village panchayats of Mothuka and Arrua villages whose 90 acres of land was to be acquired for the project, it has also raised the question whether this would take off at all. The Sarpanch of Mothuka village, Mr Rajvir Singh Bidhuri, claimed here today that the villagers were still in the dark about the project as nobody knew when the work would start. He said if the work had started on time, the project could have been made ready after 18 months, but since half of the time had passed, the delay could cost dearly to the villagers whose land had been acquired. He said as many as 69 acres of land belonged to Mothuka village and none of the officials or the company concerned had failed to release the money to be paid as compensation for the land. It is learnt that the government had announced to pay at a rate of Rs 12.5 lakh per acre as compensation for the land, but the company officials had paid neither an advance nor given any date for getting the registry of the land, thus blocking the payment indefinitely. He revealed that the total cost of the land comes to between Rs 12 and Rs 13 crore and the Panchayat was losing an interest of about Rs 50 to 60 lakh per annum on the deal. On the other hand, official sources revealed that non-commitment of the gas supply to the project had been the reason of the delay and till there was no assurance on this aspect, the work might not start at all.
	Assembly session on ‘office of profit’ issue today BJP to oppose Bill, MLA moves EC against session Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 17 Desperate to save several ruling Congress MLAs from possible disqualification, the Delhi Government will tomorrow bring a Bill to exempt certain posts from the definition of office of profit, a measure strongly opposed by the opposition BJP. A special one-day session of the Assembly will meet here tomorrow to pass the legislation titled ‘Members of Delhi Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Amendment 2006’ to exempt as many as 14 posts from the purview of office of profit, sources said. The session is being convened in the wake of Election Commission issuing notices to 19 MLAs and an MP belonging to the Congress on a petition filed by BJP MLA Vijay Jolly seeking their disqualification on the ground that they are holding offices of profit. The proposed Bill seeks to exempt offices like District Development Committee, Parliamentary Secretary to Chief Minister, Trans-Yamuna Development Board, SC/ST Welfare Board, Governing bodies of Colleges, Group Housing Societies and Rural Development Board, the sources added. Outer Delhi MP Sajjan Kumar, who is also been served the notice, was the chairman of Rural Development Board. The BJP, which is against such a legislation, today decided at its Legislative Party meeting to oppose the Bill tooth and nail, saying it was unconstitutional and against propriety. So far, no BJP MLA in Delhi has been named in the office of profit controversy. “A special session of the Assembly should have been called to discuss the grave water and power problems as well as sealing and demolitions, but the Congress government has called the session of its own MLAs, who are occupying offices of profit, which is against the law of the land,” Leader of Opposition in Delhi Legislative Assembly Jagdish Mukhi said. “The Bill is unconstitutional as the process of law against Congress MLAs for holding offices of profit is already underway,” he said in a press conference. He noted that the Election Commission has served notices to 20 Congress legislators and the matter regarding disqualification of four ruling party MLAs was in court. Mr Mukhi said that President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam has given conditional consent to the Delhi Government to table the Bill, but pointed out some weaknesses in the Bill: There was no mention of specific date in the Bill; the post of Parliamentary Secretary is an office of profit post and is a sub judice case and this should not be mentioned in the Bill, and the language and content of the Bill was not up to the mark, Mr Mukhi said. In another development, BJP MLA Mr Vijay Jolly today urged the Chief Election Commissioner B B Tandon not to let Chief Minister Ms Sheila Dikshit convene an emergent Legislative Assembly session tomorrow to rescue 19 “beleaguered MLAs” facing disqualification as occupants of offices of profit. The issue was brought to the fore himself when he petitioned President A P J Abdul Kalam against 19 Congress MLAs holding ‘office of profit’. He said the government planned to add “a long list of offices of profit that do not attract disqualification” to save the 19 MLAs against whom EC proceedings have already been initiated. He requested the EC to “pass necessary orders to restrain and prevent the Emergent Session of the 3rd Legislative Assembly of the NCT of Delhi against introducing, debating and passing a Bill without retrospective effect” on office of profits issue on May 18.
