Fatehabad, April 6
Thundershowers accompanied by hail that hit the area last night has left a story of devastation for farmers of this district. A sizeable portion of their standing crops has been damaged.

Farmers, who were eagerly waiting for their wheat crops to ripen in the next few days, have been left to mourn the wreckage left behind by rains and hail.

Damage to the crop has been widespread from Bighar to Dhangar, Baropal, Bhodia Khera and Bangaon on one side and Hasanga, Jandli, Bhuna and Jhalnian on the other. Hail has also caused injuries to cattle in several villages.

Three heads of sheep belonging to a farmer, Ishwar Singh of Manawali village, died due to sleet last night.

Sooraj Bhan, a farmer from Dhangar village said though it had been raining intermittently for the past three days, it did not cause any substantial damage to the crops.

But the hail accompanied by the thunderstorm that hit the area last night has left at least 25 per cent of the crops damaged.

Reports of damage to the crops have also been reported from the Ratia and Tohana areas of this district.

SIRSA: Hail and thunderstorm has caused extensive damage to standing wheat and mustard crops in different villages of the district last night.

Panchkula, April 6
The damage caused to the standing crops due to the recent rains and hailstorm in the state is being assessed, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said here today.

The Chief Minister, who was replying to the questions of the mediapersons shortly after performing yajana at Mata Mansa Devi shrine, said he was informed that farmers suffered losses in some districts due to heavy rain and hailstorm in the past couple of days.

He said he would urge the central government to give bonus on wheat to the farmers so that heir losses could be made up to some extent.

Some parts of the state, including Hisar, Rohtak, Kaihtal, Bhiwani, Panchkula and Ambala, witnessed heavy rain and hailstorm in the past two days. Reports pouring from all over the state suggest that Meham and Kalalnaur blocks of Rohtak district suffered the maximum as more than 50 per cent of wheat and mustard crops were damaged.

Financial commissioner and principal secretary Raj Kumar, however, said the damage caused by rains in other districts was minimal.

In reply to a question concerning byelections to three state assembly seats, Hooda said his party was prepared for that and would win all three seats.

On protests against rising inflation, the Chief Minister said the opposition needed an issue as it was not able to digest the “success” of the government, especially the decision to waive off loans of farmers amounting to Rs 60,000 crore.

Rohtak, April 6
Deputy commissioner R.S. Doon said here today that the Chief Minister had ordered a survey of the affected villages to gauge the extent of the damage caused to the rabi crops by the hailstorm.

Following the CM’s directions, Doon went to Madina, Bahran, Shekhpur Titri, Nindana and Farmana villages of the district to assess the situation. During his visit, the deputy commissioner, accompanied by Meham SDM Munish Nagpal and other administrative officials, talked to villagers and surveyed the damaged crops.

After his visit, Doon said around 25 villages of the district had been affected by the hailstorm. “Of these, villages of Meham subdivision in the district have been the worse affected,” he said.

The deputy commissioner maintained that after preliminary survey, it seemed that about 50 per cent damage had been caused to wheat crop. Apart from it, standing as well as harvested mustard crop lying in the fields had also been damaged.

Doon pointed out that damage to crops had been reported from Madina, Mokhra, Bahran, Ganganagar Titri, Nindana, Farmana, Ajayab, Bhaini Chanderpal, Shekhpur Titri, Saimpal, Patwapur, Balambh, Dobh, Bhali, Kahnaur, Titauli, Kabulpur and several other villages of the district.

Teams of officials have been sent to assess the crop damage in the affected villages.

Fatehabad, April 6
Haryana Janhit Congress (BL) president Kuldeep Bishnoi today accused the Congress of shying away from byelections to the seats vacated by him and his party MLAs and said he would soon meet the chief election commissioner for early byelections to these seats.

Talking to mediapersons here today, Bishnoi said everyone was expecting byelections to the Bhiwani parliamentary seat and the Adampur, Gohana and Indri assembly seats along with the elections to the Karnataka assembly.

However, the Congress, he alleged, had not been able to muster courage to contest elections at this time as people were allegedly fed up with the government.

Refuting allegations of Rajya Sabha MP Ajay Singh Chautala that he (Bishnoi) had deliberately not delivered his resignation personally to the Speaker so that it was not accepted, Bishnoi said he went to the office of Som Nath Chatterjee, but the latter was not available.

