The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Delhi and neighbourhood

	Power crisis deepens in Noida, Gt Noida Our Correspondent Noida, August 31 While the Principal Secretary, Energy, UP Government, Ashok Khurana, has assured the public that power from Reliance Power Project will be supplied at Rs 2 per unit when the project starts supplying power in 2010, the uncontrolled increase in load has just deepened the crisis in Noida, Greater Noida and other areas. The norm for over a week now is an eight-hour power cut in the area. Students, housewives, traders and professional—all are suffering. Even the government hospitals are not spared this cut affecting operations and pathological tests. All Noida powerhouses are resorting to a minimum power cut of six hours daily during this humid weather. In Sectors 62 and adjoining sectors, the norm is for eight hours daily. Residential sectors, commercial hubs, industrial area and institutional centres are all reeling from power cuts. The stock reply of the officials of UP Power Corporation is that monsoon rains only hold the key. The 220 KV power stations in Sector-20 are handling a load of 800 MPR against a capacity for 710 MPR. Power supply is also affected due to work on Accelerated Power Development Reforms Project. According to Rajesh Kumar, Dy GM Noida UP Power Corporation, the increased load has disturbed all norms of power supply. After a brief gap with Pali Power Project’s commissioning, supply has once again reverted to the same old pattern in Greater Noida sectors. Here daily power cuts from 10 to 12 hours are being imposed now. In the rural areas, the condition is still worse where only two to three hours power supply is maintained. In Greater Noida sectors, the supply of drinking water has also been affected by the power cuts with the result people have to do without even drinking water. From 8 am to 4 pm and from 6 pm to 10 pm, there is absolutely no power supply in Greater Noida. Educational institutions, shopkeepers, restaurants, cyber cafes, etc face lots of hardships. To make matters worse, the generator set is not permitted in Greater Noida. There is not enough power to recharge the inverters even, regret the people and traders.
	TRAI notifies CAS rates, with effect from January 1 Tribune News Service New Delhi, August 31 The broadcast regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today came out with viewer-friendly tariff for Conditional Access System (CAS) to be implemented in a phased manner in Delhi from January 1, following the Delhi High Court directive. The implementation would start from South Delhi and then extended to the rest of the city. The broadcast regulator has fixed Rs 77 for a minimum of 30 free-to-air (FTA) channels and a maximum of Rs five per month for a pay channel in Delhi, where conditional access system (CAS) would be implemented from January one next year. TRAI said it decided to go for a ceiling on channel pricing as it found the rates reported by the broadcasters as “too high”. With this order, a subscriber in a CAS area can get access to around 22 pay channels apart from the FTA bouquet within a Rs 200 package monthly. On the Rs 77 monthly cap on free-to-air channels, TRAI said this rate was for a minimum of 30 such channels. “Additional free-to-air channels, if any provided, were also to be accommodated within the above maximum amount,” the order said, adding that this rate was exclusive of taxes. All pay channels will be offered compulsorily on a la carte basis. Bouquets can be offered with discounts in addition to the a la carte offer. For set top boxes (STBs), subscribers will have to chose between two schemes to be compulsorily provided by the multi-system operators or cable operators as part of a standard tariff package. There is one scheme with a monthly rental of Rs 30 per digital set top box plus a refundable deposit of Rs. 999 per box (refund will be made after deducting Rs.12.50 per month for use of the STB). Under the second scheme, there will be a monthly rental of Rs 45 per digital set top box (Rs. 23 for analogue set top box) with a refundable deposit of Rs. 25 per box. The refund will be made after deducting Rs.3 per month for use of the STB. Operators can offer alternative tariff packages in addition to the mandated standard tariff package. There will be no separate charges for installation, activation or reactivation, smart card viewing card and repair and maintenance. To ensure that consumers get the choice to select individual channels, TRAI said that all pay channels should be offered compulsorily on a-la-carte basis or individual basis, the TRAI said, adding that the price ceiling would be applicable on both existing and new pay channels. “Broadcasters are free to fix prices of individual pay channels within this ceiling,” it said, adding that one month’s notice to subscribers was required to be given before conversion of a free-to-air channel to pay channel or vice-versa. The order relating to STBs will come into effect from October 15. TRAI said that these rates were based on detailed examination and analysis of the inputs received during the process of consultation over the last two months. At present, CAS has been implemented only in Chennai, but with little success with much of the regional channel going FTA. With DTH as an alternative available to the consumers, it is to be seen how successful the attempt would be this time. It may be recalled that earlier attempts to implement CAS in Delhi in 2003 had failed following opposition from the people who thought their bills will go up under the new system. Rs 77 cap on Free to Air channels for minimum of 30 channels Rs 5 maximum for a pay channel Pay channels must be offered compulsorily on a la carte basis and bouquets can be offered with discounts in addition to the a la carte offer. There are two schemes available for STB. Under the first scheme, a subscriber has to pay a refundable deposit of Rs 999 and Rs 30 per month for the digital set-top box. Under the second scheme, a subscriber will have to pay Rs 45 per month for the analog set-top box and a refundable security deposit of Rs 250. With this order, a subscriber in a CAS area can now get access to around 22 pay channels apart from the FTA bouquet within a Rs 200 package monthly.
