Malerkotla, October 2
Transfer of property by the Muslims to others by way of “hibanama” (gift deed) will be exempted from stamp duty in the state.

The announcement, made by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal here today, was termed by the Muslim leaders as a “special gift” to the Muslims on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr.

Badal visited the local Eidgah and extended greetings to the Muslim brethren. Thousands of Muslims offered Namaz-e-Eid with religious fervour there.

The implementation of the “hibanama”, which is part of the Muslim Personal Law, was a long-standing demand of the Muslims.

Badal also announced that the government would draw up a master plan for the overall development of Malerkotla town. He announced a grant of Rs 50 lakh for purchasing land for the expansion of the Eidgah.

Area in charge of the SAD for the Malerkotla Assembly constituency Chaudhary Abdul Gaffar and former minister Nusrat Ali Khan were also present.

Sangrur: Thousands of Muslims offered Namaz-e-Eid at the local mosque, situated in the Kishanpura area. President of the SAD (Amritsar) Simranjit Singh Mann also participated in the celebrations and extended greetings to the Muslims at the mosque.

Amritsar, October 2
The Vigilance Bureau today booked Brig Charanjiv Singh Harika (retd), former chairman of the Punjab Subordinate Services Selection Board (PSSSB), a PCS officer Navjot Singh Randhawa and some other employees of the board for allegedly recruiting 2,450 teachers by allegedly bending rules and tampering with the record during the regime of Capt Amarinder Singh.

In all more than 70,000 candidates had applied for the post of teachers under various categories.

Brigadier Harika, a close confidant of Capt Amarinder Singh, former Chief Minister, was sworn in as chairman of PSSSB on December 10, 2002. However, Brigadier Harika said he was not aware of the FIR lodged against him. He said he could give his version only after getting the details of the case registered against him and other employees of the PSSSB.

The six-month long inquiry, conducted by SP (VB), Chaman Lal Sharma, which was endorsed by at least two DIGs, reportedly indicted Brigadier Harika, Randhawa, the then secretary, PSSSB , Gurpal Singh, owner of a private computer company, Balwant Singh, Jaspal and Parminder Singh, former personal assistant to Randhawa in the ‘recruitment scam’. The recruitment included science teachers/ masters/mistresses, mathematics teachers, home science teachers, art and craft teachers and physical training teachers.

Sharma refused to give any details. However, sources pointed out that the selection committee recruited at least 52 teachers/ masters/mistresses by tampering with the merit list of the candidates. Similarly 90 teachers were selected who did not qualify for the job. The alleged bungling was also reported in the case of general category teachers. A couple, in their complaint , had alleged that money also changed hands in the selections.

The suspects have been booked under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 201, 120-B, IPC, and Sections 7, 131-D of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.

Before taking over as the chairman of the PSSSB , Brigadier Harika had fought insurgency in Assam. 

Chandigarh, October 2
The effects of global economy meltdown are already being felt in Punjab. The private players interested in two of the state’s grandest projects-the Mohali bus terminal and the Mohali IT Tower- have reportedly backed out from their commitments.

Aakruti City Limited, a company listed with both the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange, had bid for the Mohali bus terminal project offered by the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB) in the public-private partnership mode.

The company had offered to pay the government Rs 200 crore upfront and another Rs 10 crore every year with a five per cent increase each year for the next 90 years, the lease period of the project. The PIDB had announced that the bid had been accepted and the project awarded.

However, sources revealed the company had written to the PIDB that they would not be able to fulfil their commitment and would like to back out from the bid. The reason given by the company to the PIDB was that they had “wrongly” bid such a large amount.

Sources add that PIDB considered awarding the project to the next highest bidder. The next highest bidder had, however, offered only Rs 50 crore upfront which is Rs 150 crore less than the chosen bidder.

The PIDB was now thinking of re-bidding the project, said a source, adding that the state government was confident of the project’s viability and its ability to attract top companies to the state.

A first-of-its-kind in India, the bus terminal-cum-commercial mall project is coming up on 6.6 acre of land. The land is owned by the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) and will be given to a private company, which will plan, design, finance, construct, market and operate it in the PPP mode.

The expression of interest (EOI) advertisement for the project had attracted a tremendous response from across the country. Around 30 top-notch companies showed interest in the project.

The PIDB is also said to be “revising” its offer document for its IT tower project. Spread across eight acres in Sector 67, the IT Tower would offer over 8 lakh square feet of plug and play space to IT companies.

Sources said a host of companies had shown keen interest in the project when PIDB had called for expression of interest. However, a few months later when the offer (RFP) document was prepared and made public, the response was virtually nil. Sources in the IT department pointed out that the main reason for companies losing interest in the IT tower was the absence of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) status for the tower.

