Ludhiana, June 28
Bowing to the pressure of the state government, agitating revenue officials and employees today called off their week-long strike and promised to return to work from tomorrow even though the government refused to meet their demands.

At a meeting of 28 representatives of the joint action committee, constituted to seek justice for tehsildar Major GS Benipal (retd), with Revenue Minister Ajit Singh Kohar, a decision to this effect was taken in Jalandhar today.

The decision was taken in the presence of Deputy Commissioner and SSP, Ludhiana, whose suspension was the major demand of the committee. It had also demanded a CBI inquiry into the assault and also into the fake stamp paper scam.

The government, however, agreed to pass on the inquiry into the stamp paper scam to the Director, Vigilance Department.

Sources said the state government had resorted to certain arm-twisting measures of considering the opening of files of several naib-tehsildars, who held current duty charge and not officiating charge.

Earlier, committee members even levelled allegations against Major Benipal and tehsildar KS Randhawa for buckling under the pressure from the state government.

Meanwhile, certain members of the revenue officials union told The Tribune that they were not happy with the committee’s decision. They said earlier it was the Revenue Minister, who had visited Ludhiana urging them to call off the strike unconditionally. And today they went to meet him all the way at Jalandhar and came back without getting their demands met.

Chandigarh, June 28
With the slashing of beneficiary contribution by 50 per cent in the Rs 1,280-crore World Bank-Aided Punjab Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project, nearly seven lakh Punjab’s rural households are expected to benefit to the tune of Rs 54 crore.

According to an official spokesman, this decision, besides accelerating the pace of this lifeline project of rural Punjab, will realise the dream of providing safe potable water to every family in rural heartland of Punjab in the next three years.

The spokesman said the World Bank, after constant persuasion by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, had agreed to slash beneficiary contribution by 50 per cent benefiting 6,71,349 rural households, including 1,18,827 SC habitations in 3,161 villages.

The SAD-BJP government renegotiated the agreement and made the World Bank agree to slash beneficiaries’ contribution to 50 per cent in all categories and it also further provided another 50 per cent concession SC households.

In the modified cost-sharing rules, the upper ceiling of household share of capital cost has been reduced from existing Rs 1,500 per household to Rs 800 per household for general category villages and from Rs 750 per household to Rs 400 per household in difficult area villages i.e. notified villages along International Border, Kandi area, Bet area and water-logged area.

Giving a major benefit to the Schedule Caste community, it has been decided that SC population will contribute only 50 per cent of the prescribed amounts i.e. they will pay Rs 400 instead of earlier Rs 1,500 in general villages and Rs 200 instead of earlier Rs 750 in difficult-area villages.

The project was formally launched on May 25, 2007, after its approval by Board of Directors, World Bank, and aims to provide water supply to all not covered (NC) and partially covered (PC) villages in the state and bring them to the fully covered (FC) status.

The project envisages to construct new water supply schemes in 3,161 villages and 1,024 other habitations settled outside the Lal Dora of the main village. Besides, the project also had a provision to improve the service delivery of existing water supply schemes in 1,618 villages, provide 300 water treatment plants in quality-affected villages, rejuvenation and cleaning of 1,000 village ponds and construction of small bore sewerage system on pilot basis in 100 villages.

Chandigarh, June 28
To resolve political differences over the Women’s Reservation Bill, Congress MLA and party spokesperson Sukhpal Singh Khaira has sought the re-introduction of double- member constituency system (DMCS) in Parliament and state legislatures .

Khaira has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi saying the re-introduction of double-member constituency system, prevalent in the beginning of 1960s and followed by institutions like the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), will help in the implementation of reservation for women.

He has said the Congress was favouring women’s cause like rights in respect of marital affairs, domestic violence, education for the girl child and the right to property, besides representation in Panchayati Raj institutions. Opposition to this issue could be blunted by adopting the double-member constituency system, he said .

The Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabhas in 1952 and 1957 elections had double-member constituencies in which ‘Reserved’ and ‘General’ members were elected to from the same constituency, but belonging to different castes/classes. It was subsequently done away with through the Two- Member Constituencies (Abolition) Act, 1961. The SGPC, Amritsar, also has double-member constituencies. Women are elected to the SGPC on this basis and they can stand in the general constituency. They were enabled to do so by a notification issued by the Union of government a few years ago,” he has said. Khaira has added, “Whenever reservation has been done for Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes there are no avenues left for the general category leadership to emerge. Some SC/ST seats have been reserved for 30 years and again reserved for many years by the recent Delimitation Commission”.

“Therefore, to assuage feelings of all categories and for the emergence of natural leadership, it is imperative to revert to the double-member constituency system prevalent in 1952 and 1957. This will add to the numerical strength of Parliament and legislatures necessitating more seats without affecting present delimitation process. Even the British House of Commons has 
higher number of members than ours,” he said. 

Sirhind/ Banur, June 28
Putting extra burden on the state ex-chequer, SHOs, DSPs and in charges of various cells of the Punjab Police have installed air conditioners at their offices without entitlements.

A visit to the police stations of Banur, Rajpura, Mandi Gobindgarh and Samrala, revealed that the police had installed air conditioners in offices on their own.

The police said well-wishers, who wanted the police stations to be comfortable, had gifted these. The electricity bill of the police stations was, however, maintained by the government and nobody questioned them over the installation of the air conditioners without entitlements.

Some cops had installed the air conditioners over the pretext of installing computers at the police stations.

As per the rules, the SHOs and DSPs are not entitled to installing the air conditioners, but they said they had arranged these from well-wishers. The government did not sanction these gadgets to them.

“I have not installed it, rather the former SHO got it fitted here. It was donated by someone for the convenience of the public,” an in charge of an office at Fatehgarh Sahib said.

These air conditioners are being used day and night at the expense of the ex-chequer. Some cops even got their offices renovated on their own.

Fatehgarh Sahib SSP Dr Kaustubh Sharma said some SHOs and office in charges could have installed the air conditioners, but they were not using these.

He assured to look into the matter and check out the unauthorised air conditioners installed at police stations of the district. 

Patiala, June 28
The Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) Engineers’ Association has urged Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to control demand by curbing wasteful use of electricity for which the state government has to show its zero tolerance towards power theft. Various studies have shown that demand on the system can be reduced up to 30 per cent by curbing power theft.

In a letter to the Chief Minister, the association has pointed out that influential consumers indulge in power theft by intimidating the staff and officers of the PSEB. Any resistance by an officer to tackle this menace results in harassment by way of transfers or thrashing in full public view.

The association has urged the state government to re-consider its policy for adding new generation capacity in the state and hand over the construction of Rajpura plant to PSEB immediately. At the same time it has suggested declaring a war against power theft and curb wasteful utilisation of energy by adopting conservation measures.

The body has also pointed out Punjab has been facing acute power shortage and unprecedented power cuts mainly due to delay in the monsoon. However, the demand-supply gap in the last 10 years has increased manifold due to non-addition of adequate generation capacity in the state and the network has become over-loaded due to lack of investment in the transmission and distribution sectors. The public resentment against power shortages has now turned into anger leading to law and order problems for the state.

The association said: “If immediate corrective steps were not taken, we may see power riots in the coming years since even after arrival of monsoon, the state may not enjoy cut free luxury on sustained basis.”

The association has alleged that the situation has become grim due to lopsided policies of the successive state governments. The previous government ignored capacity addition and depended on costly power purchase to mitigate power shortage. With peak power shortage touching 38 per cent, the present state government has placed top priority to capacity addition with identification of three new thermal plants of 5,940 MW capacity and revival of the Goindwal Sahib Project.

It has warned that the power supply position in the state is going to worsen in the coming years as not even a single MW of new generating capacity is expected to be added in the state. The work at 1980 MW Talwandi Sabo thermal plant awarded to Vedanta group in August 2008 is yet to start with the group demanding various concessions. This project is not likely to come up in the next four years. 

Chandigarh, June 28
The Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) has finalised the allocation of 31 decentralised biomass power projects with an aggregate capacity of 338 MW to private developers for setting up biomass-based power projects having capacity ranging from 5 MW to 20 MW in 31 tehsils of the state on the basis of competitive bidding in line with the New and Renewable Sources of Energy Policy.

