Panipat, February 18
From converting their brick houses into kutcha units to hiding their household comforts from public officials, villagers in several districts are reportedly leaving no stone unturned to show themselves as part of the deprived strata of society.

If the official machinery is to be believed, the villagers are adopting all tactics to make themselves eligible for welfare schemes, including a chance to own a 100 sq yd plot free of cost.

Enquiries made by this correspondent in Panipat and Karnal districts revealed that panchayats are not helping officials in weeding out the “undeserving” villagers.

The district authorities say they have not even received a single complaint against the inclusion of ineligible beneficiaries.

“It seems they somehow want their names on the list to own a free plot,” an official said.

During the past two months, the entire state had witnessed protests against alleged irregularities in the BLP survey and there was a demand for a fresh survey.

Political parties had alleged that several prosperous families, having allegiance to the ruling Congress, were included in the list.

However, enquiries revealed that no panchayat in these two districts have filed any objection against ineligible candidates making it to the list.

Interestingly, in Panipat district, the administration had reportedly objected to 37,000 claimants. Sources said against 48,000 claimants, only 11,000 were found eligible. At present, there are about 25,000 BPL families in Panipat. Similarly, there are 57,000 BPL beneficiaries in Karnal, considered a prosperous district.

Now, the district authorities have pending appeals of nearly 75,000 claimants, who say they were dropped from the list.

Earlier, there were about 57,000 beneficiaries while the number came down to 34,000 in the last survey conducted by a private agency hired by the state government.

“Even if they are well-off, scores of applicants are trying to include themselves in the list by furnishing false information to avail of the benefits,” a source said.

Another official said sarpanches should have been asked to submit affidavits while authenticating the details of applicants.

Officials admit that it is a tedious job to verify the massive number of pending claims judiciously.

New Delhi, February 18
Haryana today signed a memorandum of understanding with the centre to implement the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana which aims at providing healthcare facilities to workers of the unorganised sector in the BPL category.

The MoU was signed by Naresh Gulati, financial commissioner and principal secretary, labour department, Haryana, and Anil Swaroop, director-general, labour welfare, ministry of labour and employment.

Speaking on the occasion, Haryana’s labour minister A.C. Chaudhry said four districts - Faridabad, Yamunanagar, Panipat and Bhiwani - would be covered under the scheme in this fiscal and the remaining 16 districts would be covered in a phased manner over the next five years.

He said 75 per cent of the estimated annual premium of Rs 750 per family of five persons would be paid by the central government and the remaining 25 per cent would be borne by the state government.

He said the beneficiary would be required to pay Rs 30 per annum as registration renewal fee of the smart card. He said the scheme would benefit 2.80 lakh below poverty line families in the four districts during 2008-09 with the expenditure likely to touch Rs 2,288.48 lakh.

He said the beneficiaries would be eligible for inpatient healthcare against insurance to the extent of an insured amount of Rs 30,000 per BPL family every year on a family-floater basis. The family members would include the head of the family, 
spouse and three dependant children.

He said as per the guidelines, all pre-existing diseases would be covered for expenditure of hospitalisation. The scheme further envisages provision for pre and post-hospitalisation expenses and transport allowance at the rate of Rs 100 per visit with an annual ceiling of transportation expenses. The scheme involves cashless and paperless transaction on the basis of a smart card.

In his address, Gulati said a state-level workshop had been organised at Gurgaon to ensure speedy preparation of smart cards to the identified BPL families. He said workshops had been planned for sensitising different departmental agencies about the scheme.

Swaroop said the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana would provided health facilities to workers of the unorganised sector belonging to the below poverty line category and their family members. He said the beneficiaries would be eligible to get treatment in ESI hospitals, government hospitals and empanalled private hospitals under the scheme. The beneficiaries would be entitled for treatment in other states also, he added. 

Rohtak, February 18
The Central government has decided to establish a footwear design and development institute at Rohtak. The institute will be developed at a cost of Rs 125 crore and it would impart training to 1,000 youths every year. Union commerce minister Kamal Nath has sanctioned the institute for Haryana.

This was disclosed by Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda while addressing a gathering after laying the foundation stone of an Industrial Model Township (IMT) on the outskirts of the town today.

The CM claimed that the setting up of the IMT would change the face of Rohtak, as done by Maruti Udyog in Gurgaon. The township will be developed on around 3,000 acres along National Highway 10 and 871 acres had already been acquired for the purpose.

“An amount of Rs 17,000 crore would be spent for providing infrastructural facilities in the first phase,” Hooda said, adding that a jewelry designing and training centre would also be opened in the IMT.