	Girl among three persons electrocuted Tribune News Service Faridabad, May 17 Three members of a family, including a two-year-old girl, were electrocuted to death in a colony near sector 37 here this morning. The victims were migrant laborers working as washer men here. The bodies of the deceased were handed over to their kin after a postmortem examination at the civil hospital. According to the local police, the incident took place at around 10.45 a.m, when Mrs Sant Rani (22), wife of Sanjay Kumar, put some wet clothes on a wire, which had come into contact with a live power line. Even as her husband, Sanjay, tried to help her, he too was electrocuted in the process. Subsequently, their two-year-old daughter, who was watching her parents, ran and touched them, leading to her death on the spot. Later, their relative reported the matter to the police, which sent the bodies to the hospital for the postmortem examinations. This is, perhaps, the first such case in the city in the recent past when three members of a family have been killed in such a tragic manner. According to the initial investigation conducted by the police, there have been several instances of illegal and unmetered power supply to the residents of Jhuggi clusters and slum areas in connivance with the employees of the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam.
	‘Govt should show human touch on issue of illegal colonies’ Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 17 BJP MLA from Saket, Mr Vijay Jolly, today expressed skepticism at the Cabinet note sent by the Urban Union Development Ministry to various ministries seeking their opinion on a proposal to regularise 1400-odd illegal colonies which came up before March 31, 2004 in the Capital, calling it a “drama enacted too many times by the government”. He also denounced the provision to levy development charges and penalties in lieu of regularisation, pointing out that it went against a Bill passed by the Sheila Dikshit government itself in the Delhi Assembly on July 27, 2002, and termed the specific exclusion of Sainik Farms from the list of colonies under consideration of regularisation as “step-motherly treatment”. The regularisation process, coming in the wake of the recently-enacted Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Bill 2006, will entail provision of power, water, roads and sanitation by Delhi Government. Conversion charges will have to be paid to civic agencies like DDA, MCD and DJB. According to Mr Jolly, the mushrooming of illegal colonies inhabited by lakhs of people over the years should never have taken place in the first place, and reflected the incompetence and apathy of the government in general and the DDA in particular. “If DDA had provided housing for people in the Capital, which is its primary role, and the government had formulated a proper policy, why would people have settled in the so-called unauthorised colonies at all? And now when the government is forced to wake up to the ground realities, it wants to make people pay through their noses. The government should have a human touch in dealing with the issue,” he said. Mr Jolly said the same policy should be applied to all colonies, rather than singling out those like Sainik Farms just because it is populated by slightly more affluent people. He hinted that some vested interests, including the police and MCD, were intent on keeping Sainik Farms unauthorised so as to exploit residents who needed to even carry out minor repairs in their houses. “Sainik Farms is the proverbial hen that lays golden eggs for these people,” he rued, and demanded that the colony be regularised immediately without forcing residents to pay any penalty or charges, as promised by the Congress and Delhi Government.
	Tenant verification, an uphill task Tribune News Service Faridabad, May 17 The district police have been faced with a daunting task of the tenant verification drive in the city in view of the recent revelation of a Pakistani terrorist belonging to the Laskar-e-Toiba outfit. The terrorist had used a house in Ballabgarh town as his hideout and stored a cache of deadly arms and ammunition. The task appears to be complicated due to the fact that the city has thousands of migrant families. Similar verification drives had also been launched earlier, but the authorities concerned could not prepare a proper data bank of such a population and the police faced several problems in getting the required information from the house owners. Though the police have booked the landlord of the house where the slain terrorist had taken a two-room set on rent in Jagdish Colony of Ballabgarh town in March, nothing much would come out of it, it seems. Under Section 188 of the IPC, a house owner is required to submit relevant information about the tenant to the police. According to police sources, every house owner is required to submit the information on a performa prepared by the police and the police station concerned would verifier it before accepting it. This process is quite cumbersome and consumes a lot of time. Moreover, the amount of rent is not disclosed easily. Representatives and members of certain residents’ welfare associations also feel that this campaign could result in harassment. One of them claimed that the police should visit the houses instead of asking the residents to come to the police stations to submit information. One of the members said unless local RWAs were taken into confidence and verification was done in the locality, the move would come to naught. He said the police should accept the information provided by the house owner at a preliminary stage itself and should not seek personal details if they wanted to make the campaign successful.
