Chandigarh, August 11
Taking a cue from Kerala, the Health Department, Haryana, today recommended a total ban on the sale and production of 11 drinks made by US majors Coke and Pepsi.

The Director-General, Health Services, Haryana, Dr N. K. Sharma, said he had recommended that these colas should be banned across the state, based on the report released by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) regarding large quantities of pesticides found in these soft drinks.

‘‘These soft drinks have been found to contain large quantities of Lindane (which is carcinogenic), Acquachlor, Chlorpyriphos and Melathion, which are very harmful to human health. We have recommended to the state government that a complete ban on the production and sale of these soft drinks should be imposed in the state. The recommendation to this effect has been sent to the Secretary and Financial Commissioner, Health, Haryana, for further action,’’ he said.

Dr Sharma said they had recommended a ban on these soft drinks at least in educational institutions, hospitals and government offices, adding that the recommendations were forwarded to the state government for final action yesterday.

The Director-General, Health, said that though till date they did not have laboratory testing facilities for pesticides, these would be provided soon at the state government laboratory in Chandigarh. ‘‘The cost of setting up the laboratory is high, but we ordered some chemicals for conducting the tests today so that we can conduct these here itself," he said.

Dr Sharma also said that many samples of these soft drinks, along with locally made soft drinks, were collected between January, 2005, and May, 2006. ‘‘ During this period, we found that 29 samples (including Coke and Pepsi) did not conform to the standards laid down in the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. These samples did not have a proper label or date of manufacture, had artificial saccharine and sugar was found to be below the declared quantity," he said.

While Coke has a bottling plant in Gurgaon, Pepsi has one in Panipat district. Top officials in the cola majors, while requesting anonymity, informed TNS that the action was uncalled-for as the findings on pesticide residues had been released by a private organisation, and were entirely different from the figures released by top laboratories in the world.

‘‘ The Central Science Laboratory in London, which is a UK-Government laboratory, has released a report which says that the pesticide residues in our soft drinks are below the European Union criteria for bottled water. We are thinking of taking legal recourse against the CSE for releasing a damaging report against us," said a top official in Coca-Cola India.

An official spokesman of Pepsi Foods India said : ‘‘State governments are banning the production and sale of soft drinks without even getting the samples checked on their own. They are not just hampering investment by big MNCs, but will themselves suffer huge losses in the way of excise collection and create unemployment". It is estimated that the two cola majors together pay Rs 50 crore as excise to Haryana and provide direct and indirect employment to 15, 000 persons.

Chandigarh, August 11
The Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, today urged the Central Social Welfare Board that its schemes should focus on women living in the rural areas.

Mr Hooda was speaking after inaugurating a two-day conference of Chairpersons of State Social Welfare Boards, being hosted by the Haryana Social Welfare Board, here .

He said the state government would promulgate an ordinance within a couple of days to set up a women's university to be named after Bhagat Phool Singh at Khanpur Kalan in Sonepat district. Besides Haryana was currently filling 12,000 vacancies of teachers, of which 33 per cent had been reserved for women.

While referring to the declining sex ratio and female foeticide, Mr Hooda said that men alone should not be held responsible for this social evil. A number of schemes had been implemented by Haryana to improve the sex ratio and raise the socio-economic status of women.

Referring to the demand for 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and the state Assemblies raised by the Chairperson of the central board, Ms Rajni Patil, Mr Hooda reminded the delegates that in Parliament, it was discussed that women living in the rural areas should also get the benefit of such reservation.

Mr Hooda said the conference had been organised at a time when the 11th Five Year Plan was being formulated and it was high time to introduce new schemes and reshape the existing ones to make these more effective.

He said Rajiv Gandhi believed that development did not mean the development of infrastructure alone, and strongly felt that improvement in the living standard of the people should be the main aim of development. The Haryana Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Mrs Kartar Devi, paid tributes to the well-known social worker, Dr Durga Bai Deshmukh, who inspired the setting up of the Social Welfare Board on August 12, 1953. She said that certain schemes needed to be reshaped.

Ms Patil said the central board had constituted a task force to act as an independent agency, which would visit Social Welfare Boards in each state to see for itself whether the funds meant for a particular section had reached it. In case the task force found any NGO misusing funds, it would be blacklisted. The Chairperson of the Haryana State Social Welfare Board, Ms Renu S.Nagar Poswal, said an awareness drive had been launched.

Yamunanagar, August 11
The Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) has started disconnecting power supply to plywood and other wood-based units in the district, which had come up after the Supreme Court’s deadline of October 30, 2002 and did not close units on their own after the Forest Department issued them notice to do so. About 180 units in the district had put up the shutters in June after receiving the notice.

Meanwhile the Sales Tax Department has also started giving notices to such units asking to show the permission granted by the Central Empowerment Committee (CEC) set up by the Supreme Court. Sources in the Sales Tax Department said several units had been issued notices and these have been asked why their Sales Tax registration be not cancelled if they did not have the CEC’s permission.

Special teams have also been constituted to check trucks and tractor-trailers taking finished wooden products out of the district. The teams are checking if the product belongs to authorised units or not.

Sources in the UHBVN said that power connections of all 13 units, which came up after the deadline have been cut and meters removed. Similarly power meters have also been removed from 30 other units. The nigam would be removing at least 30 more meters.

Mr T.K. Mahajan, Executive Engineer, UHBVN (Yamunanagar) told The Tribune that his employees were facing problems in locating the units from where the meters have to be removed as the list given to them by the Forest Department does not mention addresses of the units but name only. He said that department has been requested to help them in locating the units.

Mr Mahajan also informed that power load of several extended units (wood-based units where extension took place after the deadline) would also be reduced. The District Forest Officer (DFO) could not be contacted for comments.

In June the Forest Department had issued closure orders to 392 wood-based units (mainly plywood units) in the district. Around 200 units owners had closed their units while documents of around 100 units were found in order.

The Supreme Court in its October 30, 2002 order had said that no state or union territory shall permit any unlicensed saw mill, veneer, plywood industry to operate and they are directed to close all such unlicensed unit forthwith.

No state government or union territory will permit the opening of any saw mill, veneer or plywood industry without the prior permission of the Central Empowered Committee and close all unlicensed units forthwith.

Chandigarh, August 11
Mr Deepender Singh Hooda, MP from Rohtak, has expressed disappointment over the supplementary demands presented by the Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Yadav, in the Parliament today.

Mr Hooda said the demands had not much for Haryana, though the main Railway Budget had some schemes for the state.

Congratulating the Prime Minister and Mr Yadav for taking the Railway out of the red without increasing tariff, Mr Hooda said budgetary support should have been provided to the already sanctioned scheme for the electrification of the Delhi-Bhatinda rail line, which also linked Rohtak.

Mr Hooda also demanded that Mewat should be provided a rail link and work should be speeded up on the Jind-Sonepat and the Rohtak-Rewari rail lines. He also demanded Rohtak should be linked to Hansi via a rail line through Meham and Surkhi.