Gurdaspur, December 11
Former Punjab Chief Minister and chairman of the state election campaign committee of the Congress Capt Amarinder Singh today promised the people that he would take Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, his son Sukhbir Singh Badal and relative Bikramjit Singh Majithia to task for atrocities committing on Congress workers.

“How can I allow these people to go scot free when everybody knows that they have engineered the murder of 48 Congressmen during the panchayat, block samities, zila parishad and municipal council elections in the state,” said Amarinder while addressing a party rally here today. Almost all Congress leaders belonging to different factions attended the rally.

He said thousands of false criminal cases had been registered against innocent Congressmen and they had been put behind bars.

On the other hand, the workers of the ruling alliance, who were involved in heinous crime like murders, were roaming freely.

He said not only this, Badal and his party had been looting the people of Punjab by monopolising the sand and crusher trade, liquor business and transport business.

He said big players in the industry sector in Punjab had started shifting to other states as they were being forced to pay “commission” to run their units.

He declared that those policemen, including SSPs and SHOs, who had been committing atrocities on Congress workers and registering false cases against them, would not be spared.

He said police officials should work as per the rule of law and should not behave like private army of Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal.

The former Chief Minister said people had been fed up with the “misrule” of Parkash Singh Badal as government employees had not been given the instalment of dearness allowance, teachers had not been paid salaries, power cuts were being imposed even during the winter season to sell the electric power to other states to generate hard cash to run the Punjab State Electricity Board.

“When Badal cannot run the administration of Punjab in proper manner then how they can ensure the better future for those who have been getting education in schools and colleges and will require jobs every year?” he asked.

He claimed that in the next Lok Sabha elections, the SAD-BJP alliance would be wiped out from Punjab and the Congress would win all 13 seats.

He said it was his open challenge to the SAD president to contest the next Lok Sabha elections from Bathinda parliamentary constituency and face the music.

Meanwhile, a section of Congress workers urged the party leaders sitting on the stage to stop making statements against each other as it hurt them most.

They said instead of it, they must unite to give a befitting reply to the atrocities being committed by SAD-BJP alliance on them.

Jalandhar, December 11
A thick layer of fog affected road traffic movement in major parts of Punjab and also led to cancellation of morning flights from Rajasansi International Airport at Amritsar.

The fog reduced visibility in the border state leading to slow movement of traffic on the roads in the state.

The visibility at Indian Air Force (IAF) base at Adampur, near here, was extremely poor at 9 am and nothing was visible beyond three metres in the morning hours.

Poor ground visibility led to cancellation of flights from Rajasansi airport. The flights had to be rescheduled and left later in the day when the visibility improved.

The fog also slowed down the movement of trains running in the morning hours on the Ambala-Amritsar and Jalandhar-Jammu sections. The fog began lifting at around 10 am and the sun appeared.

Barring the holy city of Amritsar, the night temperatures at all the other places was above normal. In Amritsar the minimum temperature was recorded at 5.2 degrees Celsius, one degree below normal.

The minimum temperature at Adampur was 8.4 degrees, while at the IAF base at Halwara it was 8.2 degrees Celsius.

The minimum temperature in the border town of Pathankot was 10 degrees while at Bathinda in the Malwa belt it was 9 degrees. The minimum temperature at Chandigarh was 10.2 degrees Celsius.

According to the Met office at Adampur, foggy morning conditions are likely to persist over the next two to three days, while the night temperatures are likely to remain more or less the same.

Weather in next 24 hours is expected to remain dry in the border state. — UNI

Jalandhar, December 11
The pensioners of armed forces (Army, Air Force and Navy) will get the benefit of revised pension with effect from January 1, 2006.

The Ministry of Defence issued orders in this regard on November 11, 2008. Director of Pension Policy Harbans Singh, in a letter written to the Chief of the Army Staff, the Chief of the Naval Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff (copy of which is available with The Tribune) directed all the pension disbursement authorities to grant revised pension to all ranks of the defence forces.

This includes 40 per cent arrears as well, which would be paid in cash. He maintained that the revised pension and the first instalment of arrears due to the pensioners in terms of these orders should be paid to the pensioners or credited to their account as soon as possible.

While instructions regarding release of the second instalment of arrears would be issued in due course of time. The commissioned officers will be given pension rise according to their length of service.

