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ML Kapoor awarded jail, gets bail
Rajay Deep
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, October 22
After ten-year long proceedings, a local court today awarded one year's imprisonment to Madan Lal Kapoor, chairman, Small Traders Board, Punjab.
Kapoor, who at present has the status of a cabinet minister, was booked along with five others after a clash with sleuths from the Central Excise and Customs department. Except for Kapoor, the rest including Sarup Chand Singla, who is the Bathinda area in-charge of the ruling SAD, Sewak Bhola, Raman Kumar, Des Raj and Samal Kumar were acquitted by the court of JMIC Harjeet Singh. Confirming the details, counsel for the defence Nand Lal Garg said Gursewak Bhola was acquitted at an early stage as he was declared innocent after investigations by the Punjab Police and in the absence of any evidence, the other four were also released today. Later, Kapoor was released on bail after furnishing a surety bond. It may be mentioned that the case was registered on March 6, 1998, under sections 353, 332 and 506 of the IPC, when officials of the Central Excise and Customs department were allegedly beaten up by traders following a dispute which was sparked off during a search of the Azad Engineering Works and Super Steel Company. At that time, the irate mob had smashed a Maruti van and a Maruti Gypsy of the officials who had managed to escape but the others were confined and could be freed only after the intervention of the police. Lodging a complaint, the officials, who had come from Jalandhar, had said that having received a tip-off regarding tax evasion in lakhs, they had visited the city to conduct the raids. It was also alleged that when the traders could do nothing to prove their innocence, they summoned some hooligans and started manhandling them. On the other hand, the traders alleged that the team had come there to extort bribe from them as they were without uniforms and had come in private cars. Talking to the TNS, advocate Nand Lal Garg said that in the court proceedings, Sarup Chand Singla appeared to have played a positive role in rescuing the officials from the mob. There was no evidence against others hinting at their direct role in the episode. Madan Lal Kapoor said, "I had gone there just to perform my duty as the president of the Punjab Pardesh Beopar Mandal, but was falsely implicated in the case."
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Ex-servicemen express concern over ‘anomalies’ in pay panel report
Anjali Singh Deswal
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, October 22
Members of the ex-servicemen wing of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) voiced their concern over the alleged anomalies in the recommendation of the Sixth Pay Commission (SPC) at a meeting held here today.
Colonel P.I.S. Phulka (retd), national president of the wing, and other retired Army officers and jawans, said that it was a sorry state of affairs depicted by the Congress when it came to the SPC applicable to the forces. “The recommendations of the SPC are sheer injustice to us,” they said. Almost 30 per cent of the Central government employees consist of forces and not a single defence officer in the 150 member staff of the SPC was allowed to be a member of the pay panel. A review committee was set up to look into the anomalies of the SPC but members of the committee were the same as in the pay commission, they said. “At the time of the 1971 war, we were given garlands, rakhis and thousands donated at the time of Kargil war but not a single political party except for SAD came forward to fight for the anomalies in the SPC. We were in Delhi for a day-long hunger strike in support of our demands, but we were not allowed to sit in front of the Amar Jawan Jyoti. We were taken to the Tilak Nagar police station and held for over two hours,” Col Phulka said. A leading English news channel called the deputy defence minister for his say on the ongoing protests by the forces for the sixth PC and he had said it was shameful what the Army was doing. It was never expected of soldiers to come out on to the streets and fight for their rights. The channel had then called Col Phulka who asked the deputy defence minister if he had any of his relatives in the Army and he said no. Had he ever served in Siachin? He again said no. “Then how can you say that our protest which is peaceful is wrong.
Gandhiji had taught non-violence to India and our protests were peaceful. We did not indulge in any non-violent activity,” said Col Phulka. Defence Minister A.K. Antony said the Army was short of 11,000 officers, Navy 1360 and Air Force lacked almost 1350 officers. Col Phulka said this was because forces were being paid much less as compared to their counterparts in other countries. Even Pakistan pays three times more salary to their forces than India. “A day will come when we will fall short of people willing to guard our borders. Not enough youngsters are opting to join defence. The status of the forces is being reduced with every pay commission. A BSF commandant and a CRPF officer of equal rank is made senior to a serving
Lt Col of the Army which is wrong,” said Major Karnail Singh (retd) of the wing. The members of the wing stated that they would continue their protests till the Lok Sabha elections and if the government fails to resolve the issue then they would burn their medals in front of the India Gate in New Delhi to intensify their stir.
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Paddy arrivals see 45 pc increase in Abohar
Raj Sadosh
Abohar, October 22
With senior office-bearers of the farmers’ organisations cooling down their tempers, the situation in the new grain market and recently-launched cotton yard has improved much. During a visit to the grain market, it was found that there was no glut of paddy or long wait for selling cotton.
The Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) alone purchased 7,000 quintals of cotton today at the MSP. However, the private buyers were not ready to offer more than Rs 2,650. The CCI’s Punjab zone in-charge, V.P. Nagpal, confirmed that the agency had so far purchased 4.05 lakh quintals of cotton from the 21 markets of the state. The CCI would not make purchase on Saturday and Sunday as a decision to observe a five-day week had been taken. Interestingly, paddy arrivals in the local grain market and at the rural purchase centres have increased by 45 per cent compared to last year. Harpal Singh, secretary of the market committee, said 1,11,780 quintals of paddy was received till Tuesday. Cotton arrivals till today were quoted at 1.63 lakh quintals whereas last year’s figure till the same day was 1.90 lakh quintals. The decline in cotton production is believed to be due to waterlogging in a dozen villages of the Balluana Assembly segment. The villages included Kerakhera, Bahadurkhera, Malookpura and Karampatti. Meanwhile, sources said the paddy growers had this time been provided with a facility for selling the produce at rural purchase centres located near the international border at village Jandwala Meerasangla besides Malookpura. Initially, there was problem in procurement and lifting as the government had not allotted rice shellers to the state agencies. The FCI has so far purchased 23,000 quintals of paddy while Punsup and Markfed procured about 27,000 quintals and private traders about 26,675 quintals.
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Training camp for farmers
Farmers asked to adopt new techniques
Rajay Deep
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, October 22
The Agricultural Department today organised a farmers' training camp at the district office of the department here, where farmers were apprised of a number of new techniques regarding Agricultural Training Management Agency (ATMA) scheme, and the production of oilseed crops and pulses.
Though the authorities of the department expressed happiness over the size of gathering, the presence of farmers at stalls set up for creating awareness about various trades and seeds remained low. Moreover, farmers were found talking about their lack of interest in the training camp in comparison to the previous ones. Presiding over the function, Surjeet Singh Panjawa, joint director, agriculture (IP) Punjab, appealed to farmers to adopt new techniques for maximising profit at minimum cost. He said that the department was all set to provide manure at the time of need. He mentioned that for Rabi crop for 2008-09, 5.5 lakh metric tonne DAP and 12.5 lakh tonne urea had been arranged. The distribution of the manure would be done through 10,952 sale points. Speaking about the arrangements of approved seeds, he said that with the coordination of various agencies 8,99,329 quintal seeds for wheat, 5,936 quintal of barley and 1221 quintal oilseeds have been arranged. He added that under the National Food Conservation Mission, farmers would be given a subsidy at seeds at the rate of Rs 500 per quintal. Speaking on the issue, Paramjeet Singh Sandhu, chief agricultural officer, Bathinda said that under the mission, a target of subsidy over wheat seeds have been fixed for the 39,200 hectare land for this year. The seeds would be made available through Punseed and Punjab Agro. Director, PAU regional research station, Bathinda, GS Buttar appealed to farmers to plough the fields along with stubble so that it could help restore soil fertility.
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Plea to set up cotton development council
Harbinder Singh
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, October 22
To mitigate the miseries of the cotton growers as well as the cotton industry in the state, the Punjab Cotton Factories and Ginners' Association has called for forming Cotton Development Council in the state. The association has demanded from the state government that the council be formed on the lines of Maharashtra, the largest cotton producing state in the country.
Speaking to TNS over phone today, Bhagwan Bansal, president of the association, said the council would compare the cultivation system in the state with that of other cotton growing countries, as USA, China and Egypt. It would send its team to foreign countries to study their practice and then organise camps in the state to educate the cotton growers about the ways of getting high yield. The council would arrange for seeds and pesticides of high quality besides implementing uniform taxes in the state as compared to other states. Bansal demanded from the state government to open laboratories in the state where samples of seeds, pesticides and fertilisers would be tested before giving to the farmers. He also asked that the state-of-the-art ginning and pressing machinery should be imported from the USA, largest cotton producing country. Bansal has urged the state agriculture minister Sucha Singh Langah to come forward and form the council in the largest interest of the cotton growers in the state. He said the council should have progressive farmers, besides representatives of spinning and ginning units, Punjab Mandi Board, Cotton Corporation of India, Excise and Taxation department, Punjab Infrastructure Development Board and scientists of Punjab Agriculture University as its members. The council would monitor the entire process from the sowing of cotton crop till it is harvested, he added. At present, cotton was produced on as many as 6.25 hectares of land, which was expected to rise to 7 lakh hectares next year.
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Sangat Darshan
Check seepage, waterlogging: CM to drainage dept officials
Tribune News Service
Muktsar, October 22
During his visit to the villages of Malout sub-division, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today lashed out at the engineers for preparing estimates much more than the requirement and duping the exchequer.
Warning them, he said Lt General (retd.) B.S. Dhaliwal had been appointed as technical adviser to the state government, who had been investigating the matter of duping funds through fake estimates. “In the initial investigation, a number of cases have come to light. After the report is submitted, the accused would face stern legal action.” During his Sangat Darshan at various villages namely Bodiwal, Shergarh, Panniwala, Tarkhan Wala and Ratta Khera, Badal listened to Dalits first, then the youth and in the end the general category and Panchayat members. The reason the CM gave was that mostly the general category people were heard first, which left those in the reserved category in the lurch. Badal laid the foundation stone of a 66 KV grid at Alamwala village and granted Rs 15 crore for various developmental works in villages. Accepting the demand of the Dalit community, he sanctioned Rs 50 lakh for the construction of a community centre at the village. At Ratta Khera village, the CM ordered the drainage department to check the seepage and waterlogging in the district. “The menace is a challenge for your department. Find out the proper way to tackle it,” Badal said to the chief engineer of the drainage department.
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