Amritsar, June 16
The district administration has issued show-cause notices to 23 organisations, including multinationals and the government departments for violation of the Punjab Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 1997.

Deputy Commissioner K.S. Pannu said all companies had been asked to remove billboards, banners, buntings and posters from the city.

Commenting on the campaign against defacement, he said a certain number of officials had been pressed to note down the names of offenders and issue them notices. It was different from pressing staff for removing the unauthorised advertisements manually as the number of offenders were much more than this, he said.

He said initially only notices were served on the companies responsible for violation as a majority of them may be unaware of punishment. He said repetition of violation of the act would attract registration of cases against the offenders.

He said the companies had been asked to submit their replies to this office by June 27 as to why action should not be taken against them 
for violations.

The companies which had been issued notices included Vodafone, BSNL 3 G, Reliance Footprint, Samsung Plaza, NIIT, Scholars Study Circle, PTU, IELTS Parishram Academy, Dashmesh Academy, Orchid Resturant and Caterers, Comfort INN GSK Café, IMS Learning Centre, Career Launchers, Prism Infotech, BSL British School of Language, PT education, Ritu Wears, Bayor Environmental Science, Bosch Power Tools, NB Education, Shaheed Udham Singh Group of Institute and SPS Institute.

Offices of all these organisations were on the GT Road, Mall Road, Lawrence Road, Queens Road, Albert Road, Ranjit Avenue and Sultanwind Road.

As per the provisions of the act, any person, who defaced any property in public view by writing or marking with ink, chalk, paint or any other material or by erecting stuffs, banners or by pasting notices and writing slogans without the written permission of the owner of the property should be punished with imprisonment for a term which may be extended up to six months or fined of Rs 1,000 or both.

Pannu elaborated that violation of the act for the benefit of some other person or a company or other corporate body should also make such other persons, president, chairman, director, partner, manager, secretary or any other person with the management liable for the same penalty. 

Amritsar, June 16
The perennial shortage of staff in traffic police has proved to be a major bane for the holy city, due to which the traffic trouble has been spiraling out of control, touching new heights with each passing day.

At present, the traffic police department has only 116 policemen to control over three lakh vehicles in the district. The shortage of staff in traffic police is one of the major reasons for traffic mismanagement in the holy city while all claims and promises made by the district administration, police and municipal corporation have proved futile.

Astonishingly, presently there is only one traffic policeman for tackling over 2,600 vehicles (including motorcycles, scooters, cars, buses, trucks etc.). The traffic wing came into existence about several years ago to tackle the increasing traffic problem and about 116 policemen were appointed.

A traffic policeman, on the condition of anonymity, said he daily asked people to obey traffic rules but there was no improvement in their behaviour. He said the uncooperative behavior from the public was also responsible for the traffic mess.

As per the DTO office records, more than three lakh vehicles were plying in the city and out of this there were as many as 40,000 were auto-rickshaws which gave scant regard to traffic rules, besides over one lakh two wheelers and a large number of vehicles entering the city from the other parts of country. At present, the DTO authorities issue registration to over 30,000 vehicles every year while it was merely 10,000 vehicles about a decade ago.

According to sources, the traffic wing of the district police have only 116 cop staff to control this heavy traffic including five Sub Inspectors, seven Assistant Sub Inspectors, 76 Head Constables, 20 constables and about 30 home guard jawans. There is only one DSP to handle the whole staff while the post of Superintendent of Police (traffic) has been vacant for the last one year. A senior police official, preferring anonymity, said there was no need for more staff. 

Amritsar, June 16
The conflict between farmers and a private solar power company over the setting up of a power project took a new turn when the police registered a case against 10 farmers for demolishing the structures of the company.

The police has registered a case against Sher Singh, Jaswant Singh , Jurmej Singh, Bakhshish Singh, Gurmeet Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Jagir Singh, all residents of Awan, Jurbir Singh of Ramdas and 20 to 25 unidentified persons under sections 384, 427, 447, 148, and 149 of the IPC.

The farmers had been protesting against the construction of the project on the panchayat land allegedly offered to Azure Power Punjab Private Limited Company without following the required procedure.

Dhanwant Singh, state president of the Kirti Kisan Union, demanded the cases should be withdrawn. Instead the court orders should be implemented. He said if the district administration failed to withraw the cases, they would be forced to launch an agitation.

