Bathinda, December 11
The state anti-narcotics task force has developed a software to create a database of drug smugglers so as to keep tabs on their activities.

This was stated by Rajpal Meena, Inspector-General of Police, anti-narcotics task force, here today.

Meena flagged off an anti-drug rally in which 1,100 students of the Akal Academy participated. The rally passed through various areas of the city.

Meena said the database would consist of all those arrested under the NDPS Act. In the past 11 months, over 6 kg of cocaine; 169 kg heroine, 81.7 kg charas, 592 kg opium, 102 kg smack, 899 kg bhang, 19,254 bottles of Corex, 47.61 lakh capsules and 48,875 injections had been seized.

He said 4,692 cases had been registered under the NDPS Act since January and 4,828 persons were arrested in this connection.

Meena said various steps had been taken to control the drug menace, which was disturbing socio-economic condition in the state.

A comprehensive action plan to combat drug addiction, particularly in Bathinda district, had been prepared and would be launched soon. Dedicated anti-narcotics cells at Amritsar; Ferozepur; Patiala; Jalandhar and Ludhiana had been set up under the supervision of the DIGs of the ranges concerned. A helpline No 9646260000 had also been installed at the office of the IGP for information about drug peddlers, he added.

Ludhiana, December 11
The alleged failure of the municipal corporations and the municipal committees of the state to collect revenue in the form of house tax is causing a loss of over Rs 600 crore every year to the state exchequer.

Sources in the Punjab Local Bodies Department revealed that in Ludhiana, Amritsar, Sangrur, Lehragaga and Rajpura, only 12 per cent of the total tax was being paid by the public.

Official data reveals that in 2005-2006, out of 3,49,684 properties in Ludhiana, only 34,612 were paying taxes. The similar pattern was observed in Amritsar where out of 1,84, 216 properties, only 30,426 were paying taxes.

Even in small municipal committees like Sangrur, Rajpura, and Lehragaga, out of 27,778, 17,256 and 4,188 properties, respectively, only 3,638, 1,917 and 316, respectively, property owners pay revenue.

In subsequent years, there has been a regular increase in commercial and residential properties in Punjab, but even than Rs 133 crore was collected in 2008 from the civic bodies in the entire state.

Officials said, “For the comparative study, all sorts of MCs were taken. For instance Lehragaga comes in class C category, whereas Sangrur and Rajpura comes in B and A categories, respectively. Since Ludhiana has the biggest corporation in the state, it has been also considered.”

They said, “It’s not that the public is not willing to pay their taxes, but the state government is slack in collecting revenue. The red tape hinders the collection process. Besides, all bigwigs related to politicians are on the defaulters list.”

The officials said while discussions were on for property tax, slab system could work wonders and the state Local Bodies Department could earn over Rs 797 crore per year.

Chandigarh, December 11
After three days of tumultuous scenes, Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal must have heaved a sigh of relief as the much-talked about Punjab Legislative Assembly (Salaries and Allowances) and Punjab State Legislature Members (Pension and Medical Facilities Regulation) Bills were withdrawn at the last sitting of the winter session today.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Tikshan Sud while withdrawing these Bills gave no reasons. Otherwise, the House minus the main Opposition party, the Congress, not only ratified the 109th amendment to the Constitution but also unanimously adopted a few other Bills amending some of the existing Acts, like the Court Fees Act and the Punjab Lok Pal Act.

The most important enactment made today was the adoption of the Guru Ravidas Ayurved University. Once this is ratified, Punjab would join a select band of states to have separate universities for both allopathic medical education as well as ayurvedic and Unani systems of medical education.

To facilitate transfer of Indian systems of medicine and homoeopathy, both have been taken out of the purview of the Baba Farid University of Medical Sciences. An amendment to this effect was also unanimously adopted by the House before it adjourned sine die after a little over an hour’s sitting today.

Though the Leader of Opposition said that getting the Bills about steep upward revision of the salaries and allowances of the sitting members as well as pension and medical facilities regulation Bills of retired members of the House were not a priority item for her party, it was her party members who had in the last (Budget) session raised it saying that the recommendations of the general-purpose committee were not being carried out.

During the last session, the Speaker even got the recommendations of the general-purpose committee report endorsed by the House. Since the Council of Ministers, at its last meeting, had also approved to table these two Bills in the Vidhan Sabha during its winter session, their abrupt withdrawal in the absence of the Congress MLAs was intriguing.

At one stage, one of the members of the treasury benches even wanted to know the reason for the withdrawal of both the Bills but he was asked to sit down since the Bills stood withdrawn and no discussion could be allowed on that.

With the approval of setting up of yet another university in the state, the number of universities will now go up to 11. Among the new universities are two central universities in Bathinda and Amritsar.

