Amritsar, June 12
Punjab government has sought help of international experts for restoration and preservation of heritage sites in the holy city.

Unveiling the government’s ambitious tourism plan, principal secretary tourism and cultural affairs, Geetika Kalha said renowned experts would give valuable tips to administration regarding the renovation work of historical sites to attract the tourist inflow.

Giving further details, Kalha said the government plans to develop sites related to the legendary king of Punjab, Maharaja Ranjit Singh. These places include, Pul Kanjri on the Indo-Pak border, Serai Amanat Khan, samadh of Sham Singh Atariwala and Wagah border. She said the proposed outlay of Rs 150 crore would be spent on developing the city as a major tourist hub of northern India.

Regarding restoration of Gobindgarh Fort, which had been occupied by the Army for several years, Kalha said the Centrr had provided a special grant of Rs 10 crore for it. The fort houses treasure trove of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. It was once also home to British general O’Dyer, notorious for Jallianwala Bagh massacre. The funds would be utilised for upkeep of the infrastructure, especially the interiors, which are in shambles, said the principal secretary.

A major makeover also awaits historic Ram Bagh gardens --- associated with Maharaja Ranjit Singh --- which have remained neglected due to lack of funds. “A comprehensive design plan would be prepared for the maintenance work. Also special care would be taken to maintain the green cover,” she said, adding that the government is yet to take decision regarding the eviction of three social clubs. The law would take its own course as the case is pending in the court., she further said. Minister for tourism Heera Singh Gabria said the state government proposes to launch luxury tourist train on the pattern of ‘Palace on Wheels’.

He said the train would showcase rich Punjabi culture and folk traditions. Also traditional Punjabi food would be served to tourists on board.

Amritsar, June 12
Punjab Local Bodies Department is soon going to launch City Bus Service in Amritsar. The service will be launched in Public Private partnership. The department has chalked out a comprehensive plan to introduce the scheme.

Disclosing this D.S. Bains, principal secretary Local Government said he held detailed discussions with the Commissioner, Municipal Corporation, in this regard. He asked the commissioner to identify land for a bus depot and parking areas. To avoid inconvenience to the passengers who are stranded at bus stands a GPS satellite system would also be introduced, which would provide information to the passengers regarding the location of the buses.

Bains suggested that land for establishing bus depot should be centrally located with parking in the basement and the structure may be used for commercial purposes.

On this, the commissioner suggested that the land between Majitha and Verka road would be ideal for constructing 
bus depot. Husan Lal, commissioner, Municipal Commissioner, informed that land measuring 2.5 acres outside the walled city could be used for construction of bus depot. Principal secretary, Local Government, said Municipal commissioner, would finalise the land before 20th June.

The Principal secretary said the idea of the City Bus Service was conceived by Vivek Aggarwal, collector of Indore.

He briefed on the successful running of buses in Indore city to the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. He explained the scheme in detail to the Punjab chief secretary, Ramesh Inder Singh, and other senior officers concerned. He deputed commissioner to meet Pachouri, chairman, Tata Energy Research Institute, (TERI) to make an assessment of the transport system within the walled city of Amritsar. Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (IL&FS) would float tenders for ticketing, passes, bus stand, GPS satellite system, passenger information system and advertisements. He said the IL&FS would also walk into the construction of model bus stops at various places in the city.

Amritsar, June 12
Member parliament, Navjot Singh Sidhu, strongly favoured the selection of Ravi Shastri as a team management expert and coach today. Former Cricketer turned commentator and politician while talking to the tribune said he had played a lot of cricket with Ravi Shastri who is presently working as manager of the Indian cricket team. He said Shastri was endowed with shrewd cricketing brain and enjoys the ability of a good cricketing manager. He said he should be given the responsibility to fine tune the Indian cricket team with his man management concepts.

He said the present Indian team required a good counsellor and not a coach and Shastri has the capacity to fit in the bill. He said a foreign coach can never gel with the Indian mindset and everyone has seen the fiasco leading to the ouster of the great Australian cricketer Greg Chappell. He said the Indian board have to be more proactive in dealing with the cricketing matters. Coming down heavily on the present selection process based on regional representations Sidhu said the board should adopt national approach while selecting team India and scrap the system of regional appointees on the national selection committee. He said India has a rich reservoir of talent among the youngsters at the school and college levels and they required to be nursed through the national hunt scheme to give them international exposure to groom them for selections in the national team.

Sidhu feels the present domestic cricket season was in total disarray and required the game to be uplifted so that best talent gets the opportunity to play the seniors in the rearranged domestic format. He felt a strong need for building fast and bouncy pitches so that youngsters get exposure for playing on fast tracks to produce quality players.

Decreeing the mindset of the BCCI for going for a foreign coach he said coaches have very limited role to play in the international cricket arena. It is a skippers game alone and he has to marshall the team’s resources on the field. 

Amritsar, June 12
Teachers should keep their knowledge on economic developments at the national and international levels updated and duly share it with their students so as to make the subject more meaningful and interesting.

