Jalandhar, June 25
Soaring temperature, no respite from any pre-monsoon showers, nine to 10 hours of power cuts and water scarcity; these summers can’t be more nightmarish for the residents.

Erratic power supply and dry taps make the mornings listless and nights sleepless for everyone. The residents rue that there is a two to three hour power cut after every hour of supply.

The cuts continue through the night, early morning, afternoon and evenings making it difficult for people to manage their daily chores. While earlier there have been four to five hours of scheduled cuts but ever since the cuts have been extended to double the duration, the power goes off unannounced on a new pattern every other day.

Since there are no generators attached with any of the 325 tubewells, the water goes off every time there is a cut. The officials of the water supply department of the Municipal Corporation claim that it takes nearly an hour for the water pressure to normalise after a cut.

“Before that happens, people switch on their motors and tullu pumps, which makes it difficult for people away from the tubewell to get an adequate water supply,” said SE V.P. Singh.

The residents of many localities, including basti areas, complain that their taps remain dry for almost the entire day. “If at all there is water for an hour or two, it simply trickles. Most of the day is wasted in collecting and storing water. At times when MC’s water tanks fetch us potable water, we need to stand in a long queue carrying our buckets in sweltering heat before the turn comes,” says Usha, a housewife of Basti Mithu.

The angry residents even burnt an effigy of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in front of the MC office for inadequate water supply.

MC Commissioner Vinay Bublani today held a meeting with the staff of the Water Supply Department asking them to remain available for an emergency call all 24 hours. He asked the XENs to ensure that the tubewells are switched on every time there is power.

“We will keep these on even during three hours of continuous power supply in the night so that people can at least store some water at that time,” he said.

Claiming that there is no water shortage and it was erratic power that was playing truant, SE V.P. Singh gave some figures, “On an average, a person requires 135 to 150 litre of water per day. The requirement of Jalandhar comes out to be 225 MLD. But we have been 50 MLD supply extra with us each day. Had there been a water shortage, it could have even occurred during the last month when there was a regular power supply. We have two water tankers in each of the seven zones. All these tankers with a capacity of 4,000 litre of water are sent to affected areas. Besides, we are also soon going to get four water tankers from the fire brigade. If need be, we may procure additional 10 tankers.”

Jalandhar, June 25
The recently started first of its kind “Half Fare Scheme” of the Punjab Roadways here has turned out to be a major hit with the commuters as it has helped in reducing the economic burden of the common man. The scheme of discounted pass system started on March 12.

People can avail themselves of the benefits of the scheme through the issuance of a monthly pass, which is available at the Inter-State Bus Terminus (ISBT) and can get the passes made within a day at a counter situated in the terminus.

The Punjab Roadways has till date issued 490 bus passes under the scheme. With this system the passengers travelling daily to various places across Punjab will have to pay bus fare for only 15 days and in turn would be able to enjoy one-month travelling.

Talking to The Tribune, General Manager of Jalandhar-II Depot R.S. Garewal said the scheme was functional across the 18 depots of the roadways. “We have got opened a special counter at the bus stand for the convenience of the daily passengers. And the response has been good. We expect maximum utilisation of the scheme as it has been planned keeping in mind the problem of economic burden on the common man,” he added.

The scheme has come handy for passengers who travel to districts like Nawanshahr, Ludhiana, Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur and Chandigarh daily. It might be noted that the earlier students and certain other special categories were issued bus passes for the public transport facility. “This is a scheme for the public and we are hopeful of an excellent response in the coming days,” added Garewal.

Jalandhar, June 25
Like the other industrial towns of Punjab, the factories of Jalandhar have been bearing the brunt of acute power cuts for the past several weeks. The gravity of the situation may easily be understood from the fact that the order of the Punjab State Electricity Board of closing induction furnaces for a week till July 2 would incur a loss of Rs 50 crore to nearly 150 such units in the city.

According to information, the average production of the induction furnace industry was nearly 1,500 metric tonnes per day in Jalandhar alone. As a result of power cuts, industrial production worth Rs 50 crore would be lost within one week.

As many as 15,000 persons have been directly and 50,000 indirectly employed in these 150 induction furnaces. All these persons would remain inactive for at least a week following the direction of the PSEB, said Northern Chamber of Small and Medium Industries President Sharad Aggarwal.

