Lehra Mohabbat (Bathinda), February 11
Guru Hargobind Thermal Plant’s unit IV of stage -II (GHTP), Lehra Mohabbat, in Bathinda district was dedicated to the nation after the Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited (BHEL), today handed it over formally to the Punjab State Electricity Board.

Stage II consists of two units of 250 MW. Third unit was declared operational earlier. The fourth unit was dedicated to people by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal here today.

On the occasion PSEB chairman H.S. Brar, claimed the plants would generate more to capacity in the days ahead. Speaking to the media, Sukhbir Badal claimed Punjab would get 24-hour power supply from next month. He said the PSEB chairman had assured him in this regard.

On the Congress demand to declare Punjab a disturbed state, Sukhbir said “The Congress is itself a disturbed party, whose leaders are busy pulling each other’s legs. If they accuse the SAD of violence, I ask them to present the cases along with names and other facts, otherwise, they should not waste time of people.”

Sukhbir also confirmed a member of the Badal family would be fielded from the Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency but added the announcement would be made after the name for the Ludhiana Lok Sabha seat had been decided upon.

Claiming his party would win the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat he said, “I challenge Amarinder Singh to field his son from here. He would forfeit security.”

Answering a question on DGP NPS Aulakh, he said, “He has received a good offer as the chief of the National Security Guard (NSG). So he himself came up with the request.”

On the Anandpur Sahib resolution, he parried the query saying, “Though I was not wrong, but after the controversy, I do not want to comment on the matter.”

He attempted to parry a number of questions, on some excuse ot the other.

On the issue of unbundling of the PSEB, he said, “The department lies with the Chief Minister, so I do not want to say anything, better ask him.”

On chain of protests in Bathinda, he said the local media was active in raising voice of the people. He condemned the protesters saying, “Earlier, they wanted entry in the departments on contract , now they are applying pressure to get all facilities.”

Earlier addressing the gathering, he said schemes related to drinking water, canals, airports, roads, health and educational services would be completed in the stipulated time-frame.

Sukhbir Badal visited towns and villages in the district and laid foundation stones for development projects. At some places, some organisations protested waving black flags.

Ludhiana, February 11
Former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today moved an application before the Sessions Court here demanding the initiation of contempt of court proceedings against Vigilance Bureau’s (VB) officials on the charges of tampering with judicial record and violation of law.

VB officials were acting over zealously and interfering in the working of judiciary. They were trying to prejudice the court, stated Amrinder’s counsel Trilok Singh Sood, who had come to court today for the submission of the application. He said the application questioned that when the matter was subjudice before the court, how the bureau can act without getting the permission of the court. “The VB has no right to record statement of Dr Girish Sahni of the Rajindra Hospital, Patiala, and taking possession of the treatment record of his client,” he said, adding that VB officials should have sought permission from the court first.

On January 31, 2009, VB’s public prosecutor had moved an application for under Section 340 of the CrPC demanding an inquiry and proceedings against Amarinder on the charges of producing a false medical certificate advising him bed rest.

Producing a cutting of a vernacular newspaper, it has been demanded that VB officials be restrained from making unnecessary and wrongly quoted statements to the media.

Chandigarh, February 11
One-time debt waiver for the farm sector may have helped many farmers get back on feet but it is taking its toll on cooperative banks which are unable to get repayments of agricultural loan.

Farmers all over the country are apparently reluctant to repay instalments of loan taken by them as the debt waiver has created possibility of more concessions to the agricultural sector. While earlier the government and cooperative banks felt farmers would start repaying loan gradually, this apparently has not happened.

National Cooperative Agriculture Rural Development Bank (NCARDB) Federation Managing Director K K Ravindran , at a national cooperative conference being held here, said repayment from farmers last year after the announcement of debt waiver had fallen from average of Rs 4,000 crore to Rs 1,500 crore.

Ravindran said this figure was likely to improve only marginally this year and at best could go up to Rs 2,000 crore. He said in case of Punjab the recovery was down by around 10 per cent despite a large number of farmers not qualifying for the debt waiver.

The MD said there was some bitterness among farmers who were not benefited by the debt waiver. He said a few governments had responded to this with Maharashtra compensating the farmers for the entire instalments paid by them while Andhra Pradesh had given back farmers Rs 5,000 each or amount repaid, which ever was higher. He said some states had also decided to give interest rebate to farmers who had repaid loan in time. Andhra Pradesh had given interest rebate of 4 per cent while Haryana 2 per cent.

