Jalandhar, November 30
Non-availability of a drug dispensing facility for the patients, failure on the part of the government to start second line of treatment and lack of coordination on the part of 
the NGOs and other social bodies are some of the problems that still have been 
hampering the functioning of the Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) Centre at city civil hospital.

Since there are only two ART centres functioning in the state (the second one in Amritsar), patients from across the state have to visit one of these centres every month to get the next free supply of the medicines. In case the patients are not well or are financially too weak to bear their travelling expenses every month, they are bound to miss the dose.

The introduction of a drug dispensing facility assumes more importance since the ART centre here even caters to scores of patients from parts of Himachal Pradesh including Palampur, Kangra and Una and far off belts of Punjab including Sangrur and Bathinda.

“In Himachal, there is just one centre at Shimla and patients from Una and Kangra rather find it more convenient to visit Jalandhar for taking medicines,” explains medical officer of the ART Dr Sangeeta Kapoor. “We have heard that there are more ART centres coming up in Ludhiana and other cities. This can be of some help to the patients of Malwa region who have to commute a longer distance,” she adds.

The patients visiting the centre say, “We are certainly not looking for a home delivery but some kind of a centre closer to our homes from where it will be easier for us to get our medicines.”

Patients, who have been taking medicine for quite some time, point out that the centre was not getting any supplies for second line of treatment meant to improve their resistance. “The medicines coming under a scheme of NACO only help in the first line of treatment. People like me who have been taking medicines for the past several months now need to switch over to second line for better results”, says a patient.

Dr Kapoor, however, has another version. “We do give second line of treatment but only on demand,” says the doctor though she admits that these medicines were not coming on a regular basis.

Another major problem that the centre is facing is the lack of support from NGOs.

Since the past four months, Chandigarh-based NGO Swachh and Phagwara-based Yuva Satta have not brought a single patient though these were quite active earlier, data available with Integrated Counselling and Treatment Centre (ICTC) reveals.

“Instead Nabha-based Nabha Foundation has been doing a very good job and has been sending quite a few numbers of patients every month,” the staff says.

Since an ante-natal HIV test has been made compulsory, this has also really helped in detecting certain hidden cases. More than 350 AIDS cases have been found in expecting women since the past five months. “We give them a prophylactic medicine at the time of delivery so that the chances of passing down of virus to the baby gets eliminated to some extent”, a counsellor said.

Anyways, the number of patients coming for testing has been steadily rising. While only 33 persons came for testing in the civil hospital and only 11 were diagnosed with the disease in year 2002, there has been a walk-in of more than 3,521 patients till November this year with 648 persons having been tested positive.

At ART, nearly 1,410 patients have been registered since September last year out of whom 700 patients who have low CD 4 count or have symptomatic problems have been taking the treatment.

Jalandhar, November 30
The Border Security Force (BSF) has seized 99 kg of heroin being smuggled from across the border to Punjab this year, so far. This was disclosed by Punjab frontier inspector-general Arvind Ranjan, while talking to mediapersons a day before the BSF raising day celebrations here on Friday.

''This elite force, which is manning the 553 km long international border in Punjab with Pakistan, has so far seized narcotics worth Rs 99 crore in the international market and also arrested smugglers carrying contrabands from different parts of the border area. The haul last year was 67 kg and in 2005 it was only 20 kg. Quoting a world drug report being prepared by the UN, Ranjan said Afghanistan is the largest heroin producer in the world with 92 per cent of the total production. “The major consumers of the heroin and opium produced in Afghanistan are the neighbouring countries like Pakistan, India, Russia and Iran since drug addicts in Western countries prefer cocaine to heroin,” he informed.

The rise in the production of heroin has been due to the introduction of latest seeds, use of fertilisers and other techniques. The yield of heroin has increased by 50 per cent. Nearly 6,000 MT of opium was produced which was converted to 660 MT of heroin, he added.

Quoting the UN report, he said, “Only 26 per cent of the heroin produced is intercepted by the government agencies, whereas, the remaining 74 per cent of the contraband reaches the consumers. However, the seizure in cocaine is much more at 42 per cent,” he disclosed.

To further strengthen the border, the deployment pattern of the force was changed as per the information and requirement of the hour and an element of surprise was also introduced while guarding the fence from the front and behind, he said. The introduction of the latest and high tech equipments like night vision devices, night vision goggles and state-of-the-art hand held thermal imagers were found to be indispensable for night operations, he said. ''The BSF is integrating the border population in the task of border management by arranging regular meetings with border village farmers for close coordination,” he said.

He informed that as per the demand of the villagers of the border areas, the BSF has decided to organise recruitment rallies in one of the border districts on rotation basis for their benefit.

Phagwara, November 30
More than nine lakh tubewells in the state would be connected directly to power transformers installed near each tubewell, under a new scheme to be launched by the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB). The board has selected seven divisions, including Nakodar (sub-urban) to introduce a pilot project called ‘high voltage distribution system’ in the next ten years under the scheme. All low tension wires would be removed for the new scheme which aims at checking power theft.

This was stated by the chief engineer (North), Harjit Singh Thukral, while talking to The Tribune here today. He said the scheme aims at checking power thefts through kundi connections. The system had been introduced for new tubewell connections in October last year and more than fifty thousand new tubewells have been connected under the scheme so far, said Thukral. The pilot project would be introduced for all old tubewell connections in next ten days and Nakodar suburban division has been selected for pilot project in the north zone, he added.

After receiving a poor response for the drop-in-box and pass book schemes, the board now faced problems in implementing the spot billing system. The system could be introduced only in 14 divisions of Ludhiana, Patiala and Bathinda out of a total 82 divisions of the state.

Thukral also said the scheme of spot billing system had not been stopped and will continue in 14 divisions while pilot projects will be implemented in the remaining divisions. ‘Simputerised Spot Billing Scheme’ will use a hand held computer called ‘Simputer’. Private firms would send employees door to door with the ‘Simputer’ to read power metres and prepare and hand over the bill on the spot. They will also collect bill payment and issue a receipt. Earlier, the board had introduced pass book and drop-in-box schemes to facilitate consumers but the schemes failed to get any response, agreed Thukral.

Phagwara, November 30
Khalistan Commando Force terrorist Jasbir Singh 'Seera' who was deported from Canada and arrested by the Phagwara police at Delhi International Airport on November 27, was today produced before local judicial magistrate who extended his police remand by three days. He would be produced before the judicial magistrate on December 3. Phagwara DSP HPS Khakh said several more disclosures were expected from the dreaded terrorist, who fled to Canada in 2000,where he got married but was later divorced.

Seera is wanted in several cases by Jalandhar, Nawanshahar, Adampur and Kartarpur police. 

Hoshiarpur, November 30
Around 81 classrooms in 38 government elementary schools of Hoshiapur district were unsafe for the students. This was disclosed in a recent survey conducted by the district education department. The survey included government elementary schools of 10 blocks in the district.

Talking to The Tribune, DC DK Tiwari said after receiving the detailed report from the district education office (elementary) he has written to the superintendent engineer PWD (B&R) to do the required repair or construction at the earliest. He said the requisite funds had already been received.

Meanwhile, the survey was conducted as per the directions from the state government, which instructed the deputy commissioners of the state to inspect all the buildings of senior secondary and high schools, to identify the buildings for repairs and reconstruction. The initiative was taken to provide complete infrastructure in all the government schools of the state.

The funds for the purpose were sent to the, respective deputy commissioners.