KKU District President Jatinder Singh Chhinna said the district administration had freed the arrested farmers after assuring them that no action would be taken against the agitating farmers. However, the police and the administration allegedly seemed to be hand in glove with Azure Power Punjab Power Limited and was not implementing the court orders which stayed setting up of the project. He said a meeting of various unions would be organised shortly to decide the next course of action if the administration failed in this regard.

Amritsar, June 16
As far as joint families go, the emotional bond between grandparents and the family’s little ones had always been strong but with the rise of smaller families, especially where both parents work, the bond is getting thicker like never before.

In a world where the super busy mums and dads fail to spend quality time with their kids, the “bade papas” and “badee mamas” are stepping in to that void in the lives of their grandchildren which their own parents are unable to fill.

The trend among young couples is to supplement their income with both of them taking up jobs or running their own small ventures to earn more for a comfortable lifestyle.

Children, who require constant attention and affection, consequently get closer to their grandparents to meet the needs for love and other requirements.

The retired grandparents prefer to develop personal rapport with their grandchildren for their overall and harmonious development. Losing rapport with their parents, they spend a lot of time with their grandparents.

During summer vacation, the job to spend some quality time with the children falls on to the grandparents. Besides this, they also take care of the children’s food habits, clothes and even home work allotted by the schools.

A grandparent, Darbara Singh, said he wanted to live a free and peaceful life on his own but could not do so due to the emotional attachment with the grandchildren. He said at his age he didn’t have the strength to run after small children and fulfil their aspirations.

He said earlier he had thought of spending a trouble-free life on his hobbies after retirement, but now everything had changed. He said the responsibility of taking care of the siblings lay with him and his wife as their parents return home at about 8 pm daily.

Baljeet Kaur said she could understand the problem of their children but it was not only affecting her health but also that of the children who wanted more affection and love from their parents. She said her son and daughter-in-law were employed with a multinational company and were not able to take a single leave to take their children for an outing. She said she had to do the needful so that the children did not feel that they had been ignored by their parents as kids, once they grew up.

Amritsar, June 16
Irony is writ large over the state of sports in Punjab. As reputed players from other states are showered with rewards by the respective state governments, players from Punjab survive on dreams and memories of triumphant moments in the past.

Reason - Punjab government’s ludicrous logic that Punjab origin players (even those of international repute), who have been playing for Services and teams of PSUs, are not eligible for honours and cash prizes being offered by the Punjab government.

An equestrian player, Honorary Lieutenant Palvinder Singh, has participated in as many as 12 international equestrian championships clinching a first position, four silver and two bronze medals.

The four-member Indian equestrian team, including Col Deep Ahlawat, Major Rajesh Pattu, Bhagirath and Palvinder, had secured bronze medal for the country in the 15th Asian Games (2006). All the players were from Services.

However, three players from the other states were honoured, leaving out Punjab.

The Haryana government had honoured Ahlawat and Pattu while the Rajasthan government had showered cash prizes on Bhagirath but Palvinder could not receive the same from his mother state, courtesy the absence of a proper policy.

Pargat Singh, director sports, Punjab, said as per the cash award policy and Maharaja Ranjit Singh Award, only those players who had represented the state, were granted these honours.

He said the primary aim of the cash awards was to financially support promising players. He said otherwise there would be a lot of international players of Punjab origin who played for different states besides playing for the Services, Railways, PSU teams, BSF and banks.

Interestingly, his trained players Jagdish Singh and Talwinder Singh, both employees of Punjab Police, had received Maharaja Ranjit Singh award but Palvinder was never considered.

Earlier, Palvinder was part of the Indian team which had secured the bronze in the 13th Asian Games (1998). He participated in the Sports Festival at the tercentenary celebration of the birth of the Khalsa, held at Anandpur Sahib in 1999.

A resident of Jabbowal village in Baba Bakala tehsil of this border district, he has been with the Army for the past 24 years. Inspired to be a horse rider from a very young age, he had intentionally joined Remount Veterinary Corps (RVC) of the Army to pursue his dream. He is the only Indian equestrian player to have claimed the first position in the National Equestrian Championship for six times and won it last in 
February 2008.

He clinched gold medal in the Federation Equestrian International One Star (three-day-event) held at Meerut in 1993. Earlier, he had stood second in the International One Day event held in Australia in July 1991. A month later he again secured the silver in the International One Day event held at Perth (Australia).