He said the induction furnaces would not be able to supply steel to all their buyers of hand tools, fasteners, valves and cocks, pipe fitting and general engineering industries. Actually most of demand for the steel by the small-scale units was met by the induction furnaces.

Nearly 70 per cent of the total steel required by the SSI units was supplied by the induction furnaces. As a result, at least 1,000 industrial units in Jalandhar would be directly affected due to the non-availability of steel and at least 1,00,000 people would become jobless.

Sharad said all the induction furnaces would not be able to meet their commitments to the banks and would have to pay interest on their stocks and machinery even for this period of power cuts. Similarly, exporting units, which had made their commitments, would not be able to procure steel to complete their export commitments, he added.

All the industrial associations of Jalandhar got together at the EEPC at Focal Point on Thursday and requested the board not to enforce this power cut on the induction industry and it should be divided among all retail, household and agricultural sectors. The industrial associations said the cuts should not be imposed for seven days together, rather it should be for one or maximum two days in a week.

The association members urged the SAD-BJP government to make arrangements to save electricity by imposing a restricted ban on the use of electricity at hoardings, streetlights and in government offices. The industrial associations also demanded a ban on the use of halogen lamps. Drawing attention of the PSEB towards consumption of electricity at retail outlets and malls, the associations demanded it should be conserved at least for the time being.

The associations demanded that solar energy should be used in all the government offices, a huge subsidy should be given to the private sector for installing solar energy panels and CFL bulbs should be made mandatory.

Jalandhar, June 25
Unavailability of quality seed, lack of training and missing enthusiasm among farmers have forced the Fishery Department to skip cultivation of prawns in Punjab this year.

Even as certain progressive farmers have gone in for culturing this profitable fish on their own, the Fishery Department has failed to cultivate it in the proposed lands to be brought under its cultivation.

Sources in the department revealed that the Rohtak hatchery, the only government hatchery which supplies seed to the northern states, did not have quality seed this time.

Procuring the seed from hatcheries in Andhra Pradesh was quite a tedious and time-consuming job.

Talking to The Tribune, the Chief Executive Officer, Fish Farmers Development Agency, Jalandhar, claimed that the department had been aiming at bringing over five acres under prawn cultivation in the district this season.

“The unavailability of seed in Rohtak has delayed the project for almost a month. We are still working on it and may procure seed from Andhra Pradesh,” he declared.

Charan Das, Deputy Director (Fisheries), Jalandhar, said farmers had not been showing enough interest in prawn cultivation for the past over three years. “To procure the seed and feed from Andhra Pradesh and other states they had to airlift it from there which is a quite costly affair,” he added.

Moreover, prawn can be cultivated only from March till November as the climate is appropriate for its cultivation during this time. There are hardly six months left for cultivation, which the farmers would not prefer.

Certain fish farmers had cultivated prawn in Jalandhar four years ago on trial basis but were not satisfied due to the absence of market and other facilities expected from the government, a fish farmer claimed.

Jalandhar, June 25
The Army authorities today started the construction of a wall in front of the entrance of the houses of the residents of Dhina village. The Army and the civilians were at loggerheads over the usage of the route situated on the periphery of Dhina village and Subhana.

At present the foundation has been dug up in front of a few houses situated in the lane from pillar number 22 to 23. Though the residents have been maintaining that their houses are situated in the “Lal Dora” of the village but the Army claims that the construction has taken place on the defence land.

Talking to The Tribune, the affected families lambasted the Army authorities for not giving them enough time to reconstruct entrances at the back of their houses. “This is utterly disgusting. The Army authorities have left us with no option. At least they should have given us some time limit before taking any action against us,” said one of the affected families.

Another affected family member too maintained that they were left with no option but to change their residence in near future. “It is virtually difficult to stay here in these conditions. We cannot even give our house on rent to the locals as it has no proper entrance and exit,” he added.

The Army authorities reached the spot at 8 am and started work within no time. When contacted, defence spokesman said, “The residents were informed well in time regarding the construction of the wall. And the construction will continue in the coming days as well,” he added.

Jalandhar, June 25
The misuse of the Red Cross emblem by many health professionals, including doctors, has been depicting a negative impact on the image and humanitarian activities of the Red Cross of India.

However, this misuse, whether inadvertently or deliberately, is an offence under the Geneva Convention Act, 1960, and is punishable with a fine of Rs 500.