	Transfer orders of constables cancelled Ravi S. Singh Tribune News Service Gurgaon, May 17 The Haryana Police have cancelled the transfer orders of about two scores of constables who had been recently shifted to Gurgaon Range. The personnel were transferred from Hisar Range to Gurgaon Range. The Inspector General of Police, Gurgaon Range, Mr Mohinder Lal, said the transfers had been cancelled by his counterpart in Hisar Range. This has been done in compliance with the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which ruled against the transfer of the personnel in case their seniority and promotions got affected. Some personnel, transferred recently, had moved the court alleging that their seniority and promotion chances would be adversely affected on account of it. Hence, the court ruled against the transfers in the category of constables, head constables, assistant sub-inspectors and inspectors from one district to another or one Range to another. A senior police official said that the High Court’s order would be challenged in the Supreme Court. According to many, the moratorium imposed by the High Court was a body blow to the Haryana Police authorities as the new scenario could contribute to indiscipline in the constabulary.
	HC bans plying of rickshaw in Chandni Chowk Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 17 In order to decongest the historic Chandni Chowk set up by Mughal Emperor Shahjahan in front of Lal Qilla 350 years ago, the Delhi High Court today banned plying of rickshaws from the day an alternative mass transport system is introduced. In a comprehensive order to develop Delhi a world class city, a division bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Vijender Jain said the rickshaws would be impounded if seen plying between Red Fort Chowk and Fatehpuri after the introduction of the mass transport system. While fixing July 26 as the next date of hearing, the court suggested that the authorities should introduce the sky bus or CNG bus in the area at the earliest. When the Delhi government submitted that introduction of the mass transport would take about nine months, the court directed it to submit a time-frame proposal and introduce it within six months. Reiterating an order pronounced in 2003, the Court said the MCD should not issue any more license for plying rickshaws in the capital. The committee, constituted by the High Court to execute the directions with regard to the PIL filed by Hem Raj for the overall development of the city, today submitted a report after holding its meeting on May 5, 2006. The Court asked the MCD to file a report on issuance of rickshaw license despite a ban on it in 2003.
	Patients flock to Noida hospitals Our Correspondent Noida, May 17 The anti-quota strike in the national Capital, led by the medical fraternity, has forced hundreds of patients to line up at the various private hospitals in Noida. Most of the private hospitals in Noida have reported unprecedented increase in patients arriving here for treatment. In another sense, the effect of the strike by the doctors could be seen in Noida, as doctors and paramedical staff in almost all hospitals were seen wearing black bands around their arm to show their solidarity with the medical fraternity throughout the country. By far, the Kailash Hospital in sector 27 has attracted the largest number of patients from Delhi. The national working committee of the Indian Medical Association has decided to organise a ‘All India Strike’ on May 25 and has sent letters to doctors in Noida to participate in the nation-wide strike. The President of the IMA, Noida, Dr S. P. Jain, announced that all doctors in Noida will wear a black band around their arms from May 17 to show their opposition to the government’s reservation policy, particularly in medical colleges and institutions of higher learning.
	5,725 Bangladeshis deported from Delhi last year Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 17 The government today said 266 Bangladeshi nationals illegally residing in Delhi were found involved in criminal activities and criminal cases were registered against them during the year. Minister of State for Home Affairs Sriprakash Jaiswal, in a written reply, said that during 2005, 5,725 illegally residing Bangladeshi nationals were detected and deported from Delhi. No information in this regard had been received from the Governments of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in respect of areas of those states falling in the National Capital Region (NCR), he said. However, Mr Jaiswal told the Rajya Sabha that he had no specific information about Bangladeshis visiting with legal passports and returning after committing crimes. He said the government had taken several measures to curb the problem of illegal migration of Bangladeshi nationals into the country, including raising of additional battalions of the Border Security Force, provision of modern surveillance equipment and intensification of land and riverine patrolling.