Prof B.B. Bhattacharya, president, Economic Association, and the vice-chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, stated this while inaugurating a three-week refresher course for teachers of economics of various colleges and universities in the country at Guru Nanak Dev University.

The refresher course is being organised by the Punjab School of Economics of the university under the aegis of its Academic Staff College here. More than 35 teachers are participating in the course.

Prof Bhattacharya observed that economics needed to be a positive subject for achieving knowledge and the knowledge gained needed to be adequately applied to get specific answers to the practical economic problems. He said the subject matter would become more meaningful and interesting if real-life data was encountered with theory with the help of suitable mathematical and statistical techniques. Participating in such high-level refresher courses would surely help them in achieving academic excellence, he added..

Course coordinator Prof Amarjit Singh Sethi, while giving detailed outline on the theme of the refresher course, spoke on “Applied economics with special reference to the Indian economy”.

According to him, some of the critical areas needing immediate attention of applied economists are rural infrastructure, education, health, unemployment and poverty, and environmental and ecological imbalances.

Amritsar, June 12
Forty five candidates have completed skill development training programme for the promotion of handicraft units in the district under Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development (STED) project of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. These candidates have been trained to set up handicraft units in rural areas of the district.

The programme was held in active association with District Industries Centre, Khadi village and Industries Commission (KVIC), a leading bank and other support organisations. The KVIC has agreed to provide margin money assistance to the extent of 30 per cent of the project cost or Rs 4.50 lakh whichever is less under its REGP scheme to each participant. The participant has to contribute only 5 per cent as his own contribution and 65 per cent would be bank loan.

The Department of Science and Technology, the Government of India has sanctioned the first STEX project in the state to the Regional Centre for Entrepreneurship Development, (RCED), Chandigarh, to promote 200 micro-enterprises in the district during 2007 till 2011.

The main objective of the project is to promote entrepreneurship in rural and urban population by developing and enhancing technical managerial and motivational skills thus enabling them to launch their own industrial service, business ventures. 

Amritsar, June 12
The state government has chalked out a plan to promote sports at the grassroots level by distributing sports equipment worth Rs 2 crore among coaching centres, sports wings and sports academies throughout the state.

Disclosing this, Punjab sports minister Gulzar Singh Ranike handed over equipment worth Rs 25.50 lakh to the district sports officers of Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran during a function organised by the sports department at Khalsa College here. He said this was the first instalment issued by the government in this regard.

He revealed that the disciplines benefiting under the scheme were athletics, including high jump and long jump pits, wrestling mat, swimming, boxing, gymnastics, basketball, football, volleyball and table tennis. He said Amritsar and Tarn Taran had been allotted equipment worth Rs 12.50 lakh while Gurdaspur, gymnastics nursery of the state, got equipment worth Rs 13 lakh approximately.

Ranike said in the second phase Faridkot, Ferozepore, Bathinda and Muktsar would be covered under the scheme in which sports goods worth Rs 19.5 lakh would be distributed among these districts. In the third phase Rs 51 lakh would be distributed among Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur and Nawanshahr. Ludhiana, Moga, Ropar/Mohali and Fatehgarh Sahib districts would be provided of Rs 37.5 lakh.

The sports department would distribute sports goods worth Rs 40 lakh in the last phase of the scheme among Sangrur, Patiala and Mansa.

The sports minister revealed that the state government had also increased the budget for the purchase of the sports equipment in the current financial year to Rs 75 lakh from earlier sanctioned budget of Rs 50 lakh. Moreover, to promote sports at the grassroots level in every district clusters of five villages each would be formed and given the required sports equipment and assistance, he added.

Amritsar, June 12
Akrit Mohan Sharma of the holy city has bagged the first position in Punjab in the NDA (IAF flying branch) after clearing the pilot aptitude battery test with all-India rank of 40.

Jubilant over the achievement, Akrit said it was a proud moment for him as he had been able to fulfil the dream of his grandfather late Roop Lal Sharma, former headmaster of PBN School, who wanted him to become a pilot. But unfortunately he had expired only few weeks ago, he added.

Akrit remained topper throughout his career at Sainik School, Kapurthala, and was recently awarded by the deputy commissioner, Kapurthala, for getting highest marks in physics. He also got a trophy in the all-India Sainik School (North zone) debate competition held at Nagrota (Jammu and Kashmir).

Akrit said he would soon join NDA at Kharagwasla, Pune, in the last week of June.

Elated over their son’s selection to the IAF flying branch, father Gopal Krishan Sharma and mother Sushma said Akrit had been a topper throughout his schooling besides being an excellent basketball player and athlete.

They said that he had also participated in the math Olympiad at Jalandhar and represented his school in the SAARC countries letter-writing competition held at Chandigarh.

Amritsar, June 12
The Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine, Punjab chapter organised a CME on polio update at Government Medical College here. More than 100 delegates participated.

