Bathinda, August 22
Having not received grants from the Union ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment for the past two years, the authorities concerned of a de-addiction here are left with no option but to shut it down.

The centre caters to the core area of the Malwa belt that has Punjab’s highest number of drug addicts. The officers concerned are making last-ditch efforts to get the funds released and prevent the closure of the centre.

According to an official survey, at least one person in each of the 64 per cent households in the Malwa region is drug addict.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi paid an unscheduled visit to the de-addiction centre during his tour here in September last year and had assured that he would take up the matter of release of grants with the ministry concerned. However, nothing has been heard on the matter so far, said Baljinder Singh, project director of the centre.

Deputy Commissioner Rahul Tiwari, who is chairman of the District Red Cross, said he had directed J.R. Goyal, secretary of the society, to rush to Delhi and sort out the matter.

Tiwari said the de-addiction centre was surviving for the past two years on Rs 10.35 lakh borrowed from the Red Cross that too was left without any source to raise funds for its own functioning.

He said he had also brought the matter to the notice of local MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal for taking up the issue with the ministry concerned.

The de-addiction centre has not received grants from the ministry since 2007 and as such its 11 employees, including a doctor and social worker, were not paid their salary for the past four months.

A notice of temporary closure of the centre from September 1, in case funds were not received, has been issued to the employees and six inmates.

An annual grant of Rs 7.02 lakh was paid to the centre by the ministry till 2007, but it was withheld later due to some objections on annual reports. The Red Cross was providing 10 per cent share of the grant to the centre for rehabilitation of addicts.

The centre was established in 1992 and has rehabilitated more than 35,000 addicts so far.

Bathinda, August 22
The Director General of School Education, Punjab, has come out with a scheme called Inclusive Education for Disabled (IED) children, a component of the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, to make differently-abled children gain access to a normal growth environment.

The scheme targets the differently-abled children from villages, who are subject to neglect and humiliation from their kith and kin.

Giving information about the scheme, Rampal Singh, the district coordinator for Bathinda, said to review the working of the IED and to take it a step further, the Education Department, Bathinda, conducted a meeting in which the teachers came out with novel concepts to educate such children.

Around 10 teachers have been selected to run the scheme in the district. These teachers will be called gifted teachers. These teachers would write poems, make paintings and produce a film (if the Education Department agrees) so as to effect a friendly educational environment for such children, who otherwise go to special schools for learning.

“We have planned to make them attend normal schools with other children so that they could feel that they were a part of society. Our concept is not to isolate them by sending them to a special school and making them feel that they are different. We want that they growth like any other child. We are targeting rural areas as the degree of isolation of such children is more there,” Rampal Singh said.

Bathinda, August 22
Outperforming their rivals in the wushu ring in junior girls’ category, the Sangrur challengers clinched altogether five medals, including two golds, on the second day of the 4th Invitational Punjab State Wushu (Open) Championship being held at the local DAV College today.

The hosts contenders in the same category, however, also grabbed five medals but the kitty included only one gold.

Patiala and Hoshiarpur players also won one gold medal each in the same category. All the gold winners in the category have been qualified to take part in the national contest.

As far as the boys’ performance in the sub-junior category is concerned, Hoshiarpur contenders clinched three golds while Amritsar and Sangrur players grabbed two each. Gurdaspur and Patiala players won one gold each. Bathinda topped the medal tally by clinching seven but the basket was sans gold in this category.

Mansa players also excelled in the category and won altogether six medals - one silver and five bronze. Gurdaspur and Patiala won five medals each while Hoshiarpur and Amritsar managed to grab four medals each.

Till the filing of the news, bouts in other categories were in progress.

The District Bathinda Wushu Association (DBWA) is holding the three-day championship. Nearly 400 challengers, including 100 girls, from the 16 districts of Punjab are participating in the tourney in several weight groups under three categories – sub-junior (U-14), junior (U-17) and senior (above-19).

Besides fierce battle for the titles, the other thing quite remained apparent and noticeable at the venue was the lack of help and cooperation to the organisers from several sections, including administration. Due to absence of a doctor at the venue - where 400 boys and girls taking part in a martial art championship – the district administration drew flak.

Gold winners: Junior (girls)

Below 45 kg: Gurleen Kaur (Sangrur)

Below 48 kg: Sandeep Kaur (Sangrur)

Below 52 kg: Manpreet Kaur (Patiala)

Below 56 kg: Navpreet Kaur (Bathinda)

Below 60 kg: Arshdeep Kaur (Hoshiarpur)

Gold winners: Sub-junior (Boys)

Below 20 kg: Bachittar Singh (Gurdaspur)

Below 24 kg: Sumit Mahajan (Amritsar)

Below 28 kg: Gurdeep Singh (Hoshiarpur)

Below 32 kg: Gurpreet Singh (Sangrur)

Below 36 kg: Sanjeet Singh (Amritsar)

Below 40 kg: Jagwinder Singh (Sangrur)

Below 44 kg: Sandeep Singh (Patiala)

Below 48 kg: Vikasom and below 52 kg: Rajinder Singh (both from Hoshiarpur).

Ferozepur, August 22
Former member of the Agriculture Price Control Committee, Gurnaib Brar, ex-MLA, has ridiculed the union government for making a meagre enhancement of Rs 100 in the minimum support price (MSP) of the paddy.