Kuldeep Bishnoi displayed before the mediapersons a letter received by him yesterday, threatening to kill him before May 1.

He alleged that though he had lodged a report with the police and had received such threats in the past too, the Haryana police had not provided him security.

Panipat, April 6
The assistant jail superintendent of Sonepat district jail, who was reportedly instrumental in seizing mobile phones from the jail, was assaulted by certain unidentified youths near Shani temple in Sonepat town today.

The official, Prithi Singh, was admitted to the Civil Hospital here after he was brutally attacked by the youths equipped with lathis and iron rods.

He has reportedly received injuries in his arm and back but is stated to be out of danger.

Worried over the security of their staff, jail officials suspect the role of men of certain gangsters lodged in the jail, who were evidently annoyed with the seizure of mobile phones. The tightlipped officials also did not rule out the possibility of certain jail staffers behind the attack. There was no official word on the incident by the evasive police authorities.

Attempts to reach Sonepat SP Navdeep Singh Virk proved futile. His subordinate staff at office and residence also plainly refused to take any message for the SP.

The victim was reportedly on his way to a market on an auto-rickshaw to buy vegetables for the jail.

Sources said more than half a dozen youths chased him in a white car, which was marked with A/F (applied for) on the number plate of the vehicle.

The miscreants stopped the auto-rickshaw near the temple and the official was assaulted on one of the busiest roads of the town. Singh, somehow, managed to escape in a van crossing from the spot.

Sources said he immediately contacted the prisons officials and the local police authorities. But before the police could act, the miscreants easily sped away from the spot.

The victim was transferred back to the Sonepat jail about two months back.

Sirsa, April 6
The state government has named the newly constructed stadium in Sirsa as Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh Stadium.

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda will dedicate the stadium to the public on April 12.

Last year, a large number of local organisations had demanded that the stadium should be named after the great martyr.

Deputy commissioner V. Umashankar said the stadium had been constructed at a cost of Rs 9.70 crore and was spread over 27 acres.

Besides athletic tracks, the stadium had two tennis courts, basketball courts, volleyball courts and courts for other sports. The stadium had facilities of floodlights for sports activities during night, he added.

The stadium constructed by the Haryana Urban Development Authority had a pavilion, which houses offices of district sports officers and coaches of various sports.

The stadium had seating facilities for viewers besides recording facilities for commentators and seating facilities for mediapersons.

Umashankar said the authorities would soon set up a hockey ground in the stadium and an astroturf would be set up in the stadium at a cost of Rs 5.60 crore.

Chandigarh, April 6
HUDA has offered eight petrol station sites in Gurgaon, Naraingarh, Panchkula and Panipat. Stating this here today, an official spokesman said the nationalised oil companies, Haryana government departments and undertakings and private oil companies having licence for retailing petrol and diesel from the union ministry of petroleum and natural gas were eligible to apply.

However, as an honour to the soldiers who died during the Kargil war, war widows of Haryana domicile having valid dealership would be given preference. The petrol station sites would be allotted on a leasehold basis.

The official said two sites had been offered in Gurgaon, one each in Sector 10 and Sector 47, one site in Sector 3 of Naraingarh, two sites in Sector 31 of Panchkula and three sites in Panipat, one each in Sectors 7, 18 and 40. The applications could be submitted to the administrator concerned, HUDA, on any working day from April 7 to May 6, 2008.

HUDA has also invited applications from registered religious organisations for the allotment of two religious sites one in Sector 45 and one site in Block-J, South City Phase II in the HUDA Urban Estate, Gurgaon, by April 15. Details of the documents to be accompanied by the application can be viewed at the office of administrator, HUDA, Gurgaon, and estate officer-II, HUDA, Gurgaon.

Chandigarh, April 6
The Haryana Housing Board has decided to hold the draw of lots of the multi-storyed flat scheme of Sector 20, Panchkula, on April 25 at 11.00 am in the office of the board, Panchkula.

Stating this here today, a spokesman for the board said all applicants were invited to witness and participate in the draw. Registration for the multi-storeyed flats was from November 5, 2007, to November 30, 2007, and again from February 25 to March 10 this year. He said the board had uploaded the details of all applicants under the scheme on the website of the board www.hbh.nic.in.