Other universities in Punjab are Rajiv Gandhi University of Law (Patiala), Lovely University (first private university, Jalandhar), Guru Angad Dev University of Veterinary Sciences (Ludhiana), Punjab Technical University (Jalandhar), Baba Farid University of Medical Sciences (Faridkot), besides the three existing main universities - Punjab Agricultural University (Ludhiana), Punjabi University (Patiala) and Guru Nanak Dev University (Amritsar).

Chandigarh, December 11
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today came down heavily on the Congress for blocking the proceedings of the House during the current session. Condemning the act of the Opposition, Badal apologised on behalf of the House for what he called “use of derogatory ” language against Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon by the Congress.

Reacting to the CM’s statement made on the floor of the House, the Speaker said: “Those who have indulged in breach of privilege of the House will not be spared. Action will be taken against them, so that no one dares to insult the House in the future.”

He directly pointed towards Leader of the Opposition Rajinder Kaur Bhattal as being the person instigating the others. “The one who instigates is as guilty as the wrongdoer”, he said. The Vidhan Sabha had brought a privilege motion against Bhattal yesterday.

Launching a scathing attack on the Congress soon after the Question Hour, Badal said: “The demand of the Opposition with regard to the removal of the Speaker is legally and constitutionally untenable, exposes their double standards and cannot be accepted.”

Badal said the action of the Congress “betrays total ignorance of the relevant constitutional and legal provisions”. He said they (Congress) simply could not ask for someone’s removal at will. “The constitutional provision is that a person is presumed innocent till found guilty,” he said.

The CM said, “What has happened in the House is shameful and I know they (Congress) will never apologise, but I tender an apology on behalf of the House.” He said the entire occurrences in the House were “pre-planned” and part of a conspiracy to foil its functioning.

The Speaker said, “We have all heard the language and the insulting words used and for me in particular. I can say with confidence that till I occupy this chair, no disrespect to the Speaker’s position or violation of decorum in the House will be tolerated. I can assure you that the privilege motion (against Bhattal) passed yesterday will invoke the strictest of punishment that will serve as a deterrent for others in thefuture”

Kahlon said Congress leaders met him in his chamber just before the session and told him that they would raise an issue against him, but would only be done to embarrass the government that they had nothing against him. “I warned them even then not to do anything that undermines the dignity of the House,” he added. Since the Congress had walked out of the House within minutes of the start of the session, there was no one to react to Badal or the Speaker’s remarks. 

Chandigarh, December 11
The Congress staged a walkout of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha for the third time and chose not to return till the House was adjourned sine die, barely one and half a hours after it started. Announcing that it will not participate in the proceedings of the House till Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon stepped down, Congress Legislature Party leader Rajinder Kaur Bhattal said the party would bring a “no- confidence motion against the Speaker in the next session”.

Bhattal and all Congress MLAs, while talking to the media soon after the walkout, said the issues pertaining to the interest of the state could not be discussed in the current session of the House because the SAD-BJP government failed to take action against the demand of the Congress to remove the Speaker, indicted in a job scam by the CBI.

The Speaker should have stepped down on moral ground as the Congress had withdrawn support to him, they added. Bhattal added, “This constitutional post cannot be held by a person who has been prima facie held guilty on corruption charges. It is absolutely necessary for the Speaker to step down immediately in order to uphold the dignity and sanctity of this august House.”

The stalemate in the House has led to ignoring important issues like debate on PIMS, depletion of ground water, atrocities on Dalits, rising crime, deterioration of law and order, power situation, non-implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission for government employees, bad financial health of the state, non-implementation of NAREGA and other centrally sponsored schemes in the state and other important issues.

Reacting to the allegations by the Congress, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said the action of the Congress merely “exposes their hypocrisy as a number of senior Congress leaders and leaders of their supporting parties have charges framed against them and have yet occupied ministerial positions.

These include Virbhadra Singh, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Jayalalitha, Shibu Soren, Md Taslimuddin, MAA Fatmi and Jai Parkash Yadav. Besides, a number of Members of Parliament are facing criminal charges. In the case of the Speaker, it is only the report of the investigating officer and he has not even been summoned by a Court so far,” he pointed out. 

Chandigarh, December 11
Over 26,000 applications for pension from the aged, widows, handicapped and destitute are pending to be considered by the Department of Social Security, Punjab.

Answering a question raised by Makhan Singh, MLA, in the Vidhan Sabha today, Minister for Social Security Swarna Ram said 26,597 pension applications were pending with the department but these were likely to be cleared by March 2010.

Giving a break down of the pending applications, he pointed out that over 20,000 pension applications related to old age, while over 3,000 applications were from widows and another 1,421 from handicapped persons.

A similar sorry state of affairs was laid bare by Minister for Welfare Gulzar Singh Ranike, who, in a reply to another question, stated that over 30,000 cases under the Shagun scheme were pending with the Department of Welfare since 2006.