Stating this here on Sunday, secretary, Science and Technology, Viswajeet Khanna said these power projects were to be set up in the state on build, operate and own (BOO) basis and a private investment to the tune of Rs 1,450 crore had been attracted in this sector.

Of these, 21 projects having a total capacity of 220 MW have been allocated to private developers. All power projects are scheduled to be commissioned by September 2010. He said to encourage cogeneration in the industries, PEDA had also facilitated and commissioned six biomass cogeneration projects with a total capacity of 39 MW and four such projects of total capacity of 91 MW were under an advanced state of execution.

Another eight cogeneration biomass projects with a total capacity of 71 MW were in the pipeline and MoUs for the same were being signed shortly. With the commissioning of these power projects, direct employment for 1,600 skilled persons and indirect employment for 5,000 persons would be created. He said the power projects, being environment-friendly, would help in the abatement of greenhouse gases emissions (GGE) responsible for global warming and help the state in earning carbon credits. The secretary said as the state faced peak power shortage to the tune of 3,000 MW, the commissioning of these environment-friendly projects would help in supplementing power requirement to the tune of around 26 per cent through renewable energy resources.

He further informed that the state government was committed to promoting renewable power through private sector by providing an attractive tariff and fiscal incentives for the projects.

Chandigarh, June 28
The government has drawn flak for converting grants given to local bodies into loans. Disclosing that the government has asked various civic bodies in the state to sell their properties to return the loans, extended in the form of grants, former minister Jagmohan Singh Kang said the state government had now demanded back the Rs 238 crore extended as development grants to the local bodies.

Ever since the SAD-BJP government came into being in February, 2007, no grants of any kind had been given to the local bodies for development works in cities. But, just prior to the Lok Sabha elections, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal gave grants through cheques at public functions for developmental. A sum Rs 238 crore was given through PUDA to different urban local bodies ranging from Rs 1 crore to Rs 3 crore, based on the classification of the municipal bodies, Kang said.

Now, after getting publicity from massive functions, advertisements in newspapers and gaining political mileage ahead of the LS elections, the government has asked these bodies to return the money by taking loans after pledging its properties to PUDA.

Kang released a letter of the government circulated under the OUVGL (Optimum Use of Vacant Govt land) Scheme vide memo No. 8/38/09-5, Local Govt/3/1561, Chandigarh, dated May 15, 2009, whereby the local bodies have been instructed to pass resolutions pledging their prime land to PUDA for the recovery of so-called grant/debt given to them ahead of the parliamentary elections.

The former minister stressed that during the previous Congress government, all grants given under the Punjab Nirman Scheme were actual grants, which were used by the municipal committees for execution of development works. 

Jalandhar, June 28
Buffaloes of Shahkot, Mehatpur, Nurmahal, Nakodar and Lohian areas in Jalandhar district have been suffering from nitrate poisoning nowadays. As many as eight buffaloes have already died due to this disease at Punia and Chhindra villages and 27 are under treatment.

Confirming this, government veterinary officer posted at Rupewali in Shahkot Amandeep said a team of three doctors, including Dr Pradeep posted at Shahkot and Dr Amardeep Singh posted at Lohian, received information today that 25 buffaloes at Punia village were suffering from this disease.

“We reached Punia village and succeeded in saving 19 buffaloes. However, six died. These 25 buffaloes belonged to three families of nearby Rerwa village. The owners of the buffaloes had come to Punia village for grazing their animals and they caught the nitrate poisoning disease”.

Similarly, 10 buffaloes were suffering from this disease at Chhindran village a few days back. A team of veterinary doctors succeeded in saving eight of them, he added.

The veterinary officer said, “The cause of nitrate poisoning disease among animals is drought and sprinkling fertilizer in plenty on green fodder, including sorghum (chari), bajra and maize (makki)”.

“In the absence of rain for the past several weeks and no watering of the fodder, the nitrate content increases manifold in sorghum, maize and becomes poisonous. When the animals consume this fodder, they suffer from nitrate poisoning disease,” he added.

