Kapurthala, April 21
With Garib Raths — subsidised AC trains — gaining popularity among low and middle-income passengers, the railway authorities are all set to introduce eight more such trains in the next few months.

Talking to The Tribune, Railway Coach Factory (RCF) general manager SK Suri said the rakes are already being manufactured for these trains at Kapurthala. The routes for new trains would be: New Delhi-Dehradun, Raipur-Lucknow, Kolkatta-Guwahati, Thiruvanantpuram-Mumbai, Bhubaneshwar -Ranchi, Kolkata- Patna, Jaipur-Bandra and Secundrabad-Yashwantpur.

The Garib Rath AC sleeper coaches have enhanced passenger capacity to 75 seats per coach as against usual 64. The same is being further increased to 81 seats per coach.

RCF sources revealed that two coach modules, with 75 and 81 berth capacity, were shown to Railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who has already given his go-ahead for the project.

While the AC sleeper coaches for the eight trains will be manufactured at RCF Kapurthala, the chair car coaches, with capacity of 102 seats, will be produced at Integral Coach Factory, Perambur (Chennai). Chair car will cater to shorter-distance passengers. RCF has manufactured four Garib Raths which presently operate on Delhi-Patna, Delhi-Mumbai, Saharsa-Amritsar and Delhi-Chennai routes. 

Jalandhar, April 21
District police have arrested two persons for committing a fraud of Rs 13 lakh. Talking to mediapersons, DSP (traffic) Rajinder Singh, who was entrusted the probe, said the accused identified as ICICI staffer Rahul Sabharwal along with his associate Jagjit Singh of Ashok Nagar stole two cheques from the GT Road branch of the bank.

Then they opened a fake account in the name of Amandeep Singh at HDFC Bank by producing a false driving licence.

The stolen cheques of Rs eight and five lakhs were deposited after tampering with the name of the bearers.

The cheques were cleared and the accused withdrew Rs 10 lakh on March 22. Subsequently, Rs 3 lakh were taken out from the ATM. The police said they have recovered Rs 8.8 lakh from the accused. — TNS

Jalandhar, April 21
Having a Punjab domicile will be of no use if you have graduated from some other state. According to a Punjab government notification, issued on March 21, the students who have graduated from state medical and dental colleges will be given additional 15 per cent marks of the total marks obtained in the Post Graduate Entrance Test (PGET-2007).

The test will be conducted by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) on April 22. Nearly 1400 students are expected to take the entrance examination. Dubbing the decision as discriminatory, the Rural Medical Services Association (RMSA) claimed that the students who have not done their MBBS or BDS from state will begin with a disadvantage.

Says RMSA press secretary Anshuman Verma, who has done his graduation from Bombay: “It’s a ridiculous move which busts the tall claims of the government that the admission process in the state would be fair.”

The statistics reveal that the entire merit of the PGET is decided within a difference of not more than 10 per cent marks. “It clearly means, we stand no chance in the test if 15 per cent marks are given to Punjab students,” added Anshuman. Also a majority of candidates who will get the weightage are ones who have opted for seats through the All-India pre-medical entrance test, he added.

“This new rule has generated a lot of resentment among the candidates, who are planning to take to streets if the move is not cancelled,” said the doctor. When contacted, Dr P.L. Garg, BFUHS coordinator, said as per the Supreme Court guidelines every state has right to give benefit to its students.