Ellenabad (Sirsa), November 29
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today set the tone for the impending Ellenabad byelection when he made a plethora of announcements at a rally organised by the Congress here.

The rally is seen as the first in a series of such meetings to be addressed by Hooda across the state to thank voters for providing him an opportunity to constitute Congress government for the second time in a row.

The tone and tenor of the speakers left none in doubt about the real motive behind the rally with speeches by all leaders centering on the byelection.

Hooda announced what he termed as a “stimulus package” for Ellenabad town and the villages falling under this assembly seat. The package includes Rs 18 crore for improving drinking water supply in Ellenabad town, Rs 10 crore for augmenting water supply to Ellenabad villages, Rs 10 crore for improving the sewer system of Ellenabad town and Rs 10 crore for overall development of villages. As sought by local Congress leaders, Hooda announced that he would lay the foundation stone of a government college in the town the day the party candidate was declared elected in the bypoll and he came to address a rally to thank voters.

“Though we have been able to come to power again, for some reasons we could not win a seat in Sirsa district. However, both Sirsa and Fatehabad have a major contribution in the government.

“The Independent MLAs elected from here were the first to offer support to the Congress,” the Chief Minister said, referring to Minister of State for Home Gopal Kanda and Chief Parliamentary Secretary Prahlad Singh Gillankhera. He said that it was surprising that the people of Ellenabad had voted for INLD leader Om Parkash Chautala in the hope that he would represent their concerns, but he had opted for Uchana Kalan instead.

“What is even more surprising is that the area has remained underdeveloped although Chautala and his father Devi Lal remained Chief Ministers for long,” he claimed.

Referring to the recent reports on infighting among local Congress leaders and complaints of sabotage by some candidates during the assembly elections, Hooda promised the people that all Congress leaders would contest the election as a unit.

“I will pull down the leader who tries to bring down the Congress candidate this time,” Hooda warned leaders of his party sitting on the dais. HPCC president Phool Chand Mullana, working president Kuldeep Sharma, Public Health and PWD Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala, Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar, Minister of State for Home Gopal Kanda and Chief Parliamentary Secretary Prahlad Singh Gillankhera, Bharat Singh Beniwal, Ranjit Singh, Sushil Indora and KV Singh also addressed the rally. 

Yamunanagar, November 29
The number of swine flu cases continue to rise with five more persons in the district, including four schoolchildren, today testing positive. The total number of such cases have now gone up to 35. Most of the affected are schoolchildren.

Besides, samples of 10 more persons have been sent to a laboratory in New Delhi.

As most of the ill are schoolchildren, senior functionaries of the civil hospital say that schools can help prevent the spread of HINI in a big way by taking certain steps.

Closing schools for some time can definitely help prevent the spread of the disease, they say. “Keeping in view the rise in the number of cases the civil hospital is receiving, more capsules for swine flu patients have been obtained with a request for 2,000 more sent to the head office,” said a top functionary of the hospital. Medicine for swine flu at the civil hospital can be obtained free of cost, medical superintendent Dr Vinod Gupta told The Tribune.

Yamunanagar, November 29
The inquiry committee constituted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to probe misuse of funds of Red Cross Societies has directed all secretaries of the Red Cross Societies to furnish details of expenses, including funds given to organisations or institutions as financial aid.

The committee, comprising former judges, has asked all secretaries of societies to furnish the required information about expanses to the committee within a week.

Besides Haryana, the inquiry committee has also directed secretaries of Red Cross Societies in Punjab and Chandigarh to furnish similar information to the committee.

Kurukshetra November 29
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has said that more funds would be made available to the Kurukshetra Development Board (KDB) so that Kurukshetra Utsav Gita Jayanti Samaroh could be

organised in a befitting manner to attract pilgrims in a big way. This assurance was given by him to DC Pankaj Aggarwal after puja at Rameshwar Temple in Jai Ram Vidyapeeth on the northern bank of Brahmsarover.

