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Shutdown at Panipat refinery
Truckers’ strike hits industry
Rajputs seek Cong ticket
LS Polls
Former BJP chief Venkaiah Naidu and former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala address mediapersons at Hisar airport on Thursday. A Tribune photograph |
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Cops ‘thrash’ villagers
Cong rejects INLD, BJP charges
‘Need for democratic decentralisation’
Three gangsters arrested
Pay Scales
Woman shot dead
Two killed in accidents
High court summons pollution board chief
High Court
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Shutdown at Panipat refinery
Panipat, January 8 The shutdown at the refinery is likely to hit North India hard as it is the major supplier of petroleum products in the region. According to sources, the strike has reduced oil production by one-third at the refinery, that has a capacity of 12 million tonnes. The refinery processes crude oil into LPG, kerosene, petrol and diesel among others petroleum products. Around 1,000 employees of the Panipat refinery are participating in the nationwide strike. The refinery today wore a deserted look, with the marketing terminal division also having been shut due to the strike. A battalion of the security forces had been deployed outside the main gates of the refinery to maintain law and order. Senior police officials said the strike had so far been peaceful with no untoward incident having been reported. The shutdown started after the OSOA rejected Petroleum Minister Murli Deora’s appeal for deferring the strike by a month, during which he promised that the wage issue would be resolved. The association spurned Deora’s offer stating that it had “lost faith in the wake of false promises dished out to us repeatedly”. The association has 45,000 members and represents 14 organisations. According to officials, who have been continuously monitoring the situation, the gas supplies are likely to be affected the most, as gas production is already low in the country. The officials said dealers in smaller towns were maintaining fewer stocks and people residing there would be affected more due to the strike. The stocks are expected to last about five to seven days. Meanwhile, government officials said that efforts were on to ensure that there was minimal disruption of fuel and other supplies for the common man. BHIWANI: Local petrol stations remained closed on Thursday on a call given by a petroleum dealers’ association. Petrol stations located on the outskirts of the city observed a strike in the afternoon. Owners said the supply had been stopped from refineries and petrol stations had gone dry. Meanwhile, the truckers’ strike has affected the sale of vegetables, the prices of which have reportedly been hiked by 40 per cent. GURGAON: The ongoing strike by the employees of certain major oil companies has hit the supplies to local petrol stations, causing great inconvenience to vehicle owners. Most petrol stations in the district and nearby areas exhausted their petrol as well as diesel stocks by this evening. While most local outlets of Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum ran dry by the end of the day, some outlets of Hindustan Petroleum continued to cater to a large number of vehicles. Earlier, large queues of vehicles were seen at most petrol stations as residents got an air of the fast-depleting oil stocks at the local outlets. “An unprecedented high sale was registered till the afternoon...as of now, we have exhausted all our petrol as well as diesel stock and are forced to send the customers back,” said Sher Singh, cashier at a busy petrol station in the heart of the city. Rakesh Jain, joint secretary of the local petroleum dealers’ association, said, “Most Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum outlets have exhausted their stocks, but fuel is available at HP petrol stations as their employees are not on strike.”
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Truckers’ strike hits industry
Yamunanagar, January 8 More than 1,000 plywood industries, 500 metal industries and sugar mills in the district are mainly dependent on trucks to transport their products to other states and also to Delhi for export. Besides, hundreds of tonnes of raw material required for these industries also used to be transported through trucks from other states. The strike has caused losses to the tune of several crores, industrialists claim. “Every day 2,000 tonnes of metal products are sent to other states. Nearly an equal quantity of raw material is required to feed the industries here. Industrialists are mainly dependent on trucks for transportation purposes, president of the Jagadhri Metal Manufacturing Association Sunder Lal Batra told The Tribune. A representative of the plywood industry, Devinder Chawla, said, “We haven’t been affected much by the strike so far. However, if the strike continues, we will also suffer losses.” A metal products’ exporter, Bharat Garg, said if the strike continued, exporters would also be in trouble. President of the district truck operators’ association Rajinder Chowdhary said truckers had been suffering heavy losses due to a rise in the diesel price and toll tax. “To carry goods from Yamunanagar to Mumbai, we have to pay Rs 6,000 as toll tax, besides the operating cost,” he said. |
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Rajputs seek Cong ticket
Rewari, January 8 A 22-member deputation of the
HRPS, led by its president Hukam Singh Rana, called on AICC secretary Bhanwar Jitender Singh, attached to AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi, at the party headquarters in Delhi yesterday. Among others the deputation included SP Chauhan, vice-president of the sabha, Naresh Chauhan, general secretary, and Rajbir Singh, treasurer. Naresh Chauhan told The Tribune here today that it was made known by the deputation to Bhanwar Jitender Singh that since Haryana’s inception in 1966, the Indian National Congress had never fielded a Rajput candidate on any of the eight general seats of the 10 parliamentary constituencies in Haryana, “much to the dismay of the Rajput community”. Placing electoral data before the AICC secretary that there were about 2 lakh Rajput voters in the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh parliamentary constituency, 1.50 lakh each in Karnal and Kurukshetra and 1.25 lakh each in the Gurgaon and Faridabad constituencies, the deputation pleaded for the party ticket for a Rajput candidate from the Karnal constituency. They forwarded the names of Jai Singh Rana, sitting Congress MLA from the Nilokheri assembly segment, which is part of the Karnal parliamentary constituency, Kanwar Nirmal Singh, a former DGP of Haryana, Bhupinder Singh Rathore, a senior advocate of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and Col Davender Singh (retd) for consideration in this regard. |
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BJP to focus on terror, rural development
Tribune News Service
Hisar, January 8 Talking to mediapersons at the local airport before leaving for Siwani, near here, to address a rally, Naidu said the party would also project LK Advani as the next Prime Minister. “The party will take up the issue of terror and come out with a definite and working plan for tackling terror if Advani was elected as the Prime Minister,” he claimed. He said recent poll setback in some states, including Rajasthan, was no cause of worry for the party. Even now the party was in power with its like-minded parties in 15 states. He maintained the party was gaining support and would surely form the government after the polls. Asked for his reaction to former vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s plans to contest the elections, Naidu said party chief Rajnath Singh had already made the party’s stand on the issue clear and he had nothing to add to it. Former Chief Minister Om Parkash Chautala, who was also present, said the BJP and the INLD would decide their candidates for the Lok Sabha seats as soon as the Election Commission issued a poll notification.
