Sirsa, June 16
Tension built up again in Daadu village, about 45 km from here, after a Sikh youth was beaten up by four followers of the Dera Sacha Sauda here today. The injured Gurbinder Singh was admitted to the primary hospital of Kalnawali. The police has registered a case under Section 323 and 324 of the IPC against the dera followers. However, the Sikhs who had gathered in a large number after the incident at Gurdwara Shri Guru Granth Sahib of the village later blocked the Kalnawali-Dabwali road till the filling of the report demanding registration of the case under Section 307 of the IPC against the dera followers.

The police said the injured youth alleged that the incident took place when the dera followers used derogatory language against Shri Guru Granth Sahib. When Gurbinder Singh objected to their offensive conduct and entered into an argument with them and telling them not to use foul language against their holy book, they beat him up. DSP Wajir Singh and SDM Subhas Gabba were camping in the village to ease out the tension between dera followers and the Sikhs.

Meanwhile, a dera follower of the same village also got admitted in the civil hospital here alleging that Sikhs had beaten him up.

Earlier on June 11 high tension had mounted in the same village over the decision of the dera followers to organise a satsang. Since then the tension continues in the area here. 

Hisar, June 16
The academic calendar for the forthcoming academic session circulated by Kurukshetra University for under-graduate and post-graduate courses run by affiliated colleges has foxed the teaching community in Haryana.

Virtually putting the cart before the horse, the university has ordained admissions for these courses to begin from July 2 even though the colleges are closed for summer vacation till July 8.

Significantly, the calendar also mentions that colleges would remain closed due to summer vacations for the 2006-07 academic session from May 13 to July 8.

There are two significant omissions from the calendar. It does not specify any date for commencement of sale of prospectus and no last date for submitting the admission forms has been fixed.

As per the calendar normal admissions will commence from July 2 and close on July 14. Admissions with late fee will continue thereafter but teaching will begin from July 16.

Several college principals said it would be difficult to recall teachers for admission work a full six-day before the official date of reopening of colleges. Most of the teachers are away on vacation and it would be extremely difficult for them to change their itineraries, cancel their rail or air travel bookings and return home in time for admissions to commence from July 2.

Besides, teachers said they got summer vacations in lieu of annual privilege leave given to other employees. So, any deduction from their vacations was wholly unjustified. The teachers want that the university should either give them a six-day salary or begin admissions on the scheduled date set for colleges.

The casual manner in which the university has framed admission rules is also evident from a circular issued recently. Most of the principals have not been able to decipher the underlying meaning of the following paragraph that appears in the circular:

“There shall be 10 per cent supernumerary seats and minimum 2 seats over and above the sanctioned seats will be for BPL category candidates of Haryana in all courses, except the courses to which admissions are made by Haryana State Counseling (sic) Society. Admission will be made on the basis of inter-se-merit of the BPL candidates. The candidate holding the pink card of this category will be given preference in admission. Normal fee will be charged from BPL candidates, such students shall be eligible if he/she posses (sic) higher percentage than the first candidate admitted under the category NRI/Sponsored seats.”

The university has also allowed the affiliated colleges to create 10 NRI/NRI sponsored/industry sponsored seats at the UG and PG level in all courses from the new academic session. The principals have been authorised to ‘relax’ the prescribed additional fee ‘if required’ for these seats at the PG level.

Hisar, June 16
About 2,700 candidates today appeared for the state-level entrance test conducted by Haryana Agricultural University for admission to various undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

The test was held at five centres on the main campus for a total of 185 seats in different degree programmes.

Special inspecting staff was deputed to cross-check the identity of each candidate.

The Vice-chancellor, Dr J.C. Katyal accompanied by the registrar, Dr R.S. Dalal, and consultant of examinations Dr Jeet Singh visited the examination centres.

He said the special squad deputed for the purpose detected six cases of impersonation. The impersonators were handed over to the police for interrogation.

Sirsa, June 16
Heavy rain showers in the early morning brought respite to the people in the district. The rain was accompanied by high-velocity winds.

People were relieved as the day temperature fell. Frequent power cuts and shortage of water were affecting the lives of the people, especially in rural areas. As many as 16 persons in different areas reportedly had lost their lives due to heat. In many areas, the villagers were resorting to protest every day against power cuts that had been extended to rural areas for 18 hours and more than 10 hours in the urban.

However, 31 mm rainfall in the district did not help out people as due to heavy downpour many electricity wires and other equipment of the electricity department were uprooted that again led to power cuts in the various parts throughout the day.

As the weather conditions changed, after a long time the markets and other places witnessed a lot of rush, even in the afternoon.

Though all the internal roads and the national highway were filled with the water, lack of proper drainage system resulted in inconvenience to the commuters. The first few hours of rain has exposed the poor maintenance of the sewerage system. The conditions deteriorated in front of the main bus stand where water from many areas collected as it is a low-lying area.

Chandigarh, June 16
Huge power losses owing to poor transmission are accepted as the weakest link in the power distribution system. Rough estimates put the power losses during transmission to nearly one-third of the total power supplied in the state.

