Jind, March 16
Former Deputy Prime Minister and BJP leader L.K. Advani today claimed that the downfall of the Congress-led UPA government at the centre was “imminent” due to its “failures” on all fronts.

Claiming that though his party did not want a mid-term poll, he said the government “will have to ultimately go as its actions have made people angry” and it would face the axe in the next general election whenever it took place.

Addressing a rally organised by the state unit of the party at the HUDA ground here, Advani alleged that the present government had failed to contain the problem of rising prices, corruption and terrorism in the country and it had no moral right to continue in power. This was the first state-level rally of the BJP after the last Lok Sabha elections.

Describing the recent announcement regarding waiving off the farmers’ loans to the tune of Rs 60,000 crore as a mere political gimmick, Advani said the government should have provided relief to all farmers in the country and not just “a few of them”. He said the government should not have ignored the interests of thousands of farmers who had committed suicide due to indebtedness in the past several years. He said the waiver scheme would not be able to provide any relief to the farmers who had been feeling victimised due to the “wrong policies” of the government.

He said this rally would serve a kind of ultimatum to the government regarding the number of days left with it. Challenging the statement of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh regarding the alleged “promotion of terrorism” during the NDA tenure, the BJP leader said it was due to the “strict policy and bold stand” of the government at that time that terrorist could not succeed in their motives. He alleged that a terrorist like Afzal Guru, who had been convicted in the Parliament attack case, was being “protected” by the present government by willfully delaying his death sentence. This act, he said, would jeopardise the nation’s security and promote anti-national elements.

Blaming the UPA government for the rising prices of all commodities, he said it only people could teach a lesson to the government. He alleged that the common man was being denied the supply of even basic commodities like cooking gas. Advani also criticised the government for “creating a mess” on the issue of development of special economic zones in the country, stating that farmers whose land had been acquired had failed to get proper compensation.

BJP president Rajnath Singh promised that his party would ensure bringing down the loan interest rate to 4 per cent for farmers if the party was voted to power in the next poll.

He said the BJP would implement new schemes like full crop insurance based on productivity and a waiver scheme for all farmers in the country. He proposed to hold a special session of Parliament to discuss the possibility of having a separate budget for the agriculture sector from next year claiming that development of this sector would fuel real growth.

Vijay Goel, in charge of the state unit of the BJP and several state-level leaders were among those present.

Hisar, March 16
Former Haryana finance minister Sampat Singh has suggested that the centre remit a predetermined amount of farmers’ loans across the board by dividing the waiver amount of Rs 60,000 crore by the number of farmers who had taken loans from banks.

He said this was the only way to extend the benefit of waiver to each and every distressed farmer in the country.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal had adopted an almost similar strategy when waiving farmers’ loans first in Haryana and then throughout the country in 1990 by fixing the amount of unconditional waiver at Rs 10,000 per farmer.

The INLD leader said an equitable distribution of waiver would also ensure transparency in the distribution of the relief money.

The centre had restricted the waiver to the amount “over dues” between March 31 and December 31 last year and the benefit had been limited to farmers with a maximum of two acres of land, he said.

The former minister said it had not been stated whether this size of holding applied to irrigated land or dry land or both. It was also not known whether the ceiling would be the same for one crop and two crop holdings. Besides, whether the land ceiling applied to land pledged to banks as collateral or the entire holding had also not been made clear.

These complications would lead to arbitrariness in the distribution of relief to the farmers and provide ample scope to unscrupulous officials to indulge in corruption. He said the holding size should not be the criterion at all as a farmer owning 2.1 acres could never be considered economically better placed than one owning two acres.

Sampat Singh said the centre had not mentioned what kind of loans would be taken into consideration while determining “over dues” to be waived off. Farmers had availed three types of loans, crop loans, mid-term loans and long-term loans.

He said cooperative banks had over the years evolved a way to keep their balance sheets artificially healthy. These banks showed all loans as recovered before the end of the fiscal and the loans were shown as advances in the next fortnight. This meant that the waiver would leave out all farmers who had taken loans from cooperative banks as on paper there were no over due.

Sampat Singh said OTS (one-time settlement) was a standard banking practice and for years this benefit had been extended to the industry and other sectors. The same facility should now be made available to farmers who owed high amounts to banks.

He said most banks annually wrote off their non-performing assets (NPAs) to keep their balance sheets in a proper shape. This covered farming loans also. So, the waiver in its present shape would benefit only a fraction of the farmers in the country.

The only way to benefit each farmer was that the centre make allocation of Rs 60,000 crore in the budget and distribute the amount equally among defaulting farmers across the country without any preconditions as a one-time relief measure, he added.