Amritsar, June 16
Over a century old, Khalsa College would flaunt an all-weather swimming pool with state-of-the-art infrastructure if the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs accepted its proposal.

Deputy Commissioner Kahan Singh Pannu said he would forward the proposal for the perusal of the ministry. He recently visited the swimming pool which was as old as the college itself.

The British era swimming pool has length and width as per the unit of yards prevalent in that period. With the passage of time, it was not augmented and new feature remained elusive.

By virtue of its being district swimming coaching centre, it received players from all over the district. Hence, its upgradation would ultimately help in improving standards of swimming in the district.

It had got a tiny covered place in a corner of the pool, while there was no space available to hang clothes.

They put them in a corner of the pool with a brick on them lest they should fly with air.

Neither it had a changing room for girls and boys, nor a toilet seat.

Budding swimmers remained without practice for three days in a week due to absence of a water treatment plant. Coach Satpal Singh said entire Saturday was wasted in getting the the swimming pool empty, while the next day goes into cleaning and Monday to fill it.

The installation of filtration plant and its upgradation to all-weather pool would prolong the practice period for budding swimmers for at least three months.

Besides, it would be hygienic and would also save precious water.

Another Coach Gurlal Singh said two international players Ravneet Singh and Charanpreet Singh were the product of this pool, apart from 10 national medalists.

Ravneet had played in the Junior Asia Swimming and Water Polo Championship in Thailand in 2005 and Charanpreet had participated in the same edition of championship in Indonesia in 2007.

The district swimming team had been occupying the first place in the sub-junior Punjab State Swimming Championship and in the State Schools Swimming Championship for the past four years.

They hoped that once the swimming pool was upgraded it would help in the production of worldclass players.

Amritsar, June 16
The unprecedented response to the first best price modern wholesale cash and carry store in the country brought to the holy city by Indian private telecom major Bharti Enterprises in collaboration with the US major Wal-Mart has taken the company, Bharti Wal-Mart, by surprise.

The company which is offering best prices with unmatched convenience, quality and hygiene have been offering a basket of more than 6,000 products under one air-conditioned roof and has become a new shopping experience for about 31,000 registered members of the Best Price Modern Wholesale mega-mart.

Arti Singh, company vice-president, Corporate Affairs, said they have done two-year extensive research before setting up this maiden venture in Amritsar and have proved to be a major boon for the local wholesale and retail business houses especially the lower wrung of grocery and provision stores in this border district.

She said that the Bharti Enterprise have acquired the global expertise in marketing from the Wal-Mart group to make this venture a major success by setting up a joint venture arm into this segment.

Arti said the basic concept behind the opening up of the store was to cut down costs on inventory and make the semi wholesale and retail business more profitable venture so that a small trader can improve his efficiency and profitability.

She said after seeing the success of the store the Best Price would open up more stores in Punjab as the company plans to target to pick up wholesale business in northern India during the next expansion plan. The company was in the process of identifying suitable locations in Punjab including Zirakpur near Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Jalandhar to replicate similar concepts in this region.

Arti said over 90 per cent of the goods and services were being sourced locally thereby helping keep costs to a minimum, adding to the growth of the local economy and creating job opportunities for about 800 youths directly or indirectly working for the company. She said that they have developed a display model for a provision store at Best Price for more visibility of wide range of products to attract the customers.

It is pertinent to mention here that a large section of traders here were skeptical about the success of this unique business module as majority of them had a tie up with local wholesalers and C & F agents to procure their items in routine and were getting excellent credit schemes.

But this notion proved to be wrong with Best Price offering a large number of items including household grocery, vegetables electronics and variety of product range at cheaper rates and offered about 40 to 50 per cent discounts on all the items. This has generated tremendous interest among the people who fancied shopping at this unique phenomenon.

According to sources at the store the average sale daily was being recorded at more than Rs 15 to 20 lakh. The products signage and the visibility of products has been done for easy accessibility to the wholesale buyers who had been given the opportunity to grab the major bargains.

She said the farmers in the region would be benefited the most as they would be able to sell their produce directly to the store. She said that US farmers with small holdings as compared to their counterparts in India were earning handsome returns on their profits.

Amritsar, June 16
Even as the Deputy Commissioner has issued show cause notices to various corporate houses, private companies and cinema owners for defacing government and private properties, the violators seemed to be least bothered to follow norms and even the heritage structures and buildings are not spared.