Later, the CM laid the foundation stone of an extension project of the industrial estate in the town, for which the government has already acquired 152 acres of land. A 132-kV power substation will be set up in the estate to streamline electricity supply for the industrial units.

Hooda also laid the foundation stone of a new jail complex near Sunarian village in the district. The new complex will be developed in an area of 86 acres in two phases at an estimated cost of Rs 29 crore within a period of 20 months. The complex will provide the facilities of barracks for men and women inmates, besides hospital, godowns, community centre, residential accommodations and administrative buildings.

A sewage treatment plant with a capacity of 100-lakh litre per day was also inaugurated by the CM near Kanheli village in the district.

Hooda was also honoured by the local Kumayun Sabha at a function on the premises of Neki Ram Sharma Government College here.

Local Congress MP Deepender Hooda, parliamentary secretary Dura Ram, MLAs Shadi Lal Batra and Anand Singh Dangi and senior government functionaries were also present.

Chandigarh, February 18
The Volvo bus service of Haryana Roadways has gone off road and it is unlikely to resume soon. The contractor, who had leased five buses plying on nine routes to the department over two years ago, has decided he cannot continue with the “deal” anymore and has withdrawn his fleet.

This move has inconvenienced those who booked the Volvo for the sheer convenience of time and destination. The buses operated in the morning and evening shifts and ferried passengers to and from Gurgaon, Delhi as also the international airport in Delhi.

On February 15, the day the Volvo service were suspended by the contractor, the department arranged taxis to ferry passengers to their respective destinations. Since then, the department has stopped all bookings of the Volvo service. The contract was slated to end in April and September this year for two and three buses, respectively.

Taken aback by this “sudden retreat” by the contractor, the department, already plagued with staff shortage, finds itself in a piquant situation.

Though it has failed to provide an alternative at the same time and for the same destinations, the department has tried to reschedule the regular bus services to suit the needs of passengers though it is flooded with queries on the resumption of the Volvo bus service.

“We cannot provide the same standard of service in the regular buses but have tried to accommodate the passengers travelling by the Volvo by making changes in the time. We are also in the process of buying our own fleet of buses since there is a great demand for the service, evident from the substantial profit the roadways has earned from the Volvo, started in October, 2005,” transport commissioner M. Ramshekhar said.

While the violation of the contract has not been taken well by the Haryana government and the department concerned, the general manager of Libra Bus Service, which had leased out its buses, Jagjit Singh, said that they had been forced to withdraw the service after the department penalised them outside the contract.

“Ours was and continues to be the lowest bid for the plying of Volvo buses. However, the negative attitude of officers is responsible for what has happened.

They have charged us Rs 10 lakh by way of penalty which is less than what we have earned by way of leasing out our buses.

They wanted us to provide a standby bus to run in case there was a breakdown which was not feasible given the losses we were already suffering,” he stated.

The GM explained that for any trip missed he was charged Rs 10,000 as penalty and the buses, in urgent need of repairs, gradually went off the road. “We constantly told them to release our payment without deducting the penalty. This is their own doing,” he emphasised.

The department, on the other hand, insists that he entered into a contract and came by way of open tender. For any deficiency in service, he was penalised as per the contract and had violated the contract because it had not worked out as a “lucrative” option for him.

Haryana Roadways has already moved court in the matter and had got a stay against the withdrawal of the service. However, the contractor failed to provide the buses after which they had moved a contempt of court plea against him.

Chandigarh, February 18
Nine premier agencies have been chosen by a Haryana government committee set up to consider the issue of giving autonomy to state- run organisations.

HUDA, the HSIDC, the Agricultural Marketing Board, Hafed, the HVPN, the Power Generation Corporation, the UHBVN, the DHBVN and the Haryana Tourism Corporation have been picked by the committee headed by the chief secretary to give functional autonomy in various areas, including recruitment, foreign tours by personnel, purchase of vehicles, computer installation, outsourcing of services, etc.

The state government is expecting to bring greater efficiency in the functioning of the organisations by introducing these reforms. It is also expecting to infuse a greater sense of accountability in the organisations by granting them more freedom.

Henceforth, the above-mentioned organisations will carry out all recruitment to Group A and B posts with the approval of the board of directors and the administrative department. They do not have to refer the matter to the HPSC. Existing sanctioned vacancies can also be similarly filled.

These organisations will not require the approval of the Haryana Bureau of Public Enterprises (HBPE) anymore for the foreign tours of officials. For the replacement of condemned vehicles with new ones and the purchase of additional vehicles also they will not require the HBPE’s approval. A go-ahead from the board of directors and the administrative department, however, will have to be obtained.