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Cops ‘thrash’ villagers
Nuh, January 8 According to villagers, an elderly woman, Samiri (70), was allegedly thrashed by policemen and they broke her leg. A three-year-old girl, Memona, suffered head injuries and is said to be in a critical condition. Mariam, who is three months’ pregnant, was beaten up and dragged by policemen and they allegedly broke her hand. Villagers have alleged that armed policemen entered a masjid in shoes and uniform and even damaged the mosque. The local police has claimed that the Madhya Pradesh police had approached them for the recovery of a truck and arrest of an accused allegedly involved in a theft case. However, according to villagers, the police did not show them a copy of any FIR of the MP police related to truck No. HR-38-4798. They claimed that Inspector Kadian entered the village on the night of January 5 and without the knowledge of villagers tried to take away the truck, which was parked outside the village. When villagers asked why the truck was being taken away, the police “could not give a satisfactory answer” and asked for documents of truck which were shown to them. The police party then left the village. However, the police again came with five Gypsies yesterday afternoon and forcibly attempted to take away the truck, which was strongly resisted by the owners of truck. This resulted in a scuffle. Later, a team of about 200 policemen entered the village and allegedly thrashed the villagers without assigning any reason. “They beat up whomsoever they could catch. Doors were broken and the police forcibly entered a few houses and damaged goods in two houses. They even damaged the village mosque,” the villagers claimed. Truck owners alleged that they had committed no crime and this brutal action of the police might be based on a nexus between the “vehicle recovery mafia” and the police as they had failed to pay some instalments of a finance company. The Mewat police has claimed that in association with the police of Madhya Pradesh, they had managed to nab six members of an international gang from the village, who used to rob owners of trucks in MP and sell their parts here. “They used to sell truck parts here,” said KK Rao, SP, Mewat. He claimed that the MP police had told them that they were in search of a gang in the village, but when policemen went there, villagers hit them with stones and even opened fire in which many policemen were injured. A joint panchayat is being organised at Yasin Meo Degree College here tomorrow to decide on the future course of action against these two incidents of police atrocities, the other being the Jama Masjid case where the police entered a mosque and allegedly beat up people.
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Cong rejects INLD, BJP charges
Chandigarh, January 8 Party spokesperson Ved Parkash Vidrohi said here today that the case in which the Punjab and Haryana High Court had observed that the government had given undue benefit to colonisers by releasing land after sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act were invoked pertained to the time of the Chautala government. Vidrohi said it was ironic that Om Prakash Chautala's party was putting the blame on the present Congress government for the irregularity, which had been committed during the tenure of its own government. He said Chautala and his associates were expert in spreading canards and then trying to exploit the situation for their own benefit. He said the people were aware of the truth and they would not pay any attention to the allegations of these opposition parties. He alleged that Chautala and Bhajan Lal used to frighten farmers by invoking sections 4 and 6 in connection with their land and then grabbing that land at low prices, after which that they would release the land. Vidrohi said the Congress government had ended this game of the previous governments. It had also enhanced the rates of land so that the farmers got good prices for their land as well as royalty of Rs 15,000 for 33 years. He claimed the government never tried to benefit colonisers or industrialists by invoking sections 4 and 6. He said the land which had been released by the Congress government after sections 4, 6 and 9 had been invoked were released in the larger interests of the public and not to benefit colonisers or industrialists.
