Chandigarh, May 20
‘Export’ of "reconditioned" trucks to Bangladesh from India has virtually stopped after the busting of five gangs of truck snatchers by the Haryana police recently.

The "reconditioned" truck was the name given to stolen trucks to dupe the customs authorities by certain exporters in Kolkata.

After months-long investigations, the police of Gurgaon, Faridabad, Mewat and Palwal (Faridabad rural) districts identified a nexus between truck snatchers and exporters. These gangs were based in Mewat.

According to IG, Gurgaon range, Mohinder Lal, 451 trucks were taken away in the past five years.

The trucks used to be taken to Agra and Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, where their identity marks were changed. From there, the trucks were taken to Kolkata where they used to be parked in Dunkuni, a suburb of Howrah district. Dunkuni has large parking areas for trucks taking goods to Bangladesh from the Petropol land port.

Once the deal was struck with the exporters, the snatchers would get the necessary documents prepared for exporting the trucks to Bangladesh. A team of the Haryana police, which had camped in Kolkata for over a month, found that in the past two years about 1,100 such trucks had been exported to Bangladesh. A team is still camping in West Bengal to collect more details.

The police has arrested certain exporters and their employees, along with members of the gangs.

Mohinder Lal says now the police is trying to find out if any driver was killed also by these gang members. 

Rohtak, May 20
Incidents of crime, including murders, thefts, burglaries, looting and cash-snatching, are on the rise in Rohtak, which happens to be the hometown of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

An atmosphere of insecurity prevailing in the town as such incidents have become the order of the day. The recent upswing in the crime graph has exposed the hollow claims of the police.

Jaipal, a resident of Makrauli Kalan village in the district, was shot dead by unidentified assailants near the railway station of his village on Friday. Jaipal was employed at the Panipat thermal power plant. He was shot on the way to the railway station reportedly by two motorcycle-borne youths.

Only two days ago, a gang of thieves entered a house in the Uttam Vihar locality. Armed with pistols, they shot a boy and fled the scene. He was the only son of his parents.

While the local residents were recovering from the shocking theft-cum-murder incident, several houses of Bharat Colony were burgled during the same night.

Recently, a night watchman was murdered in the Housing Board Colony. A few weeks prior to that, a schoolteacher was murdered at her house by some burglars.

Thefts, burglaries and looting incidents have become so common that barely a day passes without such crimes being reported in the district.

Former minister and BJP leader Krishan Murti Hooda has alleged that the law and order situation in the town was deplorable and a virtual “jungle raj” was prevailing.

Stating that the Chief Minister’s hometown was fast becoming a safe haven for criminals, he even alleged that most of them enjoyed political patronage.

However, the recent upsurge in various incidents are, perhaps, not enough to wake up the police authorities from their deep slumber. Their complacent attitude can be gauged from the fact that at a recent press conference, superintendent of police C.S.Rao claimed that the police had solved “quite a few” cases of crime registered in the recent past.

Hisar, May 20
Even as the Bhajan Lal camp in the Haryana Congress is engaged in engineering resignations from the party, the former Chief Minister’s man Ramji Lal, former Rajya Sabha member, will hold a function here tomorrow to pay homage to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Ramji Lal has issued a signed statement, saying that he would chair the meeting. He has appealed to party workers to be present on the occasion.

The move has surprised supporters of Bhajan Lal and his son Kuldeep Bishnoi, who was suspended recently from the Congress for his stinging criticism of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and lately party president Sonia Gandhi.

Ramji Lal is currently president of the rural wing of the Hisar district unit of the Congress. He has been Bhajan Lal’s closest friend for over six decades. He was sent to the Rajya Sabha as the Congress nominee during the heydays of Bhajan Lal for his unflinching loyalty to his mentor.

It can, therefore, be safely assumed that tomorrow’s function has the tacit approval of the former Chief Minister and his son.

Significantly, Ramji Lal had been politically inactive ever since Bhajan Lal and his son gave the first signs of rebellion against the Congress leadership. His association with the local Congress office since then has been limited to visiting the office every few days for a few minutes. Like his mentor, he had not been attending any major political functions held here during the past two years.

Political circles here say Ramji Lal’s volte face indicates that the Bhajan Lal camp wants to stall possible replacement of Ramji Lal as president of the district unit of the party till such time as the former Chief Minister’s new party comes into being.

According to sources, the Hooda camp is planning a reshuffle in the district unit of the party to get rid of Bhajan camp followers and Ramji Lal figures at the top of their list. During the past few days, there were reports that Jai Parkash, MP, had even suggested a few names as possible successors to Ramji Lal.

They said when the spate of resignations began, everyone expected that Ramji Lal would be the first to quit being Bhajan Lal’s closest political aide.

However, it soon became clear that the Bhajan Lal camp had other political plans in which it was imperative that he continues on his present post.