Administrative approval will have to be given by the Chief Minister in the case of foreign tours and the purchase of additional vehicles.

The nine state agencies have been given also freedom to purchase computers on their own without routing the work through HARTRON. The organisations have been also given power to recruit technical people needed by them for managing computers, including the IT services. The organisations will also be fully autonomous for outsourcing any service within the general framework of the government policy in this regard.

The organisations, however, will follow the old practice with regard to the creation of new posts, upgradation of an existing post, bonus to employees, approval of the IT plan, etc. 

Chandigarh, February 18
The HCS selection matter today took a new twist with the state of Haryana claiming that the interview board was provided with a list of candidates to be selected, so that the manipulations were carried out in a discreet manner.

The development is significant as the state, in its report submitted by additional advocate-general, has taken a stand similar to that of the petitioner. In the HCS selections made during the tenure of the O.P. Chautala government, the state also sought directions to the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) to provide the name of paper setters and examiners of various subjects. The HPSC, meanwhile, contradicted the claims and refuted the allegations in a detailed reply. The matter will now come up for hearing on February 20.

It may be recalled that while alleging favouritism, counsel for petitioner Karan Dalal had earlier claimed that not only less marks were given in the interview; in some cases marks in the written test were also reduced. Following this, a Division Bench of the High Court, headed by Chief Justice Vijender Jain, had allowed the inspection of records by the petiitoner’s counsel Mohan Jain and his team.

Ambala, February 18
The government plan to raise resources from the realty assets of the postal department, it seems, will find no grounds in Haryana, after all it is the most profit-generating circles for the Indian post.

A proposal to use the surplus land lying with the post offices effectively and profitably by converting them into malls, multiplexes or modern high-rise office complexes is in the pipeline. Post offices across the country were asked to give in details of the land being used by them and how much was surplus.

Though Haryana has a few ‘small’ plots, officials feel it will not come to much use, as along with Maharashtra, Haryana is the only circle, making profit of all states in India.

There are about 1.55 lakh post offices in the country of which 80 per cent are located in rural areas. Almost all post offices in rural areas are running into losses, said sources.

Of the 22 services being offered by the post offices, sources said only three are profit-making services. Last year alone, the postal department had to suffer a deficit of 1,500 crore. The aim was to minimise this deficit and the proposal was very viable.

To transform these loss making postal departments into profit making organisations, it has been proposed to transfer real estate, which can be commercially exploited, to a new body called the Postal Development Corporation (PDC).

Interestingly, according to sources, there was no surplus land in Gurgaon, where the mall culture took birth. Indian post needs the land there for its own purposes.

Kurukshetra, February 18
Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a common technique cardiologists the world over employ to open blocked arteries of the heart. The procedure is usually safe in experienced hands, but at times complications may develop after it. Have you ever asked your doctor what is the estimated numerical chance of developing a major complication after the procedure? 

Is there a reliable method to choose the physician or a hospital where the complication risk for the procedure is the lowest? The usual answer to these questions is often vague or based upon hearsay from close friends and relatives.

However, things are different at the world-renowned Texas Heart Institute ranked among the top 10 cardiology centres in the USA. Thanks to the efforts of India-born Dr Pankaj Madan, doctors at the Texas Heart Institute can now give you an estimated risk of developing a major complication from the PCI based upon your other clinical problems. Not only can they give you an estimate of the risk of developing complications, they can also utilise the system to evaluate the performance and complication rates of various cardiologists doing the procedure. The system can also be extended to compare different hospitals on the basis of their outcomes after this procedure.

Dr Madan, who has devised this system, says it can ensure more transparency and can help patients choose different operators or different hospitals based upon their complication rates.

Dr Madan studied more than 15,000 patients who had undergone procedure at the Texas Heart Institute and used complicated statistical models to develop a simple integer-based scoring system called the Texas Heart Institute risk score after PCI. This scoring system will be presented at the forthcoming American College of Cardiology meeting from March 29 to April 2 at Chicago and will then be published in a prestigious journal.

Born in Kurukshetra in 1980, Dr Madan was a gifted child. Having won several honours at Geeta Niketan High School, Dr Madan received the National Talent Search Examination scholarship. He was the first one to be selected to AIIMS from Kurukshetra. He went to Delhi University for postgraduation where he started his research career. At the age of 25, Dr Madan was publishing his research in major international medical journals.

