Amritsar, May 2
Concerned over the slow pace of development work in the holy city, cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu has decided to pump his personal money into various projects.

The BJP MP would set up a corpus of several crore rupees which would be used for making the city more green, and fighting drug abuse.

In an informal chat with The Tribune here today, Sidhu said he would open a floater account of his entire savings and the interest accrued thereon would be used for eradicating various problems plaguing Amritsar.

“I want moré green cover here. So planting more trees tops my agenda. Also the money would be used for setting up de-addiction centres. Some amount would be be handed over to the deputy commissioner and the SSP for different projects,” said Sidhu, adding that it had been his dream for many years to dedicate whatever he had earned to the people of the holy city who had showered love and affection on him.

The MP said he had worked out a planned project to sustain the green movement. The former cricketer also has plans to organise a green brigade consisting of ex-army men who would be trained in looking after the green lungs. He said he would seek support of various NGOs and corporate houses for the project.

Perturbed over the alarming pollution level in and around the Golden Temple, Sidhu said trees had been felled to construct multiplexes and housing colonies which had sprung up like mushrooms.

He said there was an urgent need to fight the menace of drugs, especially in the border areas. “The youth are sinking deep into the morass. We have to enlighten them,” he said, adding that de-addiction centres would come up to help youth give up the fatal habit.

Sidhu said he was still working on different options to make his vision of setting up a special economic zone (SEZ) here a reality. Sidhu said he had invited Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal for a two-day visit to Amritsar to give him an overview of the present situation. A number of interactive sessions would also be organised with the industry, trade and various NGOs.

Jalandhar, May 2
In a massive drive, spread across four districts of Doaba region, the Punjab police arrested nabbed 149 persons on charges of betting.

In a press release issued here on Wednesday, SSP Arpit Shukla said the accused were caught during a special operation launched on the directions of Jalandhar Zone IG Sanjiv Kalra and Jalandhar range DIG Narinder Pal Singh.

The drive was carried out simultaneously in Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Nawanshahr.

For the supervision of operation in Jalandhar district SP (traffic and security) Rakesh Kaushal was deputed.

As many as 49 computers, 44 mobile phones and Rs 2, 24,850 were recovered from the accused. A total of 129 FIRs under relevant sections of gambling and lottery Act have been registered against the accused at police stations concerned.

Highest number of accused, 92, have been nabbed in Jalandhar, followed by 30 in Hoshiarpur, 17 in Kapurthala and 10 in Nawanshahr during the campaign.

The interrogation of those nabbed was on and more revelations were expected, the press note added.

Hoshiarpur, May 2
As if constantly rising temperature was not enough to haunt the Hoshiarpur residents, they are now facing the brunt of unscheduled power cuts.

On account of complete failure of power supply, city inhabitants spent restless last night. The power supply which remained suspended from 11:30 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. caused great inconvenience. The restored power supply was again discontinued after 30 minutes.

Mosquito bites added fuel to the fire.

Residents alleged that even as the unscheduled power cuts had made their lives miserable, no thought was being spared to streamline the power supply. Repeated representations to the board had fallen on deaf ears.

In fact, the telephone number of complaint centre at local Civil Line area is out of order. There was no one to tell when the power is switched on or off by the PSEB staff.

Harbhajan Lal, additional chief engineer of PSEB, Hoshiarpur Circle, told that the root cause of the power problem was failure of 132 KW sub-station Hoshiarpur. The heavy load had damaged its current passing transformer and other equipments.

He said its damage had not only affected the local supply but also of the adjoining sub-stations of Atowal, Nasrala and Shamchaurasi. Presently the intermittent supply to city was being given from the sub-stations of Nasrala, Shamchaurasi, Sadhu Ashram and Hariana.

But due to heavy load, supply from different feeders was being discontinued, he added.

He appealed to the people to only utilise power according to their necessity. He assured that repair of damaged equipments would soon be done and the normal supply would be made available accordingly.

Jalandhar, May 2
Surinder Kaur of Santokh Pura locality is fed up with the ‘dilly- dallying techniques’ of labour department.

From the last two years, she has been running from pillar to post to get the gratuity of her late husband Joginder Singh. But all her requests have fallen on deaf ears.

Kaur claimed that she has been making rounds of the office of labour conciliation officer (LCO) Inderjeet Singh, in connection with her complaint against Central Mill Store, but every time she gets a new date of hearing. And she’s not alone.

Ganita Devi of Basti Bawa Khel and Shauki Ram of Aadmpur claim they have been also suffering on account of `callous attitude’ of officials.

According to sources, there are more than 100 complaints pending before the three LCOs - Inderjeet Singh, Varinder Jaswal and Gora Lal Garg.

Talking to The Tribune, president of bar association (Labour Court) Ravi Wadhawan alleged that LCOs were deliberately ignoring the interests of labourers to benefit the factory owners.

Wadhawan said only five percent of the total complaints have been conciliated by LCOs.

“Therefore, the affected have no option but to knock doors of labour courts to get justice. As a result, we have more than 3,500 cases pending in Jalandhar labour courts”, he claimed.

He said under the Industrial Disputes Act it was mandatory for the labourers to submit complaints before LCOs before filing cases in labour courts.

The labour court bar body chief further said the LCOs, in most of the cases, did not even call factory-owners during hearing of the complaints.

When contacted, assistant labour commissioner Inderjeet Singh denied that interests of the labourers were being ignored.

He claimed that around 50 per cent of total complaints filed before LCOs were settled positively.

Jalandhar, May 2
Centurion Bank of Punjab today launched elite savings accounts to cater to the needs of high net worth individuals and businessmen.

Giving details of the new multi-featured retail product, Puneet Handa, manager priority banking, said that the account would allow the customer to take Rs 1 lakh cash withdrawal from ATM per day, Rs 1 lakh cash withdrawal and deposit at any branch of the bank, no charges on transactions on other bank ATMs, free alerts, free demand drafts, free cheque collection, free fund transfers, personalised cheque book, housing loan, personal loan and credit card.

Zonal head of the bank, Jasmeet Singh, said that the elite account would be opened for all those customers who maintained Rs 1 lakh balance in their account or took Rs 40 lakh housing loan or availed Rs 5 lakh personal loan or got an insurance for Rs 50,000 or took mutual funds from the bank to the tune of Rs 5 lakh.

He said that any one availing any one of these options would also get a relationship manager attached for his personal banking needs to assist him at every step and ensure a privileged treatment for him.