Chandigarh, February 15
Ongoing projects for the Commonwealth Games and several other prestigious projects like modernisation of Indira Gandhi International Airport and Metro are likely to suffer a setback because of a sudden spurt in the prices of construction material and its short supply.

The prices of stone aggregates (rori) and stone dust have spurted by about 40 per cent following the closure of mines in Bhiwani and Faridabad districts in the past few weeks.

The price of bajri has gone up from Rs 16 per cubic feet to Rs 22 and that of stone dust from Rs 18 per cubic feet to Rs 25 in the Delhi market. Sources in the trade said the prices would go up further once the accumulated raw material with stone crushers was exhausted.

The mines in Bhiwani district have been closed by the Directorate of Mines Safety while those in Faridabad were closed following the expiry of the lease period. Otherwise also, the lease of the Bhiwani mines would have expired in the next few weeks.

When the Haryana government auctioned sand mining rights for Sonepat and Panipat districts about a year ago, it gave one year to the new leaseholders to start their work. This time was given because now it has become mandatory to get an environment management plan (EMP) approved from the central appraisal committee of the Union Ministry of Environment before the start of mining operations. The approval is a tedious process, which takes more than a year.

Sources said anticipating this situation, the government should have auctioned the Faridabad and Bhiwani mines also about a year ago so that as soon as the existing lease would have expired, the new leaseholders could have started their work. This would have avoided shortage of construction material in the market at a time when crucial projects in the national capital are on.

The Supreme Court is constantly monitoring mining in Faridabad, Gurgaon and Mewat districts. It had earlier imposed a blanket ban on mining in these districts. However, later it allowed mining in certain areas. Some time ago, the court asked Haryana’s Mining Department to identify the mines in which mining could be allowed keeping in mind certain conditions imposed by the court.

The department had identified seven mines in Faridabad district, regarding two of which EMPs had already been approved and for the other two the approval process of the EMPs is on.

Now, the Central Empowered Committee appointed by the apex court, with the consent of the state Mining Department has recommended that the lease rights of these mines should be cancelled. Instead, the department has said that it would identify 600 hectares in which mining can be done. The department plans to divide this area in 20 pieces of 30 hectares each, to be auctioned for mining rights. The apex court is yet to give its verdict on the proposal.

Sources said the entire process would take at least two years after the Supreme Court’s nod before the mining commences in this area. A labour leader, Ramesh Arya, said the closure of the mines in Faridabad district had rendered about 50,000 persons unemployed.

Hisar, February 15
The Union Ministry of Power has approved projects worth Rs 80 crore for 20 towns of Haryana. This has been done to reform and modernise the power distribution system under the Restructured - Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (R - APDRP).

Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam MD Anurag Agarwal said here today that the state was the first to get these projects. These towns include 16 towns in the area of the DHBVN. These are: Hisar, Barwala, Fatehabad, Hansi, Tohana, Sirsa, Dabwali, Ellenabad, Bhiwani, Charkhi Dadri, Narnaul, Rewari, Faridabad, Palwal, Hodal and Gurgaon. The remaining four towns are in the area of the Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam.

Agarwal said under this project work, consumer indexing, geographic information system (GIS), metering of distribution transformers and feeders would be undertaken.

The project will also cover asset mapping of the entire distribution network comprising 11 KV transformers, distribution transformers, feeders, low-tension lines, poles and other distribution network equipment of these towns.

He said the projects were to be completed within a period of three years. 

Chandigarh, February 15
Ruling out the possibility of holding the Vidhan Sabha elections in Haryana along with the Lok Sabha elections later this year, AICC treasurer and Haryana in charge Moti Lal Vora said the campaign of the party in the state would be rolled out with organising workers’ meetings in all districts.

Addressing a press conference after chairing the first meeting of the campaign committee at the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee office, Vora, accompanied by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and campaign committee chairman Venod Sharma, said the first such workers’ meeting would be held in Kalka.

To be called the “Karyakarta Samman Yatra”, this meeting would begin on February 21 and gradually cover all districts over the next 25 days. The workers would be addressed by local leaders of the respective districts and efforts would be made to rope in Delhi leaders for some districts, Sharma chipped in.

