Chandigarh, January 30
The Haryana Government has collected a record Rs 1,197 crore as stamp duty on land deeds this year so far against Rs 782 crore during 2004-05 despite a reduction in the stamp duty rates.

The Haryana Revenue Minister, Capt Ajay Singh Yadav, said here today that the government aimed at collecting Rs 1,700 crore up to March 31, 2007.

Captain Yadav said the record collection had been made by maintaining transparency, rationalising the stamp duty and checking duty evasion.

But what he left unsaid was that the collection of stamp duty went up because during this period the government revised manifold the collector's rate of land and other property in the state. Of course, the increase brought the collector's rate closer to the market rate and also brought a quantum jump in stamp duty collection for the state exchequer.

Captain Yadav said the rate of stamp duty on conveyance and sale deeds of property had been reduced from 15.5 per cent to 8 per cent in the urban areas and from 12.5 per cent to 6 per cent in the rural areas. For gift deeds, mortgage deeds with possession and lease deeds, the stamp duty was reduced from 9.25 per cent to 5 per cent in the urban areas and from 6.25 per cent to 3 per cent in the rural areas.

A 2 per cent rebate is given in the stamp duty if property is purchased in the name of a woman. 

Chandigarh, January 30
The Union Government has approved a proposal of Haryana to have an e-governance system with a total investment of Rs 103 crore. While the Centre will give Rs 63 crore, the rest will be provided by the state.

An official spokesman said here today that Haryana was going forward with the e-governance initiative by establishing the Statewide Area Network (SWAN) and AADHAR-like modern systems of e-governance with financial help from the Centre.

He said that the network prepared through these systems would be utilised for inter-department connectivity, multi-use and multi-service facilities, video conferencing, the file transfer facility, e-mail, online application processing and query and response systems.

The state had already received the first installment of Rs 13 crore from the Centre. Work on this project had already been initiated which would be completed by December, 2007. He said that these new e-governance systems would enable transparency, efficiency and accountable governance.

Rohtak, January 30
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has said the approval of Reliance Thermal Power Plant was the first step towards making Haryana self-reliant in power within three years.

Addressing a gathering after laying the foundation stone of the Saini Girls College of Education here today, he said the Hisar-based plant would be completed in a record time of 34 months. It would generate 1200 MW of power.

Likewise the first unit of Yamunanagar Thermal Power Plant would start generating 300 MW power by November this year, he said, adding that the second unit of equal capacity would be commissioned by February 2008.

Mr Hooda said the state was generating 1800 MW daily and getting 2000 MW a day from central power pool. As against this the demand was for 9000 MW daily. He blamed the previous governments for not increasing generation in time to meet the demand.

However, the Chief Minister said within three years the state should be self-reliant in power as his government was taking steps to increase its own generation expeditiously.

Paying tributes to Mahatama Gandhi, he said the Gandhian thought was as relevant today as in the pre-Independence era. He said this line of political and social thought would remain relevant for all times to come.

Mr Hooda said Gandhi’s dream of economic independence, equality and universal education could only be realised by promoting vocational education and the government was committed to do this.

The Chief Minister announced a grant of Rs 26 lakh for the proposed college as the managing body had collected a similar amount through donations from the public. He also announced Rs 31 lakh for the college from his discretionary fund.

Sirsa, January 30
The Dakshin Haryana Bijali Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) plans to strengthen and renovate the power transmission and distribution system in Sirsa district at a cost of Rs 189 crore. This was disclosed by Deputy Commissioner V. Umashankar here today.

“Works involving an expenditure of Rs 134 crore are already in progress, while preparation for works costing Rs 65 crore is also on,” he said.

Under this comprehensive plan, the DHBVN and the Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam (HVPN) will construct 11 new substations of 33 KV level and augment the capacity of 14 existing substations. Besides, a proposal to construct one 220 KV and two 132 KV substations in the district has also been submitted to the HVPN.

The nigam plans to renovate the complete distribution system in all 323 villages of the district under its programme to establish high-voltage distribution system (HVDS) and low-voltage distribution system (LVDS).

Apart from this, all rural 11 KV feeders are being segregated to create different feeding systems for consumers of agricultural and domestic categories. It is planned to complete the work of segregation of agricultural and domestic load by the end of this year.

With the creation of this system, the domestic consumers in the rural areas will be able to get power supply on the pattern of urban areas. The tube-wells will also get qualitative power supply as per a predetermined schedule.

Under the new regime, 31 overloaded and lengthy feeders are being divided into 62 feeders of proper load and length. In addition to this, the complete system of eight other feeders is being renovated.

The DHBVN plans to set up 33 KV substations at Rasalia Khera, Desu Jodhan, Kagdana, Jamal, Khuian Malkana, Kuttabarh, Panihari, Badagurha, Mohammadpuria, Mirzapur and Ahmadpur Road, Sirsa.

Panipat, January 30
The United Nations Organisation (UNO) was totally undemocratic organisation as it was under the hegemony of one country. This was stated by Mr Samdong Rinponche, Prime Minister of Tibetan government in exile here today.

Though most of the countries in the world supported the Tibetan cause the United Nations proved ineffective in this regard, added Mr Rinponche.

Without naming any country Mr Rinponche added there were around 200 members-countries of the United Nations but only one country was controlling it.

Mr Rinponche interacting with reporters after addressing a gathering on the occasion of death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. He said misunderstandings between his government and China were resolved to some extent but no timeframe could be fixed for the solution of problem. It could be hoped that the new generation of Tibetans living in different parts of the world would be able to return to their own land.