The glaring example and latest “victim” is Sultanwind Gate where certain hoardings have been hanged, which has even hidden the name inscribed on the gate. The hoarding has been put up in such a way that they hide the decorative lights installed to illuminate the gate in the evening.

The pillars of some of various 12 historic gates built by Maharaja Ranjit Singh could be seen smeared with posters becoming virtual eyesores. Various NGOs lodged their protest with the local authorities time to time demanding strict action against the defaulters as per the law.

The Deputy Commissioner said the administration would not lag behind in taking stern action against the persons found defacing the holy city. He said the campaign had just started, due to which various private companies had started removing the posters.

Amritsar , June 16
Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports M.S. Gill called upon the Punjab government to expedite the process of procuring 45 acres for the expansion of Rajasansi International Airport . On his maiden visit to the holy city recently after assuming charge as Union minister, Gill said identification of the land and entailing all paper work had been completed.

Gill was the head of the Ministry of Civil Aviation-appointed parliamentary committee with other members being MP Navjot Singh Sidhu, former Chairman of National Minorities Commission Tarlochan Singh and SAD General Secretary Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa.

Gill expected Rs 240-crore expansion and development work at the airport to be finished by the end of this month. When asked about the installation of electronic data interface, he replied that once infrastructure was completed, it would be there. Installation of electronic data interface would ensure speedy clearance of cargo.

It is learnt that all Air Force facilities would be relocated to the western side of the international airport once the 45 acres are handed over to the Airport Authority of India (AAI). The AAI would utilise the vacant space for immediate expansion of the international airport.

The Union Minister for Sports stressed that the expansion of the local airport would ultimately help in decongesting Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, as 45 per cent of travellers were from Punjab. Elaborating on the future expansion plan, he said another 500 acres would be required keeping in view the expansion plan for the next 50 years.

Amritsar, June 16
The District Administration has appealed to the parents of the students gone to Australia for higher studies to submit details about their wards with the Suvidha Kendra established in the office of Deputy Commissioner by June 17.

Deputy Commissioner Kahan Singh Pannu stated this in a press release after holding a meeting with Commissioner NRI Affairs Punjab. He said Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has taken up the matter of security of students with Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and officials of Australian Embassy at New Delhi.

He said the Australian government had established a task force besides providing strict security measures at various colleges and universities for the security of students.

He said that details of the students from Punjab were being gathered to prepare a database of the students gone in that country for education and employment. He urged the parents to immediately send the details of their wards so that it could be presented to the government.

Amritsar, June 16
About 50 percent of the patients suffering from eye complications are diabetic which plays a major role in permanent blindness. What is worrisome is that India has emerged as the “Diabetics capital” and problems like untold damage to eyes due to diabetes, causing complete vision loss, have added to the magnitude of the problem.

These were excerpts of the Interactive Public Awareness Seminar on “Diabetic Eye Disease”, organised by Dr. Daljit Singh Eye Hospital, Amritsar.

Dr. Indu Singh, head of the department of Vitreo-Retinal diseases in the hospital, while addressing the audience, quoted the rising graph of Diabetics in the country- “Earlier only 10 percent patients with eye problems were found to be diabetic, now every second person is a diabetic.

In year 2000, India reported 31.7 million diabetics, only nine years later in 2009, the figures have doubled to a staggering 79.4 million which is nearly double the diabetic cases reported by China - the world’s most populated country - with 42.3 million diabetics.”

She explained, “At the inception stage of diabetes, a bi-annual check-up becomes essential, to medically control damage to eyes at their very onset. Left untreated, it can lead to permanent blindness. The symptoms often start with blurring of vision, black spots called ‘floats’ in vision area and sudden vision loss.”

Noted eye specialist and director of eye hospital Dr. Ravijit Singh said diabetes affects most of the vital organs of the body or adds to the patient risk profile like getting heart attacks, brain strokes or kidney failure. Significantly, the harmful effects of diabetes on eyes was often taken lightly or ignored altogether. If left undiagnosed and untreated, Diabetes can cause severe visual loss and often complete and irreversible blindness.

He sought to remove the popular public perception about the disease that was often referred to as a “Lifestyle Disorder” affecting generally the affluent class, and stated that in the present scenario, the illness has spread its tentacles to every segment of the society, affecting people from all socio-economic groups.

Continuing her address, Dr. Indu Singh talked of the latest technologies in the diagnosis and treatment of advanced diabetic eye disease.