New Delhi, March 14
The Crime Branch of Delhi Police today claimed to have busted a ‘fake’ MCD office in Palam village area of South- West district with the arrest of four persons – Virender Rai (36), Hari Narain (42), Satpal (30) and Yagdatt Sharma (36).

It was found during the interrogation that the gang leader Virender Rai had been posing as a senior MCD officer attached with the Food and Supply department. He had allegedly taken lakhs of rupees from innocent job seekers for placement in various ‘lucrative’ departments of the MCD.

He even gave then fake appointment letters and distributed salaries for a few months to them before finally disappearing.

The gang had even enrolled numerous innocent job seekers as MCD employees by giving them fake appointment letters. They used to send them to conduct survey of coolers and sewers in near by colonies and pay them salaries ranging from Rs 2,000 to 2,500 to ward off any suspicion, said a police officer.

Fake Indian postal stamps worth Rs 2.8 lakhs have been recovered from the premises along with fake letter heads of various departments of the MCD like Food and Supply department.

The criminals were apprehended red-handed while conducting a fake inspection of coolers and sewers in the area. Two members of the gang — Virende Rai and Hari Narain — have been arrested for a similar offence in the past too.

In another case, the Crime Branch today claimed to have busted a gang of interstate auto-lifters with the arrest of four members of the gang – Shahnawaz (25), Md Allias Khan (22), Zakir Abbas (26) and Md Parvez Ahmad (38).

Four stolen cars had allegedly been recovered from them and several cases of auto theft committed in Delhi had been worked out with their arrest, the police claimed.

Following a tip-off, a Santro car was signalled to stop, but its occupants tried to flee, before being apprehended after a brief chase. The car was also found to be stolen from Model Town area.

During interrogation, they allegedly confessed to have stolen several vehicles from Delhi and sell them in various parts of UP and Bihar, said a police officer.

Meanwhile, the South-West district police today claimed to have apprehended two notorious interstate criminals – Ajay Deswal (28) and Dalbir Singh Nehra (22) — from Najafgarh area after a brief encounter. A foreign made loaded pistol, one live and one fired cartridges, one button actuated knife and one stolen motorcycle have been recovered from them.

The two were allegedly involved in various criminal cases registered in Delhi and Haryana.

Acting on a tip off, when a Hero Honda motorcycle was signaled to stop for routine verification, the rider, later identified as Dalbir Singh Nehra, tried to take U–turn. When they were challenged, both Nehra and pillion rider Ajay Deswal whipped out their fire arms. They were, however, apprehended after a brief exchange of fire.

During interrogation, they allegedly confessed to have committed two murders in Haryana. They had entered in the world of crime to earn easy money which the used to spend lavishly, said a police officer.

New Delhi, March 14
Overwhelmed by the response received from residents over the five-step procedure to identify good candidates from within wards by RWAs, People’s Action group today announced that it would also induct candidates from areas where there were no formal resident organisations or where they were not organised in a manner to execute the five-step procedure.

However, the group will reserve the right to put the prospective candidates through a series of interviews and checks involving some of the steps from the original procedure, namely a background check, quality of local support, experience and service record etc before proposing him or her to be the ‘People’s Representative’. Thereafter, the group will work to involve these candidates into the larger fold and give a fillip to the RWA movement in the city.

“Our idea is to provide a stark contrast to the usual system of candidate selection and the type cast politician. Our intent is to induce fresh blood into the political system and our objective is to challenge the existing political process by unleashing the energy of a new breed of people’s representatives, who are closer to the people than to a party,” said Sanjay Kaul, President People’s Action.

The ‘quality’ checks will be performed by the URJA group members and will involve local site visits in the areas where the candidate stays and taking first hand feedback from residents and by a formal interview with senior members of the group, apart from an independent survey by associate groups within the NDPA (New Delhi People’s Alliance), a group of 30 NGO bodies working on issues of common interest.

Explaining the concept, Pawan Jain, Executive Member, People’s Action said, “After we initiated this programme to involve RWAs in candidate selection, we found a dramatic increase in candidates sending us their bio-datas directly for consideration from areas which were earlier not on our radar. It made sense for us to involve such a rich talent pool for future consolidation of a group of good, clean candidates and impact the quality of politics in our city”.

Atul Goyal of URJA, who is coordinating this exercise, said, “We have already received close to a 100 applications for consideration. At this point we expect to finalise about 10 to 15 good candidates who pass the quality checks we have established. However, this figure could go up in the coming days.” 

New Delhi, March 14
The Pragatisheel Jan Morcha (PJM) today issued a list of 130 candidates to contest the Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections to be held on April 5. The second list of 142 candidates will be announced within one or two days, the Coordinator of PJM, Mr Ramveer Singh Bidhuri, said.