To a question Mr Rinponche said China was trying to destroy Tibetan culture in Tibet in the name of development by settling more and more people from China in that region.

Earlier addressing the gathering Mr Rinponche said the world face threat from economic inequality, terrorism, pollution and communalism.

Elaborating Mr Rinponche said gap between the rich and the poor was widening and the history was witness that wars in the past were the result of economic inequality in the world. Resources of the earth were being exploited by 20 per cent of people only rendering the majority neglected, added Mr Rinonche.

Chandigarh, January 30
As long as the Nithari killings remain in the news, the people of Bahadurgarh, an industrial town near Rohtak, will continue to remember how their town was held hostage by a baby killer for about four years in the mid-nineties.

They were freed from terror only after the chance capture of Satish, a young man in his twenties. Before he was arrested, three persons were arrested and paraded as the baby killer by the police, every time to be proved wrong.

The arrest of Satish, who had killed 10 of his 12 victims, all of them minor girls, was not publicised much because the then Director-General of Police, Mr S.K. Sethi, had insisted that unless DNA tests confirmed him to be the real culprit, no claims should be made.

After scientific evidence confirmed that Satish was indeed guilty, an IPS officer of the Haryana cadre, Mr K.P. Singh, made a detailed analysis of the four-year-long investigations in the case.

He found that policemen had many lessons to learn from the way the investigations were conducted.

The Bahadurgarh police had failed to collect enough genetic material, including blood and semen, samples. Though genetic material was found on exhibits in six cases, no attempt was made to corelate whether the genetic material was from a common origin.

The police had earlier arrested three innocent persons because it was under pressure to show results. The investigating officers, to ward off pressure, implicated innocent persons. But no effort was made to match their body fluids with the genetic material collected from the crime scenes.

Mr K.P.Singh also found that during the period the baby killer was active, seven SPs, five DSPs and 10 SHOs were transferred, breaking the continuity of the investigations. In his critique published in the CBI Bulletin of February, 2004, he suggested that once an investigating team had been constituted, it should continue till the case was solved.

To his horror, Mr K.P. Singh found that twice the real baby killer had come face to face with the police during house-to-house searches. He was of the view that such searches were meaningless if the policemen on duty were not briefed properly.

Mr K.P.Singh came out with a hypothesis that if the points from which serial kidnappings took place and the points at which the bodies were recovered were joined in a circular manner, the location of the criminal was likely to be in the centre of those circles.

If senior officers posted in Noida had read the CBI Bulletin, which is sent to all IPS officers, the Nithari killers might have been apprehended much earlier.

Kaithal, January 30
A large number of villagers who were protesting against the non-inclusion of their names in the below poverty line (BPL) list blocked the Kaithal- Assandh road, 25 km from here, yesterday. They raised slogans against the government and panchayat functionaries. A number of vehicles remained stranded for about two hours due to the blockade. The BDPO’s naib tehsildar and in charge of the police station reached the spot but failed to pacify the protesters. The police reportedly had to use mild lathi-charge to disperse the protesters and restore the flow of the traffic.

According to reports, villagers had assembled at chaupal where the BDPO was reading out the names of those included in the BPL list. However, a few persons whose names were not included in the list started protesting. The officials left the meeting when they failed to pacify the agitated people. Following this, a few persons, including women, sat on dharna. However, officials along with the police succeeded in restoring the traffic. Elsewhere, residents of Pabnawa and Rehrian also expressed resentment over the non-inclusion of names those in the BPL list. They protested in front of the BDPO’s office yesterday and met the Deputy Commissioner in this regard.

Rohtak, January 30
Major political parties in Haryana are awaiting the outcome of the Assembly poll in Punjab with bated breath, as the results from the neighbouring state will impact their future political strategies in no small way.

The BJP is the keenest observer. Having been given a new yet so far untested chief, the party is praying for return to power in Punjab on the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) bandwagon, so it can infuse new blood in its cadres by propagating that it will perform a similar feat three years hence in Haryana too.

The BJP has been in a state of suspended animation after the 2005 poll debacle, which knocked it out of political reckoning.

BJP leaders now hope that a win in the Punjab Assembly poll, coupled with the Amritsar Lok Sabha byelection victory, will give it a platform in Haryana, from which it could kickstart its revival-cum-survival battle. However, that may not be entirely correct though a victory in Punjab will certainly be a morale booster.

The only way this party can share power in Haryana in the event of a Congress defeat in the 2010 Assembly poll is to align with Mr Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), as it had been doing since the heydays of the maverick Devi Lal-Mangal Sein duo.

But the BJP can draw hardly any satisfaction from the way the INLD maltreated it during and after the 2005 poll which they fought together, ultimately forcing it to walk out of the alliance midway and contest the 2005 elections alone only to fare extremely poorly.

Mr Chautala has made a big issue out of his plans to campaign in Punjab for Mr Parkash Singh Badal and his men in the fray.

A victory for Mr Badal in Punjab will surely give Mr Chautala and his party a sound reasoning with which to convince supporters that a defeat for the Congress in Punjab means a similar fate awaits the latter in Haryana three years from now.

The Haryana Congressmen are closely watching the Punjab electoral battles from the sidelines, and this is exactly what they do not want to happen in their state. A defeat for the Punjab Congress under Capt Amarinder Singh will certainly shake the confidence of its cadres in Haryana although the party has three more years to go before it tests fresh political waters.

It is this background that is generating a lot of interest in Punjab poll in Haryana. Already betting has begun in the notorious centres like Hansi in Hisar district. Bookies are certain the business will hot up to cricket fever levels in another week or so.