Sources said the offer document of the IT tower project was being revised by the government to make it more attractive for the private players. 

Chandigarh, October 2
The Punjab and Haryana High Court wants Punjab to furnish the details of equipment purchased by it for intelligence and other wings of the police. But the state has so far failed to provide the court with the particulars. The details were sought by Justice Ranjit Singh on September 16. After passing a comprehensive order in the matter, Justice Ranjit Singh had fixed October 1 as the next date of hearing.

The issue had cropped up during the hearing of a petition filed by Anurag Saxena. He runs a security equipment supply agency and is co-accused in a case registered against Punjab’s former police chief S.S. Virk. As the case came up, the state counsel sought additional time for filing a reply. Taking on record the state counsel’s request, Justice Ranjit Singh adjourned the matter. It has now been posted for October 31.

Saxena, through the petition, is seeking the quashing of the FIR against him. While hearing the arguments on his plea, Justice Ranjit Singh made it clear that the court wanted to know how much was the total equipment purchased by the state for intelligence or other wings through the petitioner, the total value of the apparatus purchased, the nature of equipment and also the officers responsible for making payments for the purchase.

The case against Virk and Saxena has been registered by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau. It has been alleged that Virk used his position as ADGP to procure equipment worth crores for the police department through Saxena, a close "family friend".

The VB has been alleging that there were transactions through banks between them. Saxena, however, has been denying the allegations.

Sangrur, October 2
Bairagis have about eight lakh votes in Punjab and the association of a large number of Bairagis with the Congress is well known. Despite this at the time of allotment of tickets for the Lok Sabha (LS) and the Assembly elections, they always feel that they are an ignored lot in the party. As Bairagis have reportedly about 80,000 votes only in Sangrur district, they want Congress ticket for a person from their community for the Sangrur LS constituency in the ensuing LS elections.

Talking to The Tribune here yesterday, president of the All-India Bairagi (Vaishnav) Maha Mandal Krishan Kumar Bawa further said during the previous LS elections, the Bairagi community had demanded the Sangrur LS seat from the Congress, but the party had refused. This time, too, the Bairagis were demanding the Sangrur LS seat from the Congress for their candidate. In case the Congress again refused, they would be compelled to take an important decision in the larger interest of the community, he added.

Bawa said the Bairagi community had several problems which could not be solved till Bairagis had MPs in Parliament and MLAs in the Assemblies. He said Bairagis wanted representation at high political platforms as they were not ready to follow others blindly.

Bawa said Bairagis believed in secularism. So many of them were with the Congress from the commencement of their political career. He said in the 1992 Assembly elections, he was the only person who had cast vote at his native Raqba village in the Raikot Assembly constituency. That was the time when militants had threatened everyone.

Chandigarh, October 2
Saying that time spent by the Vidhan Sabha to debate issues concerning people is too meagre, Congress legislator from Bolath Sukhpal Singh Khaira has sought the intervention of the President of India. He has stressed the need for redefining the working of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha.

Describing the functioning of the Vidhan Sabha as “inadequate”, even at the cost of inviting a “privilege motion”, Khaira has said there is an immediate need for a constitutional amendment to ensure that the “House fulfils the aspirations of the people”.

Khaira in his letter to President Pratibha Patil has not only sought increase in the duration of the House sittings, but also demanded that the “speaker be bound to give reasons for the questions or adjournment motions he disallows”.

He, however, made it clear that these were his personal observations and not the “reflection of his party”. As per the details given out in the letter, the Vidhan Sabha has met five times during the current SAD-BJP regime in the past 18 months in which it held 29 sittings. But, the total time utilised by the Assembly was only 110 hours, which amounted to only 0.8 per cent of the time spent by the government in office. He said these figures were based on the bulletins issued by the House.

He said though the last House was actually held from September 4 to 10, but it’s sittings accounted for a mere 7.16 hours.

Citing example of the last session, he said, “there was one sitting for obituaries, followed by one for discussion, then there were four off days and finally the last sitting passed important Bills without discussion. Punjab has been ravaged by floods, due to which crops on 1,70,000 acres was destroyed, 37 lives were lost and property worth crores washed away, but the ruling SAD-BJP combine did not allow even one minute of discussion on the issue of floods.