Answering a question asked by MLA Kuldeep Singh Bhattal in the Vidhan Sabha today, the minister said 31,076 cases under the scheme were pending with the department due to lack of funds. He added that 1,763 cases had been disposed of on which the government had spent Rs 264 lakh in the current financial year. He, however, admitted that the rest of the cases could not be disposed of due to paucity of funds.

In response to a question raised by MLA Balbir Singh Bath, Irrigation Minister Janmeja Singh Sekhon submitted that the water table in the Malwa region of Punjab had depleted by over eight metres in the past four years. He said the depletion of the water table in Doaba was 6.80 metres, while in Majha it was 3.36 metres. The Irrigation Minister said the depletion had been recorded from June 2005 to 2009.

He said the reason for the decline of the water table included emphasis on high-yielding varieties of wheat and paddy that consume more water, declining rainfall and less availability of surface water.

The Diwali mithai you did not have, thinking it was adulterated could have actually been good mithai. Replying to a question in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, Minister for Health Laxmi Kanta Chawla said out of the 8,765 samples that were collected by the Health Department teams in the past two years, only 1,552 were found to be adulterated. In response to another question, the minister admitted that 54 out of the total 295 machines installed in the Civil Hospital, Jalandhar, were non-functional for various reasons.

Chandigarh, December 11
Any complacency on production and distribution of food can put the country in a piquant situation warns Joginder Dyal, a member of the national executive of the CPI.

Warning the country against reduced budget allocation for food production, he says that the country must revert to a minimum 35 per cent budgetary allocation for food production as the food scarcity was becoming a worldwide phenomenon. At a recent meeting of the FAO, he said, it was projected that unless immediate measures were taken, one-third of the world may be heading for a severe food crisis in the near future.

To highlight problems related to food scarcity, rising prices of essential commodities, deterioration in law and order and agricultural and industrial crisis facing Punjab, both the CPI and CPM have decided to hold a rally in Ludhiana on December 12. AB Bardhan and Sita Ram Yechury would be the main speakers at the rally.

Talking about rising prices of essential commodities, Dyal said it was the forward trading in marketing and hoarding of food grains and essential commodities that were responsible for the rising prices.

He said amendments to laws were favouring the market forces that were hoarding huge stocks of essential commodities leading to unprecedented inflation.

He also demanded that Punjab should be extended same tax concessions as had been given to surrounding hill states of J & K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Punjab’s industry and agriculture have suffered extensively because of the flight of the industry to neighbouring hill states, Dyal added. Failing agricultural and food production, he said, was the reason for mounting debt of the farming community.

Ludhiana, December 11
The British army is luring the Punjabi youth particularly Sikhs to join the British army. Thousands of Punjabi youth, boys and girls, have reached London and other cities and are wandering around for jobs. Gurcharan Singh, retired Principal of Government Lajpat Rai Memorial College, Dhudike, who is in London these days, informed The Tribune on phone yesterday that the British army officers, accompanied by Sikh soldiers, have visited some of the gurdwaras in Southall and other suburbs of London and distributed forms for recruitment in the British army.

The British army officers visited the Singh Sabha Gurdwara, Park Avenue, which is the oldest gurdwara of southall. The British officers distributed about one thousand forms.

A large number of Punjabi youth have arrived in the UK after procuring student visa and are now moving about in Southall and other suburbs in search of jobs. Because of recession, the jobs are not easy to come.

The Punjabi language dailies and weeklies and other newspapers published in the UK have highlighted the plight of the boys and girls who have arrived here in search of jobs and studies.

“Pardes” weekly in its issue of November 30-December 6 has stated that the Punjabi youth who have come on student visa are depending on langar at gurdwaras for their food and lodging. Some of them spend their nights in parks and under the bridges.

According to the weekly, there has been a three- time increase in the influx of the Punjabi youth in London after the introduction of point-based visa in April. The BBC has also produced a documentary on the plight of the Punjabi youth visiting London. Some of the newspapers have cautioned the Punjabi parents not to send their children to the UK unless they have secured jobs and have sufficient money to stay without jobs for sometime.

The newspapers have further warned that some people are trying to exploit the girls, but social organisations and gurdwara managements are trying to come to their rescue.

“Manjit” weekly in its issue of December 3-9 has said that some of the students are going back to India.

Harjap Singh Bhangal and Gurpal Singh Uppal, immigration consultants, have also expressed concern over the situation prevailing in London and held the unscrupulous travel agents responsible for it. Travel agents in India are misleading the youth by telling them that they would be received at the airport. But no one comes to receive them, said Principal Gurcharan Singh.

Gurcharan Singh has advised the parents not to rush their children to the UK as things here are not very favourable. If they want to send their sons and daughters to the UK, they must provide them sufficient funds to lead a respectable life.

