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Petrol, diesel prices unlikely to fall
Cases against Badal: Khaira writes to Prez
Elephant fails to tread
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Buyer-supplier meet at RCF
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Petrol, diesel prices unlikely to fall
Jalandhar, February 28 If this is not enough, the petro companies are not ready to pass on the benefit of reduction of excise duty from 8 to 6 per cent to people on the plea that petrol and diesel prices have been reduced recently. In case, this benefit was passed on to consumers there could have been a straight decrease in price of petrol and diesel between Rs1 and Rs2 per litre. Since, people feel that mild measures have been taken to salvage the service sector, health, education and power, but, nothing has been done to contain spiraling inflation. According to government figures, inflation is around 6.7 per cent, even as, private financial analysts rate it to be more than a 10 per cent. Dubbing Chidambaram’s Budget as a complete non-starter and the one aimed at ‘making rich more rich and poor more poor’, a cross section of people feel that the Budget 2007 is nothing but, ‘old wine in a not -so -new bottle.’ That the stock market has witnessed biggest fall of 2007 as it closed at 540.74 points in the evening, is an indication that the market has not welcomed the Budget. “It is not an ‘Aaam Aadmi Ka Budget’. The income tax exemption limit for male salaried people has been increased from Rs1 lakh to Rs1.10 lakh and for female employees from Rs1.35 lakh to Rs1.45 lakhs. It means there is a total relief of Rs 10000 per annum. Can anyone imagine running a middle or lower middle class family’s home and hearth within Rs. 1.10 lakh? If not, then why care has not been taken to analyse the average minimum annual expenditure required to be incurred by an average sized family of five or six members? This Budget is nothing but a joke with salaried class people,” rues Parminder Kaur, a lecturer in the Government Polytechnic for Women. For financial analyst Rajesh Gupta the Budget 2007 is ‘absolutely not meant for an Aaam Aadmi.’ It is good that the finance minister has applied his mind on long-term strategies for improvement of power, education, and health sectors, but do more cheaper water filters and water bottles have any meaning in terms of relief for the common man? Moreover, existence of multiple tax despite application of VAT has ruined industry, business and other sectors. We have VAT, Central Sales Tax, Income Tax and what not? In other countries it is either VAT or similar and singular tax alone. Though duties on petrol and diesel have been reduced from 8 to 6 per cent, but, there is no relief on LPG and kerosene. Low grade cement, plywood, pets’ food, coal, edible oil and umbrella will be cheaper, but, costly cement with a price tag of Rs. 190 per bag or more will be more costly. So, I doubt that these small reliefs would compensate the overall loss of the common man, who, has already been crushed by highest ever inflation and price hike,” said Gupta. Ashwani Kohli, vice President, Punjab Chamber of Small Scale Industries, said the Budget offered no respite for either exports or industry. “If the already sagging industry and the export sector is not strengthened then how would we be able to get more flow of forex? At 30 per cent in India, Income Tax is already highest in Asia. We follow the model of China, but, even there IT ranges from 5 to 35 per cent. In Nepal, it is 15 to 25 per cent and in Pakistan it ranges between 7.5 per cent to 35 per cent. In actual sense, it is a Budget for textile and diamond industries as these two have bagged the maximum tax and duty reliefs. There was no need for the finance minister to come out with a new Budget this time. The old one could have been used. Or what he could do was to announce a separate budget for textile and diamond industry,” said Kohli. He, however, hailed the hike in exemption limit for small service providers from Rs. 4 lakhs to Rs. 8 lakhs “This way two lakh assesses would walk out of service tax,” said Kohli. Dr. Vijay Mahajan, the head of the local Tagore Heartcare Centre, said that the FM had taken care of the health sector. “ It is good that the FM has earmarked Rs. 996 crore and Rs. 1290 crore for AIDS control and for polio eradication, respectively. Moreover, 15 pharma equipment items have been exempted from tax net,” said Dr. Mahajan. Paramjit Buddhiraja, a prominent hotelier and the president of the North India Hotel and Restaurant Association of India, hailed the reduction of the Central Sales Tax from 4 to 3 per cent. He also welcomed the hike in transaction tax limit from Rs. 25000 to Rs. 50000. “They should have done more for the service sector as India’s future lies in this sector only. If India is going to be a global power, it will be on the basis of the service sector so it needed to be strengthened,” said Buddhiraja. Farmers rued FM’s ‘indifference’ towards the farm sector. “ Farm sector cannot survive with just cuts in import duty on costly imported farm machinery. The only hope for farmers lies in the ‘Aam Aadmi Bima Yozna’, an insurance cover announced by the FM for 70 lakh families of the country,” said Surjit Singh, a farmer.
