 |
|
Treasury Bench queries leave govt red-faced
Pandemonium in J&K House
Agri chief in Vigilance net
Tarigami: Special power to security forces should be withdrawn |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Faulty electronic metres fuse PDD drive
Ex-servicemen seek
one-rank-one pension
Top militant killed, LeT ultra arrested
|
|
Treasury Bench queries leave govt red-faced
Jammu, January 11 While the PWD minister, Mr Gulchain Singh Charak, was the target of the Congress and Panthers Party during question hour in the Assembly, Mr Romesh Sharma, Minister of State for Industries, faced the anger of the members in the Legislative Council. Mr Shyam Lal Sharma, Ms Suman Bhagat, Mr Abdul Majid Wani, Mr G.M Saroori (all Congress) and Mr Harshdev Singh (Panthers Party) put Mr Charak on the mat by accusing the PWD of having failed to properly utilise the funds provided by the NABARD for laying roads in the rural areas. The opposition National Conference (NC), BJP and JSM members also joined those on the Treasury Benches in asking a volley of embarrassing supplementary to the minister. The members pointed out that a number of roads and bridges were lying incomplete for the past many years because of cost over-run due to faulty planning by the engineers. Works under the Prime Minister's Gramin Sadak Yojna were also suffering because of the incompetence of the authorities. The angry members calmed down only when a senior minister, Mr Mangat Ram Sharma, assured the House that he would raise the issue of equitable distribution of development funds in the three regions of the state in the Cabinet meeting today. Noisy scenes were witnessed in the Legislative Council as Mr Ashok Sharma, Ms Farida Munir (both Congress), Mr Bhim Singh (Panthers Party) and Mr Ved Mahajan (PDP) cornered the Industries Minister, Mr Ramesh Sharma, on the issue of the government having failed to properly utilize the sapphire deposits in the Paddar area of the Doda district. Mr Mahajan alleged that sapphire worth about Rs 300 crore was being illegally extracted every year from the mines by unscrupulous persons.
|
|
Jammu, January 11 A number of opposition MLAs walked out of the House on the issue. The proceedings were stalled for about 20 minutes immediately after the House assembled as not only the Opposition, but members of the Panthers Party, which is a partner of the ruling coalition, were also seen raising slogans against the government. There was chaos as members on the Treasury Benches traded charges with opposition members. Efforts of the Speaker, Mr Tara Chand, to restore order in the House proved futile till the time a senior minister, Mr Mangat Ram Sharma, assured the House that an inquiry would be held into the incident and action would be taken against the guilty police officers. — TNS
|
|
Agri chief in Vigilance net
Jammu, January 11 The others booked by the SVO are the Joint Director of Agriculture (Inputs) and a private supplier. According to the Vigilance Commissioner, Dr Ashok Bhan, these officers purchased hybrid seeds worth Rs 9.46 lakh at exorbitant rates which were received in the stores after expiry of the sowing season. —
TNS |
|
Tarigami: Special power to security forces should be withdrawn Jammu, January 11 Mr Tarigami, who was speaking on the Governor’s address in the Assembly, said such a step would help in creating a sense of confidence among the people who were sandwiched between the militants and security forces. He said human rights violations would not stop until the Disturbed Area Act and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act were repealed. “These powers allow the security force personnel to harass innocent people,” he added. Appreciating the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, for taking a series of peace initiatives in the state, Mr Tarigami suggested that consensus should be built on the issue at the national level. He said differences on various issues between the mainstream parties and separatists had decreased in the recent past. Mr A.R. Veeri (PDP) also demanded that the special powers to security forces should be withdrawn. Mr Ali Mohammad Sagar (NC) criticised the government for not disbanding the special operation group (SOG) and task force of the police despite an assurance to this effect. He alleged that the government had failed to check “fake encounters” by the security forces. Mr Sagar claimed that petty officials were being arrested on the charges of corruption while no action was being taken against top bureaucrats and police officers against whom there were complaints of corruption.
