Amritsar, July 21
Even as the Punjab government has failed to renovate educational institutions in the state, some of the educationists, staff, NGOs and old students of Government Senior Secondary School, Katra Safed, have come forward to renovate the school without using the state funds.

The school is now presenting a new look as the school staff and students had joined hands and painted the walls of the school during the summer vacation. The school has also sought the services of a gardener of Khalsa College Senior Secondary School (KCSCS) for pruning overgrown trees, besides arranging flower plants. Principal Nirmaljit Singh and Principal Baldev Singh of Government School, Dhapai, have also made tremendous contribution in the renovation of the school.

Old students of the school Ravi, Rahul and Jaskaran Singh did the white-washing, besides providing other services. Leave aside the old students and teachers of the school, even the watchman-cum-peon did not lag behind and provided his services for the school. The Pingalwara Charitable Society and the Nanhi Chhan Society were providing saplings to be planted in the school compound.

Even former government school Principal Promilla Devi is contributing a bit for the school and teaching the students as there is a shortage of staff.

School Principal Master Ajit Singh told The Tribune that various social activists, including Sukhdev Singh, President of the Golden Cloth Merchants Association, and Sub-Inspector Upkar Singh have played the key role in providing building material to bring it to its old glory.

However, he rued that garbage was being thrown at Katra Safed Chowk adjacent to the school resulting in the stinking smell and it was difficult for them to open the windowpanes on that side. He said they had made arrangements for lifting garbage, but after a few days the situation remains the same. He said the school building was encircled with electricity wires posing threat to children during the monsoon. He said he took up the matter with the PSEB officials who have now removed various wires.

Master Ajit said there were 117 students in the school and they have set the target of 150 students. He said poor children came to the school to get education, but wanted to be relieved by the school by 12 noon as they worked at various commercial establishments. He said children from Noori Mohalla, Bangla Basti and other slum areas in and around the city have been admitted to the school. He said families living in Noori Mohalla were not allowing the girls to study and it was after their persuasion that some of the families have started sending their wards to the school.

Science teacher Neelam Kumari, Sarita and clerk Ranjit Kaur have adopted two, three and one students, respectively. Other teachers, including Balwinder Kaur, Rajinder Kaur and Meenakshi Bindra, were also providing financial assistance to the students for purchasing books, uniform and the school fee.

Amritsar, July 21
The recent raids by the Punjab State Electricity Board at Cheecha village have made an interesting case study of power thefts in Punjab. During the raids the board officials detected 1 MW of electricity theft daily by way of overdrawing and illegal connections by village farmers.

The Mahmoodpura feeder at Khasa power sub-station, which was tripping continuously due to overloading on about 50 transformers falling under it, was detecting more than 220 amperes of power drawing as against the permissible limits of 120 amperes. This also resulted in the damaging of eight transformers in the village besides shortage of power to genuine people and farmers. This is one village and one feeder. So the magnitude of the problem of power theft in the whole state is anybody’s guess. This could be well imagined as PSEB managed to save one megawatt in a single day from the border village after the raids. The border zone has three districts Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran and there are 1,500 feeders that fall in this zone. Some of the feeders contain as many as 300 transformers. One MW from one feeder means, if the board seriously enforces its laws, it would be able to save at least 1,000 to 1,200 MW of electricity from border zone alone. There are five zones in Punjab and sincere efforts could give great results.

However, the vote bank politics has always played a negative role in this. A senior official of PSEB talking to The Tribune said usually people didn’t cooperate with us. If they do so, the power cuts could be reduced to considerable extent which would not only ensure scheduled power supply to farmers but it would also help in providing electricity to other sections like industries and residential areas.

He said if the board is able to save electricity to 1,000-1,200 megawatts daily, then there would hardly any power cuts of more than an hour in the region. It is pertinent to mention here that almost all the farmers in the Cheecha village found indulging in power theft during the operation conducted by PSEB in association with district administration.

The 14 teams from all over the state checked 272 tubewells and out of these 139 tubewells were found overdrawing power while 12 of them were running without legitimate power connections.

Interestingly, 40 of them had removed their motors in the night just before the raids. Obviously, they had got the information about the raids. The board had imposed hefty fine of Rs 25 lakh to the defaulting farmers.

However, this raised protest among the farmers led by Kisan Sangharsh Committee who decided not to pay the fines and asked the board to reduce the fees for the extension of load. They also gheraoed the Khasa power station to launch their agitation demanding eight hour power supply and reduction of charges for extension of load from Rs 3800 to Rs 1200 besides remitting the fine.

