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Cops held captive, 159 booked
Fly ash chokes city lungs
Dust is raised as a scooterist drives through a heap of fly ash in Bathinda on Friday. Fly ash has become a major threat to people’s health here. Tribune photo: Kulbir Beera |
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Pharmacists meet pay panel chief, demand pay hike
Power board’s woes don’t seem to end, faces staff shortage now
‘Women more prone to HIV’
Athletes from Abohar village shine in state games
Alarming situation
School sans electricity meter gets bill from PSEB
Van Mahotsav celebrated
Sarup Chand Singla, area in-charge of the SAD (B), distributing cheques of Shagun scheme at his office in Bathinda on Friday. Tribune photo: Kulbir Beera
Youth Congress flays Garg
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Cops held captive, 159 booked
Abohar, October 24 As per information available, a court at Suratgarh in the Sriganganagar region had issued warrants against Puran Singh, his wife Krishna Kanwer and son Partap Singh in a dowry intimidation case filed in 2006 by Partap’s wife there. The accused had been allegedly not joining the trial after getting bail in the instant case and were reportedly declared proclaimed offenders. The respondent had alleged that the accused had been intimidating her for more than five years of her marriage. Head constable Dhola Ram along with the constables Hira Lal, Chhotu Ram, Mohinder Singh, Rakesh Kumar and lady constable Lalita from the Raziasar police station of Sriganganagar district today reportedly stormed Puran Singh’s house located in street number 3 of Rajiv Nagar located near Nai Abadi area during the morning hours. It is said the police nabbed Puran Singh but his wife Krishna Kanwer escaped by jumping from the top of the roof to her neighbour’s house. Lady constable Lalita overpowered her and brought her back to house. Sources said people of the locality gheraoed the police party and allegedly thrashed in a free-for-all exercise to prevent the arrests. The six members police group was made captive for about two hours. Local police led by SHO Balkar Singh rushed to the spot and got the Rajasthan police team freed after lot of persuasions. However, in the meantime, all those wanted by the Rajasthan police had managed to flee. On the other hand. the immediate neighbourer Raksha Devi, wife of Jaswant Singh, alleged that the Rajasthan police had beaten up her daughter Seema and daughter-in-law Anju after intruding in their house. The city police on a complaint lodged by Head constable Dhola Ram in charge of the visiting police team registered an FIR under sections 353, 186, 342, 332, 224, 225, 148 and 149 of the Indian Penal Code against Puran Singh, his wife Krishna Kanwer, Jaswant Singh, his daughters Seema and Babli, son Rajesh Kumar and his wife Anju, medical practitioner Mukesh, Sandeep Kumar and 150 other unidentified persons. |
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Fly ash chokes city lungs
Bathinda, October 24 The fly ash generated by the National Fertilisers Ltd (NFL) is yet another problem as it is being dumped in public places and around villages on the Bathinda-Abohar road. The coal consumption of the thermal station is about 1500 to 1600 MT per unit depending upon the quality of coal. The total daily coal requirement is about 6500 MT (about two rakes of 58 wagons each) when all the four units are in operation, whereas the NFL also consumes about 1700 MT of coal that generates 700 MT of ash. The coal supplies are being received from Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. Fly ash produced by the NFL is being dumped in open grounds in and around the city and also in periphery of adjoining villages thereby posing threat to the health of the people. Respiratory disease has increased particularly among children in the town as they inhale fly ash. The pollution control board has failed to take effective steps to check the menace even when the town and its adjoining areas have become a dumping ground of ash that flies here and there when winds blow. The cement plant of Ambujas and brick kilns around here lift the ash for mixing it in their products, but even then a large quantity remains unutilised that is dumped anywhere in the town. These units resort to haphazard dumping when their ash slurry ponds get filled to capacity. The problem is bound to aggravate as the thermal power station at Lehra Mohabbat was functioning at its full capacity and two more thermal projects are in the pipeline at Talwandi Sabo and Giddarbah. The thermal station here consumed 21,530 metric tonnes of coal last year, whereas the consumption of coal in the Lehra Mohabbat project was over 2.64 lakh metric tonnes when only two of the four units were functional. Officials of the coal consuming projects claim that the poor quality of coal being supplied by various agencies was adding to their woes. The central and the state governments have from time to time issued orders making it mandatory for different types of factories to utilise the ash in its products, but this was not seriously being implemented. |