|
||
|
Faulty electronic metres fuse PDD drive Jammu, January 11 Official sources said here today that the complaints were sent after a number of power subscribers approached the PDD with requests for replacing the faulty metres. According to sources “the companies had been asked to send replacement and examine the reasons for snags developing in the metres within a year or so”. An Assistant Engineer in PDD confirmed that the department was being flooded with complaints regarding faulty metres from the subscribers and added that “since we don’t have adequate stock it has become a problem for us to replace the defective metres immediately”. In certain cases the subscribers were made to pay Rs 450 to 1000 for getting the faulty metres replaced. Several subscribers alleged that there was no uniform rate for changing the metres as money was being charged at the whims and fancies of the department staff. Kanaya Lal, a resident of Bhori locality said,”I was forced to pay Rs 1000 for getting the metre installed at my house replaced”. He said “the PDD authorities should have charged penalty only from the subscribers whose metres had been tampered with or the seals had been broken”. In another case a doctor in the Gandhi Nagar area was asked to pay Rs 700 to get his metre replaced. On the other hand some PDD engineers were found to be very “reasonable” as they managed to get the faulty metres replaced without imposing any penalty when they found that the subscribers had neither tampered with the metres nor had the seals been broken. Another engineer said initially the department had purchased metres from the Jaipur-based company at the rate of Rs 1600 per piece but fresh tenders were floated and the contract for supplying the metres was awarded to Havell's Ltd. He said the state government had spent crores of rupees on the purchase of electronic metres after the government decided to install such metres to prevent power theft. So far the government has achieved 10 per cent metring in the Jammu province. According to a PDD document a target of installing over 3.96 lakh metres in 11 electricity divisions of Jammu region had been set and during 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 only 42,838 metres had been installed which meant that the target achievement was 10.80 per cent. Paucity of funds is said to have slowed down the drive to install these metres in the state. As per the document there has been zero per cent achievement in the programme of installing electronic metres in Poonch, Udhampur, Batote, Doda and Kishtwar.The highest achievement percentage has been in electricity Division one in Jammu where the authorities have been able to achieve 29.17 per cent of the target followed by 26.59 per cent in Division second of Jammu. Power consumers, however, feel that the PDD should not charge any penality for replacing faulty metres after it found that the companies had supplied metres that were prone to defects. They are also upset over the way PDD officials fail to rectify faults as telephone connections to various subdivisions have been withdrawn preventing power subscribers from registering their complaints on telephone.
|
||
|
Umar Farooq to lead APHC delegation to Pak Srinagar, January 11 This was indicated by Hurriyat Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq after a meeting of the executive committee, general council and working committee at the party headquarters here today. The moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference had had a few rounds of talks with the central leadership, both during the previous NDA government and the current UPA government. It has also held talks with Pakistan’s leadership during a two-week-long tour of Pakistan and PoK in June last year by travelling on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road. It has, however, stayed away from the two roundtable conferences conducted by the Prime Minister in New Delhi and Srinagar in February and May last year, respectively. Those who are expected to have talks with the Prime Minister in case of an official invitation include the chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Abdul Ghani Bhat, Maulvi Abbas Ansari and Bilal Gani Lone. Of these Maulvi Abbas Ansari without any travel documents may not be visiting Pakistan while the three other top executive committee members would be holding talks with the Pakistan leadership and those in PoK. Various issues related to the expected talks with the Prime Minister and scheduled visit to Pakistan via New-Delhi-Islamabad were discussed at the party headquarters today. It was also decided that senior Hurriyat leaders would be leaving here on Saturday for a stop- over in Jammu, before leaving for New Delhi for the scheduled visit prior to the Pakistan visit.
|
||
|
Ex-servicemen seek one-rank-one pension Sangrur, January 11 The rally was held put pressure on the government to accept demands, which include one-rank-one pension, constitution of separate pay commission for Defence personnel, jobs on compassionate ground to the wards of Defence personnel who die on duty, scholarships for wards of ex-servicemen, facilities to the ex-servicemen of World War II on the pattern of freedom fighters, medical allowance for ex-servicemen on a par with civil government employees, and removal of a statue of Maharaja Aggarsain from the local Vijay Chowk. The rally was addressed among others by Mr Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, MP from Sangrur; Col I.P.S. Gujral, Station Staff Officer, Cantt. Sangrur; Col. Bhag Singh (Retd), president of Punjab unit of the Indian Ex-Services League; Capt Atma Singh and Mr H.S. Chahal, president and general secretary, respectively of the Sangrur district unit of the Indian Ex-Services League; and Mr Ran Singh Mehlan, general secretary of the Punjab unit of the BSP. Sewing machines to 10 women were also given. Besides this, 60 blankets and 20 woman shawls were also distributed by the district unit of League among the ex-servicemen and members of their families.
|
||
|
Top militant killed, LeT ultra arrested Srinagar, January 11 Troops of 21 Rashtriya Rifles (RR), on specific information, launched a search operation in the Wadarbala forest area, near Handwara, this afternoon, he added. As troops were searching the area, militants opened fire on them with automatic weapons. The fire was retaliated and in the ensuing gunbattle, a top militant was killed, the spokesman said. He said a pistol, some ammunition and a radio set were seized from the possession of the slain militant. The operation was in progress when reports last came in. — UNI
|
||
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
