Gurgaon, June 2
A "Mahapanchayat" of Gujjar community here today served ultimatum to the Centre to dismiss the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan in two days time, failing which its members from Haryana and other parts of the country would march over to Rajasthan to intensify the ongoing reservation related agitation.

The participants, after the Mahapanchayat held at Devi Lal Stadium, marched in a procession to the camp office of the Deputy Commissioner, Gurgaon, and submitted a memorandum, which, inter alia, incorporated the ultimatum related demand. Before handing over the memorandum they burnt an effigy of the Chief Minister of Rajasthan at Devi Lal Stadium, Rajiv Chowk and outside the camp office of the Deputy Commissioner, Gurgaon.

The resolution simultaneously demanded the BJP central leadership to change the Chief Minister of its government in Rajasthan within two days. According to many, this double-pronged demand, one to the President, Dr A.P.J.Abdul Kalam for dismissal of the state government and the other demanding of the BJP leadership to replace the Chief Minister gave mixed signal from the Gujjars, politically. However, there is a common denominator to the two demands: the community has for the moment developed deep antagonism towards the Chief Minister. Significantly, non-Gujjar leaders from almost all political parties also took part in the Mahapanchayat. They include Congress leader and MLA from Gurgaon assembly segment, Dharamvir Gaub, Independent MLA from Narnaul, Radhey Shyam Sharma, Congress leader, Khazan Singh, district BJP president, Tejpal Tanwar, Satbir

Pehalwal of the INLD and the former President of Sohan Municipality, Mohan Lal Saini.

The main person behind the show was the Independent MLA from Sohan Assembly segment, Sukvir Jaunapuria who belongs to the community. Speaking on the occasion, Jaunapuria lamented that instead of the BJP government in Rajasthan honouring the party's poll promise to give reservation cover to Gujjars, chose police firing while they were on a democratic and non-violent agitation on the issue. He also urged the community members not indulge in violence and damage of public property.

Dharamvir Gauba, Khazan Singh and other speakers also urged the members of Gujjar community to follow the ideal of Satayraha and non-violent struggle as propounded by Mahatma Gandhi.

The leaders also stressed that the matter pertained to the Rajasthan Government and efforts should be made to concentrate agitation in Rajasthan.

There was no report of violence or blockade of roads in Gurgaon. However, the administration and the police continue to remain on high alert. Heavy deployment of police continued today at various places, including the Gujjar-dominated areas of the district.

Chandigarh, June 2
Panic has gripped the people of Haryana, who have their establishments along National Highways no 1, 1-A, 8 and 10 and other scheduled roads in the state following a directive from the Town and Country Planning Department to the district administration to demolish all unauthorised constructions along these roads.

The directive was issued in pursuance of the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in a civil writ petition asking Haryana and Punjab to furnish details of unauthorised constructions along these roads.

The department directed the district administration to immediately chalk out a programme to demolish the constructions.

A large delegation led by Congress MLAs of Panipat and Karnal, Balbir Pal Shah and Sumita Singh, respectively, met Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda here this evening and requested him to take necessary legal and administrative measures to protect the livelihood of thousands of persons, many of whom had set up their establishments along these roads much before the relevant law was enacted.

President of the Panipat Exporters Association Ram Niwas Gupta and its member Vijay Aggarwal said if the proposed demolitions were carried out, it would cause a financial loss of crores of rupees to the people as well as the state exchequer. Even the banks would tend to lose crores of rupees because the industries, which would be demolished, would not be able to repay the loans. The demolitions would also result in unemployment on a large scale.

President of the Haryana Commerce and Industries Welfare Association Ram Kumar Kalyan said the Haryana Government should evolve a common policy to provide relief to all affected persons just as the Delhi Government had amended its master plan. He said a cut-off date should be fixed after which no unauthorised construction should be allowed.

An advocate of Panipat Pradeep Sharma said Himachal Pradesh had amended its Act of 1978 to save hundreds of those people who had constructed hotels and industrial units in contravention of law. Similarly, Punjab had repealed the Punjab Scheduled Roads and Controlled Areas Restriction of the Unregulated Development Act, 1963, under similar circumstances.

Chief Minister Hooda has directed his additional principal secretary Chhatar Singh to hold another meeting with members of the delegation on June 5 to find out a legal tenable solution.

Sirsa, June 2
Although the security for Dera Sacha Sauda chief Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has been increased following a threat to his life, the district police has not received any information about the threat from Jammu and Kashmir militants organisation as claimed by a section of the media, said the police.

The situation has been aggravated as the dera has been receiving hatred emails after the conflict between dera followers and Sikhs. Besides it, pamphlets issuing warning to the dera chief were also distributed in some of the villages of the district. The police fears threat at the dera from hardliners and miscreants, who want to create disturbance.