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‘Need for democratic decentralisation’
(Nilokheri) Karnal, January 8 Emphasising this while addressing a two-day seminar on “Democratic decentralisation and good governance”, organised by the Haryana Institute of Rural Development, Prof Ashwani Ray, former Dean, School of Social Sciences, JNU, New Delhi, said, “Democracy is by a majority and not for a majority.” What could be worse than adding the word “good” to governance as governance itself meant “good governance”, he lamented. Inaugurating the seminar, Urvashi Gulati, IAS, stressed the need for involving people at all levels for a better society. In his keynote address, former Director, CSDS, Ramashray Roy underlined the need for actively involving the people in various programmes at all levels for good governance. V Ishwar Anand, Assistant Editor, The Tribune, stressed that democratic decentralisation alone was not enough for good governance and it should be supplemented by “financial empowerment” of panchayati raj institutions. “Our past experience has been that the process of decentralisation has been Centre and state-centric, but the need is to make it local- centric,” he added. Referring to problems faced in decentralisation of powers, Prof Ranbir Singh was of the opinion that local government functions and development functions, which were vastly different and incompatible in nature, had been mixed up and as a result developmental programmes were not implemented effectively. |
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Three gangsters arrested
Panipat, January 8 Senior police officials said a naka had been laid on the Sanoli road where the police signalled a car to halt. But the driver of the car instead of stopping it, took a u-turn and ran away from there along with his three accomplices. But the police chased the car and forced the driver to stop a few kilometres away from the naka. However, they allegedly opened fire at the police. While one of the occupants of the car during the firing managed to flee, the police arrested others. The accused have been identified as Sanjeet, alias Sanjay, a resident of Ismaila village, Pradeep, son of Sugriv of Bhasnwala village and Sandeep, son of Dalbir Singh and a resident of Mokhra village. The police said they were professional criminals and wanted by various districts. Under custody, Sanjay admitted to have been involved in more than 14 cases of robberies and other crimes. He was also wanted by the Jalandhar police, the police added. It said they had recently allegedly committed crimes in Rohtak district.
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‘Appoint HC Judge to remove anomalies’
Tribune News Service
Hisar, January 8 President of the confederation ML Sehgal said here today that though the Haryana government had ordered revision of pay scales of government employees on the central pattern, the allowances had not been given on the same pattern. He said the government was reluctant to grant transport and education allowances. It had also not given the benefit of tuition fee and hostel charges to its employees. Besides group C and D employees had been given ACP scales after 10, 20 and 30 years of service, while doctors, HCS and HPS officers and veterinarians had been given this benefit after five, 11 and 17 years of service. Sehgal lamented that while the government notification of new pay scales was yet to reach offices of deputy commissioners, local booksellers were selling copies at Rs 100 a copy. He said if the anomalies were not removed immediately, government employees would be forced to go on a strike.
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Woman shot dead
Panipat, January 8 The incident reportedly took place at the road crossing of Sectors 13 and 17 when she was returning home from Delhi. According to the police, Sanjna was travelling in her car, which was being driven by her driver. She was sitting on the back seat when a masked man signalled the driver to halt the car. He then took out a pistol and asked her to open a window. As she pulled down the window, the man allegedly shot at her head. The bullet entered her head and pierced through her nose and went out. He immediately fled the scene. The driver rushed her to a nearby private hospital, where doctors declared her brought dead. Later, the matter was reported to the police, which sent a team to the scene that initiated investigations into the crime. The police has registered a case under Section 302 of the IPC against the accused and recorded the statement of the driver. The police said the matter was being investigated and it was yet to establish the exact motive behind the crime. |
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Two killed in accidents
Gurgaon, January 8 The police said both were sisters and working in a call centre. Sources said the car was on a high speed but a passerby managed to stop it. They said the driver of the car fled the spot, leaving his car behind. The police has taken the car in custody and efforts to trace the owner of the car were on, they added. In another incident, a boy was killed, while other two injured when a truck hit their car yesterday at the Jharsa flyover. The police said Kartike, Naman and Vivek Rathi were students of MBA in Noida and had come here to attend a birthday party. They were travelling in an Opel Corsa car. They said Kartike was declared bought dead, while other two have been admitted to a hospital. The police has registered a case against an unknown truck driver. |
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High court summons pollution board chief
Chandigarh, January 8 The directions follow a public interest litigation filed by Sonepat resident Anil Kumar against the State of Haryana and other respondents. He was seeking directions to the respondents to cancel the licence of a distillery in the
district as it was allegedly discharging untreated, polluted and poisonous liquid into an
open space. |
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High Court
Chandigarh, January 8 In his petition, he has stated that a similar controversy was “matter of concern” in another civil writ petition “Sandeep Mehta versus the State of Haryana and others. Another Division Bench of Justice Mehtab Singh Gill and Justice Augustine George Masih had allowed the petition vide judgment dated September 5, last year.
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Registry clerk gets 2-yr jail
Bhiwani, January 8 |
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Report on pensions within a week
Chandigarh, January 8 The Finance Minister stated this while responding to questions during a helpline programme, which was being aired by
Akashvani, Rohtak, today. — UNI |
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Venkaiah Naidu said here today that tackling terror, rural development and employment would be the main plank of the BJP in the next Lok Sabha polls.
