Chandigarh, June 10
For long, it has been suspected that most plantations taken up by the Forest Department exist on paper only. This time, it has finally been proved that not only were plantation drives undertaken by the Forest Department in Jhajjar fake, but crores that have been shown as salary paid to labourers for this plantation work, have also been siphoned off.

Sources in the Forest Department, Haryana, told TNS that plantation was not even carried out on 50 per cent of the area in Jhajjar, as shown in the records submitted by forest officials posted in Jhajjar at the time of this scam. The forest officials had allegedly shown plantation by receiving grants under the Forest Development Agency plan and from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. However, inspection of these plantations on government, private and panchayat land, has revealed that most of these were non-existent.

Most of these ‘fake plantations’ were allegedly done during April-September 2008. It was only during January this year that forest officials started inspecting the sites where these plantations were claimed to have been carried out. Over the next two months (February-March 2009), it was found that no plantation had been done on 1,200 hectares and 800 running kilometres in the district.

When these irregularities came to light, the Conservator, Central Circle, Rohtak, formed six checking teams headed by Indian Forest Service and Haryana Forest Service officials. These teams have now submitted their report, saying that there has been large-scale short works and failed plantations in every block of the district. They have found that about 400 hectares of plantation found on private land (interestingly, this was shown not as a block plantation, but plantation on boundaries of farmers’ fields) was non-existent.

Similarly, hundreds of hectares of panchayat land on which claims of plantation were made, have also been found fake. Interestingly, whenever plantation is carried out on panchayat land, a resolution has to be signed by the village panchayat and the Forest Department, expressing the former’s willingness to allow plantation and the precise details of the area on which these plantations are to be done. No such resolution was found, showing that this drive, too, existed only on paper.

Payments worth Rs 5 crore have also been shown to have been disbursed to labourers as salary, when in effect forest labourers in the district have been protesting against non-payment of salaries. With a minimum salary of Rs 3,500, at least 4,000 labourers should have been employed over six months to utilise the sum of Rs 5 crore, when in effect there are just 500 labourers employed by the Forest Department in Haryana.

Top officials in the Forest Department told TNS that following preliminary investigation, they had already placed under suspension two forest range officials and four forest guards. “We have also sought explanation from the divisional forest officer who was posted in Jhajjar at the time when these ‘fake plantations’ were done. Obviously, the involvement of senior officials cannot be ruled out,” he said.

Chandigarh, June 10
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s action of giving retrospective effect to amendment in an export target scheme has not found favours with the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Division Bench of Justice MM Kumar and Justice Augustine George Masih has quashed the notification issued by the director-general of foreign trade and ex-officio additional secretary to the Department of Commerce.

The Bench has also declared it ultravires of the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992, “as it gives retrospective effect”.

Taking up a petition filed by Faridabad-based Escorts Limited, the Bench also held the petitioner was “entitled to get duty credit entitlement certificate, if entitled to otherwise”.

In the writ petition, Escorts had challenged the notification dated June 12, 2006, on the ground it was issued without authority of law “in so far as retrospective effect has been given to the amendment made in the target plus scheme notified under Section 5 of the Act”.

The petitioner claimed it was engaged in the business of manufacturing and sale of items, including agricultural machinery like tractors. In view of the exports by the company, certificate of recognition as trading house by the office of joint director-general, foreign trade, has been granted.

The target plus scheme was floated with the intention to accelerate growth in export by rewarding star export houses, achieving a quantum growth in exports in the current licensing year compared to the previous licensing year.

Under the scheme, if Star Export House achieved a certain percentage of incremental growth in its export compared to the previous licensing year, duty credit entitlement was to be granted. But the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, vide notification dated March 31, 2006, abolished the scheme from April 1, 2006, onwards.

But in the notification of June 2006, the Central government made amendments in the scheme for exports between April 1, 2005, and March 31, 2006. The petitioners argued withdrawal of any benefit with retrospective effect was not within the power of the Centre.