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Pharmacists meet pay panel chief, demand pay hike
Fazilka, October 24 The deputation while presenting their case for the revision of the pay-scales before the commission, highlighted the anomalies in the scales of pharmacists and demanded a basic scale of Rs 23,500 with five per cent annual increment. Besides, the pharmacists have demanded proficiency step up after four, nine and 14 years of service. The association also demanded patient care allowance of Rs 700 per month, conveyance allowance of Rs 500 per month and 10 percent of basic salary as deputation allowance for pharmacists working in ESI hospitals, Police Lines and jails. They also pleaded for merging of dearness allowance (DA) in basic pay when it reached the level of 50 per cent. The association demanded increase in medical allowance from 350 per month to 700 per month and increase in post morterm allowance to Rs 100 per post morterm. The pharmacists’ association also highlighted issues of public interest to save crores of rupees annually to the state government. They demanded the control of 1,193 rural dispensaries of the state back, which had been transferred to Zila Parishads, to enable more than 800 pharmacists of the health department work there again. The Zila Parishads have leased the dispensaries on contract and are incurring huge expenses. This experiment was not successful. Besides, they demanded the change of designation of the pharmacists to pharmacy officer, senior pharmacy officer and chief pharmacy officer after four, nine and 14 years of service. They sought the creation of the post of the District Pharmacy Officer, deputy directors and joint directors at state headquarters and grant of gazetted status to the pharmacists as well. After a meeting with the pay commission, the panel members including senior vice-president Jaswinder Singh Patti, organising secretary, Chamkaur Singh, joint secretary Sunil Datt Sharma, assistant secretary Sardara Singh Gill, Major Singh, Navtej Singh and Harjinder Singh Arneja met the principal secretary, Health, Vijay Kain and Director, Health Services, Punjab, S.P.S. Sohal and pleaded before them for recommending their demands favourably to the pay commission. The principal secretary and the director assured the pharmacists’ association that they would
support their demands while taking up the case with the pay commission. |
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Power board’s woes don’t seem to end, faces staff shortage now
Bathinda, October 24 If we talk about the west zone, which caters to Bathinda, Faridkot, Muktsar and Ferozepur circles, a total of 3,828 posts are lying vacant in various categories. The zone, which includes Bathinda, Faridkot, Muktsar, Ferozepur, Moga, Mansa districts, has 318 sanctioned posts of cashiers, but ironically, 210 posts out of this are lying vacant. In the same way, there are 237 posts of electricity bill venders but 178 have been lying vacant. There are 249 posts of meter readers but 91 are yet to be filled up. There were 527 posts of junior engineer (electrical), but 251 of these in the west zone are lying vacant. The zone has a total of four posts of JE (civil), one for each circle, but except for Muktsar, the rest of the three are still lying vacant. The districts of Malwa have 2976 posts of linemen, out of which 947 are vacant. In the zone, 464 sub-station attendants were sanctioned but 198 seats are unoccupied. Out of the total 436 posts of upper class clerks, 182 are vacant. In the same way, low class clerks have a vacancy of 257 against 594 sanctioned posts. In the zone, there are 33 posts of steno typists but 22 are lying vacant. There are 12 posts of electricians of grade-II and 10 of these are unoccupied. The zone has a vacancy of 87 drivers. The department has 250 sanctioned posts of Sevadar but 66 are vacant. Against the 4960 posts of assistant linemen, 587 are vacant. Out of 144 sub-station officers, 35 are not in the job. As many as five out of the total of seven posts of cable operators are vacant. Around 25 posts of revenue accountants are vacant against a total of 77. In the same way, 25 draftsmen are not there out of the sanctioned 37 posts. It may be mentioned that the west zone of the PSEB has 24,5357 defaulters with a an outstanding amount of more than Rs 84 crore. But in the absence of proper staff and the snail’s pace of recovery, it seems that the PSEB has been waiting for some miracle to happen to solve the problem. And it does not come as a surprise that with so much staff shortage, the board is finding it difficult to achieve its goals. When contacted, chief engineer, west zone of the PSEB, Ravinder Singh, said, “Despite the staff crunch, we have been trying our best to manage things according to priorities. No doubt, we need a lot of staff, but there is difference of opinion between the technical and the financial departments over the issue.”