It may be mentioned here that Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had asked the PSEB authorities not to conduct any raids till any decision was made regarding reduction of load extension charges as the state government has already written to Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Board in this regard.

Amritsar, July 21
The opening of swanky, glitzy and high-end shopping malls have taken customers off from one of the earliest shopping complexes - Nehru Shopping Complex - in the city.

Located on the posh Lawrence road, it seems customers prefer it more to be a parking lot than a place for shopping. The three-storey complex was opened to the public to provide high-end shopping experience with much fanfare in 1997, a few years after the eradication of terrorism in Punjab.

The sight of a large number of shops with shutters down invariably conveys the failure of the multi-crore project envisaged by the Improvement Trust. Shopkeepers rue to have opened shops in it but are reluctant to be quoted in the newspaper lest it would bring down value of their shops. They had to shell out Rs 30 lakh for owning a shop at its auction.

Though lately several shopping malls have sprung up in and around localities of the Lawrence road but they do not have enough parking space. Customers park their vehicles in the complex and shop in the adjoining malls leaving the retailers fuming.

Proprietors of retail outlets have employed various measures from putting up mannequins outside their shops in eye-catching apparels to advertisement in local media to attract customers. However, their efforts seem to have hardly paid off.

A number of traders have closed their shops and the top third floor wears a deserted look. Hardly anybody visits the floor as no shop opens there. A trader said it was the only complex with ample parking space for vehicles in and around localities of the Lawrence road.

Outlets of shoes, baby garments, gold jewellery, bedsheets, stationery, a mobile showroom and the office of an English magazine were closed in the recent time.

Unlike malls which are centrally air-conditioned, the complex has uncovered open place offering ample space for parking but no respite from sunshine. It does not have an operational lift.

When contacted, Executive Officer of the Improvement Trust Jatinder Singh said in all there were 425 shops in the complex. He said about 45 of them were on rent which fetched over Rs 2 crore monthly revenue to the trust. He assured that more efforts would be put in place to make it more customer friendly. He pointed out that a multi-storey parking was lately added to attract customers.

Amritsar, July 21
After a week of sultry summer, rain returned here last evening and this morning.

Chief Agriculture Officer (CAO) Paramjit Singh Sandhu said, on an average, the district recorded 24 mm of rainfall with Ajnala and Attari blocks receiving the minimum rain, while Tarsikka and Jandiala blocks recorded the maximum rainfall.

The district so far recorded 54 mm of rainfall compared to 3.7 mm last month, while it did not receive rain in May.

The CAO said rain would help the farmers, especially of Chogawan and Ajnala blocks, in transplanting paddy.

Amritsar, July 21
Various non-governmental organisations in a communiqué has urged Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee to provide a rail link of the state with its capital Chandigarh.

The organisations under the banner of ‘Joint Effort’ said as per the survey and observations of the people of Punjab through news, it would not be inappropriate to say that the people and particularly the citizens of holy city felt led down for being ignored in recent railway budget.

They said after all these years, the state has no rail connectivity with its capital Chandigarh while on the other hand Amritsar which is one of the prominent tourist attractions of the country has very little rail connectivity with other cities of Punjab like Faridkot, Muktsar, Abohar, Fazilka, Ferozpur and Bathinda.

Gurbhez Singh of Mission Aagaaz pointed out that the citizens of the holy city had to face great hardships in commuting to the above cities and have to rely entirely on buses. He said Punjab also did not have rail connectivity with Kalka junction, which leads to Himachal Pradesh from where the tourists and pilgrims had to travel to visit the holy city through backbreaking journey of buses.

Deepak Babbar of Joint Effort said there had been a long-standing demand of the people for a stopover of Amritsar-New Delhi Shatabdi Express at Rajpura, a city very near to state capital Chandigarh, which would also provide connectivity to Patiala having important offices like Punjab State Electricity Board, Punjab Pollution Control Board, Punjab Public Service Commission and the Indian Sports Academy.

Amritsar, July 21
Questions are being raised over the registration of government lands in the name of private persons.

This has come to light in a reply to information sought by former BJP councillor Naresh Sharma under the RTI Act.

A land earmarked for park under town planning scheme near Bhagtanwala Railway Station turned into residential area and godowns, which had come up many years ago in the name of certain people.

The corporation in the reply revealed that documents such as registries, ‘inteqals’ and ‘jamabandis’ of revenue records show 13 old residential buildings at the land earmarked for park registered in the name of certain persons, who had submitted the records to the MC to establish their ownership.