Khaira said laws should be amended to fix a minimum quantum of time for the Vidhan Sabha to meet. The legislature should meet on the pattern of our Lok Sabha and all proceedings be covered live by Doordarshan. He pleaded for introduction of “right to recall” of elected representatives as suggested by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

Ajitwal (Moga), October 2
Hundreds of farmers staged a protest outside the police station and also blocked rail traffic on the Moga-Ludhiana railway line, levelling allegations of sheltering a commission agent who had forcibly snatched the tractor belonging to a poor farmer of the area.

The farmers, who gathered under the banner of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ekta), alleged that commission agent Iqbal Singh forcibly took away the tractor of Karnail Singh over a monetary dispute that occurred a couple of weeks ago.

The farmers said a criminal case was registered against the agent but he was not being arrested under pressure from certain influential leaders of the ruling party.

Sukhdev Singh Kokri, general secretary of the union, said the protest would continue until the police arrested the agent and the farmer got his tractor back. 

New Delhi, October 2
Agriculturists in Punjab seem to be struggling this season to hire migrant farm workers from Bihar and are believed to be using novel ways, like offering free cellphones, to lure them.

The lower scale of seasonal migration from Bihar could partially be due to the floods there, yet the woes of the farmers in the grain bowl of the country are being seen in a positive light by officials of the ministry of rural development.

Rita Sharma, secretary, ministry of rural development, today said the shortage of migrant workers from Bihar was an indicator of greater availability of jobs in their own state under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

"The traditional migration did not happen and farmers from Punjab tell us that they are luring workers from Bihar by offering incentives like cellphones," she said at a national-level interaction on Implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. — PTI

Chandigarh, October 2
Over 5 lakh tonnes of paddy has been procured within first three days of kharif marketing season 2008-09. The procurement has mainly been made from western Punjab.

According to an official spokesman, out of total 4,94,444 tonnes of paddy procured till yesterday, Pungrain procured 1,14,483 tonnes (26.2 per cent), Markfed 1,14,407 tonnes (26.2 per cent), Punsup 93,657 tonnes (21.4 per cent), the Punjab State Warehousing Corporation 60354 tonnes (13.8 per cent) and Punjab Agro 50,289 tonnes (11.5 per cent). The FCI procured only 4,005 tonnes of paddy (0.9 per cent). Millers procured 57,249 tonnes of paddy (11.6 per cent) on the third day.

The mandis in Amritsar division recorded 2,15,661 tonnes of paddy procurement with Tarn Taran recording a maximum of 75,174 tonnes on the third day. The mandis of Ferozepur division recorded 2,61,972 tonnes of paddy procurement with a maximum of 1,00,505 tonnes being recorded by Ferozepur district.

The Punjab Food Supply Department had set up 1,622 procurement centres throughout the state. The spokesman said farmers had been assured of payment of paddy procured by the government agencies within 48 hours of lifting of paddy from the procurement centres.

Gurdaspur, October 2
The Education Department seems to have been playing a joke with the careers of school students as they are yet to be supplied with computer books though half the current academic session has passed. Interestingly, the department has supplied the revised syllabus of computer education to all schools in time.

Not only this, students of Class VI to plus II are in for another shock as fee for the computer course has been increased with retrospect effect.

The authorities concerned have ordered the DEOs to collect the amount on account of increased computer fee from April, 2008, from the students and deposit the same with the department immediately.

“The state Education Department has failed to supply books for mandatory computer education to its schools, but has not failed to order a steep increase in the fee. This reflects that the department is not concerned with the status of computer education in schools,” said the teachers whom The Tribune talked to.

Official sources said the steepest increase in fee had been ordered in case of plus I and plus II students, where the fee had been increased from Rs 25 per month to Rs 35 per month (40 per cent). For Classes IX and X, the fee had been increased from Rs 25 per month to Rs 30 per month (20 per cent), and from Rs 20 per month to Rs 22 per month (10 per cent) for Classes VI, VII and VIII.

Compulsory computer education is provided in all government schools of the state under the Punjab Information Communication and Technology Education Society (PICTES), which has been specially set for the purpose. All students from Class VI to plus II are given computer education in the computer labs set up in the schools and the books are got printed by PICTES.

These books are not available in the market.

The teachers pointed out that they were promised by the district coordinators of the ICT projects that the books would be supplied to them before September. They pleaded that the increased fee should have been charged from the next (2009-10) academic session. They added that the increase in fee would led to a decline in the number of students getting admission in government schools from next academic session.

Director-general, Schools, Krishan Kumar could not be contacted for comments despite repeated efforts.

Jalandhar, October 2
Nearly 10,000 teachers and other employees of 484 government-aided, recognised private schools, who have not got salary for the past six months, will hold a demonstration against education minister Upinderjit Kaur at Sultanpur Lodhi, the minister’s home town, on October 4.