Dr Amandeep requested the farmers that they should not use too much urea for the fodder, should avoid grazing their animals in the fields and not cut the lower part of sorghum and maize for using it as fodder as nitrate content is more at the lower end.

Meanwhile, state president, Pendu Mazdoor Union, Tarsem Peter demanded adequate compensation from the state government for the families whose buffaloes had died due to this disease.

Chandigarh, June 28
Punjab Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Rohit Choudhary, currently on deputation with the NCRB in Delhi, has joined a select band of Punjab civil servants who have taken to book writing.

Rohit an IIT graduate from Roorkee, belongs to the 1988 batch of the IPS and has had stints as police chief in three districts, besides managing a couple of police ranges before his elevation as an Inspector-General.

Home Minister P Chidambaram formally released his book, “Policing- Reinvention Strategies in a Marketing Framework”, at his office in New Delhi last week. It has been brought out by Sage Publishers.

The book combines marketing principles with the empirical knowledge of police operations to suggest improvements in the Indian police force. In addition, it carries case studies related to police operations from across the world and suggests ways of adapting the strategies used in these to the Indian context.

In doing so, the book offers valuable inputs for police academies, public administration, public policy, and state security commissions, as it not only analyses the current situation in the police force, but also draws a clear and practicable roadmap to revamp it.

Other Punjab police officers to have books to their credit include former Directors-General Bhagwan Singh Danewalia, PC Dogra and Dr GS Aujla, besides late PM Das. Rajdeep Singh Gill, Director-General of Police-cum-Director Principal of Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Police Academy, too, has edited a book on sportsmen and women of India. It is a useful reference book.

A couple of books by Punjab police officers are about their experiences of tackling terrorism in the state, while a few others are about the glorious history of the state police, its men and officers.

Meanwhile, all eyes are now focused on PS Gill, new DGP, who is expected to assume office this week. It will be for the first time in the history of Punjab that the state will have two brothers in the rank of Director-General of Police. While elder brother Rajdeep Gill, after holding the reins of the state police during the 2007 assembly elections, is now Director-Principal of Punjab Police Academy, younger brother PS Gill will head the state police. The Centre has cleared his inter-state deputation from Jammu & Kashmir.

The only other recent example of two brothers holding the rank of DGP in Punjab is of Aulakh brothers. While elder one MPS Aulakh had retired in the rank of DGP, he did not get a chance to head the state police. Younger brother NPS Aulakh brought in by the present Akali-BJP government, after heading the state police for two years, has opted to go the Centre where he is become the first Punjab officer to head the elite National Security Guards.

Another example of brothers in the Punjab police has been of Bhullar brothers. Both Gurvinder Bhullar and Guriqbal Bhullar retired before they could reach the DGP level.

Ludhiana, June 28
While the Railways are investing Rs 22,000 crore to build a dedicated freight corridor from Ludhiana, passengers boarding trains or alighting here have been left in the lurch. With the next Railway Budget slated to be presented on July 3, passengers are hoping for some relief. A daily train to Saharanpur, however, was started this month without much fanfare even before the budget announcements.

Once the freight corridor is in place, products of Ludhiana like textiles, hosiery, sports goods, machine tools, bicycles and other industrial products will find easier, faster and cheaper access to ports, facilitating export. The corridor will also help in moving faster raw materials like coal to Ludhiana.

But passengers have been left to fend for themselves. Even Ludhiana Station Superintendent RK Sharma admits that with as many as 140 trains stopping here every day, the station handles on an average the rush of 30,000 passengers. The number will be higher if the 20 local trains were also taken into account. But when it comes to amenities, they are woefully inadequate to cope with the rush.

Even the number of platforms is said to be fewer than required. With just six platforms, trains are routinely stopped at outer signals for 20 to 25 minutes. While some Railway officials concede that more platforms are required to cope with the ever-increasing number of trains, others believe that the solution lies in having another station for long-distance trains, specially the ones arriving from Bihar and UP. The stoppage at Dhandari Kalan is expected to ease the rush on the Ludhiana station, but it is yet to be implemented though Railway officials claim the plan is very much on the cards.