The society had sent a proposal to the Union government to raise the fine amount so that the violators could be penalised heavily, said Punjab State Red Cross Secretary Dr V.K. Puri.

With a view to creating awareness about the misuse of the Red Cross emblem among the public, the Indian Red Cross Society, Punjab, had given training to 30 volunteers in Jalandhar under the voluntary training programme through its door-to-door campaign.

The volunteers would teach 15 people about the use of the Red Cross emblem by the authorised persons or organisations in a month.

Dr Puri said the emblem could only be used by the Red Cross volunteers and the Army Medical Cores, while performing welfare services.

He said the basic lacuna in the act, passed by Parliament, was that nobody other than a person notified by the government could complain against the misuse of the emblem. Due to which, no case had been registered in Punjab since the act came into existence. Deputy Commissioner Ajeet Singh Pannu said five new mobile vans would be launched to provide free medical services to the needy shortly. 

Jalandhar, June 25
A delay in issuing of notification by Punjab Technical University for admission to various non-AICTE courses has irked several affiliated colleges.

The PTU colleges lamented that while various universities, including Guru Nanak Dev University, Panjab University, Punjabi University and Lovely Professional University, were going ahead with the admission process to such courses, they were not able to admit students in their colleges for want of a notification. 

Giving their logic for advancing the admission schedule, college directors said, “The admission to undergraduate courses such as BBA, BCA, BSc (bio-technology) and BSc in airline, tourism and hospitality management is conducted on the basis of class XII results which were out more than a month back. Soon after the results, students and parents got panicky about admission at the college level.

Since the colleges affiliated with other universities start filling seats, students do not want to miss the chance and hurriedly try to grab a seat. By the time, we would offer admission, most of the students would have already taken a seat elsewhere making it difficult for us to fill a complete batch.”

A chairperson of a regular college seemed so upset with the PTU system that he blamed the officials for deliberately delaying the admission schedule every year to benefit private universities and distance education centres of the PTU itself. “Is it not ridiculous that the distance education centres have been allowed to conduct admission prior to the regular colleges? Ideally, our admission schedule should be more advance. By the time, we would begin our admission process, Guru Nanak Dev University would have even commenced its new session,” he argued.

PTU VC Dr Rajneesh Arora said the notification would be out in a few days. “We were to conduct inspections for allowing continuation and variation in seats in the existing colleges. We are almost through with the process,” he affirmed. 

Jalandhar, June 25
Members of the Federation of Associations of College Principals, Punjab and Chandigarh, have commended the decision of the Punjab government of accepting the notifications of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the University Grants Commission (UGC) with respect to the revision of pay scales and service conditions of the university and college teachers in the state.

The federation urged Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to implement the total package decided by the Government of India, which was forwarded to the states on December 31, 2008, on the basis of which 80 per cent of the revised scales would be admissible to the state government.

Expressing concern over certain major issues, the federation demanded full package, including revised age of retirement at 65 years. They highlighted the inclusion of all incumbents as on January 1, 2006.

Apart from this, they also demanded payment of arrears in one instalment and allied issues by considering the teachers and principals to be in the category of 
the UGC.

Federation president Dr V.K. Tewari and general secretary Dr Gurdip Sharma raised the peculiar problem of payment to the uncovered, non-grant posts.

He said that if the situation was not solved with a positive approach, it would become almost impossible for the colleges to implement the pay revision scheme for all the teachers as on January 1, 2006, as mentioned by the UGC.

The federation also expressed anguish at the embargo on the filling of grant-in-aid posts in the non-government aided colleges since 2005.

Jalandhar, June 25
Students of Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Bilga, won three top positions in the poster making and essay-writing competitions on the topic of “Utilisation of unconventional sources of energy”. The competitions were conducted by the Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA).

Navpreet Kaur of class XII won the first position in the poster-making competition followed by Rajdeep Kaur of class XI. Varinder Singh of class X won the third position. In the essay-writing competition Baljeet Singh of class X stood first, Harpreet Kumari of class X second and Kulwinder Singh of class IX third.

Jalandhar, June 25
The beat of the tabla resonates in his house as he welcomes you into his drawing room. Low key, as we had heard, his smile reminds us of a rare honour that the music circles bestow on him - “Kale da hath bada meetha hai,” (Kale’s hands play sweet tabla).

His parents named him Joginder Pal but lovingly called Kale Ram, he got popular by that name. Renowned tabla maestro, pride of Punjab and darling of his disciples, that’s just the beginning of all that he’s about.

