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Mini-secretariats to become energy efficient buildings
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Fate of SSA’s radio programme hangs in balance
Respite from hot, humid weather likely
Cause of concern
Once trade centre, village now encroachers’ paradise
Show-cause notice to water supply dept
Businessmen surrender income tax
I-Day: Preparations in full swing
JE to get railway award
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Mini-secretariats to become energy efficient buildings
Bathinda, August 13 In the first phase of the scheme, five mini-secretariats in the state have been chosen for development as Energy Efficient Buildings (EEB). Such buildings are the Punjab Mini-Secretariat at Chandigarh and four district administration complexes (DAC), also called as mini-secretariats— at Bathinda, Sangrur, Patiala and Ludhiana. Under the preliminary estimate by the PEDA, total power consumption of all five buildings has been calculated as 49.26 lakh units per annum and after conversion into energy saving buildings, a total of 9.59 lakh units can be saved, which the officials term as a saving of approximately 41.68 lakh rupees. The saving would vary from building to building but the average would be around 19 per cent of the total consumption. After the preliminary study report prepared under the USAID ECO-III, the PEDA states that the whole project would cost around Rs 91 lakh, which could be covered up within 26 months. To complete the process, the electrical wing of the PWD (B&R) has taken up the responsibility to allot tenders to the Energy Service Companies (ESCO), which are approved by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, which would be opened on August 25, 2009. As per the plan, ESCOs will invest the whole amount and then recover the expenses through the saving of power units. As per the five-year agreement, under response for proposal (RFP), 80 per cent of the total saving will go to the ESCOs and the remaining 20 per cent will remain with the state government. After the agreement period, the whole project would be handed over to the state government. In the scheme, details of all electrical appliances existing in the buildings along with their power consumption have been compiled. Any appliance deemed necessary, can be replaced with modern technology. Automation switches (sensors) will be installed to switch off all appliances if the office lies vacant. Giving details over the phone, the senior manager of PEDA, Balkar Singh said, “The ESCOs will be bound to save a minimum of 20 per cent of the existing consumption. The companies after getting the tenders will themselves do an audit and initiate work.” Speaking from Chandigarh, Balour Singh, director, PEDA, said, “With the success of efficiency and management scheme, we are hopeful that such energy efficient government buildings would become examples of energy conservation, motivating others to follow.” Assuming a bright future for the scheme, HS Brar, chairman, PSEB said, “The scheme seems beneficial. Analysing its success rate, we too will discuss with PEDA ways to adopt the same policy for all PSEB offices.”
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Fate of SSA’s radio programme hangs in balance
Bathinda, August 13 The initiative was taken by the state government under the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) to upgrade the education of children of the state-run schools. The much hyped project, which was started on August 7 last year, lost its meaning and purpose after a month and 10 days. The state government had spent more than one crore rupees on the radio sets meant for the scheme that are now lying in school closets across the state. Sources in the DPI (Schools), Punjab, office told this correspondent that there were 12, 779 government primary schools in the state where radios worth Rs 800-850 each were lying waste now. Jagseer Sahota, a teacher at Burjgill primary school, said, “The programme used to be of half an hour and it used to cover topics based on general knowledge, languages and regular curriculum. Kids used to listen to the programme and send questions related to the broadcast programme but the replies never came. The programme used to be aired from Jalandhar station of the All India Radio (AIR). Why did it go off air still remains a mystery.” The District Education Officer (DEO) of Bathinda, during whose tenure the project was launched in the state, Gurvinder Pal Kaur Dhillon, while giving details of the programme, said, “The Education Department was coordinating with the Prasar Bharti and the All India Radio. To run this programme successfully, all DEOs (Elementary) in the state were asked to recommend the names of two to four teachers for the programme. It was doing well but could not go a long way for reasons unknown.” Unconfirmed sources from the Education Department said different teachers from the state recorded subject contents for radio broadcast after going through a training programme under the SSA. Teachers were given training on the introduction of the subject, content and conclusion. B.C. Panwar, station director, All India Radio, Jalandhar, when contacted said, “Yes, a sponsored programme for the primary kids was started by our station and was going well. It and