Vora said the primary objective of these meetings would be to publicise the achievements the state government has to its credit. “While these would be taken to the public through the campaign committee, we are also in the process of constituting a publicity committee to highlight the achievements of the central government in the past five years,” he maintained.

In reply to a question on announcement of candidates, Vora said a meeting of the election committee and that of the screening committee was scheduled for later this month. “We will take a decision shortly. However, the names of candidates will be finalised on the basis of the recommendations of the HPCC. The names should be out by March,” he said, adding that no criteria had so far been fixed for distribution of tickets.

On Bharatiya Janta Party’s national president Rajnath Singh’s announcement of a complete loan waiver if his party came to power at the Centre, Vora said: “The BJP keeps changing its stand and commitments with every election.”

He added that he was “satisfied” with the report cards of the ministers he had received but had asked them to check the implementation of the projects mentioned on ground.

Earlier, in the meeting, he asked the campaign committee to install hoardings containing pictures of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and general secretary Rahul Gandhi all over the state. 

Fatehabad, February 15
The CPM today kicked off its campaign for the forthcoming parliamentary polls in Haryana by organising a state-level rally at Fatehabad.

Parkash Karat, general secretary of the CPM, who was the main speaker at the rally today, also announced that the party would contest Sirsa parliamentary seat of which Fatehabad was also a part, in the forthcoming elections.

Besides Karat, several other senior leaders like Nilotpal Basu, a member of the central secretariat; Inderjit Singh, state secretary; Harpal Singh, a former MLA; Surinder Malik, Krishan Swaroop and Ram Kumar Bahabalpuria addressed the rally.

Karat in his address made it clear that the Left parties would not support any government headed by the Congress or the BJP after the next parliamentary elections.

“We supported the Congress-led UPA government at the centre after the 2004 elections because we wanted to defeat the fundamentalist forces led by the BJP that had been ruling the country for four years. We supported the Congress to form a secular government and had formulated a common minimum programme (CMP) for the functioning of the government, but the Congress started pursuing policies detrimental to the common people,” the CPM general secretary said.

Accusing the Congress-led government at the Centre of deviating from the country's age-old tradition of non-alignment and trying to follow the USA, Parkash Karat said it was a shame that the Congress has been advocating conferring the award of Bharat Rattan on former US President George Bush, who was responsible for the killing of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nilotpal Basu launched a scathing attack on the BJP and said that at a time, when the country was faced with a plethora of problems, the saffron party had chosen to rake the Ram Mandir issue once again.

Inderjit Singh said today's rally had been organised to mobilise the working class ahead of the forthcoming elections. He said both the CPM and the CPI would jointly contest the Sirsa parliamentary seat in the state for which the CPM had recommended the name of Ram Kumar Bahbalpuria, district secretary of the party, for approval.

Later, talking to mediapersons Karat said the Left parties were working to have a “non-Congress and non-BJP” government at the Centre after the forthcoming polls and maintained their efforts had produced results. 

Chandigarh, February 15
Efficient fiscal management over the past five years has helped Haryana tide over the huge financial burden caused by the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.

Haryana will be recommending the new pay scales and clearing its arrears by the end of year 2009-10 —making it the ‘only state in the country to do so,’ —even if it means a risk of becoming a revenue deficit state this year.

While the other state are still contemplating on how to implement the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations in a staggered manner, Haryana plans to disburse 40 per cent of the arrears since January 2006 (Rs 2,600 crore) to its employees by March 31 this year. The remaining Rs 3,800 crore (including the additional salary hike of Rs 1300 crore) will be disbursed during FY’ 09-10.

The implementation of the pay commission in Haryana has led to the Wage Bill of the government going up by over 24 per cent in the coming fiscal over 2008-09 and almost double than the year 2007-08. As compared to a salary and pension bill of Rs 5,731 crore in 2007-08 and Rs 8,318 crore in the current financial year, the budget estimates for the next fiscal puts the salary and pension expenditure at a whopping Rs 11,010 crore.

Hisar, February 15
As many as two lakh pensioners in Haryana are miffed at the failure of the government to grant them revised pension benefits on the central pattern.

