Chandigarh, September 28
Government agencies today purchased 7,441 tonnes of paddy on the first day Punjab as there were complaints of paddy arrivals being overlooked in many ‘mandis’ due to high moisture as well fears that it may not be lifted in time due to agitation by rice millers.

Traders also purchased 2,225 tonnes today with many farmers being forced to sell at lower price due to high moisture. According to Punjab Arhtiya Association president Ravinder Singh Cheema reports of paddy being sold below the minimum support price were received from Faridkot, Muktsar, Kotkapura and Ferozepur cantonment.

State Food and Civil Supplies Director D S Grewal said the highest purchase had been in Muktsar where 5,449 tonnes were procured followed by Faridkot where 2,477 tonnes of paddy was purchased today. Grewal said paddy arrivals were expected to increase in two days.

Most districts recorded marginal procurement today. Tarn Taran recorded 175 tonnes followed by Gurdaspur wth 100 tonnes, Amritsar 96 tonnes, Ropar 98 tonnes and Moga 58 tonnes.

The FCI also made a beginning by purchasing 17 tonnes only across the state. Sources said the poor interest was due to excess moisture in early arrivals and the fact that rice millers were reluctant to store PAU 201 variety.

State Rice Millers Association president Tarsem Saini said production of PAU 201 variety was likely to increase from 10 per cent of total area last year to nearly 40 per cent now. He said rice millers of Punjab still had to give 7.5 lakh tonnes of rice to the FCI, which they were unable to do due to reduction of the damage content norms an high damage content in PAU 201 rice.

Saini said the millers would only store paddy for milling this year if the FCI agreed to relax damage content norms for PAU 201 to five per cent. Right now millers are allowed damage content of 3.5 per cent only. The Millers Association president also demanded space for storing paddy be increased saying right now there was no space to store the milled paddy .

Jalandhar, September 28
It seems Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is not properly briefed on developments and decisions taken at the official and institution levels. Had it been so he would have told all those invited to a meeting to set up a vegetable export mission yesterday that the power tariff applicable to the farm sector would include greenhouses, net houses, etc, growing vegetables.

Now tube wells used to irrigate fields are given power free of cost. The state government pays the bills of farm tube wells in the form of subsidy to the PSEB.

Obviously, Badal had to assure the meeting that greenhouses would be charged farm tariff. He had to give an assurance in this regard as he was not told the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission in its tariff order for fiscal year 2009-10 had declared that “ electricity consumed to provide irrigation for horticulture, floriculture in open field conditions or net houses, green or hot houses should be covered under the agriculture pump-sets (AP) schedule”.

The commission declared this when the INA Rural Development Society, Mohali, gave a representation to the commission urging it to include horticulture, floriculture, greenhouses and net houses in the AP schedule. Palwinder Singh Bajwa, chairman, and Harpreet Singh Dhillon, member secretary of the society, had informed the commission that the PSEB was charging commercial power tariff from the owners of greenhouses while their activities were related to agriculture. 

Chandigarh, September 28
In a bid to cope with the situation of acute power shortage arising out of steep demand in the state, the Punjab State Electricity Board has tied up with the West Bengal Government for procuring 100 MW of power on the basis of “banking”, which it has already started receiving.

In addition, the board will get 100 MW of power after getting a corridor from West Bengal.

Stating this here today a spokesman of the Chief Minister’s office said that with these arrangements the board would relax the duration of power cuts from 8-9 hours to 4 hours in the domestic sector in the state. He further said that all thermal stations of the PSEB were generating power to capacity.The urgent repair work on the Lehra Mohabat plant was completed yesterday within 48 hours. 

Batala, September 28
Ashwani Shekri, chief spokesman, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC), said today that the registration of a criminal case against former Minister Raman Bhalla and others, who were protesting against power cuts, was politically motivated, unjustified and a murder of democracy and hence must be withdrawn.

Talking to TNS on the phone, Shekri said the PPCC would intensify its agitation and not allow the SAD-BJP alliance led by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to commit “atrocities” on Congress men and common people.

A criminal case was registered against Bhalla at Pathankot on the night of September 26 for supporting hundreds of residents who had been protesting against power cuts.