While the minimum pension for a retired sepoy, naik and havildar would be Rs 3,500, it would be Rs 3,841 for a retired naib-subedar, Rs 3,932 for a subedar and Rs 3,987 for a retired subedar-major. The pension of these ranks would also be revised according to the length of service.

The older pensioners of defence forces above the age of 80 will be given additional pension benefits like civilian pensioners.

Family pensioners of defence personnel would be entitled to revision of pension and benefit of additional pension beyond the age of 80 years.

V.S. Jolly of the All-India Central Government Pensioners Association today said that the orders pertaining to disbursement of pension had already reached the offices of all the armed forces.

Amritsar (Chawinda Devi), December 11
In its effort to provide quality and higher education to rural children, especially girls and kids of the poor and downtrodden, the Mata Mohinder Kaur Memorial Trust (MMKMT) now contemplates a girls’ college.

Revealing this, trust chairman Amrik Singh Gill said trust was planning to construct the college at Talwandi Dassaundha Singh village in association with the panchayat.

Gill, who was also born in this village situated on the Amritsar-Batala road, urged the panchayat to provide at least five acres of land for the college, which would provide an opportunity for rural girls to attain higher education.

He said often girls in rural areas remained devoid of opportunities in higher education due to poor financial conditions or sometimes were not allowed to go to cities for this purpose and therefore the college was a must in the rural belt.

Meanwhile, the trust honoured six students - two girls and two boys - of Government Secondary School, Chawinder Devi, with the Niranjan Singh Memorial and Pandit Dina Nath Memorial awards, respectively, for their academic achievements.

They topped in class XII examination during the past three years in their schools. Those awarded are Rajinder Kaur, Robin Sharma, Lakhbir Kaur, Kripal Singh, Gagandeep Kaur and Jeevan Jyot Singh.

At present, the trust has adopted four schools - Government Higher Secondary School, Talwani Dassaundha Singh, Government Higher School, Fatehgarh Shukarchak, and Government Higher Secondary Girls School, Kathunangal, besides Government Secondary School, Chawinda Devi.

The two awards were constituted by Gill after the names of his elder brother Niranjan Singh and his headmaster Pandit Dina Nath.

Amritsar, December 11
The two-week-long stalemate between advocates and ministerial staff today came to an end, at least for the time being, with both the parties having withdrawn their complaints against each other.

The matter was resolved during a meeting of advocates, PCS officers and ministerial staff with commissioner, Jalandhar division, S.R. Laddhar, who heads the two-member committee constituted by the state government to break the impasse, last evening.

The committee included IGP R.P. Meena. District and sessions judge, S.P. Bangar was present during the meeting.

V.P. Dhand, president, Amritsar Bar Association, said they had “suspended” the strike for 15 days during which the administration would decide the fate of applications moved by them for allotment of land for construction of chambers.

He added that for now they had allowed the advocates to continue their work on the disputed chamber land. He said in case the administration failed to provide them land for chambers they would continue with their strike.

Kahan Singh Pannu, deputy commissioner, confirming the resolving of the matter, said he did not know about the proceedings of the meeting as he was not present there and was busy with the Chief Minister’s visit today.

Laddhar said they would take up the matter of providing chambers with the Chief Minister but for this they would have to pay 50 per cent of the cost and rest would be provided by the state government, till then the advocates could use the space by putting tables and chairs.

Batala, December 11
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, while addressing mediapersons at Lodhi Nangal village, near here, today stated that his government was taking all possible steps for the urban and rural development.

While comparing the works done by the erstwhile Congress government, he said during his regime 7,000 MW of electricity would be generated by installing four thermal plants, of which two are under construction at Goindwal Sahib and Talwandi Sabo. The other two would start at Rajpura and near Malout.

To meet the power shortage in the state, the Punjab State Electricity Board was making negotiations to purchase electricity from the adjoining states but because of the elections it could not be done immediately.

Badal said Rs 1.3 crore for each municipal council and Rs 4 crore for every assembly area had been released for different development works.

Two new universities of international standard were to be established in Punjab. An amount of Rs 3,400 crore would be spent on different irrigation schemes and Rs 118 crore had been earmarked for the drainage system.

Badal criticised the working of Capt Amarinder Singh saying that his main aim was to falsely implicate him, his family members and other Akali leaders during his regime.

Badal, along with many senior Akali leaders, was here to attend the “shagun” ceremony of Qadian MLA Lakhbir Singh Lodhi Nangal’s son Mandeep Singh.