Amritsar, May 26
The Municipal Corporation has decided to issue notices to illegal hoardings mounted on rooftops of residential and commercial buildings that have cropped up in the city allegedly in violations of the building bylaws, causing loss of crores of rupees to the civic authorities.

MC Commissioner D.P.S. Kharbanda talking to The Tribune confirmed that the civic authorities were soon going to issue notices to such billboard owners. According to a survey conducted by the municipal authorities, there were about 220 such hoardings put up without permission and were against the building bylaws.

He said except political hoardings, all the residences where such anomaly had been noticed would be brought under the periphery of house tax. He said house tax would be levied on such buildings, besides chalking out further action against them.

Already dotted with unipoles and huge billboards installed on the road sides and government lands, putting up hoarding fitted on iron frames and steel structures, especially set up by the residential and commercial buildings owners, is the new phenomena to catch the eye of the people.

Amritsar Vikas Manch patron Charanjit Singh Gumtala said not only these hoardings marred the beauty of the holy city and created vision pollution, these were in violations of the Punjab and Haryana High Court directions and should be removed immediately.

He said the corporation should come up with an advertising policy. He said the corporation must issue some token numbers to the unipoles and hoardings where it had granted permission.

Social activist Brij Bedi said the roads in the whole city had been commercialised and even the footpaths had not be spared to erect unipoles which had also come up in the green belts of the city.

Amritsar, May 26
Residents of Gagan Colony are up in arms against the owners of a local mall as the road of the colony caved in for the second time in past one year, threatening the life and property of the residents.

The incident took place when employees of the construction company were digging the earth for the construction of a parking lot allegedly without taking any safety measures like retaining and protection walls. Enraged residents immediately forced them to stop the work.

Mayor Shawet Malik reached the spot to take stock of the situation. He asked the constructor at the site to stop the work and directed him to take all the safety measures. He assured the residents that no work would be allowed if lives of the residents were at risk.

It is pertinent to mention here that the same road had caved in last August blocking the movement to the residents and damaging the sewerage and water system.

Ajay Chopra, a resident, said the life has become miserable for them as neither the sewerage nor the water supply system had been working properly. Movement of tractor-trailers carrying building material through the streets has made their life hell.

Another resident R.L. Bhatia said the construction of the mall had devalued their property. He said the residents had informed the authorities about 10 days ago that the mall authorities were taking no protective measures. However, their repeated requests fell on deaf ears.

The Mayor said the construction of the mall had been stopped and would be resumed only after proper security measures were adopted by the constructors.

Amritsar, May 26
The Amritsar Vikas Manch (AVM) has urged the Deputy Commissioner and the Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation to impose a ban on the burning of garbage and residue of trees.

Manch general secretary Amrit Lal Mannan, in a communiqué to the DC and the Commissioner, said that as the state government had already imposed a ban on the burning the wheat crop residue to protect environment, it should also ban the burning of garbage and tree leaves which damaged the green belts.

He said that in the morning hours when a large number of people go for morning walk they saw smoke in every corner of the city where the garbage and the residue of trees were burnt by some irresponsible persons.

Mannan said in Ram Bagh near the statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh one may see the damaged trees due to bruning of tree leaves and the branches. He demanded action against the persons responsible for burning the garbage and tree remains. He said that some employees of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation were suspended for this lapse some time back. He demanded strict warning to all the officials concerned against burning garbage in the open.

Amritsar, May 26
Dr Barinder Singh Ahluwalia, who hails from Amritsar, has been adjudged as one of the 25 “most-respected Canadian immigrants” as per a nationwide survey conducted in three stages. Of the 25, three are Sikhs, including Ahluwalia.

An e-mail received by Harbans Lal said Ahluwalia went to Canada in 1986 with a medical degree from Guru Nanak Dev University, much before the inception of Baba Farid Health University, Faridkot. Like so many other immigrant doctors and professionals, he, too, encountered seemingly insurmountable hurdles put by bureaucrats on the path of getting his educational qualifications translated into the Canadian system.

So he turned to the field of diagnostic imaging and re-trained at the Toronto General Hospital. He then started opening radiological diagnostic centres in the city. Now as president of BSA Diagnostics Limited, he oversees four busy locations with a successful business model, offering quick turn-around next-day services for his patients.

His clinics employ dozens of doctors and other medical personnel - all immigrants from every corner of the globe - and his clinics are acclaimed amongst the best and most prestigious in Canada.

He is also known as a philanthropist and a patron of education, arts and culture. He is a founder of the Spinning Wheel Film Festival movement, which has inspired film festivals focused on the Sikh ethos in locations around the world, including Toronto, New York and Los Angeles.

He is also the founder of sikhchic.com.

He is one of three trustees of Totonto-based The (Sikh) Centennial Foundation and recently held its 21st annual gala at Royal Ontario Museum.

The other two Sikhs who figured among the 25 most-respected immigrant Canadians are Baltej Singh Dhillon and Ujjal Singh Dosanj.

Amritsar, May 26
The Citizen Forum Vidya Mandir, running in the ramshackle locality of Maqboolpura, has started evening shift to provide free education to more than 900 wards of drug addicts.