After October 4, the employees of these schools will be holding demonstrations at venues wherever the education minister will be holding official functions in the state.

“We will greet her with black flags wherever she will be visiting after October 4,” said N.N. Saini, general secretary of the Punjab State Aided School Teachers and Other Employees Union. Decisions to this effect were taken at a meeting of the action committee of the union here today.

Teachers and other employees have not got salaries because the state government has not released 95 per cent grant-in-aid to these schools. The government had yesterday released grant-in-aid to about 70 schools of Fatehgarh, Hoshiarpur, Bathinda and Ferozepur districts while the grant to remaining schools is yet to be released.

There are certain aided schools in the state where teachers have not got their salaries for the past nine months. “We have learnt that the state government that is at war with itself on the issue of power and other subsidies is facing a serious financial crisis; that is why it has been dodging the issue of releasing the grant to aided schools,” said a senior office- bearer the union.

In fact, salary is not the only issue on which teachers and other employees will be holding demonstrations. Gurcharan Singh Chahal, president of the union, Saini, general secretay, said the SAD-BJP government had even failed to revive the pension school for employees who have retired since then. It was discontinued in June 2003.

Patiala, October 2
The startling fact that a large number of seats in dental colleges of Punjab are lying vacant came to light during the second extended counselling session for admissions, which was completed three days back.

According to sources in the Punjab Medical Education Department, at least 220 seats are still lying vacant in state dental colleges. Notably, there are around 1,000 seats in the dental colleges of Punjab, including the two Government Colleges at Patiala and Amritsar. Besides, there are 10 dental colleges in the private sector.

Senior functionaries of some of the dental colleges revealed that due to the delayed admission process this year, a large number of seats had been left vacant in the BDS course.

They said admissions to the medical and dental colleges in Punjab this year had been made after admissions were completed in other states.

Therefore, students who had taken admission in dental colleges of other states were reluctant to shift to Punjab, as they were unlikely to get a fee refund. They revealed that this had caused a huge loss of revenue to the state.

Meanwhile, the present situation in private dental colleges is as follows: Adesh Dental College, Bathinda - total seats 100, vacant 34; Lumxi Bai Dental College, Patiala - total seats 100, vacant 30; DIDSR, Faridkot - total 60, vacant 27; Genesis, Ferozepur - total seats 100, vacant 6; NDC, Dera Bassi - total seats 100, vacant 26; BJS, Ludhiana - total seats 100, vacant 11; GNDCC, Sunam - total seats 100, vacant 19; DBDC, Muktsar - total seats 100, vacant 34, Gian Sagar, Banur - total seats 100, vacant 31.

Chandigarh, October 2
An industrialist who lowered the prices of weedicides to benefit Punjab farmers to the tune of Rs 50 crore, is set to get the annual ‘Dr Amrik Singh Cheema award’ for his contribution to the farming community of Punjab as well as the national agro-chemical industry.

Disclosing this, Young Farmers Association secretary general Bhagwan Das Gupta said the award would be presented to Rajju Shroff at the annual ‘Kisan Mela’ at Rakhra village near Patiala tomorrow.

Bhagwan Das said Shroff was known as a crusader who had set up a factory in London way back in 1960. He said Shroff had shown that Indian research and development did not lag behind any other country in the world and that presently many English companies were paying royalty for adopting Indian technology.

He said Shroff, who heads the largest agro-chemical company in India and has plants all over the world, was now planning to establish units in Punjab which would help the state’s agricultural economy, besides generating employment. He said the asssociation had appealed to Shroff to supply chemicals, which dealt with fungal infections, at competitive rates to farmers who had to spend more this year due to excess rain as well as stagnant water in their paddy fields for long durations.

Shroff’s company, United Phosphorous, has 25 subsidiaries all over the world and has acquired eight new pesticide companies in the past three years. It is also exporting chemicals and pesticides to more than 108 countries around the world.

Amritsar, October 2
“I have no pressure and just following my conscience for donating my kidney to Kirpal Singh, additional deputy commissioner, Tarn Taran”, said Sunny (23), the prospective kidney donor, who arrived here from Chandigarh today.

He said he did not know why his parents were raising a hue and cry while his father accompanied me during the two meetings of the authorisation committee.

His parents, Charan Das and Suman Rani, had filed a petition in the civil court, alleging that the kidney transplant was being done without their consent. Meanwhile, the authorisation committee has asked the parents to be present at its crucial meeting to be held here tomorrow.

Meanwhile, denying monetary gains for the kidney donation, Sunny said he was donating the organ as per his wish and had no pressure. He said he had done matric and had taken the permission of his parents for the donation.