He said in the long-term the government should revive agriculture in the country on a war footing.

Chandigarh, March 16
Congress circles in Haryana are aflutter with the developments leading to the Rajya Sabha nominations and the “deadly centre-state combination of ministers” which had the last word in the matter.

Though this is not the first time that dissidence within the state unit has raised its head since the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government came to power, it is for the first time in three years that a united front had approached the party high command.

Comprising union minister Sejla and Rao Indrajeet singh and state ministers Birender Singh and Kiran Chaudhary, the quartet believes it came out right on top, winning the “battle” for the Rajya Sabha seat at the final hour.

However, the Chief Minister’s camp is at pains to explain that the issue is being blown out of proportion and there was “no attempt at any time to oppose Ishwar Singh’s nomination”.

Sources close to Hooda maintained that the “misunderstanding” about the opposition to Ishwar Singh’s candidature could have been the outcome of “papers against Ishwar Singh which mysteriously made their way to 10, Janpath”. While it is being stated that the delivery of these papers containing details of previous police cases against Ishwar Singh could have been the handiwork of one of the candidates who was in the reckoning for the seat, the matter was “still being looked into to arrive at the truth”.

“The Chief Minister had suggested names of prominent Schedule Caste and backward caste leaders and left it to the high command to decide their fate.

He had returned to Chandigarh and the matter ended. He neither opposed nor proposed the name of Ishwar Singh,” an official said, while emphasising that the latter was the district Congress president for seven years when Hooda was the state Congress president.

In the city for a meeting today, union minister of state for housing and urban poverty alleviation Selja said their authority was only limited to recommending names while the high command had taken its pick. Steering clear of the controversy in the run up to the nominations, she stated that giving of party tickets was an “internal matter decided on merit and a certain criterion by the party command”.

Though the Chief Minister had been able to “effectively” nip dissidence in the bud till now since he assumed power, he has even on different occasions shown who the boss is. Known to have “proximity to the Congress high command” and showing that he was clearly in control, he independently decided his course of action in the state.

Whether it was the issue of making chief ministerial candidate Birender Singh the finance minister, and giving out relatively light departments initially or making Kiran Chaudhary, a minister of state. If bureaucrats claiming proximity to Selja were subsequently sidelined, Rao Indrajeet Singh’s pet project of a sainik school in Rewari has been delayed. Hooda even managed to nail down Bhajan Lal and “steadily” worked for his ouster.

He had succeeded to some extent but the development of “united detractors” was unforeseen and clearly unpalatable. It remains to be seen how this new group will change the face of politics in the coming times.

Fatehabad, March 16
“Owing to the policies adopted by the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government, Haryana has become a model state for the rest of the country.”

This was stated by Ranjit Singh, deputy chairman of the Planning Board, Haryana, while addressing people after laying the foundation stone of a new building of the Primary Agriculture Cooperative Society (PACS) in Hanspur village in this district today.

Ranjit Singh said the annual outlay of the state government was Rs 2,150 crore when Hooda took over the reins of power and now it had reached Rs 6,650 crore, which clearly showed that the state had taken big leaps of development during these years.

He said the state government had only one motto and that was all-round development of its people.

He said it was only due the policies followed the state government that Haryana had become the “number one” state in the country in the matter of per capita income.

Atma Singh Gill, Member of Parliament from the Sirsa constituency, said the state government had spent several crores in the development activities in this area while the previous government did not care about the welfare of the people.

Rohtak, March 16
As many as 885 girls of the Government College for Women got degrees in different disciplines during a convocation ceremony organised on the college campus here today.

Prof Rajbir Singh, dean (students welfare), Maharshi Dayanand University, was the chief guest on the occasion.

Addressing fresh graduates and postgraduates after lighting the ceremonial lamp before an image of Goddess Saraswati, he underlined the need of vocational and professional courses in today’s era.

In his speech, Dr Singh maintained that education was must for girls as an educated girl would realise the significance of education for the next generation. Exhorting girls to develop a balanced approach in life, he asked them to shun the tendency to limit them only to teaching jobs.

Earlier, the college principal, Dr Ram Kirti Arora, welcomed the guests and dignitaries. He asserted that the college had been selected for being developed as a centre of excellence.

As many as 425 students got graduation degrees in arts stream, 179 in science and 158 in commerce discipline. Eleven girls got master’s degree in music, while 112 got honours and other degrees.

College faculty members Dr Mukesh, Dr Shakuntala Hooda, Dr B.S. Rathee, Dr Satpal Wadhwa, Jagroop Singh Dahiya and Subhash Sahni got the degrees distributed among students.

