(Daadu) Sirsa, June 11
High tension prevailed in the Daadu village, about 45 km from here, following a conflict between dera followers and Sikhs over the decision of the dera to organise a satsang. Nihangs from different areas gathered at Shri Guru Granth Sahib Gurdwara led by its head Baba Baljit Singh while the dera followers assembled in large numbers in the village. Baba Baljit Singh is believed to be a strong critic of the dera chief in the region.

The situation seemed to turn serious when raising pro-Khalistan slogans a group of Nihangs from other places managed to reach the gurdwara through other routes. They asked the Nihangs to move towards the venue where the dera followers had gathered.

Two companies of the Border Security Force (BSF), besides a large number of Haryana Armed Forces (HAF) were deployed in the village to maintain law and order. The forces were also deployed on the border areas of Mansa and Bathinda to prevent the hardliners from entering the area. Senior officials, IG YP Singla, deputy commissioner V. Umashankar and SP Vikas Arora held a series of meetings with both the groups to maintain peace.

A major controversy had surfaced after the dera announced holding a ‘naam charcha’ to be held in the village.

Even yesterday the dera followers who reached the Dera Sacha Sauda to attend Sunday satsang were asked to attend ‘naam charcha’ at Daadu village. Over 10,000 followers reportedly were served ‘ruhani jam’ here yesterday.

In order to reduce tension, the officials after holding meetings with representatives of both the groups had found some amicable solution. It was decided that the dera followers will organise religious discourse at their house and that only followers from the village will remain there and it will be held at 11 am instead of 6 am as announced earlier.

But the situation worsened at about 10 am when Nihangs began converging outside the gurdwara to prevent dera followers to hold a religious discourse. The DC, IG and SP again called up the representatives of both groups and convinced them to maintain calm. Thereafter, only 10 to 15 dera followers of the village held satsang at the residence of Bachitter Singh.

While talking to The Tribune Baba Baljit Singh said that he had no objection if the dera followers held some religious discourse at their house only but if a big gathering was called it would create disturbance in the village. On the other hand Bachitter Singh said that they had been holding religious discourse at their home and had no intention to hurt the feelings of anyone.

Till the filling of the report, the situation was under control but tense.

“Now both the groups are clam. The situation is normal in the Daadu village and we have deployed enough security personnel to maintain law and order,” said the deputy commissioner, V.Umashankar, to The Tribune.

Chandigarh, June 11
Transfer of technology to the farms and its adoption by farmers has received a tremendous boost in Haryana with the introduction of modified Micro-Management Mode (MMM) scheme of Agricultural Mechanisation. MMM provides for subsidies and other benefits to farmers for farm mechanisation.

MMM was a failure initially as farmers viewed it with scepticism due to the cumbersome procedures that were required to be followed to avail benefits for mechanisation of farms. But reports from different parts of the State now suggest otherwise. Things improved after changes were made in the MMM, keeping in mind the practical difficulties to the farmers in 2006-07. This has led to the tremendous rise in adoption rate for this scheme among farmers.

A study conducted by the Department of Agriculture in Sirsa district shows that the farmers have benefited by the use of technology by making farming less intense and more profitable. The 1.26 lakh odd farming families in Sirsa district were initially opposed to the idea of mechanisation of their farms and in 2005-2006 MMM scheme was a failure. Only 15 “zero till machines” and 20 Rotavators could be sold to the farmers as against the target of 40 and 35. The year 2006-2007 saw a sale of 16 Rotavators and 9 zero till machines.

Despite incentives and benefits only 13 tractor mounted spray pumps were sold. There was no widespread breakthrough despite the fact that many farmers wanted to experiment with modern technology on their farms. But they found procedure to avail subsidies too cumbersome, besides the rules and regulations gave them an impression that they were being cheated by both the manufacturer and the government.

But having identified the cause of low purchases despite lucrative subsidies, the Department of Agriculture opted to address the issue.

Just one little change has made Haryana farms more mechanised. The last few months have seen the sale of 217 straw reapers, 110 cotton seed drill and 102 tractor mounted spray pumps, indicating a sudden spurt in buying because of the small change.

The study indicates that more and more farmers are now going in for farm mechanisation under the MMM scheme. They are willing to adopt new technologies. “We have realised that the farmer needs to be assured that he will be purchasing not only a quality assured product but also the sole beneficiary of the subsidy that has been offered to him by the government”, a department official said.

Rohtak, June 11
The Maharishi Dayanand University (MDU) administration set a record of sorts by declaring the results of state-level PMT for admission to MBBS/BDS/BAMS courses held on June 10 within 10 hours. The PMT result is available on the university website www.mdurohtak.com.

MDU had conducted the state-level entrance examination-2007 at 46 examination centres in Rohtak from 2-5 pm on June 10. It declared the results at 
3 am today.

Neeraj Bajia of Hisar (roll no.207103) has topped the PMT by securing 690 out of 720 marks.

Talking to The Tribune, MDU V-C Prof R.S. Dhankar said the university had created history by conducting the PMT in a fair and smooth manner for the fourth time in a row.