Amritsar, December 11
The Damdami Taksal (Jatha Bhindran Mehta) sect and other Sikh radical organisations today recommended a CBI inquiry and suspension of the membership of BJP MLA Harish Bedi from the Vidhan Sabha.

Submitting a joint memorandum in this regard each to Punjab Governor Gen (retd) SF Rodrigues and Amritsar Deputy Commissioner Kahn Singh Pannu, the Damdami Taksal associated with Gurdwara Gurshabad Parkash Sangrawan, Gurdaspur, condemned the Ludhiana incident and advocated to put ban on conducting such religious functions.

The radical groups have also made a special mention of religious programmes being conducted by the Nirankari Mission; Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan and Dera Sirsa and the alleged involvement of Harish Bedi and his son Hanny Bedi, in the Ludhiana incident, which claimed one life and left at least 11 injured.

“We seek CBI inquiry into the Ludhiana incident besides Harish Bedi and his son Honny Bedi. We want a stern action against those officials who granted permission for organising such functions,” said Ram Singh of the Shabad Guru Pracharak Sant Samaj.

These radical groups included the Damdami Taksal; Shabad Guru Pracharak Sant Samaj; Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji Satkaar Committee, Muchhal; All-India Sikh Students Federation, Baba Deep Singh Gurmit Vidyalaya, Jalalabad; Dharmi Fauji Lok Sangram Samiti and Jodhpur Mur Vaseba Committee.

Patiala, December 11
In a major breakthrough, the Excise Department and First Excise IRB Battalion claim to have unearthed a major racket, in which some excise officials used to allow truckers evade the mandatory toll tax at Shambhu barrier on the Punjab-Haryana border. According to officials, the practice was on for past seven years.

During surprise raids conducted at the barrier, the officials seized cash worth 14,700 from four persons, who confessed that in connivance with some excise officials, they were making quick bucks by allowing trucks to pass across the barrier without paying the mandatory tax.

Information gathered by The Tribune revealed that the IRB Excise Battalion had received a complaint that some individuals, along with excise officials and police personnel deputed at Shambhu barrier, were illegally collecting money from trucks for the past seven years.

Acting swiftly on the complaint, IRB Commandant Mandeep Singh Sidhu dispatched a raiding party, headed by Excise DSP Gurbachan Singh to verify the matter.

The raiding party nabbed Surinder S. Kala, Sikandar, his brother A. Khan and Kanshi Ram, who confessed their involvement in the racket.

“As per the investigations, Gurpreet Singh, Jaswant Singh and Sudarshan (all excise officials) are found to be hand in glove with the accused,” said the officials.

Senior excise officials have confirmed that they have already sent a letter to the Rajpura police, recommending registration of FIR under Prevention of Corruption Act against the accused officials.

Mandeep Singh Sidhu said the entire nexus was operating for over the past six years. “The truckers used to pay the accused for allowing smooth passage and tax evasion at the barrier,” he disclosed.

When contacted, Director Enforcement, Excise and Taxation Department, Punjab, K.V.S. Sidhu said departmental action would be initiated against the accused officials. 

Patiala, December 11
The Punjab Civil Medical Service-I Association has extended its support to Punjab Health Minister Luxmi Kanta Chawla in her bid to get all PCMS doctors deputed to Chandigarh for over the past five years repatriated to Punjab.

However, general secretary of the association Dr D C Sharma said it was opposed to the complete withdrawal of doctors from Chandigarh as it would dilute the claims of Punjab over the UT.

He said the association wanted that Punjab should maintain its quota of 60 per cent doctors in the UT. However, those who have already served in Chandigarh on deputation for more than a total of five years in any capacity should be repatriated to Punjab, while new doctors from the PCMS cadre should be sent to replace them.

It said the inability of the state to spare doctors because of shortage was not justified. The government should recruit an equal number of new doctors in the PCMS cadre, it opined.

Regarding the vacant promotion-based posts of PCMS doctors at senior levels in the health department, the association said that it was not only the failure of the health department but also collapse of the administrative set-up of the Punjab government.

Dr Sharma said a Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) meeting was held in December 2006 and 2008, but the personnel department of the state raised some objections and no consensus could be reached at the meetings.

He said the health department should have either dealt with the objections raised or the principal secretary of health department, who is chairman of the DPC, should have over-ruled them.

Earlier, a DPC meeting was convened on March 25, 2009, for promotion to the posts of deputy directors but again nothing could be finalised, as the personnel department said the doctors concerned, who were already in the senior medical officer scale and are actually functioning as senior medical officers for more than last ten years, should first be promoted as senior medical officers in terms of service rules and then promoted as deputy directors.

As a result of these objections, 16 posts of deputy directors, joint directors and directors, of the total of 40 posts, are lying vacant. Four more posts will fall vacant by the end of this month.