The school, which was opened about 10 years ago by Brij Bedi, husband of super cop Kiran Bedi, and Master Ajit Singh, a government teacher, could only accommodate 400 students at a time.

Master Ajit Singh said considering the rush of admission seekers in the school, they have decided to start evening shift for the students. He said they need a big building with playing ground to run the school successfully but they could not afford it now.

Maqboolpura is infamous for rampant drug addiction which had taken its toll on its youth as majority of the bread earners died due to this menace. Thus the area derived its name as “Locality of Widows”. The area has the population of about 30,000. But it has no school other than Citizen Forum Vidhaya Mandir.

However, due to shortage of place the school was forced to send several students to government schools, the expenses of which are borne by the school

Amritsar, May 26
The newly installed management of Lumbsden Club has spruced up the century old club, which plans to hold grand celebrations on the occasion. Club president Arun Verma said the management has grand plans for the centenary celebrations. “We have decided to hold a function to honour its old members and release a souvenir with an emphasis on history of the club,” he added.

Initiated by the then Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar L.F. Lumsden in 1909, its building is said to be a part of the summer palace of Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

The club has a card room, bar, billiard room, table tennis, lawn tennis and badminton courts. Situated on the fringe of Ram Bagh gardens, the Lumsden Club is one of the three clubs of the British era. Two other clubs are the Patiala Club and the Kasauli Club.

Sunil Anand, general secretary of the club, said as part of renovation, interiors, furniture and bathrooms were modernised. Besides, it has roped in a yoga trainer to open a health club.

The club has preserved the minute books since 1930. It contains the names of presidents, executive members, office-bearers and rates of food items. The fish plate that cost five annas is now available for Rs 90. All those entries have been done by hand and with blue ink.

Among the who’s who of the country, who visited the club were Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai, V.V. Giri and Giani Zail Singh.

Anand said currently, the Lumsden Club has around 1,200 members. “All food items are prepared in desi ghee and plans are afoot to introduce Chinese and south Indian food,” he commented.

He said he had already introduced famous breakfast of Amritsari Kultcha, Purri and lassi on every Sunday.

Anand said if their demand of de-notifying premises of the clubs on the lines of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Panorama was accepted then they would add a banquet hall with capacity of 200 people, a swimming pool and some rooms.

Amritsar, May 26
Questions have once again been raised over the security of foreigner tourists and NRIs visiting the city when an unidentified autorickshaw driver allegedly assaulted and looted British national Thomas Richard last evening.

However, this is not an isolated case. Earlier too, foreign nationals, especially NRIs, had to face such attacks by anti-social elements such as snatchers. A French woman tourist was assaulted near the Golden Temple in April last year when some snatchers tried to snatch her bag, leaving the district police and the administration red-faced. French tourist Tiphaine Angioletti, who was accompanied by her husband Robert, was dragged on the road for at least 20 feet by two motorcycle-borne youths as they tried to snatch her bag tied to her waist.

Recently, NRI Palwinder Singh, who originally hailed from Gurdaspur, was kidnapped and murdered by taxi drivers identified as Kuldeep Singh and Daljit Singh. He had hired the taxi outside Rajasansi International Airport for his village after returning from Canada on April 10.

Another NRI woman had to lose her life when she fell on the road from a rickshaw when the snatchers tried to snatch her purse hanging from her shoulder. Her husband also accompanied her. She was rushed to hospital with head injuries where she died. The police has failed to arrest the culprits till now.

The main areas where these snatchers and looters made the foreign national their victims include the periphery of the Golden Temple like Chowk Fuwara, Bharawan Da Dhaba, railway station and posh areas.

SSP Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh said that he had issued guidelines for the tourists, foreigners as well as NRIs. He said that they should cooperate with the district and police administration.

Amritsar, May 26
The voting trend in recently concluded Lok Sabha elections showed that the Congress failed to consolidate its position among Jat Sikhs, a major peasantry section in Punjab, despite doling out debt relief package and agriculture development funds worth crores of rupees in the state, said M.M. Singh Cheema, AICC member and PPCC vice-president, here.

He said benefits of Rs 70,000-crore debt relief package to farmers, Rs 25,000 crore of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yozana, unprecedented rise in MSP of wheat and paddy went without a political consolidation for the Congress in Punjab as the Akali-BJP combine created a general impression that they brought these for the farmers of the state.

Besides, he said, the last UPA government did not include a Jat Sikh in the Union cabinet. Hence, the Congress faced major drubbing in rural areas particularly dominated by Jat Sikhs. He stressed that inclusion of a Jat Sikh in the cabinet could bring them back to the party.

Cheema, also a veteran trade unionist, said the UPA has a choice of elevating M.S. Gill from a Minister of State of Youth Affairs and Sports (independent charge) to a Cabinet minister. An upright bureaucrat, Gill was the brain behind bringing the hosting of 2010 Commonwealth Games on track.

He said Dr Gill as Development Commissioner in Punjab during Governor’s rule spearheaded the turnaround of agriculture sector with opening of Vikas Sadan in each development block, ‘apni mandi’ for farmers, introduction of Pre Mix Machines for metalling of Rural Link Roads and Cooperative Sugar Mills.

He said there was a strong undercurrent among rural masses especially Jat Sikhs, who were feeling left out second time in Union cabinet in the UPA regime.