Brar said the increase was not commensurate with the growing cost of inputs in terms of rise in diesel prices, fertiliser costs and other agricultural commodities.

In the wake of drought-like situation due to scarcity of rains, the farmers had to depend on submersible pumps and tubewells for their irrigational requirements, which also increased the production costs as more water was required to save the crops, he mentioned.

Brar demanded the Central government to increase the minimum support price up to Rs 1200, or else announce a bonus of Rs 200 per quintal soon to save the farming community from getting into the debt trap.

Bathinda, August 22
A two-day training programme on industrial safety was conducted at the National Fertilizers Limited (NFL), Bathinda, on August 20-21.

Chief general manager of the unit, Virendra Kumar, inaugurated the programme that was organised by the Directorate of Factories, Punjab, in collaboration with the Punjab Industrial Safety Council, Chandigarh.

Sodhi Mal, joint director of factories, Punjab, Jagjit Singh, MP Beri, Kashmir Singh, deputy director of factories, R.K. Mahotra, manager (safety), NFL Bathinda, Vaishanu Sharma, manager (safety) NFL, Nangal and Ravinder Vashist from Pepsico India, delivered lectures. Raminder Singh, labour commissioner-cum-director of factories, Punjab, awarded certificates to the participants. — TNS

Burj Tharod (Bathinda), Aug 22
Once vulnerable to devastating floods, this village has emerged as a model of rural sustainability in the Malwa belt due to its development on a grid pattern. It has all the facilities that are expected of a modern village - school, wide streets, dispensary, gurudwara, waterworks, sewerage pond, an anganwari centre and even an inn for the poor.

In the 1950s it was swept away by floods and was built anew after the then PEPSU Chief Minister laid a foundation stone in 1956 for a well-planned model village.

Kapoor Singh, 71, a resident, recalls the days, “It was a severe flood, the third in a series that occurred in the 1950s, which swept away the entire village. We all were virtually driven to starvation before some generous people came forward to feed us. 

Taking pity on our condition, an overseer assured us he would draw up a plan to rebuild the village. The plan was later approved and Brish Bhan, then Chief Minister of PEPSU, laid the foundation stone on April 27, 1956. The late Indira Gandhi also visited our village much before she became Prime Minister,” he added.

Houses in the the newly constructed village were constructed by the government and later allotted to the villagers, who had been provided soft loans that they paid off in 30 years.

The village, which has about 1,200 voters, has seven lanes, all of them 30 ft wide, with a main street vertically crossing the lanes in the middle.

There are about 300 houses in all. The first lane has ‘A’ type houses with those of ‘B’ type located on the next four lanes.

The sixth and seventh lanes have ‘C’ type houses. All lanes open at a ring road that encircles the whole village. 

Moga, August 22
The Moga police was allegedly trying to hush up the case of Sandip Khurana, owner of a healthcare and beauty clinic, against whom a criminal case under sections 420, 465, 468 and 471 of the IPC was registered in the police station (City-1) on Friday.

One of his former client, Neetu Arora, alleged that Khurana had distributed pamphlets carrying her photographs printed on it under the name of Priya Gupta in Ferozepur city and cantonment areas to publicise his slimming centre, which also created problems in her marital life.

Reacting to her complaint, the police not only registered a criminal case against Khurana but also initially took him into custody on Friday but he was not officially arrested.

Now, both the parties have agreed to reach a compromise and the police was trying to hush up the case and the investigating officer was likely to move an application before the court for case cancellation.

The Tribune tried to contact SHO Kuljinder Singh but he did not pick up the phone. However, a family member and legal counsel of the complainant confirmed that both the parties had agreed to reach a compromise. 

Moga, August 22
The Moga police produced Sukhcharan Singh a local hotelier before the duty magistrate Kuljit Pal Singh at his residence on Saturday night, just a day after it denied in writing before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Karunesh Kumar Kakkar that he was neither detained not arrested by them.

He was booked by the police along with five other persons under various sections of the NDPS Act, Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1956, Arms Act and the IPC on Tuesday. His wife Parminder Kaur had filed an application before the CJM court on August 20 that her husband was picked up by the police from their house on August 18 and was kept in illegal custody.

Last evening at about 5 pm, the police gave in writing to the CJM that the hotel owner was not in their custody, following which the judge disposed of the application of his wife. Interestingly, as per the police record shown to the duty magistrate tonight, the hotel owner was shown arrested at 8 pm last night just three hours after filing a reply before the CJM court that he was not in custody.

Defence counsel Ramesh Grover argued that the police was misleading the judiciary and hiding the truth of his client’s illegal detention.

Meanwhile, the investigating officer demanded a 12-day police remand but the duty magistrate gave only two-day remand for further probe in the case. — TNS

Bathinda, August 22
A staff of Hotel Sepal in Bathinda was electrocuted today. According to police sources, kin of the deceased, Dimple, while staging protest over the death, charged the hotel management with adopting indifferent attitude towards the safety of employees.

The hotel authorities, however, refuting the allegation, termed the incident as an accident and said the hotel management had always been according top priority to the safety of the staff.

The police said the post-mortem examination could not be conducted due to controversy. The same would be conducted on Sunday, police said. — TNS