The Bench concluded: “We are also in full agreement with the judgment passed by the Gujarat High Court in the case of Welspun India Ltd vs Union of India. Adopting the same reasoning, we allow the present writ petition and quash the notification.”

Rohtak, June 10
Retaliating to the order expelling former Ministers of State Subhash Batra and Krishan Murti Hooda from the primary membership of the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) for anti-party activities yesterday, both leaders today “expelled” HJC supremo Kuldeep Bishnoi from the party for six years citing the same reason.

They maintained that the general house meeting of the party would be convened within 30 days to ratify the expulsion of Bishnoi. Election for the party president would also be conducted the same day and the newly elected body would decide the future course of action of the party.

The two leaders claimed that senior HJC leaders held workers’ meetings and press conferences at many district headquarters in the state today to condemn Bishnoi’s autocratic style of working and to announce their decision to quit the party.

Talking to mediapersons at a joint press conference at the party office here, Batra and Hooda described their expulsion as unconstitutional and unethical and said neither were they served a show-cause notice nor any inquiry was conducted before taking this “extreme step”.

They added that Bishnoi alone was answerable for the “shameful” defeat of the HJC in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections and he should have resigned from the party owning moral responsibility for the party defeat.

Terming Bishnoi’s attitude towards party leaders as “unethical”, both leaders alleged that despite being the party chief, he did not take interest in meeting party workers and even senior leaders had to wait for a long time to get an appointment with him.

Hooda had contested the recent Lok Sabha elections from the Rohtak parliamentary constituency as the HJC nominee and lost his security deposit.

Karnal, June 10
Some miscreants allegedly cloned thousands of prepaid SIM cards of Tata Teleservices. They not only managed to hack the password from the server but also succeeded in activating the cloned SIM cards.

The cloned SIM cards matched with genuine SIM cards on which free of cost talk time was available under various schemes and the free talk time was also passed on the holders of cloned SIM cards.

The matter came to light when the genuine SIM cards of this number were issued and it was found that these had already been activated.

Tata Teleservices detected 1,888 cloned SIM cards in Karnal circle alone and lodged an FIR with the local police. All cloned SIM cards had been deactivated and inquiries were on, said Amit Duggal, CEO, Haryana circle.

“The matter pertaining to illegal methods of activating prepaid connections has been brought to the notice of the authorities concerned and we are investigating it”, said a company spokesperson.

The police had registered a case under various sections of the IPC and cyber crime, including misappropriation of money by hacking, said investigating officer Ashwani Shivani. He said talk time and other monetary facilities offered by the SIM worth up to Rs 10 lakh could have been utilised through cloned SIM cards and the possibility of these cards being used for “match fixing” during the IPL was also not ruled out.

Hisar, June 10
Dr K.S. Khokhar has been appointed Vice-Chancellor of Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, it was officially announced here today.

Khokhar’s appointment was approved by the Board of Management of the university at its meeting held in Chandigarh today under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Dharamvir.

An alumnus of HAU, Khokhar is at present working as Assistant Director-General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.

Born in Kansala village of Rohtak district in 1948, Khokhar did his MSc and PhD in entomology from HAU. He joined as District Extension Specialist in 1973. He rose to become a Professor in the Entomology Department in 1991.

Ambala, June 10
A meritorious student of an engineering college near Naraingarh was allegedly beaten to death by five youths today. Vikas (19), a student of the Shri Ram Mulakh Raj College of Engineering, Bhoorewala, in the electrical trade, died on the spot.

The police has registered a case of murder against Nirmal, Gulshan, Kala and two others on a complaint of Mohinder Singh, uncle of the deceased. The assailants also took away the motorcycle of the deceased.

Vikas went to college this morning as usual. While he was coming back from the college around noon, five youths allegedly attacked him and beat him up mercilessly. He sustained serious injuries on various parts of the body. The assailants fled after the incident. Some villagers identified three of the assailants while they were fleeing.

Vikas was taken to the Civil Hospital, Naraingarh, where doctors declared him brought dead. The doctors referred the body to Mulana Medical College for a postmortem, which will be conducted tomorrow morning.