Kale Ram started learning tabla when he was just seven. Picking up the penchant for music from his father Rattan Chand, he was trained in the tabla by Baba Lalit Kishore of Amritsar.

He went on to learn the finer nuances of the instrument from Ustad Bhajan Lal of Amritsar and Ustad Laxman Singh Seen of the Punjab Gharana.

With renowned artistes thronging the city and its neighbourhood to display their talent at the myriad festivals which used to light up the region during those days, the 10-year-old Kale Ram used to grab opportunities to play with artistes in the romantic late night mehfils which preceded the run-up to the D-Day.

At the age of 17, he joined his first job as a tabla instructor in Senior Model School, Amritsar, moving on to Modern College, Amritsar, in 1968 and finally to Khalsa College, Amritsar, in 1970, where he served for 12 years.

On one of the classical musical evenings (preceding the Laxmi Narayan Sangeet Sammelan), while he was accompanying Sitar maestro Pandit Mani Lal Naag on the tabla, the maestro remarked to the organisers, “Agar apne shahr mein aisa artiste hai to itni door se lane ki kya zaroorat hai?”

He played with artistes like Pt Vinayak Rao Patwardhan, Pt Narayan Rao Vyas, Krishna Rao Shanker Pandit, Pt Kumar Gandhrava, Laxmi Shnakar, Shobha Gurtu, Siddheshwari Devi, Girija Devi, Rasoolan Bai, Pt Gopal Krishan, Pt Jasraj, Gangu Bai Hangal, Pt Budhaditya Mukherji, Pt Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Ustad Sujat Hussain Khan, and the list goes on.

Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, who first heard him play at an informal gathering in Ambala, became an instant fan of him and invited Kale Ram to accompany him at many musical gatherings across India.

So enamoured is the Ustad by Kale Ram’s tabla that when the organisers of a prominent music festival once insisted him to perform with another tabla vadak, the Ustad almost broke protocol by insisting that Kale Ram would play with him during the first raag followed by the tabla vadak in question for the second raag.

Kale Ram has been called time and again by performers like Pt Rajan-Sajan Mishra and Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia to shift base to Delhi and Bombay, respectively. But he preferred to stick to his roots.

He continues to play and teach the tabla to his more than 100 disciples with devotion and passion. Serving radio and retiring from Doordarshan as an A-grade artiste, people say his tabla’s growing younger with age.

Why did you stick to the city when you were getting better opportunities?

Agreed, I would have been able to serve music better in Delhi or Bombay but given the love and honour I have received here, I don’t regret the decision.

So a few festivals left these days. What do you think is the reason?

Musicians and institutions are equally responsible. Bhaav has taken a back seat.

Your future plans?

Playing and teaching tabla with my heart and soul.

Jalandhar, June 25
Lemon witnessed a steep hike of Rs 20 in its price as compared to its previous price of Rs 60. At present, lemon is available at Rs 80 per kg. The sudden increase in the price is owing to the rising mercury in the region.

Though there were apprehensions among retailers that the prices would come down in the coming days, the soaring mercury has escalated the prices.

Meanwhile, the prices of seasonal vegetables have come down this week. Last week vegetables had witnessed a marginal increase in the prices. Lady’s finger, which is available locally, came down to Rs 20 a kg as compared to its previous price of Rs 24 last week.

Potato witnessed a decline of Rs 2 in its price. At present, potato is available at Rs 10 per kg. The prices of onion have witnessed no change and are available at Rs 10. Tomato has come down to Rs 12 per kg as compared to its price of Rs 15 per kg till last week.

Among fruits, mango is available at Rs 30 per kg, while the prices of litchi have come down to Rs 40 from the previous price of Rs 50 per kg. 

Jalandhar, June 25
RCF Staff Council member Brij Mohan has submitted a complaint to its General Manager alleging that the law-abiding senior members of the council had been insulted during the annual general meeting and elections of the unit executive committee (UEC) of the Indian Railways Technical Supervisors Association (IRTSA), RCF unit, on June 10.

Alleging that the elections witnessed hooliganism, Brij Mohan stated though the elections to the unit must be held annually, no elections were held after 2002.

The last general body meeting and elections to the IRSTA, RCF unit, were held on May 27, 2002, and were attended by just 88 supervisors, whereas about 475 technical supervisors were present in this general body meeting. — TNS