was later dropped. But, we did not stop it. The Education Department stopped recording lessons with us.” Sarabjit Singh, a primary teacher from Faridkot, told this correspondent that children did not have a very good experience with the radio. “They went home and complained that teachers do not teach us, rather they make us listen to the radio. The transmission quality was poor and we were not allowed to increase the volume of the radio as the battery used to get exhausted in no time. Parents came complaining that kids should be stopped from listening to radio. During the initial stages of the scheme, for a few days, there was no lesson given, rather all we could hear was songs from a popular singer. The radios are lying in the schools now. The state also purchased battery for these sets that incurred expenses worth another Rs 6 lakh on the state.” Despite repeated attempts, Director General, School Education, DPI (Elementary) and Director, State Council of Educational Research and Training, could not be contacted as their office informed they were busy in meetings since morning. |
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Respite from hot, humid weather likely
Bathinda, August 13 The region has been experiencing hot and humid conditions for the last several days. The conditions that have left farmers watching their crops wilting, has also left urban residents to perspire profusely instead of witnessing precipitation which they normally see in the month of August. Half of August has passed and mercury is still hovering around 35 to 38 degrees Celsius. City recorded 38 degrees Celsius at 2.30 pm on Thursday, as per the Agro-met advisory services, PAU regional station, Bathinda. The day’s low was 29 degrees Celsius. In a nutshell, the residents are a restless lot nowadays and the main reason is humidity. For the last few days, the region has been recording 70 to 80 per cent of humidity in morning while in the afternoon it has been around 50 per cent. As per forecast made by the IMD, Chandigarh for Bathinda region on Thursday, the weather is likely to remain dry and clear with possibility of partial cloudiness in a few places in the next two days. There are chances of rain in a few places in the region after Saturday, weathermen said. |
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Cause of concern
Bhuttiwala (Muktsar), August 13 People, who gathered at Jasbir Kaur's (65) bhog here in this village last Tuesday prayed to the almighty that no more cancer deaths occur in his family. Four years ago Jasbir Kaur lost her grand child due to cancer and before that her brother died of the same disease. There have been instances here, wherein, the babies had died just after a couple of weeks of their birth. "The drinking water of this village is contaminated with heavy doses of metals. The total dissolved solids (TDS), an expression for the combined content of all organic and inorganic substances present in water, is more than 4,000 units while the normal level is around 200 units. With such a high density of TDS in drinking water, having cancer is a natural phenomenon," said an agriculture expert. The villagers are not keen to take their cancer stricken kin to the hospitals in adjoining towns like Muktsar, Bhatinda, Faridkot or even Patiala. They claim that the treatment at the government hospitals is not up to the mark while private hospitals fleece them. The only hospital left for them is the Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Treatment and Research Centre at Bikaner, nearly 300 kms from here. Giving another dimension to the cancer story, a tired looking, Sukhmandir Singh, whose wife Harjinder Kaur has been operated upon forbrain cancer at the PGI, Chandigarh a few days ago said that this area comes under the cotton belt of Punjab and farmers have started growing the genetically modified but highly controversial bt cotton. When some years ago our crop was attacked by the dreaded American Ball worm pest, we had to use heavy doses of pesticide sprays. Even after using these sprays we could not kill the pest. With such a heavy quantity of pesticides finding their way into drinking water, it is obvious the water got highly contaminated. A pesticide called Monocrotophose has been banned but farmers are still regularly using it. This leads to contamination of water, he rued. The Punjab government has set up an reverse osmosis plant to purify water in the village, which falls in Gidderbaha assembly segment represented by the finance minister Manpreet Badal, who has been instrumental is setting up many such plants in Gidderbaha. "This one initiative can save our future generations," said Darshan Kaur with a sigh of relief. However, the villagers are irked over the fact that the 75,000 litre capacity waterworks, set up in the village under a central government sponsored scheme, does not work to its optimum efficiency, said wizened, 72 year old Kartar Singh, "Till the government makes substantial efforts, the train to Bikaner will continue to have residents of this village," he added. |
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Once trade centre, village now encroachers’ paradise