Ravindran said repayment of instalments to cooperative banks, was also affected due to farmers preferring to pay private money lenders who had given them short-term loans first rather then paying cooperative banks for long-time loan. He said NCARDB was proposing to give cash credit to good borrowers along with long-term loan. “This will be done according to track record of the borrowers”, Ravindran said adding this had been started in Kerala.“Punjab Secretary, Cooperation Dr B C Gupta has also seen how the concept works and we hope the state can also implement this proposal”, he added.

Nabard Regional General Manager Dr P Renganathan said on the issue stoppage of repayment by good borrowers in Punjab and Haryana would again result in the increase of NPAs of cooperative banks. 

Chandigarh, February 11
The Congress high command has ruled out the possibility of any change in the party structure before the Lok Sabha elections. A clear indication was given to the Punjab Congress leaders, who were in the Capital on Wednesday to demand that Punjab be declared “disturbed area”.

The leaders, who met senior Congress leaders Delhi, were told to sink differences and work together for better poll prospects.

Sources in the party said no one in Delhi was willing to take the “complaints Punjab leaders had against one another. A clear indication was sent out that the party high command was in no mood to make any changes in administrative setup or party hierarchy before the polls are over”. Though, the senior leaders put up a united front after a long time by holding a press conference, many of them “were actually backbiting at different places,” it is learnt.

The Punjab Congress leaders met Home Minister P Chidambram and demanded that Punjab be declared a “disturbed area in view of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal’s alleged plans of spreading terror in the state through the police”. The Home Minister is believed to have given them a patient hearing, but refused to make any comment or commitment.

Party sources said the Congress would take at least six or seven weeks to make any formal announcement with regard to candidates. “Even in constituencies like Ludhiana and Ferozepur, where the choice of candidates is pretty obvious, the party will take time to announce the names”. Congress leaders are expecting the first list of candidates to be announced no sooner than the last week of March. The second or the third list may even be announced in the first or the second week of April, leaving less than four weeks for campaigning.

Though, the Congress leadership has started projecting a united face, insiders say the bickering has actually increased with leaders trying to exert pressure to get seats for their own nominees. “You can take Sangrur for example where Capt Amarinder Singh lobbies for Arvind Khanna, while Rajinder Kaur Bhattal has indicated that she wants it for her son Rahul,” a senior leader said.

Bhattal, party insiders say, is banking on the fact that Rahul Gandhi has announced 30 per cent seats would go to youngsters. She feels that this is a good time to launch the political career for her son, who has been seen accompanying her to Delhi and meeting Congress leaders during her visits. Amarinder is banking on the same principal and hoping to get the Bathinda seat for his son Raninder Singh.

Based on the developments in the party, insiders say that the Congress was hoping to run an intense three-week campaign before the polls.

Bathinda, February 11
Punjab Chief Secretary Ramesh Inder Singh visited the site of Guru Gobind Singh oil refinery for first-hand account of the progress of the project.

He also inaugurated the water reservoir of the refinery by letting water from the canal into it.

Reviewing the progress of the plant, the Chief Secretary said Rs 4,000 crore had been spent on it so far, whereas orders for equipment worth Rs 11,000 crore had been placed. He said , “The plant is progressing well and ahead of schedule, having achieved physical progress of 20 per cent.”

He added the refinery had taken care of all formalities regarding licences and completed all critical packages. Orders had been placed in all 22 critical long -lead items and at present, construction is going on at the site for crude distillation units, delayed coker units, captive power plant etc.

He said this 90 lakh tonne annum capacity grassroot oil refinery would also have captive power plant of about 165 MW, a 1012 long cross-country crude oil pipeline from Mundra (Gujarat) to here with single point mooring and cruide oil terminal at Mundra.

Jaspal Saini, General Manager (Coordination), HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL), said the unit would produce 400 TMT of propylene which would act as mother industry for various small and medium units. He added half of the consumption would take place in Punjab itself.

Other officials of the refinery were present during the visit of the Chief Secretary. 

Chandigarh, February 11
Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal was at his dream-selling best yesterday as he unveiled the Rs 5,400-crore twin expressway projects here.

Sukhbir chose to do the presentation himself and even took mediapersons through the walkaways of both expressway projects — Mohali to Phagwara and Ludhiana to Doraha — claiming international excellence in design and execution of ultra mega projects was finally arriving  in Punjab.