Eyebrows re being raised as to how the government land got transferred in the name of private persons.

In another case a poultry farm has come up in a park situated on the Tarn Taran road. The corporation authorities said a Patwari of the Revenue Department, appointed by the corporation, was investigating the matter.

Even though large-scale encroachments were prevailing in the city, yet the MC did little to remove them. The Punjab and Haryana High Court had ordered the district administration to do so within six months in October 2008, but nothing concrete has been done so far. The problem of encroachments is more severe on public parks and roads.

While in several cases of encroachments, the people had taken stay and the matter was in the court and remaining encroachments would be removed after taking security from the duty magistrate and police, said the corporation authorities in the reply.

Former councillor Naresh Sharma said it seemed that the district administration was unable to remove the encroachments as government lands got registered in the name of others and that too without the knowledge of staff and senior functionaries of the MC.

Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Kahan Singh Pannu in a letter to various heads of the departments including the MC, Local Bodies, Improvement Trust, PUDA, Divisional Forest Officer and various executive heads of municipal committees had reprimanded them for their lackadaisical approach in removing the encroachments and passing the buck to junior officials to escape the wrath of court.

He said SSPs of Amritsar city and rural besides SDMs have assured to provide adequate police and magisterial assistance, respectively, in this regard.

Amritsar, July 21
Guru Nanak Dev University will organise a three-day interface meeting of a UGC expert committee with college principals from July 22 to 24. The meeting will commence in the Conference Hall of Guru Nanak Bhawan of the university at 10 am tomorrow.

Dr M.S. Hundal, Dean, College Development Council, said Dr Abhay Maurya, Vice-Chancellor, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, would preside over the meeting.

He said in the meeting the allocation of development grants for the eleventh plan period would be discussed. He said the expert committee, comprising seven members, including the UGC officials, would interact with the principals of affiliated college of the university. He said about 77 principals from affiliated colleges would be participating in the meeting.

Tarn Taran, July 21
The Baba Uttam Singh National Hockey Academy established about three years back has succeeded to make its identity not only at the state level but also at the national level.

The academy was set up by the Nishan-e-Sikhi Charitable Trust associated with the Kar Sewa sect, Khadoor Sahib, under the guidance of sect head Baba Sewa Singh, to produce players of International repute.

The players of the academy have performed well in more than 30 state and national level tournaments.

The academy’s team was the runners-up in the Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru National Junior Hockey Tournament held at Delhi last year where the academy blanked the host team.

The academy won the trophy in the 4th Boparai Hockey Tournament held in November 2007 by defeating the prestigious Surjit Hockey Academy, Jalandhar.

Avtar Singh Bajwa, secretary of the trust, told that the players under the age of 14 are selected for the academy. A six-member team of hockey experts have been formed to select players, Bajwa added.

Union Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Manohar Singh Gill on his visit recently expressed his happiness over the performance and progress of the academy.

Amritsar, July 21
The Punjab Ophthalmological Society (POS) has decided to approach the government of Punjab to revive Cornea transplant Act 1962 for allowing cornea transplantation, which is not permitted in the state, although the same was allowed in other states of the country.

The executive meet of the POS said the government should not implement Human Organ Transplantation Act (HOTA) as such, in case of Cornea transplantation.

In fact it should revive the Cornea Transplantation Act so that visually challenged persons could see this beautiful world.

Dr. Baljeet Singh Dhillon, president of the society, revealed that Keratoplasty (cornea transplantation) used to be done earlier from 1969 onwards till 1984-85 when the Cornea Transplant Act 1962 was sent for revision in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha.

However, after that it was not revised and implementation of HOTA created hurdles in the operation due to its legal ambiguity. Dhillon said Cornea is a tissue, the transplantation of which could be governed under the Blood Transfusion Act.

Moreover, he added that the cornea can only be retrieved after the death of a person with the consent of family members and relatives.

Out of a total blind population, 17 percent were blind due to corneal opacification and they needed cornea grafting to have good vision. About 25,000 corneas were required every year while at present hardly 100-150 operations were being done.

He said due to wrong and complex government policy, the eye banks could not work freely and all eye surgeons were afraid of being harassed and implicated by the police due to legal ambiguity.

Dr. Dhillon said 70 percent of the population of Punjab depends upon agriculture and farmers, by way of their occupation, were exposed to corneal injury, cornea ulcer formation and ultimately corneal capacity, which is major cause for corneal blindness.