He said Badal, who always claimed that his party fought for safeguarding democracy, was now indulging in the murder of the same.

Badal was trying to suppress every voice of protest which was being raised against him and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal’s style of functioning and their “misdeeds”.

“Leaders of Opposition parties always play a key role to make ruling party politicians aware of shortcomings in their administration. If Badal continues to curb such a trend, how will he come to know about the plight of people in the state?” added Shekri.

He said the PPCC would continue to fight for securing the rights of the common man and save people from atrocities and harassment. 

Ghuna (Barnala , September 28
‘We are prepared for holding elections to the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC).We have no objection in this regard’.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal here today stated this to a question why SGPC elections were being delayed. Badal was here to participate in the 82nd death anniversary function of Sant Attar Singh Ghunas and honour five Punjabi writers on behalf of the Sant Attar Singh Charitable Trust, Ghunas, for contribution to literature. The function was organised by Bhadaur MLA Sant Balbir Singh Ghunas.

Admitting certain shortcomings in the atta-dal scheme, Badal promised steps to investigate the matter. He said left -out eligible persons would be provided blue cards while the names of ineligible persons would be deleted from the lists of beneficiaries of the atta-dal scheme.

Badal announced setting up of Central Cooperative Bank in Barnala and promised to issue directions to the authorities concerned today.

The names of four Punjabi writers honoured by Badal with shawls and cash prize, are Pritam Singh Rahi, Darshan Singh Buttar, Ravinder Singh Bhattal, K L Garg while the fifth Harchand Singh Sirhindi, was honoured in his absence as on his behalf Bhupinder Singh Bedi received the shawl and cash prize.

Chandigarh, September 28
Pear growers of the border area in Tarn Taran district today opposed the Punjab Government’s decision to establish a “pear estate” at Amritsar.

The decision was announced by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal while addressing a meeting of fruit and vegetable growers here yesterday.

Representatives of the Patti Cooperative Garden Society said in a statement here that a meeting of horticulturists from Amritsar,Tarn Taran and Jalandhar districts was called in Chandigarh on September 27 which was to be addressed by the Chief Minister.

However, representatives from Tarn Taran district were not informed about the change in time of the meeting. They alleged that officials deliberately kept them away to favour Amritsar’s claim for “pear estate” status.

Society president Sukhdeep Singh Sandhu said that pear was grown on 400 hectares in the Patti area in Tarn Taran district. However, the area under pear in Patti had been wrongly shown as part of Amritsar district.

He said because of the good quality of soil, pears grown in Patti were in great demand in the markets in Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Kolkata.

The society demanded that the border area of Patti should be given the status of “pear estate” to boost the cultivation of the fruit.

Chandigarh, September 28
Of 17 persons who are killed in road accidents in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh everyday, 14 of them die on the state and national highways.

The Punjab Vidhan Sabha was informed early this year that at least nine persons die in 15 road accidents reported from different parts of the state everyday.

In 2008, at least 5,409 persons lost their lives in road mishaps. Though there is no official data to analyse causes of deaths on the state and national highways, driving under the influence of liquor was one of the biggest cause of these fatalities.

“There is a direct connection between liquor vends on highways and rising fatalities on roads,” says Dr Gursharan Singh, a social worker, revealing “since 2002, the growth in number of liquor vends on highways has been directly proportional to rise in road fatalities. In the first two years of the new millennium, total deaths in road mishaps in Punjab were 2,800 a year. This year, the number will cross 5,500 mark as in January alone 287 persons were killed”.

Incidentally, the number of liquor vends on highways have more than doubled in the past five years and 60 per cent of them have attached “ahatas” with them.

Another revelation of a recent study conducted by a Ludhiana-based NGO is about marriage palaces and resorts that dot the state and national highways. Eighty per cent of the marriage and reception functions held at these palaces and resorts have liquor served.

It may be startling for many to believe that more accidents are attributable to “hangover” effect of liquor than its actual consumption. Dr Gursharan Singh says in many cases accidents took place due to driving under the influence of liquor. He said hangover symptoms were severe head and body aches coupled with laziness besides crippling flexibility of the body.

