Hoshiarpur, January 10
Santosh Chaudhary, chairperson of National Safai Karamchari Commission, expressed her deep anguish over the alleged negative attitude of the district administration of Hoshiarpur towards the implementation of all central government sponsored schemes on account of which poor beneficiaries, especially those living below the poverty line, were deprived of these benefits.

Talking to mediapersons soon after a meeting with the district officers, convened by Santosh Chaudhary for reviewing the progress of all ongoing schemes of the Union government including NREGA, National Rural Health Scheme, Prime Minister Rural Roads Yojna, Sarv Sikhsa Abhiyan, mid-day meal and ICDS etc. here this afternoon, she said she was shocked to know that majority of the concerned officers in these schemes were completely unaware about them.

If the concerned officers were ignorant about the ongoing beneficial schemes how could they provide the desired results to the related beneficiaries who were also unaware about them, questioned Santosh Chaudhary. She alleged that neither the state government nor its district heads were serious about these schemes.

The central government was providing unlimited funds to the state government under its sponsored schemes for the uplift of poor and BPL families.

It was a pity on the part of the district administration that they had not provided utilisation certificates of the given funds to the state government and the latter had not issued the same to the central government so far. Due to this reason, the further allocation of funds to the state government by the union government had been stopped for the next year, she said.

Condemning the SAD-BJP government of Punjab for completely wasting the money being provided to it by the central government for its various sponsored schemes, she said instead of utilising the funds for real purposes, the Punjab government was wasting the same on unnecessary advertisements of its Chief Minister and other ministers for cheap popularity.

There was a dire need to publicise the ongoing schemes sponsored by the central government to create awareness among the people so that actual beneficiaries could get the benefits from them.

Chaudhary said she would take up this issue with the Prime Minister to set things in right direction.

Condemning the education department for implementing the mid day meal scheme in an unsound manner, Chaudhary claimed that she inspected various schools in many of the districts and was disgusted to witness the way the mid day meal was being prepared there. The food was of poor quality and was being cooked in the most unhygienic conditions by the safai karamcharis of the schools. The Sarav Sikhiya Abhiyan was also not being carried out according to the laid out norms, she further alleged.

More than 50 per cent of the posts of safai karamchairs were lying vacant in all the government departments due to which the cleanliness campaign was being adversely affected. She appreciated the Haryana Government for appointing more than 10,000 safai karmacharis in the rural areas of the state on a monthly salary of Rs 3,700 each.

Tarn Taran, January 10
Ramanpreet Kaur of Kahlwan village near Naushehra Pannuan and her paramour Jatinder Singh of Dhotian village have been arrested by the Sarhali police for allegedly stealing gold ornaments weighing 1.4 kg and others articles worth Rs 50 lakh from the house of Bali Singh, the grandfather of Ramanpreet, about four months back.

According to information collected by this correspondent here today, gold ornaments weighing 1.4 kg, one pistol .32 bore, cash and other articles were stolen from the house of Bali Singh, the sarpanch of Chohla Sahib village 25 kilometers from here. SSP Harinder Singh Chahal, while talking to mediapersons regarding the incident said the investigation was initiated by in-charge of the CIA staff.

On the evidence collected by the CIA staff, the police arrested Ramanpreet Kaur and Jatinder Singh. Ramanpreet is the granddaughter of Bali Singh who is the owner of property worth crores of rupees and his sons are settled abroad.

The SSP said Ramanpreet had been living with her mother’s parents when she grew intimate with accused Jatinder of the nearby village.

Four months back, Ramanpreet served some intoxicant to her grandfather, mother and cousin Jagjit Singh (son of her sister’s brother) who fell unconscious. In the meantime, Jatinder, alongwith his father and mother came to the house of Bali Singh and decamped with the gold jewellery and other articles.

Accused Jatinder’s father Jagtar Singh and mother Raj Rani are still absconding, the SSP said and added after arresting Jatinder and Raman, articles worth Rs 5.5 lakh were recovered from them. 

Jalandhar, January 10
Hundreds of contractual computer teachers polished boots and cleaned the road outside Punjab local bodies minister Manoranjan Kalia’s house on Saturday afternoon in support of their demand of regular jobs.

The contractual computer teachers did the same at different chowks to attract the attention of general public.

Talking to The Tribune, Gurwinder Singh, state president of the Computer Teachers Union, said the agitated computer teachers adopted Gandhigiri this time as the Parkash Singh Badal-led government had so far turned a blind eye towards different types of demonstrations held by them from time to time.

Hoping that their Gandhigiri would yield some positive results soon, the state president of the union said that if their jobs were not regularised within a few weeks they would be left with no option to start hunger strike in Chandigarh.

Earlier the computer teachers from different parts of the state gathered at Desh Bhagat Yadgaar Hall, from they carried out a warning rally which culminated outside Kalia’s house after passing through different areas of the city.

The computer teachers stopped at each chowk on their way for about ten minutes to polish shoes and clean the roads.

Gurwinder Singh said the representatives of the union had met the Chief Minister in Tarntaran on December 22. At that time, Badal asked them to meet him in Chandigarh on January one to discuss their demands but later his advisor Dr. DS Cheema informed that the meeting had been postponed to January 15. The union president asked the Badal government to stop adopting dilly dallying tactics in fulfilling their demand of regularising them, about which the SAD and BJP had made promises in their manifestos issued during last Assembly elections.

Gurwinder Singh further said they had already held several peaceful demonstrations and met Education Minister Dr Upinderjeet Kaur, local bodies minister Manoranjan Kalia, state BJP chief Rajendra Bhandari and BJP MP Navjot Sidhu in favour of their demand but to no avail.

According to the information, Amarinder Singh led the previous Congress government appointed 7,000 computer teachers on contract on a meager amount of just Rs 4,500 per month each, later their salary was increased to Rs 7,000 per month each.

Nawanshahr, January 10
Commenting on the ongoing strike of truckers, state transport minister Master Mohan Lal said the Centre should immediately resolve the issue by decreasing the prices of petrol and diesel.

“With the fall in prices of oil in the international market, the Central government should have immediately decreased the oil prices. But the Congress-led UPA government did not do so,” said the minister on Friday adding that the attitude of the Central government had led to the strike by the truckers.

Lal said, “The state government is going to constitute a Road Safety Council to ensure the speedy disposal of compensation to the accident victims.”

He said a compensation amounting to Rs 2 lakh to the road accident victim and Rs 50,000 to the injured in road accidents would be given.

He said top priority was being given to provide ultra modern facilities to about 40 lakh bus passengers in the state. Enumerating the achievements of his department during the past two years, he said the SAD-BJP government had inherited a deficit of Rs 160 crore in Punjab Roadways and Rs 3 crore in Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) from the previous Congress government.