Salina (Moga), August 13 Land of the area was not fertile, but largely saline and waterlogged the village’s prosperity was known in the country. Recalling days of his childhood Ajay Sood, (59), a native of Salina now living in Moga, said there used to be big market with narrow streets and boundary wall encircled the village with gates at entry points. “I saw people coming from Lahore, Patiala and Ludhiana to our village for buying goods,” he added. Now it is a nondescript village with hardly any thing of its glorious past. Almost all families of its once thriving business communities shifted to Moga and other towns. Only those dependent on agriculture remained and worked hard to make the once infertile land productive, helped in the ‘green revolution’. However, in recent years several “powerful and influential” people are said to have illegally occupied at least 108 acres of pasture land and another 100 acres of common land in the village to reap fortune by mechanised farming and the latest techniques. According to a report of the state’s Revenue Department , the administration has identified encroachments on 862 kanals and 16 marlas of common pasture land. The value of this land has been estimated at Rs 20 crore . A major portion, 50 acres, of the encroached land is in the possession of former Congress MP, Kewal Singh, his wife Amarjit Kaur and his two sons, Gurpreet Singh and Kirpal Singh, who have set up a dairy farm there. Nahar Singh, a local leader who died some time back, illegally occupied over 300 kanals of pasture land and leased out another 152 kanals for 99 years to an ‘NGO’ run by Basant Kaur, wife of deceased IAS officer Anokh Singh Pawar. Similarly, Gursharanvir Singh and Harsharanvir Singh, both sons of Amrik Singh, a former DIG of the Jail Department, had illegally occupied 60 kanals and 176 kanals, respectively, of pasture land. There are many other “influential” people who reportedly have illegally occupied common land in the village. As villagers had turned most of the area into fertile land, Nachattar Singh sarpanch, said: “Many outsiders have grabbed our common land by manipulating the authorities. However, revenue records bear testimony as to the land’s rightful owners”. |
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Show-cause notice to water supply dept
Abohar, August 13 The Adalat has taken the trend-setting step while hearing complaints from the consumers that were pursued by the Consumer Movement chairman Sat Pal Khariwal against the Board and municipal council. As per the notice issued under signatures of Amarjit Singh Katari, chairman of the Adalat, the district health officer (DHO) was directed to take samples of drinking water, when the municipal water supply was on, from each of the various wards in Abohar in consultation with the executive officer of the municipal council, consumer rights activist Sat Pal Khariwal and SDE of the PWSSB. The samples taken by the DHO were examined by the bacteriologist in the State Public Health Laboratory, Chandigarh. The report received from the lab recently indicates that the samples taken from several houses were found unfit for human consumption. While advising chlorination the report said the water samples contained bacterial contamination. In the same report the lab informed that the samples taken in Ferozepure from AK Batta Bansi Gate, Sahib Singh, Kirpal Singh and Amarjit Kumar of Basti Balochan Wali also failed in the test. |
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Businessmen surrender income tax
Moga, August 13 A senior official of the department, while revealing the details of tax, surrendered said the Big Ben sweets shop and restaurant had surrendered an amount of Rs 55-lakh, which was the biggest ever surrender here in the recent years. Meanwhile, KJ Singh, joint commissioner of the I-T department told The Tribune, that all business establishments had been warned to keep a proper record of their stock position, sales and the accounts statements. Adding that the brick kiln owners were not keeping proper record of their stock position and accounts statements, he also said that most of them also did not have proper record of the previous years, which made it difficult for them to find tax evasions of the previous years. |
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I-Day: Preparations in full swing
Ferozepur, August 13 The CM's visit on the occasion of Independence Day is being seen as thanksgiving gesture for the populace of the district, which recently returned his son Sukhbir Singh Badal as MLA from Jalalabad. Badal is likely to make several important announcements pertaining to the development of this border district including setting up of the district administrative complex. DC Kamal Yadav said all the necessary arrangements were being looked into, for which various committees have been constituted. SPS Parmar SSP said requisite security arrangements were in place to host the function. — OC |
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JE to get railway award
Ferozepur, August 13 Exhibiting excellent leadership qualities, Kumar had traced a piece of railway land measuring 62.95 acres at Dhandari Kalan station from old records (which was acquired by construction organisation in 1973-74 but documents of the same were not handed over to division), thus foiling an attempt of a private party to grab the said piece of land valuing Rs 120
crores. |
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