ML Sehgal, general secretary of the Haryana Pensioners Association said here today that although Finance Minister Birendra Singh had promised in January to notify the revised pension, the Budget contained neither a reference nor any provision for these benefits.

He said the association was planning to launch state-wide protests shortly to press the government to grant them revised pensions.

Sehgal regretted that while the government had revised the pensions of almost every other category of beneficiaries, its own superannuated employees were being denied their due.

KURUKSHETRA: The Haryana government has failed to announce the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission to the pensioners in the Budget presented in the Haryana Legislative Assembly in Chandigarh on February 13.

Alleging this in a jointly signed statement released to mediapersons here on Sunday, state president of the Haryana Pensioners Welfare Society Kuldeep Sharma and state general secretary Jagdish Gupta deplored Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for it.

Chairman of the society Kasturi Lal Sharma said the HPWS would join a sit-in dharna scheduled to be organised jointly by the Haryana Senior Citizens and Pensioners Association in front of the office of the Deputy Commissioner in Yamunanagar on February 19.

Bhiwani, February 15
A 14-year-old youth was shot dead for not giving way at Jatu Luhari village, today. Another youth also sustained bullet injuries in this incident.

The assailant fled away and villagers blocked the road after the incident took place.

According to information, family of two brothers Kailash and Shankar of Jatu Luhari village, whose marriage has been fixed, were preparing to visit the brides village.

Meanwhile, Mukhtyar, a resident of the same village, arrived in his car and asked them to move their vehicles so that he could pass the street.

It has been reported that the matter took a serious turn and Mukhtyar fired his pistol on them. 14-year-old Sandeep died on the spot, whereas, Jitender who was also sitting beside Sandeep in the car sustained bullet injuries.

He was rushed to civil hospital Bhiwani where his condition has been stated serious. Mukhtyar fled away from the scene and villagers blocked the Bhiwani-Hisar road for hours.

The police, on getting the information, went to the village and urged the villagers to lift the jam. But villagers persisted to continue the jam till the arrest of the accused was made.

Later, the DC, the SP and the DSP went to the villagers and assured them of Mukhtyar’s arrest within next 24 hours.

The DC announced to give Rs 1 lakh to the kin of the deceased. 

Gurgaon, February 15
Haryana Director-General of Police Ranjiv Singh Dalal inaugurated a new police control room based on the latest technology here today.

Addressing a press conference on the occasion, Dalal said the installation of the new police control system would improve communication among the police officials and police stations of the district.

“The installation of this system has costed Rs 2.08 crore,” he said, adding that it would facilitate quick satellite communication of any incident of crime, which would be followed by prompt action.

The locals would now be able to get any information desired from the police department at the click of a mouse, he added.

Kaithal, February 15
MP Naveen Jindal became the third Indian to fly in FA-18 American fighter plane during the Aero India — 2009 being held at Bangalore.

According to a press note issued from the MP’s office, he holds a commercial-pilot licence and has had opportunities to fly civil aircrafts but this was his first chance to fly in a fighter plane.

Jindal is a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence and this was a new experience.

Earlier Olympics Gold medal winner Abhinav Bindra and Astronaut and former Wing commander Rakesh Sharma had the opportunity to fly in fighter plane during this very show. 

Gurgaon, February 15
Hundreds of parents of school-going children staged a protest demonstration here today against certain private schools’ move to hike the tuition fee of students.

They marched in protest from the local Ram Lila Ground to the Deputy Commissioner’s camp office, where they submitted a memorandum to be forwarded to the Haryana Governor, the Chief Minister and the Education Minister.

Addressing the protesting parents, Ashok Agarwal, president, All-India Parents Association and adviser, Delhi Abhibhavak Mahasangh, asserted that the apex court had clearly told the state governments to ensure the provision of education to children as it was their fundamental right.

"Still, there is no proper system in place to check or control the functioning of the privately managed schools and other educational institutions," he said, adding that a well-defined education policy was the need of the day.

Vashisht Kumar Goyal, president, Millennium Parents Association, Gurgaon, maintained that the government should set up an education commission to regulate the functioning of private schools once and for all.