Bahadurgarh (Jhajjar), November 29
A young couple committed suicide by jumping before the Bareilly Express train between Bahadugarh and Aasudha railway station here last evening. The deceased have been identified as Ravi, resident of Mirchi village in Hisar district and Neha, resident of Najafgarh in Delhi.

Both of them were pursuing B.Tech from an engineering institute located in Gurgaon district.

An Assistant Station Master (ASM) informed the Railway police officials, who rushed to the spot and took stock of the situation. Later, the bodies were sent for postmortem. Dharampal Singh, Station House Officer, GRP, said the bodies were later handed over to the relatives of the deceased. A case under section 174 of CrPC has been registered. 

Yamunanagar, November 29
The district administration is in the final stages of getting ISO certification for making its functioning more transparent, making employees accountable to those visiting offices and making work time-bound.

After this is done, Yamunanagar will become the first district in the state to have ISO certification for delivering results.

After the certification, time, money and other resources of the administration will be utilised efficiently. It will also ensure that nothing important is left out and that everyone is clear on who is responsible.

“The process to get ISO certification has been completed and auditing of records is in the final stage,” DC Amit Kumar Agarwal told The Tribune.

The objective of the ISO certification is to ensure that working environment at the DC’s office is improved, all working is made more transparent and the employees made accountable.

“All work will be done in a time-bound manner and there will be no pendancy of cases in any branch,” the DC claimed.

Giving details, he said the ISO certification ensured compliance to standards of performance because once certified, companies and offices shall be audited periodically.

This would also ensures quality assurance standards required for implementation of procedural changes, training, increased documentation and adjustment to operating systems at every level.

“We had appointed a consultant, RITES Limited, around six months back. All employees of various branches were imparted training for increasing efficiency and making documentation in the office more systematic and in conformity with international standards.

“This training was repeated from time to time and an atmosphere has been created so that the office is more responsive to people and all work is completed on time,” the DC said. 

Chandigarh, November 28
A team of officials from the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), led by chairman-cum-managing director Dr SK Jain, will be initiating pre-project activities during their three-day visit to the state from December 2.

The Government of India has approved the setting up of a 1400-MW Nuclear Power Plant in Kumharia village of Fatehabad 
district in the ongoing 11th Plan period.

Disclosing this here yesterday, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, said the team would hold detailed discussions with senior officers of the state for obtaining different facilities, including land and water, required for setting up the project. The team will also call upon the Chief Minister.

The nuclear project would not only provide cheap and clean source of power to Haryana and neighbouring states, but also, due to the investment of more than Rs 12,000 crore, help boost development of the state in general and the districts of Fatehabad, Sirsa and Hisar in particular.

The CM said the Haryana Government would acquire about 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) of land around the villages of Kajalheri, Gorakhpur and Kumharia in Fatehabad district for setting up the project.

Adequate compensation will be provided to the landowners under the policy laid down by the state government, said Hooda.

The state government will also provide 320 cusecs of water for the project. In the first stage, two units of 700 MW each will be established at the site finalised by the NPCIL. 

Ambala, November 27
The Northern Railways is disappointed over the apathetic attitude of the Punjab Government towards the frequent protests that are carried out on railway tracks each year.

In this regard, the Railways authorities have already shot-off letters to the officials concerned many times and the matter has now been taken up by the Railway Ministry.

As many as 59 protests were held on tracks in 2008, while 25 incidents have been registered this year.

On an average, 30 to 40 protests are held on the tracks each year with most of them in Punjab, which falls under the Ambala Division of the Northern Railways.

The reasons at times are as trivial as a family or village protesting inaction in a murder case to the political issues of price rise etc.

“The maximum response that the Railways get is an assurance that it will not happen in future and that the security forces will try there best to ensure that we are not inconvenienced,” said a Railway official.

The number of such incidents in the other states of the region is comparatively less. Haryana has only recorded three cases this year.