	Child-lifter lynched in Noida Our Correspondent Noida, May 17 A man trying to abduct an infant from the side of his sleeping mother in Noida Sector 4 was beaten to death. According to a report, the accused tried to abduct Vishal, while the child’s parents, identified as Kamlesh and Britty, were asleep yesterday morning. The accused was caught by the parents of the child, who raised an alarm. Subsequently, the child-lifter was caught by the residents and beaten to death. The accused was shifted to the government hospital in Sector 30, where the doctors declared him brought dead. It may be pointed out that a number of infants have been stolen from the government hospital in Noida. Meanwhile, a 6-year-old boy was reportedly abducted from near his house while he was playing. According to reports, Lala Ram Bhatti reported to the Sector 39 police that his son Ajay Bhatti has gone missing since yesterday evening. The police have registered a missing report.
	Licence of nursing home suspended Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 17 In a strike against female foeticide, the Delhi Commission for Women, the state’s PNDT Cell, and the Najafgarh Resident Welfare Association cracked the whip on a nursing home allegedly undertaking gender-based malpractices. According to DCW Chairperson, Prof Kiran Walia, “In a complaint received from one of the executive members of the Najafgarh RWA, it was brought to the notice of the DCW that a nursing home and X-Ray lab in the area was illegally undertaking sex determination and fraudulently promoting ‘guaranteed medication for male child’ to the gullible parents-to-be”. Evidence showed that the nursing home was advertising ‘Shartiya Ladka Hone Ki Oushadhi’ (guaranteed medication for male child birth) among several other high-flying unfounded claims. Advertising medication for male child birth is prohibited under Section 22 of the Pre-conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC-PNDT) Act 1994. The license to conduct ultrasound tests at the nursing home has been suspended and its machines sealed. As the per the PC-PNDT Act, Section 22, no person, organisation, genetic counselling centre, genetic laboratory or genetic clinic, including clinic, laboratory or centre having ultrasound machine or imaging machine or scanner or any other technology capable of undertaking determination of sex of the foetus or sex selection shall issue, publish, distribute, communicate or cause to be issued, published, distributed or communicated any advertisement, in any form, including the Internet, regarding facilities of pre-natal determination of sex or sex selection before conception available at such centre, laboratory, clinic or at any other place. Taking a strong note of this malpractice cited in the complaint, the DCW immediately referred the case to the PNDT Cell under the Directorate of Family Welfare.
	One year sufficient to fix Delhi’s problems: Reddy Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 17 Armed with a Parliamentary legislation for a one-year moratorium on the court-ordered municipal drives in Delhi, the Centre today insisted that the period was sufficient to fix the creaky town planning of a city of nearly 1.5 crore population. “If we cannot do it in one year, we can do it never,” Union Urban Development Minister Mr S Jaipal Reddy said. “We shall be utilising this one-year period for setting the things right”. Approved by Parliament, the Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Bill-2006, which imposes a one-year moratorium on the MCD’s demolition and sealing drives in the Capital, has been sent to the President for his assent. The Centre has also received the recommendations of an expert panel headed by former Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Tejinder Khanna regarding the city’s future planning and building laws. “I feel relieved (after the passage of the Bill in Parliament) because people of Delhi needed relief. It will also provide relief to civic authorities,” he said, referring to the ongoing demolitions and sealings here. He said municipal authorities would cease their drives once the government notifies the Bill as a law after the Presidential assent.
	Procession to mark Guru Arjan’s martyrdom New Delhi, May 17 To mark the fourth centenary of the martyrdom of fifth Sikh Guru Arjun Dev, the Akali Dal (Badal) today announced taking out a religious procession from Delhi to Wagah, parallel to the one being taken out by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) from here to Lahore. The event will be held jointly with the Delhi Shiromani Akali Dal (Panthak) in accordance with Akal Takht directions to the Sikh community to mark the anniversary unitedly, general secretary Onkar Singh Thapar said.—TNS