“Are these states incentivising those who pride themselves in inebriated driving. Otherwise what can be the logic for allowing a vend on a state or national highway that does not have any “abadi” in its immediate 3 km periphery. Who will come and buy liquor from this vend early in the morning or late in the evening. Target is not consumers in the immediate neighbourhood, but those traversing state and national highways,” adds Sham Sunder, a road safety missionary.

Punjab’s total apathy towards rising road fatalities and its insistence on more and more liquor vends on highways has been perhaps one of the reasons that prompted the World Health Organisations’ global status report on road safety. The report, released last month, says “more people die in road accidents in India than elsewhere in the world.”

India is perhaps one of the few countries where liquor vends are legally permitted to flourish. Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are dotted with a high density of liquor vends. While Punjab has done a little, Haryana took some preventive measures to lower death rate in road mishaps. Introducing a breath analyser test at selected toll plazas, it has started catching inebriated drivers on charges of impaired driving. Even the highway patrol also started challaning people for exceeding speed limits.

In Punjab tests for drunken driving are a rarity.

To be concluded

Chandigarh, September 28
Traders today heaved a sigh of relief with the Iranian Hygiene Ministry giving a clean chit to Indian basmati but Punjab and Haryana farmers, who have banked heavily on this variety by doubling the area under it, may suffer badly this season with the prices of the popular 1121 variety expected to come down steeply.

Earlier an Iranian government laboratory --- Standard Institute of Industrial Research--- had claimed that Indian rice contained arsenic, lead and cadmium and did not have nutrition value. The laboratory also claimed that the increase in time on cooking of this rice was not natural but due to contamination by chemicals. Iran had subsequently banned the import of Indian and Pakistan rice.

Sources said with the Iranian Hygiene Minister also making a statement clearing Indian rice exports as much as 20,000 out of the 40,000 tonnes of basmati rice lying in various ports had been loaded in ships.

Meanwhile, Rice Exporters Association former president Vijay Setia said the internationally renowned SGS laboratory, which had also been given rice samples for testing by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, was also likely to make its report public in a day or two. He said the Standard Institute of Iran was also slated to give its final report on the issue soon.

The controversy has, however, reduced the price of the popular 1121 rice variety and traders don’t expect this price to increase due to a bumper harvest of this variety expected in both Punjab and Haryana. The 1121 variety, which was purchased by traders last year at an average price of Rs 3,000 per quintal, is at present selling at Rs 2,200 per quintal. This is expected to go down to Rs 1,600 to Rs 1,800 per quintal once fresh stocks start arriving in the market.

According to State Agriculture Department Director B. S. Sandhu the area under basmati cultivation in Punjab has nearly doubled this year. He said while a partial monsoon failure was responsible for this as basmati is transplanted late, he said farmers were also enthused by the high prices this variety was fetching over the last two years. The area under basmati cultivation has increased to around 6 lakh hectares this year. In Haryana basmati is grown on around 3.5 lakh hectares.

According to agri experts the only way to save farmers in Punjab and Haryana from being forced to sell short is to establish a minimum purchase price for basmati, which is slated for export by private traders. 

Amritsar, September 28
Twenty persons sustained injuries when the roof on which they were viewing the Dasehra celebrations collapsed in the border subdivision of Ajnala, near here, today.

Perched on the roof of a shed meant for livestock in the house of Kuldeep Singh Goggi, the group was viewing the burning of the effigies of Ravana, Kumbhkarna and Meghnadh at the Kirtan Darbar Society ground. All of a sudden the roof collapsed.

The injured persons were taken to the Civil Hospital, Ajnala. Jasbir Kaur, who was seriously injured, was referred to Guru Nanak Dev Hospital here. 

Ludhiana, September 28
A compensation of Rs 20 lakh each awarded by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to five innocents of Tallewal village, convicted of killing a youth identified as Jagseer Singh, who was never killed, is not enough for them.

The families of the five persons say they can never be compensated with money and want police officials and complainants, who concocted the murder story and proved it in the court, to undergo the similar imprisonment.