The Deputy CM said the Mohali-Phagwara expressway would reduce both the travelling time as well as distance between the two cities. He said the new expressway would have a four to six-lane divided carriageway, which would be expandable to 10 lanes. Other features included access control, toll according to kilometres only, CCTV surveillance at every one km and a control room, which would monitor services in case of accidents or other disturbances.

Speaking about the benefits of the new expressway, Sukhbir said it would give a boost to economic activity in the region and open up the area for establishment of new townships, educational, agricultural and industrial zones. He said 12,000 jobs would be created in the economic corridor in the first phase.The other expressway will see the four-laning of the Sidhwan canal road from Doraha to Ferozepur road in Ludhiana on a stretch of 26 km. This is being done to ease traffic congestion in Ludhiana.. The total cost of the project is Rs 400 crore.

PIDB managing director Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu disclosed that the projects would be built on build, operate and transfer basis.

Amritsar, February 11
Punjab holds tremendous potential and opportunities other than metro cities like Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore, while food processing, tourism and urban infrastructure are some sectors where Punjab and Singapore corporate houses can explore joint ventures.

In an interaction with businessmen here at a meeting organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here today, Prof Tommy Koh, Ambassador-at-large, Government of Singapore, said there were opportunities in IT, manufacturing, agro and food processing and other skill industries and they would like to introduce Singapore as a catalyst whether it was agriculture or education.

Prof Koh was leading an eight-member delegation of businessmen, researchers and scholars from premier educational institutes of Singapore, which was here to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple.

Earlier welcoming the delegates, Gunbir Singh, vice-chairman, CII, Punjab State Council, said India and Singapore over the years had substantially enhanced bilateral relations.

Responding to the concern expressed by CII members over stopping of Singapore Airlines flights to Amritsar, Prof Koh assured to take up this matter with the management of Singapore Airlines and try to convince Silk Air, which is low- cost airline to start its operations to Amritsar.

Chandigarh, February 11
Inspector General of Police Rajinder Singh may have been reinstated but he will not be promoted to the rank of additional director -general of police (ADGP) immediately with the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) set to promote only three of the four inspector generals of police of the 1982 batch tomorrow.

According to sources, Rajinder Singh may be approved for promotion but he will have to wait till April 1 for the rank of ADGP after another post is created following the retirement of Director General of Police (DGP) - Prisons Mohammad Izhar Alam.

The purpose of the DPC is to approve officers found fit for promotion. Once the DPC approves an officer’s case, the promotion occurs according to seniority and vacancy.

The sources said in case of the 1982 batch, IG, Provisioning Sanjeev Gupta was the seniormost followed by Vigilance chief Sumedh Singh Saini, Suresh Arora and Rajinder Singh. This means if three vacancies are filled tomorrow, Rajinder Singh will have to wait till April for promotion.

The DPC tomorrow will consider filling vacancies of ADGP, Intelligence, ADGP, Vigilance and ADGP, Railways. Suresh Kumar and S S Saini are already officiating as heads of Intelligence and Vigilance in the rank of IG.

The sources said the case of IG, Training S K Sharma might also come up for consideration as the DPC is entitled to approve officers for promotion keeping in mind the vacancies, which will occur before December 31. However Sharma, who is of the subsequent batch, will have to wait for promotion.

Sources disclosed office of the Advocate- General had been asked to give opinion whether Vigilance chief S S Saini could be considered for promotion. Sources said the opinion had been asked as per standard practice to do so in cases where “critical” litigation against an officer was pending in court. The opinion received from the AG office has been attached with Saini’s file.

There has been tussle for promotion between the 1982 batch IPS officers in the state after the SAD-BJP government took over. IG Rajinder Singh moved Punjab and Haryana high court claiming the government was proposing to promote his batchmates even though there were four vacancies. Rajinder Singh was suspended soon after he filed the case following allegations by the management of an engineering college on the city’s periphery. 

Bathinda, February 11
Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal dedicated Guru Hargobind Thermal Power Plant’s (GHTP) unit IV of stage-II to the nation today, but if sources are to be believed, many aspects of the project are incomplete.

GHTP sources informed elevation in boilers, ash evacuation, filter, cold air ventilation, raw water pre-treatment plant, coal belt link between stage-I and stage-II, fire detecting and fighting system, dust extraction and suppression, were still to be put in place.

Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) chairman HS Brar, however, said, he never took anything in a negative way. “We must be happy that after a long delay, the unit is now going to be dedicated to the nation,” he said.