Yet another inconvenience is the shortage of porters at the station. With Lalu Yadav having absorbed most of the coolies in the Railways as “gangmen”, there are few porters left to carry the baggage. And with Indian travellers’ penchant for travelling with heavy luggage, getting down from trains and getting out of the station is often an ordeal.

Although the sanctioned strength of porters at the station is 186, hardly 26 are available. And with the existing porters working in shifts, the number is even fewer at any given point of time.

A regular traveller, Rohit Sharma, says: “I often see porters exploiting hapless passengers, particularly women and the old. They brazenly harass passengers, charge exorbitant rates, but Railway officials choose to overlook this”.

When contacted, Railway officials held out the hope of recruiting 60 new porters “in the near future”.

Not even a single long-distance train originates from Ludhiana, resulting in far fewer berths available for reservation locally. The problem becomes acute during holidays. The ill-timed third Shatabdi was withdrawn after passengers complained of the inconvenient departure time of 6 am during winter. Maan Singh Dhillon, another regular commuter, points out the need for more computerised reservation counters.

In the city, a majority of the railway crossings do not still have overbridges, creating traffic snarls and forcing the traffic to slow down and stop at different places. The Lakkar bridge was dismantled long ago, but the overbridge is yet to come up.

Amritsar, June 28
The Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal (PPBM) has urged the Union government to clear their doubts about the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to be introduced in the country.

Amrit Lal Jain, PPBM president, said despite repeated requests to the previous and present Finance Ministers for a white paper on the GST, the government has not paid any heed to their demand.

Jain said even though the government had on April 1, 2005, decided to introduce the GST, it had not made it clear whether other taxes like Value Added Tax (VAT) would be merged with the new tax. He said the government was trying to follow the European system where the GST was charged at a flat rate of 10 per cent, merging all other taxes, including VAT. He rued that India was the only country where fringe benefit tax of 6.72 per cent on income as well as expenditure was being imposed.

The PPBM president said with the introduction of the GST, the prices of essential commodities would go up. He alleged that the Union government to serve multinational companies was ignoring the interests of about 4.5 crore small and medium traders in the country. 

Jalandhar, June 28
Owing to the spread of swine flu in South Korea, a visit of nearly 100 IAS officers to that country was deferred at the last moment. In fact, there is little chance of the visit materialising in the near future because the threat of swine flu is expected to last for several months in various parts of the world.

Sources said the IAS officers of 1991, 1992 and 1993 batches from across the country were undergoing a mid-career training programme at the Lal Bahadur Shashtri National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie, near Dehra Dun. They were to fly to South Korea last night from Delhi. They had even bought air tickets. However, some of them only came to know about the cancellation of the trip when they had reached New Delhi.

Though the reports of swine flu had been emerging from South Korea for the past several weeks, however, this aspect at the Academy was discussed only on June 25, when all preparations for the visit had been made.

As some of the trainees expressed reservations with regard to the visit, the academy gave an option to the officers that if any one of them wanted to opt out of the visit, he or she could do so.

But on the morning of June 27, when the day officers were to fly from Delhi, the visit was deferred.

The sources said the visit was part of the training programme. There were about 30 IAS officers from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and some other states of the North.

Expressing surprise over the last-minute postponement of the visit, a senior official said if the Department of Personnel and the Academy could not administer matters pertaining to their own important training programme in a proper manner, what kind of administrators the country should expect from them.

The sources said even a large part of the training programme, which was organised in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and a US-based institute was not relevant to the working of IAS officers in India.

At the joint secretary level, the involvement of IAS officers becomes almost certain in the framing of various policies. However, there is not much to be taught with regard to policy-framing at the training programme. In fact, some joint secretary-level officers address under-training officers at the academy. No officer less than the secretary level should address the under-training officers.

“It would have been better if we have been attached to the IIM, Bangalore, for this training. At least we would have interacted there with young minds and also learnt a lot of new management techniques and new policy frame work required for better management of the country's affairs,” said an officer.