	1700 schools face demolition axe Tribune News Service New Delhi, August 31 The fate of over eight lakh students in 1,700 public schools in Delhi will be in trouble as these schools may face the demolition axe from September 16. Following a Supreme Court order, all illegal and unauthorised business establishments in the residential areas would be sealed. Similarly, schools, including secondary and senior secondary schools which are mainly located in authorised, regularised and unauthorised colonies would be sealed. Schools in Chandni Chowk, Okhla, Sadar Bazar, Karawal Nagar, Uttam Nagar, Karol Bagh and Laxmi Nagar would be sealed on the due date. These schools have been functioning under the eye of the Delhi government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), violating the Master Plan. Even as the new academic session has already started in these schools and only a few days are left, the school owners on Tuesday met Union Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy. The school owners were assured that modifications would be made to the Master Plan for Delhi-2001 by the government before the due date fixed by the apex court expires. Out of the 2,000-odd non-aided public schools, around 382 schools have received land from Delhi Development Authority and other agencies. And the rest are being run from residential and commercial properties, which is illegal according to the Master Plan for Delhi-2001. In March, over 70 schools were sealed before the Centre brought in the Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act, 2006, to suspend the drive for one year. Meanwhile, the MCD has sped up its sealing action in various zones of the Capital. A majority of the buildings are sealed due to unauthorised constructions. Rohini Zone is the most affected area, with the sealing of about 29 properties. Besides, the demolition squad of the civic body also removed encroachment from major roads. The MD spokesman said about 7,500 square feet of government land was freed from encroachment at New Khayala Road and Subhash Nagar by removing sheds, boundary walls, gate steps and kitchen garden. Encroachment were also removed from various areas of central zone like GK-II, Okhla, Lajpat Nagar, Tughlakabad and Defence Colony. Demolition and sealing was done in Hauz Khas, Anupam Enclave, Chattarpur, Munirka, East of Kailash and Saket in South Zone. Encroachment was also removed from Shahadra (North) Zone area today, the spokesman said.
	Admn fails to act against clinic for medical negligence Tribune News Service Faridabad, August 31 The authorities here have reportedly failed to take action against a private hospital where medical negligence allegedly caused the death of a 32-year-old patient of heart disease in June even after an enquiry recommended it due to its owners’ ‘links’ with senior officials. The relatives of the victim have been running from pillar to post in vain all the time. According to reports, a youth identified as Rajan Chauhan of Palwal had been brought to a heart institute in Sector-16 A after he complained of acute chest pain. The doctors told the patient’s attendants that he needed to undergo primary angioplasty as it was a case of massive heart attack. But before the doctors could proceed, the relatives of the patient decided to enquire about the charges of the treatment at another hospital located in the NIT area in the city and told the doctors here that they wanted to shift the patient. The reason? The cost of treatment here is almost double, though the first hospital had warned of disastrous consequences in view of the delay in the treatment. The patient admitted to the second hospital at about 10.15 pm on June 8 was allegedly not attended to by any cardiologist and no coronary intervention was done. Though a doctor at the second hospital claimed in his statement that angioplasty (PCI) was not done as the patient’s attendants did not give their consent, the latter blamed the doctors and the hospital and claimed that it was an attempt to save themselves from charges of negligence. It is stated that while the patient left the second hospital at 2 pm on June 9 against the medical advice, he was readmitted to the hospital the next day as he suffered cardiogenic shock. He was declared dead at about 7.50 pm the same day. The probe panel concluded that the patient had been admitted to the hospital in a serious state but he was not attended to by any cardiologist on the first night and the emergent PCI was not performed at that stage. A timely intervention could have saved the patient. The enquiry panel was formed after the attendants of the patients lodged a complaint with the district authorities, but even after the report indicting the doctors for negligence, the authorities have failed to take action against the accused, leading to resentment among the relatives of the victim.