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‘Women more prone to HIV’
Sriganganagar/Abohar, October 24 Informing that the train would be in the city till October 26, Detha said the broad objective of the train was to spread awareness, provide counselling, treatment and care package to the target population, especially in rural areas with special focus on youth and other vulnerable groups. The train aims at spreading information regarding primary prevention services, develop an understanding of the disease, reduce stigma and discrimination against people with AIDS, enhance people’s knowledge about preventive measures, health habits and lifestyle. Visitors to the exhibition also included medico, nursing, non-medico students and soldiers besides a huge number of women. Chief medical officer Harbans Singh Brar, Pawan Saini, coordinator of the Rajasthan Health Development department and Rachna Bhatia, deputy director of the Women and Children Development department were also present. The doctors informed the gathering that in India, out of an estimated 2.5 million people suffering from HIV/AIDS, women accounted for around one million. The women are more vulnerable to the virus for both biological and socio-economic reasons. Early marriage, violence and sexual abuse against women are the major socio-economic reasons for this. In India, people in the age group of 15-29 years comprise almost 25 per cent of the population but account for 31 per cent of AIDS victims. It indicates that youth were at high risk of contracting HIV infection. The artistes accompanying the train along with local folk artistes presented a cultural programme to spread the message. |
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Athletes from Abohar village shine in state games
Abohar, October 24 Principal Kuriakose V. K. informed in the morning assembly in the school on Friday that Khushpal Singh had excelled in shotput, Dharampal in discus throw, Navdeep Kaur in javelin throw and Sanjeeva Bishnoi in 1500 meter race events. The students will participate in the national level meet scheduled to be held in Gujarat in December. He said that the school had been doing well in various sports events including lawn tennis, hockey and football in the district and state-level competitions. |
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Coal stock low as Bihar stir hits supply
S.P. Sharma Tribune News Service
Bathinda, October 24 The 440 MWs thermal station at Bathinda, 920 MWs Lehra Mohabbat and the one at Ropar were reportedly stocked with coal that was sufficient to generate electricity for three days. However, fresh arrival of coal was very low than the required quantity. A senior engineer of the PSEB said that although the situation was critical but the generation was normal. The thermal station here that daily burns about 6500 metric tonnes of coal was getting half of that supply. The daily requirement of coal at the Lehra Mohabbat project was about 14,000 metric tonnes and it has only 80,000 metric tonnes of stock available. It requires four trainloads of coal every day. Reports said that the Ropar thermal station was also facing similar situation.
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School sans electricity meter gets bill from PSEB
Fazilka, October 24 The headmaster of the Pakka Chisti
Elementary School, Ashok Kumar, brought to the notice of The Tribune that though there was no electricity meter installed in the school, still the PSEB had sent a bill for Rs 80. Interestingly, the school authorities applied for an electricity connection on February 5, 2007, and had also deposited the security amount for the same. Over a dozen reminders for the installation of the meter had been sent to the PSEB authorities, which probably fell on deaf ears. Though the school falls under priority segment, the electricity meter has not been installed till date. The school authorities were surprised to receive the bill. The PSEB’s suburban SDO Ramesh
Kamboj said that the matter was being inquired into and action would be taken against the officials responsible. |
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Van Mahotsav celebrated
Abohar, October 24 About 150 students participated in the events. Vice-principal Anil Makkar planted the first sapling. Captain Iqbal Singh Godara of the NCC explained the increasing need to protect the environment. NSS in-charge Virender Setia was joined by other teachers, in planting saplings on the college campus. |
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Cheques distributed under Shagun scheme
Bathinda, October 24 The beneficiaries included Seva Singh, Gurdeep Singh, Raju Ram, Ranjeet Singh, Hardeep Singh, Kartar Singh, Lachhaman Dass, Mahinder Singh, Pritam Kaur, Prem Rani, Balu, Malkeet Singh, Harbans Lal, Jeet Singh, Banarasi Dass and Tillu Ram. — TNS
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Youth Congress flays Garg
Bathinda, October 24 At a meeting held in ward number 8 here, they said that if he was so sympathetic towards the poor, then why did he opt to remain silent at a time when PUDA demolished the slums in Dhobiana Basti. They alleged that this time, he had raised his voice as the matter involves a number of businessmen.
— TNS |
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The delay in installing pollution control device in two of the four units of the 440 mws thermal power station here has made life of residents of the town miserable as they inhale fly ash emitted through the chimneys.