The PJM is emerging as a third front for the first time in the civic body elections. The third front consists of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the CPI, the CPM, the Lok Jan Morcha (LJM), the Forward Block and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP).

A list of 100 candidates was issued by the chief of Delhi unit of the NCP, Mr Bidhuri and the second list of 30 candidates was issued jointly by the Left parties.

Releasing the list of candidates, Mr Bidhuri claimed that the PJM was contesting the civic body election first time but it would emerge as a third front and pose a threat for the Congress as well as the BJP. However, he added, “its main fight is with the BJP because voters of the national Capital are not going to cast their franchise in favour of Congress due to its anti-people policies.”

Whatever the Congress-led Delhi Government and the MCD did, had gone against the citizens, he alleged. “Sealing and demolition has broken the backbone of Delhi traders. Thousands of jhuggi clusters have been demolished without making resettlement arrangement for them. In the Master Plan, the government has a provision to resettle slum dwellers in high-rise buildings. But a few days ago a large number jhuggis were demolished in Timarpur area,” he said.

Lambasting the Congress party, he said that the government announced for regularisation of over 1,400 unauthorised colonies. But, he added, while responding to a question in Rajya Sabha, the Union Minister of State for Urban Development Mr Ajay Maken said that the government had yet not prepared ways and means for regularisation of the unauthorised colonies. “This reflects double standard of the Congress Party,” Mr Bidhuri said.

There are 50 resettlement colonies in Delhi. Residents of these colonies had yet not been given ownership of their flats though the government had assured them to issue ownership rights.

Mr Bidhuri said that the Congress had announced to contest MCD elections appealing to citizens to vote in its favour in lieu of the Master Plan. He said that Master Plan was still not notified and the matter was in the court. The court would give its observation on April 10 and thereafter, sealing and demolition would begin again, he claimed.

Besides, he said that people were “fed up” with the Delhi Government also due to its policy of privatisation of power distribution network. “The private power players had installed electronic electric meters that are faulty. Residents are getting inflated bills. Thousands of people have applied for power connection but they have not been given connections. Seven and eight hours load shedding is reported from various area of Delhi,” he claimed. 

New Delhi, March 14
The All India Momin Conference (AIMC) today demanded from the Congress party to give tickets to Muslim candidates in proportion to their population to contest the Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections. “If they are not given tickets, they may support other political parties,” said its Vice-President, Imran Ansari.

He also demanded from the Congress to suspend Jagdish Tytler from primary membership of the party, as he misbehaved with the community leaders when they met him to discuss the issue of ticket distribution for Muslim candidates.

Addressing a press conference, he said that leaders of the AIMC had already discussed this issue with the AICC president and the chief of the DPCC. But they had still not responded positively, he added.

Vice-President of the AIMC claimed that Muslims were the deciding factors on 40 municipal seats. Giving details of Muslim voters, he said that in municipal seats like Usmanpur, Mustafabad, Badarpur, New Seemapuri, Nizamuddin, Nabi Karim, Kucha Pandit, Deputy Gunj, Jahangirpuri, Karawal Nagar – I, Karawal Nagar – III, Karawal Nagar – II, Jafarabad, Mustafabad – II, Minto Road, Kamruddin Nagar among others have 25 to 80 per cent Muslim voters.

New Delhi, March 14
As part of its ongoing capability upgradation and capacity expansion programme, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has achieved a major milestone by establishing a state-of-the-art instrument Caliberation Centre in Noida.

The centre was formally inaugurated by Mr Ashok K Puri, Chairman and Managing Director of BHEL, today.

Established as part of the MoU with Government of India at a cost of nearly Rs 3.2 crore, the centre will help in enhancing the precision and accuracy of Performance Guarantee Test of Thermal Sets of various ratings, thereby supporting the company’s efforts to meet the challenge capacity addition target during the 11th Five Year Plan.

The present Electricity Act and Regulatory Commission requirements have placed great emphasis on maintaining operational efficiency and availability from power stations for their realisation. Keeping this in view, for conducting precise PG tests, the repeatability into accuracy of the test instruments is to be calibrated with high precision before each site test taken up. Therefore, calibration requirements are much more stringent than the test instruments.

In addition to meeting exacting requirements of calibration, this facility will reduce the around time for calibration of precision PG Test Instrumentation, thereby enabling PG test of more projects.

Prior to the setting up of this centre, such calibration facilities were available only in the National Physical Laboratory and a few Standardisation Testing Quality Certification laboratories.

Faridabad, March 14
With the reports of damages to the meters coming from various places, there have been growing apprehensions over the success of the ambitious mega project of the state power department to shift out electricity meters outside the residential or commercial premises, in order to check power theft and line loss.

The Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN), the power supply authority, which bears the cost of meter, i.e. Rs 1,000, and its installment, may have to feel the brunt of financial burden in the wake of these incidences. Earlier, any damage to the meter was the responsibility of the consumer who had to pay for the replacement or installation of the new equipment.

While the authorities concerned have yet to prepare a detailed report on the project, it is learnt that several newly-installed meters outside the premises in certain residential and commercial areas in the city had suffered damage due to unknown factors. These meters had been installed on electric poles outside the premises with a clip type of hanger around it.

“There had been at least half a dozen meters whose glass panel had been broken in the past couple of days,” said a resident in the Housing Board Colony of Sector 10 here. He said these meters had been installed less than four weeks back. He claimed that the visibility of the units shown by these meters was very poor and the consumers were finding it difficult to know the status of power consumption at any time.

An employee of the department confirmed the reports of damage to the meters from various parts of the city. He said while earlier the responsibility of the safety of the meter was that of the consumer, but after the move to shift out the meter, the liability had shifted to the DHBVN, thus making the Nigam to bear the loss of such damages, an additional financial burden, that could outweigh the loss caused to the department due to line loss.

There had been around one lakh domestic connections and several thousand commercial and industrial consumers in Faridabad. While the meters of all the consumers were slated to be brought outside, the cost of shifting each connection was around Rs 800 to 900, depending upon the nature of the connection. The department will have to bear the cost of each such replacement if there was any damage or theft of the equipment.

A scam involving the employees of contractors installing the meters was unearthed in Ballabgarh city where consumers were forced to pay for the work of installing the meters.

New Delhi, March 14
The residents of Kaushambi, a middle class colony on the border of Delhi and Ghaziabad, have decided not to pay their property tax henceforth, starting from the current year 2006-07.

Over the last few years, civic conditions in this area have deteriorated. Servers are overflowing, roads are broken, streetlights do not exist. Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation has remained completely insensitive to the plight of the residents. Several letters and meetings yielded nothing.

It is not a case of shortage of funds, but there has been defalcation and direction of funds. Information obtained under Right to Information reveals money has been earmarked and spent on paper.

Therefore, the residents have decided to withhold their taxes. The residents and their RWA would address the media tomorrow at 3.30 pm.

Information obtained under RTI would be presented to the media.

Gurgaon, March 14
The district administration was today in a tailspin with regard to the large-scale damage caused to crops in recent hailstorm and rains.

The Deputy Commissioner, Gurgaon, Mr Rakesh Gupta, today visited the affected areas to assess the gravity of the situation. He assured the affected farmers that compensation to them would be given as per the policy of the government.

The administration has ordered for special Girdawri of the crops damaged and directed the revenue officers to submit report as soon as possible so that funds could be demanded from the government well in time. Officers of the district have been assigned various areas to make field visits to assess the situation.

Top brass of the district administration today landed in Shilani village and Hazipur in Sohna Tehsil, where the crops faced 100 per cent damage.

According to Mr Gupta, more than 75 per cent mustard crops were damaged. The damage to wheat crops hovered between 50-75 per cent. According to him, crops in 14 villages of the district were reported to be severely affected and the damage was more than 75 per cent in these villages.

New Delhi, March 14
Keeping in view the number of vote banks of people of Poorvanchal, particularly Bihar, the Congress is making an issue of the comments of Nav Nirman Sena (NNS) chief in Maharashtra, Raj Thakre, who reportedly made certain ‘objectionable’ comments against the people of Poorvanchal in the state.

The DPCC chief, Mr Ram Babu Sharma, on Tuesday addressed a big gathering of Poorvanchalis and condemned Raj Thakre for his comments.

He demanded the arrest of NNS chief. In the name of regionalism, some ‘anti-national’ forces are spreading hatred amongst the people of India and by doing, so they are damaging the unity and integrity of the nation. The Congress will not tolerate this, Mr Sharma said.

Maharashtra is part of the country. If people of UP and Bihar go to Maharashtra in search of their livelihood, nobody can stop them. In Delhi, the BJP is appealing to the people of Poorvanchal to cast their franchise in its favour and in Maharashtra, the party and its activists make comments against them. This reflects their double standard, Mr Sharma said.

J. D. Seelam, secretary of the AICC, also condemned Raj Thakre, claiming that these forces would be taught a lesson in the municipal elections in Delhi. Mahabal Mishra, MLA, who claims to be a representative of the people of Poorvanchal warned Raj Thakre of a fitting reply in the polls.

Faridabad, March 14
The state government seems to be quite concerned about the decreasing sex ratio due to the attitude of people who give less importance to the girl child, as an amount of over Rs 4.45 crore has been spent in the past two years to promote the birth of female child.