	Will CAS be successful? R Suryamurthy Tribune News Service New Delhi, August 31 Although TRAI’s decision seems to be a positive development so far as the viewers are concerned, the success of CAS is quite doubtful as the viewer has more choice to opt for and the tariff set by the regulator is much below the expectation of the broadcaster and would also hurt the revenues of the multi-system operator (MSO). With the Direct-to-Home (DTH) technology now a reality, the viewers have the option going for it and free themselves from the harassment of the cable operators. With digital quality sound and picture available in DTH, the viewers also have added unique feature of selecting the movie of his choice and play video game. Further, the DTH market is only beginning to open up in the country and two major players DishTv and TATASky apart from Doordarshan are coming up with attractive schemes to woo the viewers. According to a study by Frost & Sullivan, the Asia Pacific Satellite DTH Market, the total pay-TV market - covering nine Asia-Pac countries - was worth US$19.24 billion in 2005, and is forecasted to reach US$45.20 billion in 2012. Satellite DTH services alone will account for approximately 46.3 per cent, or US$20.91 billion, of the total pay-TV revenues in 2012. Another advantage is the mobility with DTH – the dish, which is about two-feet, can be taken anywhere in the country. However, those viewers who opt for CAS cannot take the Set-Top-Box (STB) from one locality to another, as these boxes are configured to work with a particular MSO. The need for CAS had arisen to reign in the unorganised growth of the cable operators and the broadcasters were not getting the true value for their money as there was under-reporting of the number of subscribers. The argument that broadcasters should not telecast advertisement in pay channel as they are getting subscription fee from the viewers, has not been answered by TRAI in its order. The regulators’ order could face legal hurdles as aggrieved MSO and broadcasters might go to court or the consumer forums could take the lead as the broadcasters cannot ask the viewer to pay to watch the channel and generate revenue from advertisement too. With the Chennai experience, the only place where CAS has been implemented with marginal success as the pay channels turned Free To Air (FTA) over night, it would be interesting to watch the battle for eyeball.
	DU students put off by ‘nexus’ between candidates, political parties Smriti Kak Ramachandran Tribune News Service New Delhi, August 31 The J M Lyngdoh Committee report on ways to reform students’ politics may have frowned upon the involvement of mainstream political parties in union elections, but both student activists and their mentors are in no mood to accept the suggestion. After all it was following the participation of political parties in the university elections that students’ leaders like Arun Jaitley, Sitaram Yechuri, Prakash Karat and Ajay Maken underwent metamorphosis into national leaders. Unwilling to stop at these, political parties claim that students as individuals have a right to align themselves with a certain ideology and if they look at certain political parties for support, it should not be “misunderstood” as “interference” from the party. “Students fight elections on the basis of ideology and they look up to national leaders. If a certain political party has an ideology that the students accept and want to follow, then there is no reason why students’ organisations cannot seek guidance from that political party. Besides, students and political parties are part of the same society,” Kuntal Krishna, NSUI spokesperson, said. Pointing out that all political parties cannot be blamed for “vitiating” students’ politics, senior CPM leader, Nilotpal Basu said, “We have a history of a great students’ movement in the country, but the recent Ujjain incident should not be allowed to generalise all political parties”. While he lashed out at the BJP administration in Ujjain for “coming out in defense of the ABVP activists involved in the killing of a professor”, he maintained that “students have a right to choose their mentors”. The ABVP, on its part, maintains that “it gets no money or muscle support from the BJP,” but cannot deny its association with the RSS. “We believe in students’ activism. The ABVP has never been dependent on the BJP to win university elections. We contest polls of issues related to students,” Nakul Bhardwaj, ABVP State General Secretary, said. This nexus between political parties and student’s organisations may keep the average student away from politics on the campus, but acts as a buttress for the candidates in the fray for elections. From planning public meetings to deciding the issues and, most importantly, paying the bills, parties like the Congress are known to go all out to help their youth wing. “For the Congress, the NSUI is a part and parcel of the party. Party President Sonia Gandhi is in the advisory board and senior party leaders do take interest in elections and do their bit for it,” Sudhakar Reddy, AICC Secretary, said. And while both political parties and students’ factions insist that the support is “just ideological”, the questions on who finances the expensive exercise of electioneering is left unanswered.