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Cases against Badal: Khaira writes to Prez
Jalandhar, February 28 Khaira has sent a letter in this regard to President. A copy of the letter has also been sent to the governor of Punjab. Releasing the copies of the two-page letter to media-persons here today, Khaira said that Badal should not be invited to head a democratic government because he is the main accused in a criminal case. Khaira stated in the letter that Badal is the main accused in a case about which an FIR was lodged under Sections 467, 468, 471, 420, 120-B of the IPC and 7, 8, 9, 10(1) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act on June 24, 2003. Congress MLA further stated in the letter that the matter was still pending before the special judge,
Ropar, for about two months. Khaira has stated in his letter that being the prime accused in the case, Badal should not be allowed to lead the government from the front as public prosecutors were not expected to act fearlessly and independently. Every attempt would be made to subvert the prosecution. Khaira said that firstly ,Badal should not be permitted to become CM but even if it happened, the case should be shifted to some other state. |
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Sappers’ rafting expedition concludes
Harike Pattan, February 28 Over 150 jawans and officers who simultaneously started the expedition from the Ranjit Sagar Dam on the river Ravi, the Bhakhra Dam on the river Sutlej and the Pong Dam on the river Beas on February 20 were flagged in today on the eve of the 57th Vajra Corps Raising Day. The eight engineering units encapsulated the entire profile of the riverine terrain of Punjab and obstacle potential of the rivers in a singular adventure activity. The event also helped them hone their waterman skills and learn about the diverse flora and fauna. The Army jawans and engineers also managed to display immense endurance, confidence and spirit of camaraderie as they spearheaded the rafting challenge against the raging currents. Lt Gen Noble Thamburaj, General Officer Commanding, flew in a chopper to flag in the troupes. He got himself clicked with the rafters. Thereafter, he was shown the pictures that had been taken at various points during the expedition as the crew moved on, halted at few places and saw some rare species of birds and snakes. Some of the pictures also showed the mixing of dark, industrial slush with the Sultej waters near Budha Nullah at Ludhiana. The rafters shared how they had to lift up their equipment and walk on slippery sand at some places where the water level was too low. The crew that started from Bhakhra had the most to tell as they covered the longest and the most difficult terrain stretching up to 269 kms. An officer pointed out the actual distance covered by them was close to 312 kms as they had to meander with the river. The first ones to reach were those starting from the Pong Dam as they had to cover 198 kms only. Those starting from the Ranjit Sagar Dam joined their counterparts crossing the Beas at Thingan Kalan village. The event was led by Brigadier Pradeep Yadu, who has an enviable record of rafting. A match of the Army hockey team with the Sansarpur Olympians will be held tomorrow.
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Elephant fails to tread
Jalandhar, February 28 Not just that, no one could even reach the 20,000 mark even as last time there were more than 10 seats ,including Jalandhar (South), Phillaur, Banga, Nawanshahr, Phagwara, Garhshankar, Mahilpur, Jalalabad and Ludhiana (Rural) where the party had scored more than this number. Even the votes polled for the party has come down to 3.9 per cent as against 5.76 per cent during the Vidhan Sabha polls in 2002 and 7.67 per cent in the Lok Sabha polls in 2004. With such a poor performance, the party has even lost its national recognition for which a party has to get a minimum of 6 per cent votes. In Jalandhar ,where three out of 10 are reserved seats with a massive Dalit vote bank, all the BSP candidates have lost their deposits for they failed to even get a minimum 10 per cent share of votes. This probably happened because of emergence of too many factions within the party. The Jalandhar (South)seat where Pawan Tinu had polled 21,381 votes last time ,got less than one-third of this number as the party could not get a suitable candidate after Tinu was expelled just two months prior to elections. Tinu had formed the Bahujan Kranti Party and fielded his own candidate, Harbhajan Lakha, from the seat who has polled 4,100 votes. The number of votes polled in reserved seat of Banga too has been slashed to half from 23,919 last year despite the fact that the candidate Parveen Banga was considered to have a strong hold. The last year BSP contestant who has won the seat on the SAD ticket this time, Mohan Lal, had however fought a very close contest from the seat in 2002. Satnam Kainth, a former BSP leader who had formed the Bahujan Samaj Morcha and assured support to the Banga Congress candidate, Tarlochan Soondh, was being considered to be strong factor in the latter’s favour ,but it failed to be of any help. Balachaur BSP candidate
Hargopal, who had won the seat in 1992 ,too has lost his deposit. The votes polled for the party have in fact come down significantly in all other Dalit-dominated
seats, including Phillaur, Kartarpur, Sham Chorasi, Noormahal, Jalandhar Cantonment and Adampur. The party leaders opine that it was unwise of the party high command to decide to go it alone when many senior party leaders had been expelled or had moved out and the party had found it very difficult to find 117 candidates in the state. The BSP’s loss, however, also did not go as an advantage to the Congress as it was perceived to be. The votes seem to have rather gone to the Akalis owing to anti-incumbency factor and arrogant behaviour of the Congress candidates here. |
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Buyer-supplier meet at RCF
Kapurthala, February 28 The objective of the meet was to devise new strategies jointly with the factory’s business partners to meet the challenges ahead. The RCF is at the threshold of enhancing its manufacturing capability to 1400 coaches per annum. SK Suri, General Manager, RCF, along with the heads of department, participated in the meet. Emphasis was given on supply of quality product at the optimum cost and in minimum time. The new concept like e-procurement, Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) was also discussed. EFT is new system, under which payment will be made electronically instead of making through cheque. This will reduce the transaction time. The other aspects like approval of Vendors, down loading of drawing from website, disseminating information related to tenders, purchase orders and acceptance of material, cheque details etc. were also discussed for convenience of vendors. Speaking on the occasion SK Suri, General Manager said, RCF is able to meet its coach production targets with the co-operation of our vendors. He also suggested them to quote workable rates and realistic delivery schedule. The meet was concluded with interactive session among suppliers and RCF management. |
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