He said the details would also be available for inspection in the offices of the Housing Board, Haryana, C-15, Awas Bhawan, Sector 6, Panchkula, and the executive engineer, Housing Board, Haryana, Karnal, Faridabad, Rohtak and Gurgaon from April 7.

Discrepancies and objections, if any, with reference to information given in the application forms could be submitted in writing to the secretary of the board on or before April 21 after which the board would not be responsible for any error.

Kaithal, April 6
It’s an emergency at the district’s ailing general hospital where treatment of patients is a casualty. Based on symptoms of missing doctors, locked rooms and empty chairs, everybody’s diagnosis of the hospital reads the same - notorious.

Patients visiting the hospital vouch for this, for it means endless hours of waiting on the bench outside doctors’ rooms, which remain vacant for hours on end. The fate of indoor patients is no better. They maintain that a doctor comes for a round once in two or three days.

Most medical investigations at the hospital are outsourced to the hospital’s unofficial “extension”, the rows of shops and diagnostic clinics lining the road leading to the premises. This is because either the tests are not available at the hospital or not functional just like the ultrasound machine, which has been gathering dust for the past over one year.

The entry into the hospital itself is jinxed with the receptionist clueless about the location of various departments. Only two of the nine doctors reached their rooms by 11 am, though the number of patients continued to swell as the minutes ticked by.

The patients outside the gynaecology department said the doctor had made a brief appearance but had to go for some emergency operation. Only two doctors, one in the casualty and another in the dentistry department, were running the show.

However, despite the presence of the dentist, Dr Suresh Saini, in his room, the patients were unattended. Sitting in his room, with one leg on the chair, sipping tea and reading a newspaper, the doctor explained that he had hurt his foot and was giving it rest. “I have given injections to all patients waiting outside and will get back to them shortly,” he said, a statement refuted by the patients.

The civil surgeon, Dr R.P. Dahiya, who was away for a meeting, said three of the nine doctors were away for training, three doctors were attending court and three were present at the hospital.

The state of affairs has not only harried patients at their wits end but also local MLA Shamsher Singh Surjewala, who minces no words in expressing his displeasure about the hospital’s working.

“I am very dissatisfied with the treatment meted out to patients. I have had the parliamentary secretary, Dr Krishna Pandit, conduct a raid, urged the authorities to set their house in order, appealed, complained but nothing works. I have got a multi-speciality hospital approved for Kaithal and construction of the same is in full swing. Hopefully, after it opens, it will ameliorate the suffering of the patients. At this hospital, I see little hope,” he maintains.

Chandigarh, April 6
Haryana power minister Randeep Singh Surjewala today challenged Ajay Singh Chautala for a public debate on loan waiver, commencement of various irrigation schemes and setting up of power stations across the state so that people of Haryana know the truth.

Reacting to Chautala’s statement, Surjewala said the claims made by Chautala were false. He regretted that all these lies were made while paying tributes to his late grandfather, Devi Lal, who’s death anniversary falls today.

He said the fact of the matter was that Ajay Chautala and his father, Om Parkash Chautala, were completely nerved by the biggest ever loan waiver of farmers by the present Central government.

Ajay’s statement that loan waiver of Rs 16,514 crore was done in Haryana during the tenure of late Devi Lal, was a complete lie. Regarding the statement issued by Ajay that irrigation schemes, namely Loharu Canal Scheme, Siwani Canal Scheme and Jawahar Lal Nehru Lift Irrigation Scheme, were started and implemented by late Devi Lal for benefit of the farmers, Surjewala said these schemes were started and implemented by the Congress government between 1971 and 1976 in Haryana when Bansi Lal was the Chief Minister and Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister.

He said Ajay Chautala had again wrongly stated that Faridabad and Panipat thermal power plants were constructed during the tenure of Ch Devi Lal. Truth was that these plants were constructed during the tenure of the Congress government only.

Successive governments of the Lok Dal had never taken any step to produce electricity in the state.

It was the present government, which was investing Rs 24,000 crore to produce 5,000 MW of thermal based electricity in Haryana during its five-year tenure. In addition, bidding was already on for another 2,000 MW of electricity.