The police said to maintain proper security arrangements, 15 police personnel, including 10 commandos of the Haryana police, have been deployed inside the dera for the security of the chief. Thorough checking of the visitors and the vehicles entering in the dera is being done, as thousands of followers everyday attend the morning and evening satsang being addressed here by the dera chief.

Besides it, security personnel have been deployed on all roads leading to dera.

Jhajjar, June 2
The Health Department swung into action to prevent the outbreak of diarrhoea after the disease claimed three lives in Dadri Toe village of the district. Three persons, including Phool Singh (45), Mando Devi (55) and 8-year-old child Harish, died of the disease two days ago while many others were admitted after suffering from the water borne disease.

The chief medical officer Dr O.P. Hooda, however, said the situation was under control as a team of two doctors, three ANMs and a multi-purpose health worker were sent to the village after reports of the disease.

The CMO said about 226 persons were checked in the OPD at the sub-centre in the village today of which 41 were found affected with the symptoms of diarrhoea, while 5 persons were referred at the Civil Hospital for the treatment.

The villagers said polluted water was being supplied due to a leakage in the pipelines of the health department for some time, which have caused the outbreak of the disease.

The villagers had complained to the health department about the leakage after which the repair work was started. District officials said the leaking pipeline had been blocked and the people were informed about it.

Senior district officials, including the deputy commissioner and the CMO will visit the village tomorrow, where they will interact with the villagers at a gram sabha. The villagers were being made aware about the preventive measures against the disease, the CMO said.

Kalnawali (Sirsa), June 2
Drugs have ruined the lives of several families of farmers here. Many farmers are left with no assets as they had sold a major chunk of their land to finance their habit.

Farmers are looking at de-addiction as the cost of poppy husk and opium has increased.

Over 1200 addicts have already visited the de-addiction centre in Kalnwali, but success rate is said to be nearly 60 per cent.

“I was just 15-year-old when I started taking poppy husk. Now I am not able to move properly and have lost everything. I have sold 9 acres of agricultural land out of 11 to finance my drug addiction,” said a farmer, Banshi Singh, (49) of Badura village.

Thana Singh (52) of Jagmalwali village decided to quit drugs, as he is no more able to finance his habit. “I have been consuming drugs for the past 22 years. I consume 3 kg of poppy husk every month, which is available for Rs 1300-2500 per kg,” revealed Thana Singh.

A visit to the only de-addiction centre at Kalanwali revealed that there is a need to provide medicines and the right environment for de-addiction. Many people are not interested to come here as the centre lacks proper facility.

All addicts stay in one congested room and have to make arrangement of their meal themselves. Many addicts, who came for the treatment, left the centre after seeing the miserable surroundings.

Panchkula, June 2
The Hayana Urban Development Authority will soon bring relief to allottees across the state. Information of all plots will shortly be just a click away for the allottees wanting to check the status of their pending payments, their applications et al, courtesy an ambitious computerisation programme.

Already in place for 14 sectors of Panchkula, the new programme is aimed at reducing inconvenience to the allottees by way of repeated visits to the HUDA office.

Under the programme, each allottee will get a unique login and password to access all information pertaining to a plot. “The allottee will be able to see his payment details, the status of his application and other details. The whole purpose of the mammoth exercise is to ensure that allottees are not inconvenienced to make rounds of assistants or officers just because they are away for court cases or busy with officers,” says HUDA Chief Administrator TC Gupta.

An applications for completion certificates, conveyance deeds and the like, submitted to HUDA will also be entered into the especially designed software. The applicant will get a printout stating the nature of his query and the tentative time within which it will be dealt with.

Also, in case an application is incomplete, it will be rejected on the spot.

“We are moving towards complete transparency and efficiency. Though the project began with Panchkula and information of plots in 14 sectors is already available, information of the entire 30,000 plots will be online by June 10. Meanwhile, given the benefits accruing to the public, we have decided to extend this programme to all 2.75 lakh allottees in 27 urban estates under us. This will be ready for a rollout within the next six months though property details will be in place in about four months,” Gupta explained.

At the HUDA office, employees of two banks are working late into the night studying files and verifying data pertaining to all HUDA property before punching it into the computer.

Ambala, June 2
Three persons were nabbed for carrying CSD goods in the Lal Kurti area yesterday.

Acting on a tip-off, three persons were nabbed when they were carrying the goods towards Ambala Cantt railway station. Gaurav, Amit and Prince were taking the CSD goods to Saharanpur.

They had bought the goods from a shop in the Lal Kurti area.