	HUDA team seals illegal school building Our Correspondent Gurgaon, August 31 A HUDA team sealed a 10-year-old well-known primary school in Sector 4 on Wednesday. Two houses had allegedly been converted into a school here. Mr S. P. Gupta, Administrator, HUDA, informed Blue Bells Primary School was functioning in a building that had come up on two residential plots, measuring 500 square yard, for the last many years. More than 600 students studied in the school. Besides the sealed school, the school management has two more authorised senior secondary schools; one in Sector 4 and another in Sector 10. Ms Dhawan, Principal of Blue Bells Senior Secondary School, Sector 4, told ‘The Tribune’ that there was no need for the parents of the primary school to get panicky as the management had already planned to shift all school students to the senior wing at Sector 4 which is located just half a kilometre from the primary wing from tomorrow onwards. “As the primary wing was functional in the residential area and the state government wanted us to close it, we will follow the directions of the state government’s senior officials,” added the Principal. However, Mr Gupta informed that the notice under Section 17 (4) of the HUDA Act, 1977, was issued to the school authority in February 2003. The representative of the school also appeared before the Estate Officer, HUDA, and admitted that the school was functioning in two residential plots. As the owners of these two plots (nos 934 and 934-A) had not stopped commercial use of the houses, the Estate Officer, considering the violation of conditions of the allotment as wilful default on the part of the owners, resumed the houses in April 2005. The school authority filed the civil suit in the Punjab and Haryana High Court which decided the case in favour of HUDA and allowed time up to March 31, 2006, as per the undertaking given by the school authority about stopping commercial use of residential plots, added the Administrator. But the school remained functional even after the deadline had elapsed. The SDE (Survey), Mr Dangi, informed that the department had sealed all six gates of the primary school which was opened from two sides. Besides the two residential plots, the school authority had also bought land adjacent for the expansion of the school. Mr Gupta reiterated that HUDA had identified 395 houses in different sectors developed by the authority in a fresh survey recently. These were being used commercially illegally. Action would be taken against them as the high court was supervising the day-to-day activities of the department for the illegal use of properties, added the officer.
	Two killed, one hurt in road accidents Our Correspondent Noida, August 31 A 12-year-old boy and another person were killed in two accidents near Chhaprola village in Dadri area last night while another person was grievously injured. Neeraj, son of Baleshwar, was hit by a tractor trolley whose driver was busy talking on a cell phone. The trolley had slipped to the side and crushed the boy who died on the spot. The people from the village came out and blocked the G.T. Road in protest, demanding adequate compensation for the family and construction of a divider on the road. Angry villagers also damaged a bus, truck and several other vehicles by throwing stones at them. The villagers lifted the blockade only after the area Tehsildar promised that a speed-breaker and a divider would be constructed on the road and a suitable compensation paid to the family of the deceased. In the second accident, Suleman and Hari of Laharli village were hit by a jeep while they were going to Dadri on a motorbike. Both were rushed to a Ghaziabad hospital where Suleman succumbed to his injuries.