Batala, June 25
World Bank is providing Rs 1,280 crore for the supply of pure drinking water to 3,000 villages, sewerage facility to 100 villages and ensuring safety of village ponds in 1,000 villages.

This was stated by minister for water supply, sanitation and public relations Bikram Singh Majithia while laying the foundation stone of a water supply scheme being built at a cost of Rs 1.90 crore for Kalanaur village and its adjoining areas on Sunday.

He said the state government would provide Rs 126 crore by allocating Rs 7 crore each to the 18 border blocks of the state for various development works.

He said the government would provide another Rs 32 crore for the development of border areas. Farmers living in border areas where there was deployment of defence forces would be provided Rs 10,000 per acre, he added.

Majithia said the government had allocated Rs 1,500 crore for widening village roads with special emphasis on construction of roads in the border areas of the state.

A total of Rs 527 crore would be provided in the coming financial year for the atta-dal scheme, the survey for which had has been completed, he added.

Agriculture minister Sucha Singh Langah, who was also present on the occasion, said Rs 1,250 crore had been reserved for a component plan for the welfare of Dalits.

Jalandhar, June 25
Scores of harassed Punjabis whose dollar dreams were shattered by unscrupulous travel agents, held a protest outside the district administrative complex here on Monday. They were part of a rally organised by the Lok Bhalai Party.

Each family had a tale of woes to narrate. Carrying copies of FIRs registered against the agents, fake work permits and dishonoured cheques, they pleaded before the administration to take measures to end their plight. “My husband Jaswant Singh, a taxi driver, had paid Rs 4 lakh to an agent for sending him to Italy. My brother-in-law had gone to Delhi airport to see him off. We thought he would have reached his destination but after a fortnight, my husband called back saying he was at Kathmandu as the visa provided to him by the agent was fake. The agent even took away the Tata Sumo he had been driving as taxi. He is jobless now and we are finding it difficult to make both ends meet,” said Paramjit Kaur of Beas.

The story of Amritsar’s Baljinder Singh is no different. He had paid Rs 6.5 lakh to an agent to send him to France. “He dumped me at Bangkok from where I somehow managed to reach home,” he said.

The worst-hit seemed to be Resham Singh of Ferozepore. “Nine persons, including a woman, from my family had planned to go to different countries like Greece, the UK, France and Canada. We contacted an agent and paid him Rs 65 lakh. Since my two nephews could not pay the requisite amount, I sold a piece of land for their sake. The agent just disappeared after taking a hefty sum from us,” he lamented.

Five friends from Ferozepore were duped by a woman agent. The youth, Jagjit Singh, Jagdish Singh, Sandeep Singh, Partap Singh and Bhupinder Singh, said they had paid Rs 42 lakh to a woman agent at Dera Baba Nanak for sending them to France. “We even have a video-recording of the discussion with her. Two FIRs have been registered against her but she is roaming free, thanks to police inaction,” they claimed.

Lok Bhalai Party leader Avtar Singh Mullanpuri demanded immediate arrest of the fake agents.

Jalandhar, June 25
The Jalandhar Traders and Manufacturers Association today demanded a six-month extension for submission of C-forms. The last date to submit the forms is June 30.

Patron Gursharan Singh, while addressing a press conference here on Monday, said the local tax department was demanding a quarterly submission of C-forms. “These should be submitted annually. We have been demanding this for a long time as it’s very difficult to get the C-forms from them,” he added.

Meanwhile, members demanded fixation of the VAT tariffs. “Earlier, the state government had reduced VAT on valves from 12.5 to 4 per cent but the tax on cocks, which is a similar product, is still the same,” they said. The traders also sought a waiver of import duty on raw material and increase in duty on finished products.