Various power suppliers in Haryana are now focused on improving the transmission by reducing line losses and theft. The move to cut losses was started by the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) by announcing the voluntary disclosure scheme (VDS) asking ‘power thieves’ to give themselves up without fear of being penalised. The Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) followed by disconnecting nearly 40,000 connections on account of default of payment during the past two months.

After an initial move to curb losses, the power suppliers in the state are now focusing on the quality of service and on providing improved, reliable and better quality of power by improving their distribution system.

The DHBVN has taken a lead in this regard by announcing the setting up of 37 new sub-stations of 33 KV. As a step in the same direction, the nigam will also augment the capacity of 10 existing 33 KV substations.

The focus of the nigam will initially be Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Bhiwani, Mahendragarh, Rewari, Mewat, Gurgaon and Faridabad districts. In addition to streamline the existing power delivery system and to release new connections, the DHBVN will lay 20,200 km long power distribution lines and 6,810 distribution transformers will be added in the existing network. This time the focus of the nigam is rural Haryana. An effort is being made to segregate the domestic and agricultural load. Nearly Rs 268 crore has been earmarked for improving power supply to rural households.

Meanwhile, to further strengthen the transmission and distribution network in Sonepat district, the Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam and UHBVN have jointly initiated various developmental works under which one 400 KV substation will be set up during the 11th five-year plan at Mohana.

The existing 33 KV substation at Bega will be upgraded to 132 KV level and new 33 KV substations will be set up at Sisana, Bhogipur and Bichpuri.

Power utilities had observed around 14 per cent load growth in Sonepat district due to rapid urbanisation and industrialisation and being a part of the national capital region.

Fatehabad, June 16
Former Haryana minister Sampat Singh said the power situation in Haryana was likely to go from bad to worse in the coming three years and added that the state government lacked clear vision on the issue of power generation.

Talking to mediapersons here yesterday, he said Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and his cabinet colleagues had been issuing contradictory statements on power generation.

Ridiculing the statements of Congress leaders on power generation, the INLD leader said if the statements of these leaders were to be believed, the state would start producing 5,000 MW to 9,000 MW additional power by the end of year 2010.

Different Congress leaders, he said, had been giving different figures of the government’s claims regarding the power generation.

But, he claimed that no new power generation projects other than the Yamuna Nagar Thermal Plant, which has the production capacity of 600 MW, would come into production by 2010.

He said besides the Yamuna Nagar, only Khedar Thermal Plant with a production capacity of 1,200 MW was under construction, but it was not likely to come under production in the next three years.

No other power project was at any stage of construction, he maintained.

He added that the government was still to sign coal linkage agreement for the Khedar Thermal Plant.

Further, the permission of the World Bank would also be needed because the site, at which the project was being constructed, was covered under the social forestry project funded by it.

Chandigarh, June 16
The Haryana Government today issued transfer and posting orders of three IPS officers with immediate effect. A.S.Chawla, Superintendent of Police (SP), Hisar, has been posted as SP, Karnal, vice C.S.Rao.

Rao has been posted as DCP (Headquarters), Gurgaon, vice Shrikant Jadhav, who goes as SP, Hisar.

Ambala, June 16
Former MP and senior BJP leader Rattan Lal Katari criticised Union minister Selja for not fulfilling promises made during the elections.

Talking to mediapersons here today, Katari said the findings of the probe held into the illegal drawing off of wheat meant for people living below the poverty line, should be disclosed to the public. He said several officers and depot holders were involved in the scam, where seven lakh quintals of wheat were sold to private flour mills. So far, no action has been taken against the guilty persons, Katari said.

The BJP leader said Selja never raised any issues related to Ambala, though she represented the constituency in the Parliament. He said although Ambala had been facing a severe shortage of drinking water, the minister did not bother about it.

Katari added that not even one unemployed youth was offered a Central government job in the last two years. 

Hisar, June 16
The Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) has decided to launch a lucky draw scheme for consumers who will deposit incandescent bulbs, tubelights, fused CFLs and inefficient electrical appliances with the nigam for proper disposal to minimise environmental pollution.

A spokesman of the DHBVN said here today the nigam was promoting conversion from bulbs to CFLs. However, it was important to ensure that incandescent bulbs were actually replaced by CFLs and such bulbs were taken out of the system also.

Similarly, the nigam is also promoting energy-efficient motors or pumps and has launched a scheme to give high-tension connections to farmers, who shift to energy efficient motors and pumps.

However, while doing so it was necessary to ensure that the old equipment is properly disposed off in a manner that causes little or no pollution. The nigam will issue receipts with unique numbers for every bulb, motor or pump.

A draw will be conducted at the nigam’s headquarter upon the collection of 50,000 working incandescent bulbs on the 14th day of the month concerned. The prizes for winners of the lucky draw will be decided later.

In addition, a lucky draw shall be conducted at feeder level also. For a feeder level lucky draw, all villages fed from the feeder should shift voluntarily to CFLs. The winner of the first prize will be given 25 CFLs. There will be two second prizes of 15 CFLs each and three third prizes of seven CFLs each.