Earlier, the Rotary Eye Bank at Dr. Daljit Singh Eye Hospital has also pleaded with the government to grant permission for corneal transplantation.

Dr. VP Lakhanpal, secretary Rotary Eye Bank said they had approached Director Research and Medical Education and Secretary Research and Medical Education, Punjab a number of times. But it has not evinced any response from them till now.

However, the hospital was unable to do corneal transplantations because they had not been granted permission. They had to rush the donated eyes through a van to Sanjivini Hospital at Ambala (which had the requisite permission) as the operation had to be carried out within six hours of the death of a person, he added.

He said at present there were 8,344 persons who had filled the forms for donating their eyes after their death at the Rotary Eye Bank, which was started in 2002 at Dr. Daljit Singh Eye Hospital. These forms are also countersigned by the wife or other members of the family of the deceased, he added.

Dr. Jai Kishan, DRME said they had constituted a new three-member committee in this regard as the earlier committees had raised certain objections. He said most probably the permission would be granted within a week or so if the objections were removed.

Amritsar, July 21
The auditions for the Vivel Miss PTC Punjabi 2009 would be held on July 23 in which 10 candidates would be selected for the beauty and talent contest after the completion of the road show in the holy city on July 22.

Stating this in a release to the media here today, Baldev Singh Sahota, marketing manager, G-Next Media Private Limited, said the road show is a tribute to the pride in traditions and customs of Punjab, of which these women are harbingers.

Sahota said the pageant is a small initiative from the channel to fight against female feticide, which even today continues to be a social menace.

The marketing manager said the road shows would be organised in the holy city on July 22 opposite Guru Nanak Dev University, Khalsa College for Women, SR Government College for women, BBK DAV College and the Lawrence market from 9.30 am to 7 pm.

The auditions would be held at the SR Government College for Women from 10 am to 5 pm.

Earlier, the road show was conducted in Batala on July 20 and the next road show would be held in Jalandhar on July 25, he added.

He said five finalists of Miss Punjabi 2009 contest to get direct entry into region’s Femina Miss India, is the main attraction and the winner of the contest would get a free trip (meant for two persons) to the UK.

Amritsar, July 21
Guru Nanak Dev University has invited applications for a three-week refresher course in computer science to be held from August 7. Dr H.S. Bhatia, Director, Academic Staff College (ASC), said colleges and universities lecturers of computer science could apply for the course on the prescribed form available at the Academic Staff College or it could be downloaded from the university website www.gndu.ac.in. — TNS

Amritsar is on the verge of becoming the city with the finest social infrastructure north of Delhi. The city’s skyline is dotted with upcoming structures of multiplexes, hotels and educational establishments, not to forget the first Wal-Mart wholesale store in India.

The private sector nevertheless has invested heavily in the Amritsar’s future. But without adequate state and central intervention, and the slow pace of infrastructural reform, the investments shall end up in the red. The airport has lesser international flights today than it had a year ago. While the excitement to create more airports in the state is understandable, the need to sustain the only international airport this side of India is imperative. Eventually even the air cargo handling company also folded up its operation last month. The future of thousands of rooms added by the hospitality industry, some ready, many expected to be ready within the year, is at stake.

The name of Amritsar sends every NRI overseas into nostalgia. The emotional connection to the city of the Golden Temple is surreal. They feel for the city and pray for its progress. They try to visit it at least once a year, and send their foreign friends to enjoy the spiritual experience regularly. They are vocal in their disappointment at the state of cleanliness and the un-envisioned urban development. One finds them keen on helping out with wherewithal and resource, but we need to go beyond lip service to credible delivery to retain their goodwill and fructify their intent.

The first SEZ in Punjab was perceived in this region and received much accolades. Political flip-flops saw the project notified then grounded. Punjab has realised the impact the projects can have and have enacted a policy. The Prime Minister’s promise to the city is still unrealised.

Connectivity of this border region by rail needs a re-look. The proposal to add a two dozen kilometres on the Makku-Patti section connects this zone with western Punjab and through Rajasthan to Gujarat and entire western India up to the ports which would shorten the distance from Wagah to Mumbai by nearly 240 km. This city has inherent strengths that are unparallelled. As a religious and cultural centre, gourmets destination, industrial hub, the strategic location…all these combine with a spirit of hospitality and entrepreneurial vigour that demands attention and rethink. The city of Amritsar deserves more than it gets. — Gunbir Singh