In many of the cases, action is taken under the Railway Act and offenders are arrested. But because the offence is bailable, the protesters are let off after a mild fine.

Last year 98 arrests were made, while this year 41 arrests have been made so far.

The Railways officials, however, were quick to deny that they were concerned with the financial loss.

But it is the inconvenience caused to passengers due to cancellation or delays of trains that becomes a big hassle.

In the last three incidents this year, the Railways had to refund Rs 18 lakh to 20,000 passengers due to cancellation and delay of trains.

“We serve the people; we are a government organisation which has nothing to do with the issues the protestors are raising. Moreover, none of them have anything against us,” said HK Jaggi, Divisional Railway Manager.

“We are assured of action each time, but the situation remains the same,” he added. 

Hisar, November 29
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda yesterday asked farm scientists to usher in a second green revolution to meet food production targets for the future.Addressing the opening session of Agri Conclave and Agro Max organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) at Haryana Agricultural University here, he said over the years, resources had shrunk but the population increase had necessitated greater foodgrain production.

This was a big challenge for the governments, farm scientists as well as the farming community.

Hooda said India needed to double its foodgrain production by 2020. This was a Herculean task but it could be achieved through greater cooperation among scientists, farmers and the industry.

He said availability of water for irrigation was a big constraint and “our farmers needed to follow the Israeli water conservation and irrigation technology for judicious use of this scarce resource.”

The Chief Minister said climate change had posed more problems for farmers as well as farm scientists. He asked scientists to focus on developing new varieties of crops which could withstand the changes in climate. This, he said, was necessary if the country was to feed its people from its own resources.

He lamented that over the years, research work in HAU had not been up to the mark despite occasional successes. He said farmers should be involved in prioritising research projects.

Hooda inaugurated a community radio station at the university. He said similar stations would be set up at all district towns. He also inaugurated an exhibition on farm machinery.

HAU Vice Chancellor KS Khokhar pleaded that the government should allocate separate budget for research projects so that enough funds were available for the same. He assured that HAU scientists would come up to the expectations of the people of Haryana and face the challenges of modern agriculture.

Hooda’s cabinet colleagues Paramvir Singh and Randeep Surjewala, HPCC chief Phool Chand Mullana, HPCC working president Kuldeep Sharma and Savitri Jindal and Sampat Singh, Congress legislators, were also present. 

Jhajjar, November 29
The much-awaited project of setting up a 100-bed Central Research Institute of Yoga and Naturopathy by the Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy, an autonomous body under the Department of AYUSH, Union Ministry of Health, is stuck in official formalities.

Although the gram panchayat of Bhadsa village under Bahadugarh sub-division here had already given a go-ahead for setting up the institute on 10 acres of common land earlier this year, Director, Panchayat Haryana, Chandigarh, has raised some objections in connection with the allotment of proposed land on lease for 33 years.

In the objection letter sent recently to Jhajjar Deputy Commissioner, office of Director, Panchayat Haryana, has sought that it be clarified that the proposed land does not fall under the jurisdiction of the one that has been allotted to set up AIIMS-II in Bhadsa village. The collector rate and market price of the proposed land has also been sought.

Besides, a consent report of authorities concerned regarding suitability of the land and resolution of allotment to the CCRYN, with a confirmation by competent officer, have also been sought. Perturbed by the delay, Dr BT Chidananda Murthy, director of the CCRYN, has shot-off a missive to the Jhajjar DC requesting that the project should be completed soon, as would be of immense help for the masses. Due to the delay, the cost of the project has already gone up to 30 crore, nearly three times the estimated cost.

“The case has been sent back to Chandigarh after clarifications and a go-ahead will hopefully be obtained soon,” said DC Jhajjar Nitin Yadav. 

Gurgaon, November 29
The Bal Urja Rakshak Mission (BURM) is focusing on schoolchildren to draw attention towards the issues of global energy conservation, climate change, global warming and sustainable development.