The results of the examination were also declared in record time, the V-C said, adding that there had been no litigations regarding the matter.

He asserted that this had been possible due to collective efforts of the MDU administrative machinery and support of the district administration and police authorities.

Professor Dhankar said 10,325 candidates had appeared in the examination.

Hisar, June 11
The Haryana Power Utilities is purchasing electricity from all available sources, including Delhi, to ensure maximum possible availability to all categories of consumers, an official spokesman said here today.

Haryana, he said, was getting 100 MW daily from Delhi from 3 a.m. onwards for six hours. Besides, arrangements had been made to procure power from West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, the Calcutta Electricity Supply Company and Maharashtra. Together these sources accounted for about 80 to 90 lakh units daily.

The State had a shortfall of 40 to 50 lakh units from the hydel projects as snow had not started melting before the first week of June. Now with the rise in temperature snow had started melting and generation by hydro power stations had picked up. The state was likely to get its full share form various hydro projects soon.

He said acute heat wave conditions had led to a sudden increase in demand during the past 48 hours. However, all efforts were being made to stick to the schedule of supply already announced.

The official said about 70 to 80 lakh units were being drawn over and above Haryana’s quota from the northern grid. However, unscheduled cuts in supply had to be imposed when the system became overloaded.

He said the utilities had supplied 13.68 per cent more power to the consumers during first nine days of the current month compared to power supplied during the same period in 2005.

Fatehabad, June 11
One of the three children who had taken ill due to anti-measles vaccine on June 7 died today at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Rohtak.

Kalpana (10 months), a daughter of Lila Ram of Dehman village in this district, died at Rohtak today after struggling for life for four days.

The health authorities, which had earlier refused admission to the children at the community health centre, Bhuna, or general hospital, Fatehabad, on flimsy grounds, behaved quite indifferently with the poor parents of the children.

Three children had taken seriously ill after they were administered anti-measles vaccine at an anganwadi centre of Dehman village in this district on June 7.

The vaccine had an expiry date of June, 2007.

Parents had rushed the ailing children to the community health centre for treatment, but the doctor on duty refused to admit them. He told the parents to shift the children to PGIMER, Rohtak, but the poor parents expressed their helplessness and took the children to back their village.

After the matter was reported in the media, the civil surgeon J K Bishnoi deputed district health officer Naresh Goyal to get the children treated.

Goyal, according to the civil surgeon, got the children examined by a local pediatrician, but the children were still not admitted to the local general hospital.

Bishnoi maintained that the children were fine and were progressing well.

But, the claims of the health authorities proved false as the condition of two kids worsened by the night.

The parents rushed the children to the health authorities here, but they did not admit them on the plea that they did not have the services of pediatrician. The authorities even did not care to arrange an ambulance for the children.

Parents then took their children to Rohtak in a roadways bus where Kalapana died today.

Chandigarh, June 11
The member-secretary, Haryana State Legal Services Authority (HALSA), has informed that lok adalats were held on Saturday in Kaithal, Guhla and Dabwali.

In these lok adalats, 179 cases were settled. These included four MACT cases pertaining to death or injury arising out of vehicular accidents wherein amount of Rs 4,15,000 was awarded as compensation.

As many as 175 cases pertaining to other categories i.e. civil and petty criminal and bank loan cases were also settled. The member-secretary also informed that rural lok adalat would be held on June 16, 2007, at Sajuma village in Kaithal district.

Chandigarh, June 11
The Haryana Financial Corporation (HFC) has registered a net profit of Rs 6.37 crore and an operational profit of Rs 3.27 crore during the fiscal year 2006-07.

Disclosing this after the 308th meeting of the board of directors of the corporation here today, HFC chairman M.L. Tayal said a target had been fixed to sanction term loans amounting to Rs 225 crore during 2007-08.

Tayal, who is also principal secretary to the CM, said HFC earned a net profit despite the fact that it had to make additional provisions of Rs 14.04 crore during the year on account of the new provisioning norms of the SIDBI. The NPAs of the corporation had been brought down from 75 per cent at the end of 2005-06 to 64 per cent at the end of financial year 2006-07.

The corporation was on the path to recovery as a result of introduction of several structural reforms, including reduction in cost of borrowings, he added. It has also launched one-time settlement schemes and settled 574 loan accounts pertaining to 419 units during 2005-06 and 212 loan accounts pertaining to 151 units during the year 2006-07.

He said open houses were organised during the year for direct interface with potential entrepreneurs for on-the-spot and time-bound clearances of loan proposals.

Risk mapping of potential entrepreneurs was undertaken and credit risk mitigation was ensured by restricting financing to projects involving HSIIDC and HUDA only.

Risk finance schemes such as lease finance, working capital loans and merchant banking were abandoned. Schemes like equipment re-finance scheme were introduced. The disbursement procedure was simplified and speedier processing was ensured.

As a result of faster clearances and competitive rates of interest offered, HFC was able to sanction a total amount of Rs 248 crore as loan during 2005-06 and 2006-07, he said.