Jind, February 18
The ongoing ‘clash’ between some students of two neighbouring villages in the district resulted in a traffic blockade in the district this morning. The police, which had to intervene to get the blockade lifted, has asked the panchayats concerned to resolve the issue to avert any major untoward incident.

Students and youths of Nidana village forcibly stopped a private bus around 10 in the morning near the boundary dividing the limits of Nidana and Digana villages on the link road connecting Gohana and Rohtak and asked whether students of Digana village were travelling by it. They reportedly wanted to take revenge for an incident in which students of Nidana village were beaten up in Digana village a few days ago. The police had to intervene to get the blockade lifted.

Meanwhile, in another incident, a middle-aged person was run over by a vehicle near Narwana town in the district last night. The victim has been identified as Major Singh and was a resident of Shakarpura village in Tohana subdivision.

The body of the victim was found lying on the road by a passerby, who reported the matter to the police.

Fatehabad, February 18
A rally of schoolchildren organised at Daulatpur village in the district today conveyed the message of literacy, drug de-addiction and ill effects of female foeticide amongst villagers.

Village sarpanch Ratna Devi and deputy commissioner O.P. Sheoran flagged of the rally.

Carrying placards on literacy, drug de-addiction and female foeticide, the schoolchildren passed through village streets.

Addressing students, Sheoran said Fatehabad district was very backward in the matter of literacy. He said under the literacy campaign, all illiterate persons were being given workable education.

Education of women was all the more important as an educated woman could literate families of her father, husband and children.

He said according to a survey conducted by district authorities, 59,508 persons, including 19,630 men and 29,878 women, in the age group of 15 to 35 years were found illiterate in the district.

So far, 25,000 illiterates had been provided the knowledge of words and figures in the district.

City magistrate Satish Jain, a lecturer, Jyoti Machra, and elected representatives were also present on the occasion.

Ambala, February 18
The victim of the Ambala City Civil Hospital kidney racket, Kanta Rani (50), has died after struggling for four months in the PGI, Chandigarh. Kanta was cremated at her native town Shahabad today.

The surgeon treating her from the hospital here had allegedly removed both of her kidneys after she was admitted with complaint of stone in her stomach.

Later, when her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the PGI without telling her husband that her kidneys had been removed.

It was found that the deceased was having both her kidneys in natural condition, when she was admitted on October 19 last year. The doctors in the PGI during preliminary tests found to their surprise that the woman’s kidneys had been removed and she was in a critical condition.

She was put on dialysis, which continued till her death yesterday. Ironically, she was scheduled for a kidney transplantation operation today as her husband Ranjit Singh was to donate his kidney.

In the meantime, the civil hospital doctor who had performed operation on Kanta was chargesheeted after investigations made by doctors at the hospital, the CMO said. He had left the service and was practicing privately, he added. — UNI

Yamunanagar, February 18
Two migrant labourers were allegedly beaten to death by a contractor and others here last night. The labourers had gone to the contractor to collect Rs 1,800 from him.

Police sources said the incident took place on the premises of Taneja Timber Industries in Jain Colony here at around 11 pm yesterday. Labourers Jaggar Lal (60) and Jadu Lal (35), both residents of Motihari district, Bihar, were working in a plywood manufacturing unit. Last evening, they went to the contractor, Tirloki Sahni, to collect Rs 1,800 from him. Sahini and Jaggar Lal entered into an altercation.

At this, Ram Sharan, Lakhwinder, Dhanai, Sukdhev, Lakwinder and Ram Dhwan, who were sleeping on the premises, came out and allegedly started beating the two labourers with batons. Jaggar Lal died on the spot while Jadu Lal, who was seriously injured, was declared dead in a hospital.

Superintendent of police C.S. Rao, who visited the spot, said the families of the two victims had been informed about the incident. A case under section 302 of the IPC against the contractor and others had been registered.

Fatehabad, February 18
The district police has begun seizing the movable and immovable property of alleged narcotics trafficker Amar Singh of Kharakheri village in this district.

According to the police, the action had been taken under section 68E of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act whereby the police can seize the property of a drug smuggler in case the property has been appropriated from income generated through drug trafficking.

The police sources said the order under the provisions of the NDPS had been issued by the officer in charge of the Sadar police station and had been sent to the competent authority for investigation.

Balbir Singh, SHO of the Sadar police station, Fatehabad, told mediapersons that the property seized by the police included a house worth Rs 10 lakh situated at Kharakheri, a Maruti Esteem car and a pick-up van worth Rs 6 lakh, 26 kanals of agricultural land worth Rs 8 lakh situated in Sadalpur village and gold ornaments worth Rs 5 lakh.