The mission has been launched under School Energy Education Outreach Programme of Haryana Renewable Energy Development Agency (HAREDA) in association with Management Development Institute (MDI) on a pilot basis. It will include students of 8th to 11th class in 25 schools of the city.

With the launch of this project, Gurgaon has become first city in the country to undertake such an initiative.

Rajender Kumar Kataria, Deputy Commissioner-cum-Chairman, District Project Implementation-cum-Monitoring Committee of BURM, said the Akshya Urja Scheme was initially developed under the leadership of late PM Rajiv Gandhi.

"There is an urgent need to educate people about the use of non-renewable energy sources," he said. Kataria added that the purpose of the programme was to create soldiers for saving energy in the future.

"It is necessary to develop a culture where we can learn not only how to preserve our resources for the future generation, but also add something to it," he said.

"The government has planned to introduce energy and environment conservation values in major festivals of all the religious communities of the state through 'Urja Rakshaks' - teenagers sensitised on energy conservation. There is a great need to make the future generations aware of these issues,' he said.

The administration has picked up four students, two each from 8th and 9th classes from 25 schools of the district to train them as energy leaders, who will in turn train 10 students of their class as 'Urja Rakshaks' (energy soldiers). Training in the schools will be monitored by one teacher and an 'Urja Mitra', a friend from the community to support the programme. The energy soldiers will form a team to organise various events in the schools.

"The 'Urja Rakshaks' have been provided a resource kit containing a handbook on various issue, badges, T-shirts and caps. They will also be trained for energy audit in houses and official premises," said Kataria.

"After the pilot project in the millennium city, it will be implemented in all the 21 districts of the state by March 2011," he informed.

Under the project, various competitions will be held among schoolchildren throughout the year.

The energy leader will get Rs 100 as incentive while 'Urja Rakshaks' will get Rs 50 per month along with the resource kit. Under the mission, the respective schools will observe every Monday as 'Urja Din' (Energy Day), December 14 of every year as National Energy Conservation Day and August 20 as 'Akshay Urja Diwas'. 

Yamunanagar, November 29
The Vice Chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala, Dr Jaspal Singh, today honoured five teachers of Guru Nanak Khalsa College for 25 years of distinguished service on the occasion of the 41st Founder's Day of the college, here today.

Those honoured included Prof RS Sharma of the Department of English, Prof Bal Krishan of the Department of Physics, Dr Ravi Kapur of the Department of Economics, Dr RS Walia of the department of English and Dr Saroj Kumari of the Department of Hindi.

Besides, on the occasion of Guru Purb, he also inaugurated the new building of Gurdwara Sahib on the college campus.

While dwelling exhaustively on the life and teachings of Guru Nanak Dev, Dr Jaspal Singh said the Guru had spread the message of casteless and classless society and equal treatment for all human beings.

"The first guru taught humanitarian values and he was a prophet of truth and love. He also laid stress on eradication of the chasm between human beings on the basis of caste, colour, creed, religion, region and money," he said.

Dr Jaspal Singh also appreciated the contribution of the president of the Khalsa College Management Committee Bhupinder Singh Jauhar in the field of education.

Jauhar exhorted the students to emulate the achievements of Dr Jaspal Singh and bring laurels to the institution.

The principal of the college, Dr Verinder Kaur, presented a brief report highlighting various achievements of the college in different disciplines. 

Rewari, November 29
A large number of women from various parts of Rewari region participated in a "Maternal Conference" held under the auspices of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti in the Kalgidhar Gurdwara complex here today.

While noted saint Swami Sharnanand was the chief guest, Suvidha Yadav, District Education Officer, Narnaul, presided over the conference.

Swami Sharnanand said there was a huge responsibility on the shoulders of women and they had a very important role to play in the overall development of the country.

While Suvidha Yadav emphasised upon the need of imparting higher education to girls, Chander Kanta, chief of the North India Federation of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, exhorted women to develop children into robust citizens of a vibrant India.

Several prominent female vocalists also inspired the audience with their patriotic songs.