He said the delay was on part of BHEL and they had even pulled them up for this. As far as incompletion of the project was concerned, the construction company would not be spared before getting everything in place, he added.

GHTP stage-II is going to be completed after 11 years of completion of its stage-I in 1998, which cost the PSEB huge loss.

As per information received, it was earlier decided to award the contract for supply of only main plant equipment to BHEL and formalities were completed in 2002. The PSEB had tied up loans by that time, but refusal by the state government to sign the counter guarantee stalled the project. After wasting more than 16 months in finalising strategies, it was decided in December 2003 that the project should be executed by the PSEB. Then it was to hand over the execution on turnkey basis to BHEL, but it cost the state dearly.

The then CM Amarinder Singh had laid the stone on February 28, 2005, and construction by BHEL began in March. As per original schedule, the unit II, after stabilisation and commercial run, was to be handed over to the PSEB by March 31, 2007. 

Chandigarh, February 11
A three-day orientation workshop on the theme of national food security mission for publicity on production of wheat and pulses was organised by the Song and Drama Division, Chandigarh Regional Centre, under the aegis of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India here today.

The workshop was held in collaboration with Directorate of Agriculture, Punjab, and was inaugurated by Balwinder Singh Sidhu, director, Agriculture.

About 200 artistes from Punjab are being imparted training about performing theme-based programme in villages. Sidhu said for strengthening the farmers financial situation and increasing the per capita income and production, it was essential to highlight the usage of appropriate techniques of cultivation and decreasing wastage of crop through preparing area specific programmes for the guidance of farmers. He said though the government organised workshops and farmer melas to educate the farmers about farming techniques, but the method of educating them through entertainment method was more effective.

Sidhu said the department, in collaboration with the Song and Drama Division, had identified 200 villages of Punjab where cultural troupes would sensitise the farmers community about agricultural tips like minimum tillage, proper timing and use of pesticides and fertilisers and irrigation according to the weather conditions.

Harvinder Singh Bhatti, director, national food security mission, Punjab, said it was the need of the hour to spread the message of zero-tillage among the farmers, which was the easiest method of irrigation for increased production. He urged the farmers to use branded seeds and pesticides only and asked them to insist upon taking bills of the purchased agricultural products.

Waryam Mast, deputy director, Song and Drama Division, said to meet the goals of National Food Security Mission, it was essential to increase the availability of food grain by adopting proper techniques of food security. Baljit Singh, manager of the divisionm urged the experts of the agriculture department to help the artistes in creating need-based area-specific programmes and to accompany them during their campaigns in rural areas so that they could clarify the technical queries of the farmers. 

Anandpur Sahib, February 11
Sangeet Natak Akademi has nominated Prof Kartar Singh, director of the local Gurmat Sangeet Academy, for the national award-2008.

The octogenarian, known as living legend in the field of gurmat sangeet, will be honoured for his contribution to gurbani. Prof Kartar Singh has penned four books on gurbani and related issues.

His four books are “Gurbani Sangeet Darpan Part I”, “Gurbani Sangeet Darpan Part II”, “Gurmat Sangeet Darpan” and “Guru Angad Dev Sangeet Darpan”. He has to his credit 372 compositions of ragas.

Born in Ghumman Ke village in Lahore, Pakistan, Prof Kartar Singh started to learn kirtan in 1941 from Giani Gurcharan Singh and Bhai Dalip Singh. He has taught music at Guru Nanak Girls College, Ludhiana, for 27 years and also remained head of the music department for sometime at the same college. He has also taught at Malwa Central College in Ludhiana.

In 1999, he was appointed director of Gurmat Sangeet Akademi at Anandpur Sahib (run by the SGPC) and since then has been teaching children gurmat sangeet.

“The award comes as Guru ki data (gift of the Almighty) for me. I was never in the race for any kind of award or citation. Few days ago, I got some documents and letter from Sangeet Natak Akademi that asked to fill a questionnaire pf around 23 questions. And a few days later, I was told that I would be conferred the prestigious honor,” said Prof Kartar Singh while talking to The Tribune.

The award symbolises highest standard of excellence and achievements on a national basis, recognises sustained individual work and contribution to the practice and appreciation of arts through performance, teaching and scholarship. The Akademi Ratna carries Rs 1,00,000 and Akademi Puraskar Rs 50,000 besides a tamrapatra and angavastram. These would be awarded to Prof Kartar Singh in March.