The father of the deceased, Mahipal, a teacher in a government school, said a few days ago his son was threatened by some youths on his mobile. Later, the youths were recognised and the matter was brought to the notice of their parents.

None of the assailants has been nabbed. The Principal of the college said the assailants were not students of the institution.

Karnal, June 10
The new Deputy Commissioner of Karnal, J.S. Alhawat, today took exception to reports in a section of the press regarding ragging in a local institute and asserted that there was no case of ragging in Green Wood Polytechnic situated on the Ranwar road, Karnal.

He said the administration was keeping a strict watch and had directed the principals of colleges and institutes to take prompt action in cases of ragging. No senior classes were being held in the polytechnic and hence there was no question of ragging, said the Deputy Commissioner in his first press conference here.

Referring to the increasing cases of malaria, he said preventive measures were being taken by the Health Department to minimise the cases.Fogging and the spray of meltamethrine were being done in towns and villages.

He said out of 7,093 suspected cases of malaria sent for laboratory test, 1,831 cases were found positive. These patients were being given treatment, he added.

Kurukshetra, June 10
A delegation of the Haryana Federation of Kurukshetra University Teachers’ Association (KUTA) will soon meet Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda seeking his intervention in early implementation of revised UGC pay scales for university teachers.

President of the association NS Kaushal said today that the Union HRD Ministry had already released the fitment table for fixation of salary in revised scales and made it available on its website but the revised scales were yet to be implemented in Haryana.

Maintaining that the release of fitment table has sent a good message to the teaching community, Kaushal demanded that the state government should implement the revised grades uniformly, simultaneously and in toto as per the notification of the MHRD dated December 31, 2008.

The KUTA has been demanding early release of revised pay scales for quite sometime and had also staged a demonstration from April 20 to 23 in front of the vice chancellor’s office for early implementation of revised pay scales.

Kaushal urged the state government to implement the revised scales immediately strictly in accordance with the notification of the Union HRD Ministry. Dr Parmesh Kumar, secretary, KUTA, said a delegation of the KUTA would soon meet the UGC chairman, Prof SS Thorat for early release of the new guidelines regarding revised pay scales for university and college teachers.

Rohtak, June 10
Dr RP Hooda, Vice-Chancellor of Maharshi Dayanand University here, today suspended Azad Singh Nandal, a clerk posted at the result branch of the university, on charge of unlawfully entering into the examination centre set up in the Law Department where exams of BLib and Mlib under distance programme were being conducted.

The suspension order has been issued on the recommendation of the registrar, Dr SP Vats, who personally visited the centre today to inquire into a complaint lodged by Dr Amar Verma, observer at the centre, against Nandal, who had allegedly been coming to the exam centre illegally to help a known examinee to cheat.

Confirming the suspension order, Vats said no one would be allowed to enter into the exam centres unlawfully and cause disturbance to examinees and staff members.

Sirsa, June 10
The Department of Higher Education has withdrawn several courses in humanities and basic sciences from various government colleges of the state from the coming academic session.

The government has instead started some new job-oriented courses in these and other colleges.

One unit each of Bachelor of Arts (BA) has been withdrawn from government colleges in Bhattu Kalan and Tohana towns of Fatehabad district. The government has also discontinued BSc (Medical) from Government College, Mandi Dabwali (Sirsa), in 2009-10.

Similarly, government colleges in Naraingarh (BSc, Medical), Ambala Cantt (MA, English), Saha (Sanskrit, Elective), Panchkula (MA, Hindi, Industrial Microbiology, Biotechnology and Industrial Chemistry), Kalka (a unit of BA, BSc and MA, Political Science), Bhiwani (a unit of BA), Women College, Bhiwani, (BSc Medical and Non Medical), Faridabad (a unit of arts and medical each and two units of non-medical), Adampur, Barwala and Hansi (a unit of arts), Matak Majri (MA, English), Ateli (BSc Medical) and Bawal (MA, Sanskrit) are some other colleges of the state with courses mentioned against their names, which have lost a course or two by the recent orders of the government.