According to a spokesperson of the state government, under the scheme named as ‘Laadli’, the authorities give an amount of Rs 5,000 annually for a period of five years after the birth of a second girl child in the family. Asserting that about 8,900 families had been benefited so far in the state, he claimed that this had also brought a positive change in the attitude and thinking of the people, especially in the semi-rural areas, where the incidences of female foeticide had risen up sharply over the years.

He said the government had also provided a social security pension scheme to the parents who had only a single or two daughters, under which an amount of Rs 300 was paid every month from the age of 55 years onwards. Admitting that though the amount may not be much for many, but he claimed that the problem had been common in poor, illiterate and semi-educated families, who consider daughters as a burden.

Claiming that perhaps it had been for the first time that ‘Year of the Girl Child’ had been observed last year, with an aim to promote the concept of bringing the girls and boys on same platform.

The state government, he claimed, had launched various other projects for the benefit of girls and their families, which include free health check up of all the girls up to the age of 18 years and a special rebate in bus passes to the girl students across the state. Now the girl students who want to travel in Haryana Roadways buses were required to pay just five tickets one way instead of ten tickets earlier, for a regular pass, he said.

It is reported that the scheme of providing free bicycles to girls to go to their school located at a distance of 2.5 kms or more from their residence, has elicited a positive response and there had been a change in dropout rate after the middle standard in some parts of the state. Free traveling facility was extended by the government to women and children on occasion of ‘Raakhi’ last year, he said.

Besides setting up a special university for girls at Khanpur Kalan in Sonepat district, the spokesperson said reservation ranging from 25 to 33 per cent had been extended to the girls in the technical institutes and for the teaching posts respectively. The government has also announced an incentive of Rs one lakh to those Gram Panchayats, where all the girls in the age of 6 to 14 were enrolled in a school. 

Noida, March 14
Three youths were killed last night when the Maruti car they were travelling in collided head-on with a bus on the G.T Road in Dadri.

The youth were on their way to Bulandshahr from Delhi.

The bus driver is reported to have sped away with his vehicle after the accident.

According to the police, Sunil of Gharole Delhi, Madan Chauhan, and Bhagat were going to Bulandshahr in Maruti Car No. DL7C-D-7737. The victims had to board a train at Dadri station.

As their car reached near Chatehra at 8.30 pm, a Roadways bus No UP-81-N-9951 coming from the opposite direction collided with the car. The car was torn to shreds under the impact of the collision. The police pulled the badly trapped bodies from the car.

They were rushed to a private hospital but doctors declared them as ‘brought dead’.

Gurgaon, March 14
Three workers, including a woman, were charred to death and six sustained burn injuries when a high-pressure boiler exploded in a furniture factory in Behrampur village near here last night.

The incident occurred at about 3 am when the workers were working in the night shift.

The blast of the boiler was so severe that window panes of nearby industrial units cracked.

While two workers, including the woman, died on the spot, the third victim succumbed to injuries at Ayushman Hospital here.

Of the six injured, two were said to be in critical condition and have been referred to Safdarjung Hospital in the national Capital.

According to an official of the firm, dealing in manufacture of plywood and furniture, the boiler burst due to overheating. 

Noida, March 14
A 5-year-old boy, Deepak, died after he fell in a 20-ft deep pit in Hoshiarpur village.

His family came to know after about six hours of the incident. Though the police and fire brigade had tried to save him but when he was pulled out he had already breathed his last.

The child Deepak was living along with his mother with the family of Sunil Kumar, the younger brother of his father. Deepak’s father had died some time ago. Deepak was playing with some other kids at the back of the village market, where he accidentally fell in to a 20 ft deep pit.

As the child did not reach home in the evening, Sunil started looking for him. Some other children said that they were all playing at the back of the market. Then some people said he might have fallen in the pit.

The police at Sector-49 police station was informed. The SO along with fire brigade vehicle reached there soon. After a lot of efforts, Deepak was pulled out with the help of iron rods. He was rushed to the government hospital, where doctors declared him as “brought dead”. 

New Delhi, March 14
The SRM University has announced the issue of application forms for SRM Entrance examination for under graduates and post graduates engineering courses. The last date for submission of completed application form is March 31.

The entrance exams would be conducted across 25 states on 28th April, 2007.

The application form may be obtained on payment and can be filled and sent to the Dean (Admissions). Applications can also be downloaded from the university website “http://www.srimuniv.ac.in” www.srimuniv.ac.in. The form must be sent along with a DD of Rs 750 favouring SRMIST, payable at Chennai to the Dean, or it can be paid online. More details on the eligibility for UG and PG courses, application procedure and entrance examination is available on the website.