Dr Tejbir Singh, professor, department of community medicine, explained how some countries had eradicated polio in one go while India was still struggling to get rid of the disease.

The inaugural address was delivered by Dr J.P.K. Shergill, principal of the Government Medical College, Amritsar. The second issue of the IAPSM-Punjab bulletin was released on the occasion.

Dr Kamaljit Singh, WHO expert surveillance medical officer, northern region, talked about the strategies for polio eradication in India. He said there was persistence of polio in four countries - India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Every year, these countries reported 100-1,500 cases in the same geographical areas.

In India, 60 cases of polio had been reported this year so far. There was a need for regular supplementary immunisation activity by carrying out four rounds up to May with more focus on Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to reach children of younger age groups as it was less than two-year-olds who were more susceptible and needed to be immunised.

The experience of the Pulse Polio programme in different states was shared by Dr M.L. Sharma, surveillance medical officer, Punjab, who emphasised on the improvement of the surveillance system. 

Amritsar, June 12
Lovers of Rajasthani outfits and hand paintings are enjoying a wide range to choose from at the exhibition put up by Govind Hath Kargha Vastra Sahkari Samiti Limited and Cooperative Society being held at the Art Gallery at Madan Mohan Malviya Road.

Vasudev Kumar, in charge of the exhibition, said an exclusive range of Jaipuri quilts, bed sheets, salwar suits, hand-block-printed cotton suits, lehanga-choli, printed skirts, kundan, mirror and sequence work suits and special ghagra-choli in Rajasthani styles are up for display here.

“Besides, a special range of hand paintings, Rajasthani and handloom fabrics, ladies suits and other dress material in attractive colour and designs are popular with the people of Amritsar,” said Vasudev. The exhibition is being organised to encourage artistes and weavers of Rajasthan. The exhibition would be on till the end of this month. 

Amritsar, June 12
When the day Amritsar hit the headlines with the highest temperature in 10 years at 47.8 degrees Celsius on June 9, residents of a cluster of colonies on the Batala road had to spend a sleepless night without power supply. Noisy generators could hardly provide relief and inverters soon ran out of charge before the power resumed in the wee hours.

Long and unscheduled cuts have become order of the day and the city is reeling under power crisis that has thrown life out of gear. Because power remains cut mostly during the time of water supply, clean drinking water has become a luxury.

Even though the Punjab State Electricity Board is quick to blame the erratic power supply in different parts of the city on local technical snags, irate residents are not willing to buy this excuse.

“It is the inefficiency of the department. Without electricity, we have to spend sleepless nights and listless days. Imagine spending almost the entire night without power, that too on the hottest day of the season,” says Rattan Singh, a resident of Tilak Nagar.

The residents complain that the power cuts are more frequent in the late hours of the evening or wee hours of the morning which result in sleepless nights. Due to long cuts, inverters stop functioning as these cannot get recharged, fuel of generators gets exhausted and water supply is also halted for as much time, adds Pawan Kumar, a resident of Shastri Nagar.

Residents of Guru Ram Das Colony on the Airport road say power supply is so erratic that it breaks down every half an hour for a few minutes. “This poses a threat to the costly electrical appliances and they can get burnt in case the problem continues,” says one of them.

Power cuts are imposed on different areas of the city on Mondays and there is no supply from 9.30 am onwards till the evening. “My cousins had come to spend their summer vacation with us. But the hot weather conditions and repeated power cuts have played spoilsport. One wonders what would happen when the electricity board actually starts imposing scheduled power cuts,” says Sachit, a Class VIII student.

Executive engineer S.K. Chawla, however, says disrupted power supply in certain areas was due to technical snags and not due to any shortfall. “The transformer on the dental college road had developed a snag, which led to a blackout in some areas. The outdated gadgets are being replaced to ensure uninterrupted supply of electricity,” he said.

Many areas are also facing shortage of water and the municipal corporation has made arrangements for water tankers. The heat wave sweeping the city has already claimed one life. The victim, Pyare Lal, was going to the market when he suddenly collapsed on the road.

In an appeal to the general public, civil surgeon, Amritsar, Dr Lahimber Singh advised them to cover their heads and wear full-sleeve cloths while venturing out during the day to save themselves from skin burns.

To maintain good health, cut fruits being sold on roadsides should be avoided and the intake of chlorinated water has been recommended. In case of a sun stroke, the patient should be immediately rushed to the Civil Hospital, where adequate arrangements for treatment have been made.

Expressing concern over global warming, Mission Aagaaz, an NGO, gave a call to the general public “to wake up from their sleep and strive together to overcome the increasing global temperature resulting in the melting of glaciers in Antarctica as well as the Himalayas.”

A spokesman for the NGO said the scorching heat wave in Amritsar as well as other parts of India was a sign of coming disaster that would affect not only whole of the human fraternity but also every living organism on this planet earth. “To start with, we must plant trees, conserve water, delimit the use of equipment which emit CFC gases and lower the emission of carbon dioxide,” he said.