While courses in humanities and basic science have been withdrawn from these colleges, the government has decided to introduce courses like MSc (IT), PGDCA, BSc Computer Science, BBA and BCA in several colleges of the state. Besides, more units of BCom have also been issued to some colleges.

Dr Suman Gulab, principal of Government College, Bhattu Kalan, whose college has also lost one unit of BA, said the decision had been taken by the government in pursuant to a meeting of principals of government colleges of Haryana held recently under the chairmanship of Rajan Gupta, Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Education and Languages Department, Haryana.

The meeting, which was also attended by Jyoti Arora, Commissioner, Higher Education, Haryana, reviewed the performance of each and every government college of Haryana.

“In its efforts to make education accessible, inclusive and more relevant, the Department of Higher Education has taken the step to improve the standard of education as it was observed during the meeting that colleges have been producing degree holders with negligible worth,” said Dr Suman Gulab.

Chandigarh, June 10
Here’s a mirror to the Maharastra Navnirman Sena - a Marathi to the rescue of Biharis via Haryana. If a raging Kosi, Bihar’s river of sorrow, inundated villages and left thousands dead or homeless last year, this year started on a positive note for the 1,000-odd families of Musheri village, courtesy Sonepat Deputy Commissioner Ajit Balalji Joshi.

Moved by the plight of the Biharis as shown in visuals on television, this Marathi decided he could not remain untouched by this calamity. “I was in Class X when the Latur earthquake happened and I visited the area. Realising that in such calamities the local administration is hard-pressed and requires outside help, I decided to chip in. I approached my batchmates in Bihar and told them that we were keen on adopting the worst-hit village. We were allotted Musheri in Sehsra district. Since then we have never looked back,” he said.

After apprising Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda of his venture, Joshi got on with the business of raising funds for the rehabilitation of the families. “I must say the Haryanavis are very generous when the intentions are good. We appealed to them directly and also through social and other local organisations to raise Rs 1.42 crore. A team, led by the ADC, Sonepat, visited the village, carried out a survey of the requirement and submitted a report based on which we planned our action,” Joshi explained.

With the collected funds, the district administration supplied items of daily use, including medicines worth Rs 25 lakh to the village before proceeding with construction work. In Musheri, as many as 76 new houses have been constructed, 147 have been reconstructed. One community centre, public toilets, two temples and three meeting places for villagers have also been constructed. Besides, six solar lights have been set up and village roads have been made concrete with the donations. The houses, completed in record time, were handed over to the families in January this year.

“Farmlands had been wasted, filled with sand; the people had nowhere to go and no source of employment. Today, the village is a changed picture and life has returned to Musheri. The villagers have picked up the pieces of their lives and are ready to move on. We have completed our work. Personally, it is a big mission accomplished,” Joshi said.

Though villagers were allotted houses, a formal handing-over ceremony for the village has been slated for June 15 and will take place in the presence of the Haryana Chief Minister and the Bihar Chief Minister.

Faridabad, June 10
A man shot his wife and himself after his father-in-law reportedly tried to persuade him not to harass his daughter for dowry. They were taken to Escorts Hospital here, where they died.

The husband, Heera, a resident of Pingoda village, got married to Bimlesh about seven years ago. Incidentally, Heera’s brother Sita Ram is married to Bimlesh’s sister.

According to Bharti, father of Bimlesh, Heera used to harass her for dowry. After the torture became intolerable, he went to Heera’s house to bring his daughter back.

On reaching there he tried to reason with Heera not to torture his daughter. However, Heera allegedly shot his wife and later himself.

Karnal, June 10
The body of a 27-year-old man was recovered from the Neelam hotel near the bus stand here today. The deceased identified as Ashwani was a resident of Sanch village in Kaithal district.

The police said the deceased had come here yesterday and after taking liquor, he consumed some poisonous substance. The police termed it as an accidental death on the basis of the statement of the wife of the deceased, Bablesh.