The annual prize-distribution function of the college was organised yesterday. The commissioner of higher education, Haryana, Shiv Raman Gaur, was the chief guest. The college principal welcomed the chief guest and presented the annul report. Students having outstanding achievements in academics, literary, cultural, campus placements, NSS and NCC activities were awarded on the occasion.

Gurgaon, March 16
Soon the services of the Gurgaon police will be just an SMS away from residents of the city. This will be possible with the introduction of a hi-tech policing system from next month.

With the beginning of the new system, residents will not have to go to police stations time and again to get their complaints registered as they will have access to every service of the department just by clicking a button of the cellphone.

Gurgaon police commissioner Mohinder Lal said the department was making arrangements to provide all emergency services to the residents on a call to the control room. After the introduction of this facility, a person could lodge his complaint, know about the status of his case, or even the status of his passport and licence, just by sending an SMS to the control room.

Lal said the internal set-up of the police was also being modified. CCTVs would be installed at various important places to trap traffic rule violators. The GPS would be installed in all police vehicles to monitor their movement.

Chandigarh, March 16
An abbreviation used by the Haryana education department in a circular to all schools asking them to purchase books for libraries from certain particular agencies, has been misconstrued to purchase books from a source, which was perhaps not intended to be authorised by the department.

In its memo no. 5/3-2007 CCA (1) of March 3, 2008, addressed to all district education officers, the office of the commissioner and director-general, school education, sent out a list of agencies from which books could be purchased for school libraries. This circular was in continuation of a circular issued on January 31, 2008, through which the department had asked the schools to purchase books worth about Rs 3 crore. The March circular says, “First of all books from the National Book Trust be purchased and after exhausting the catalogue of the National Book Trust, books of other publishers as mentioned below can be purchased.”

Barring the Yoga Consciousness Trust, all publishers mentioned in the list are either government or semi-government bodies like the Haryana Sahitya Academy, Haryana Police Academy, Indian Council for Cultural Relation, Indian Council of Historical Research, National School of Drama, Publication Division of Government of India and various universities.

At serial number VII of the list of agencies, the circular says “NCERT/CBT/NBT, Delhi”.

The abbreviation “CBT” ostensibly refers to the Children Book Trust. However, informed sources say this abbreviation has been used by certain schools to purchase books from a private publisher, whose firm goes by the name of “CBT”. It is not known for what the private firm “CBT” stands for.

All that is known is that while the Children Book Trust is housed at Nehru House, 4, Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, New Delhi, the address of the other “CBT” as given on its catalogue is “Chhatta Shah Ji, Chawri Bazar, Delhi.”

In guidelines issued for the purchase of books in its January memo, the directorate had said school-level committees should be constituted under the presidentship of the school principal or headmaster. One of the members must be the school librarian.

It is strange that the librarians of those schools, which placed orders for the books with the other “CBT”, are not aware that the abbreviation, “CBT”, stands for the Children Book Trust. The guidelines of January had also stated that only after the catalogue of the National Book Trust had been exhausted, the schools should purchase books from other publishers. However, no list of “other publishers” was given.

The list of “other publishers” was given only in the March circular. The person who signed this circular, the sources say, had earlier remained under suspension for alleged irregularities in purchases while he was posted in a district. Later he was reinstated. 

Tosham (Bhiwani), March 16
Haryana minister for tourism, forests and sports and youth affairs Kiran Choudhry, while inaugurating a 33 kV substation built at a cost of Rs 2 crore in Pataudi village, today said the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam was giving shape to developmental schemes worth Rs 460 crore in order to strengthen the distribution and transmission system in the district.

Besides, development schemes worth Rs 130 crore were in the pipeline.

The minister said under a scheme, work was in progress to construct 19 new substations and to raise the capacity of 12 existing substations in the district. Under another scheme, 20 new substations would be set up in the district.

Choudhry said the state government had decided to establish 10 new power stations in order to provide better voltage to consumers.

Of these, construction work on six power stations was in full swing.

The minister also laid the stone of a 33 kV substation in Bhera village.

Once commissioned, the substation will benefit about 2,000 consumers in Bhera, Sidhan, Kharkadi, Kalaund, Dewawas, Sherpura and Jainawas villages.

Later, addressing a press conference here, the minister said a sum of Rs 230 crore had been sanctioned for the implementation of various projects related to expansion of the forest area in Haryana. The government would also spend Rs 40 crore to make the state green.

To a question, she said work at herbal parks in Kairu and Tosham in Bhiwani district would soon be completed.