“This money cannot help us when we have lost our everything. We will only be in peace when the officials and complainants will be punished as they did with us despite knowing everything,” says Amarjeet Singh, one of the innocents, who has lost his parents and two daughters when he was undergoing life sentence.

“My three generations have been ruined. When my children and parents were sick they could not get proper treatment, as I was not allowed to go on parole. Now, what will I do with this money?’’ asks Amarjeet.

Nihal Kaur (61), wife of Nachhatar Singh, one of the five innocent men spending over five years in the Barnala jail said: “I have lost my son as he committed suicide after not being able to bear with the situation. My life was spent making rounds of courts and jail,” adding that she had to sell 20 acres of land, gold ornaments and even a flourmill to fight the battle.

“The announcement of compensation has not brought celebrations for them,” she said.

Another innocent Nikka Singh, too, has nothing left for him. His wife left him and married another man when she heard that he was sentenced to 26 years’ life imprisonment.

Surjeet Singh also could not educate his daughters.

Tallewal (Barnala), September 28
Though Nachhattar Singh, former sarpanch of Tallewal village, is satisfied with the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court for acquitting him and four others in a concocted murder case, he wants that the court should order a CBI probe into the incident.

They were convicted of killing a youth identified as Jagseer Singh, who is in fact alive. He want to bring the truth on record that whose body was cremated by the family of Jagseer in 1996, as he is alive while they had spent five years in jail (from 1996 to 2001 till their bail) on the charge of murdering him.

Talking to TNS at his residence here yesterday, he urged the HC to order the “erring” police officials, family members of Jagseer and others to pay a compensation of Rs 1 crore to five persons too(family of his deceased son Seera, Surjit Singh, Amarjit Singh, Nikka Singh and himself).

He also demanded immediate arrest of all “erring” officials, Jagseer and his family members, and other witnesses in the case. He also sought at least five years’ imprisonment for all guilty persons.

Members of Jagseer’s family had got an FIR registered with the Bhadaur police station on June 11, 1996, against Nachhattar, his son Seera, Nikka Singh, Surjit Singh and Amarjit Singh, regarding the murder of Jagseer.

After a few days, the police found a body from Gharreli village (Bathinda) that was then identified as Jagseer’s body by his family members. In July 1998, all five persons were sentenced to life imprisonment, but were released on bail in 2001. In 2003, Seera committed suicide.

However, Jagseer, who was declared dead, surfaced in December 2008.

Moga, September 28
The police has claimed to have solved the mystery behind the murder of two schoolchildren, both brothers, with the arrest of their mother, along with her two paramours. The woman, along with her paramours, who allegedly killed the boys on her direction, is in police remand.

According to information, on Thursday evening, Anita Rani, alias Aarti, received her sons, Aman (11) and Om (5) from their tuition and took them along to pay obeisance at a temple. As per the “pre-planned” move, she asked the children to go to the market with her paramours, Ranjeet Gupta and Ravinder Singh, who were already present there. They took both to a lonely place where they offered some fruit juice to them. When the boys resisted, the accused called up their mother and asked her to order the boys to consume it, in which some toxic substance was allegedly mixed.

On her direction, the boys consumed it and fell unconscious. The alleged killers later took them to fields adjoining the industrial area from where their bodies were found on Friday morning.

Earlier, father of the deceased Rakesh Kumar Miglani in a complaint had suspected Ranjeet Gupta and his wife Sanju of killing his sons due to a quarrel between them. Sanju had allegedly threatened to kill the children. Sources said during a meeting when the SSP, Moga, and the DIG, Ferozepur range, asked Anita about whom she suspected, she ruled out Ranjeet’s name.

During the investigation, the police came to know that Sanju had a quarrel with Anita as she had come to know about Anita’s illicit relations with Ranjeet.

Later, the police found Sanju to be innocent and Ranjeet accepted his role in the murder, as she used to object to his relationship with Anita.

About the role of Ravinder, the police said he, too, had illicit relations with Anita and both were planning to get married.

Confirming the details, SSP, Moga, Ashok Bath, said, “The woman was continuously talking to her paramours at the cremation ground. All this led us to investigate the matter.”