Sources said the function would surely help the former Rajya Sabha member as his removal at this juncture would lead to the criticism that he was removed for holding a function to pay homage to Rajiv Gandhi.

The sources said Ramji Lal’s move could also be an attempt to show that while the Hooda supporters in the district were a divided lot, the Bhajan camp stood united.

Chandigarh, May 20
Farmers desirous of making money can learn a lot form Karnal farmer, Mohinder Singh who has managed to integrated fish farming with agriculture and aquaculture and has earned a whooping Rs 10 lakh from a land holding of only five acres and another three village ponds, leased to him.

Only 35, Mohinder Singh has harvested 500 quintals of fish in an area of 7.5 acres of the three ponds to get an income of Rs 4.75 lakh per year. First farmer in Haryana to breed and rear fingerlings in ponds of Singhara fish, he has also successfully bred snake headed fish in pond condition in Haryana State.

He had taken to agriculture over a small piece of land of about two acres in his village Indergarh, but it was with the motivation of the staff of the Haryana Fisheries Department that he got training from Fish Farmers Development Agency, Karnal, in 1996-97 and started fish farming by taking village pond on lease the same year.

Interestingly, he got a good crop of five tonnes of fish in that year. Encouraged by his success, he took more village ponds on lease. Today, he has a fish culture crop in 7.5 acres village ponds and harvests 500 quintals from these ponds and earns Rs 4.75 lakh per year.

During 2005-06, he got new ponds dug in his own land of two acres and started polyculture (fish cum prawn culture) with the assistance of the Fisheries Department. He harvested 186 kg prawn and 2350 kg fish which yielded an income of Rs 1.25 lakh.

He was also a government contractor of notified waters of Karnal district for two year. The Fisheries Department motivated him for the diversification of traditional fish culture to high value cat fish culture like 'Singhara' and 'Sol'.

This variety of fish is very popular in the region due to less bones and high nutritious value. The rate of these cat fish in the market is more than Rs 150 per kg whereas the traditional carps that is Rohu, Mirgal and Catla is priced between Rs 30 and Rs 40 per kg.

He collected a good number of brood stocks of Mystus aor (Singhara) and Channa striatus (Sol) from river Yamuna and reared them at his own farm. Last year, he bred Singhara fish and produced 13000 fingerlings. He sold these fingerlings to other farmers and earned Rs 1 lakh.

Likewise during the current financial year, in addition to breeding of Singhara fish, he also bred snake headed fish that is Channa Striatus (Sol) during April, 2007. He is having more than 50,000 fingerlings of this species. This is the first time in the country when a farmer of Haryana State bred snake headed fish in pond condition.

In addition to these diversified activities, he is also doing the traditional agriculture in five acres of parental land and produces paddy, vegetables, garlic and onion worth Rs 1 lakh per year.

Mohinder Singh also got a number of awards in fish seed production, fish production and prawn production at state level. He is a source of inspiration for the rural youth. The Haryana government has approved an outlay of about Rs 90 crore for promoting fisheries during the 11th Five Year Plan period beginning this year.

Kaithal, May 20
In spite of tall claims made by the state government to provide good health services to the people, lack of coordination among various wings of the government has added to the woes of the patients.

Though the emergency ward of the civil hospital is upgraded, good services remain a dream for a number of patients.

The hospital has no radiologist for the past about one and a half years as a result of which an ultra-sound machine, purchased a few months ago, has been lying unused.

The patients have to rush to private ultra-sound centres for tests that cost them dear. The private hospital charge between Rs 350 to Rs 500 for tests as compared to Rs 100 at the civil hospital.

During a recent visit to this hospital, the doctors told this reporter that this matter had been brought to the notice of the authorities.

Similarly, no pathalogist has been posted and the tests are being conducted and reports prepared by laboratory technicians. The post of ENT specialist has also been lying vacant since long and the patients have to take the treatment from private doctors which is costlier.

Even the hospital needs a generator to maintain round the clock electric supply. The authorities have provided a small generator which caters to the needs of operation theatre only.

A number of times, the doctors have to appear as witnesses in courts in medico-legal cases. In such a situation the doctors are not available to the patients. On many occasions, patients coming from far-off places have to return without medical advice.

Similarly, a generator purchased at a cost of lakh of rupees for community health centre, Kalayat, 25 km from here, has not been installed. Due to non-installation of this generator, the patients coming to this hospital and staff remain deprived of power supply during power failure and cuts.

As the doctors find it difficult to perform family planning and other emergency operations during power cuts, the people raised a hue and cry following which at the intervention of MLA Geeta Bhukkal, the authorities had sent a generator.

It is learnt that the firm which had supplied this generator has not installed it.

The patients, their attendants and the hospital staff continue to face great inconvenience in the prevailing situation.