Jalandhar, July 18
The teachers and students of the local Government Training Institute (for women) are up in arms against the decision of the Technical Education and Industrial Training, Chandigarh, to introduce the Centre of Excellency (COE) scheme funded by the World Bank here under which only one trade would be taught with the state-of-the art machinery and qualified staff.

As per information available with The Tribune, the authorities concerned are looking forward to shift the most sought after trade of food processing among the girl students to Nabha in Patiala district. The COE, Nabha, will include five units namely Jalandhar, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Hoshiarpur and Patiala. This at a time when the already started trade in apparel at the government training institute here has simply failed to take off smoothly owing to the failure on the part of the authorities concerned in Jalandhar.

Notwithstanding the huge amount of money allocated by the World Bank for the construction of the COE building and installation of hi-tech machinery for the apparel trade, the students have not shown much interest. The reason: unqualified staff and no machinery to teach the students.

“The World Bank allocated an amount of Rs 2.5 crore for the construction of COE to the government training institute before 2006. Although two years have passed but no machinery has been installed till date,” said an instructor on the terms of anonymity.

According to students, the institution did not recruited any qualified staff for this highly technical course and rather left them with old instructors, who could not train them well. And the end result was that a majority of students failed.

“Food processing is one course which is preferred by a majority of the students due to its high success rate. With the shifting of this course a large number of students would be rendered helpless,” maintained a student from Nakodar.

The institute is at present running courses in six trades of one year each namely apparels, beautician, information technology, stenograpy (Punjabi), fruit and preservation and teacher training. It noteworthy to mention here that the government has already started one COE in Mohali and the other in Hoshiarpur.

And working upon the same lines the government is now looking forward to shift the food processing to Nabha.

When contacted minister for technical education and industrial training said, “As I have not been keeping well for the past couple of months, therefore I am not aware of any new changes happening in the ITIs in the state.”

Jalandhar, July 18
With Lord Swraj Paul’s failure to pump in more money in his ambitious PTU-Caparo School of Excellence in Manufacturing and Material Technology, the fate of the institute would be a major point of discussion during a PTU-BOG meeting scheduled for July 28.

Technical education principal secretary Tejinder Kaur, who also holds the charge of PTU vice-chancellor, said this during her routine visit to Punjab Technical University today. She said, “We are exploring various possibilities and let us see how things works out.”

Interestingly, no admissions to the PTU-Caparo School of Excellence were made this year through the PTU-CET counselling as the college failed to add provisions to accommodate a fresh batch. Besides, the university authorities are baffled especially over Lord Paul’s silence in the matter.

Talking to The Tribune, Tejinder Kaur said, “We haven’t received any communication from Lord Paul on the future of the institute and the students studying there. There are some representatives of the Caparo group in India, but they are not Lords. So the final word is to come from him.”

Even as the principal secretary did not clearly mention the university’s intention, most of the top officials were of the opinion that Lord Paul should be returned the money invested by him and the school should be run independently by the PTU.

“All students currently pursuing their degree at Caparo are top rank holders and all they need is a good environment and faculty which the PTU can easily provide,” said two top officials of the university.

But there is another school of thought as per which the students who have taken admission should be shifted to the second year in some reputed engineering colleges in the vicinity.

But there are many ifs and buts with this system as well, especially the students’ will and facilities available with the engineering colleges for accommodating them.

On the issue of vice-chancellor’s post, Tejinder Kaur said the selection committee had around 20 applications. “Since we have not advertised the post, we are not totally depending on these applications. We may even appoint some one besides these 20 people,” she said, adding that things could be finalised by Monday.

Nawanshahr, July 18
Hundreds of migrant labourers under the banner of ‘Parvasi Mazdoor Union (AIFTU)’ took out a protest march in the town and gheraoed the SSP office and city police station for more than 5 hours on Thursday. They were protesting against charging of Rs 70 per person for issuing of verification cards.

Kulwinder Singh Warraich, state leader of the AIFTU, while addressing the protest dharna, claimed that the state government has not issued any direction in this regard and the process of issuing of verification cards to the migrany labourers has been started by the SSP in collaboration with a private firm. “If the government wants to issue verification cards to the migrants in the state then it should do it free of cost,” he demanded, adding that it was not right to ‘exploit’ the poor. Kamaljit Sanawa and Hari Ram Rasulpuri of Pendu Mazdoor Union said the government should register the migrants under Migration Act and not force them to pay for the verification cards.

The union leaders threatened to intensify stir and hold a massive dharna on August 5 if the fee for verification cards was not scrapped.

In a separate press not issued, Warraich also accused the SSP of misbehaving with the delegation of the union during the table talk. The irate members of the deputation also raised slogans against the SSP, he claimed.

Jalandhar, July 18
A team of Dehradun police today raided a residence in the Model House locality of the city to arrest an accused in the murder case of a Kinner at Dehradun recently.

Cops raided a particular premises to nab an accused, identified as Rajiv Kumar, as information was received by the Dehradun police that he had come to Jalandhar to the house of his grandfather. However, sources said the accused was not found in the premises.

The Dehradun police has recently arrested Pradeep Kumar in the murder case of a Kinner and during preliminary interrogation accused named his brother Rajiv Kumar also in the crime, the sources added. — PTI

Jalandhar, July 18
An undertrial prisoner escaped from the police custody while he was being taken to the local court here on Friday.

According to the police, Sukhwinder Singh, a resident of Sanghowal village, was lodged in the Jalandhar Central Jail in a case under the NDPS Act.

He was taken to the court for the case hearing where he took the benefit of the rush outside the courtroom and escaped when head constable Balwinder Singh freed him from shackles.

A case of negligence has been registered against the head constable.