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Menace of Private Buses, Auto-rickshaws
Atta-Daal Scheme |
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2 weeks on, PSEB consumers a harried lot
New lease of life to septuagenarian
Young World Students
of Sri Guru Harkrishan Sr Sec Public School perform during their annual
function in Amritsar. A Tribune photograph
Probe involvement of cops in criminal cases: KMO
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Menace of Private Buses, Auto-rickshaws G.S. Paul/Tribune News Service
Amritsar, January 22 Though not an unusual issue for the city, if these two public modes of transport get in order, at least 75 per cent of the traffic snarls can be avoided. Nevertheless, the task is tedious. Reason: majority of these two transport modes are being owned either by the police officials or ministers. So, no points for guessing, why their shortcomings and violating the rules being ignored? This correspondent spent over two hours at the crossing just opposite to Municipal Corporation’s office gate zone 7 and 7-A, on the Majitha road, to observe the cause of an “all time” massive traffic jam over there. It was found that despite the clear cut instructions being displayed on the notice board that no passenger would be picked up or dropped at this point, the private bus operators as well as auto-rickshaw drivers halt their vehicles to pick up or drop the passengers, resulting in jamming the heavy volume of traffic coming behind. Ironically, the policemen deputed there too apparently seemed helpless, probably, they were well aware about the antecedents of bus or auto owners. When this correspondent pointed out the notice board, carrying instructions of the SSP, City, about not letting the buses or autos halted at that spot, to the cops retorted. “What can we do? Majority of these buses have been owned by one Punjab minister. If these drivers complain about any of us, we would be instantly rebuked and punished. So, we avoid indulging in any altercation with them,” told the helpless cops on the spot. “This board is there for quite a long time. Nobody bothers to what has been written on it?” they said. While asking for the identity card of this correspondent, they added, “Do not waste our time and energy for unnecessary reasons, talk to the SSP on whose behalf these instructions have been written”. And they chose to ignore. On another occasion at the Lawrence Road, hoards of overloaded auto-rickshaws carrying schoolchildren enter from the prohibited way and during the school break, this stretch becomes a hub of traffic jams and honking of horns. Here too the cops were helpless. “Most of these autos are being driven on daily rental basis, so they hardly bother to get its permit being cancelled. Moreover their owners would be influential ones. So you end up sparing them by just giving them hollow warning”, was the reply of policemen deputed on the Lawrence Road. Anyway, their network was quite well knit. As soon as these autos reach the point just opposite to Lawrence Road chowki, they were stopped and “warned” for not using this route again. But, it is yet to see, how long these warning would have an effect on them.
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Govt wakes up, admits lapses
G.S. Paul/Tribune News Service
Amritsar, January 22 Questions, however, are being raised over the authenticity of the survey carried out in 2007 to identify the “needy” families and the liability of administrative officials to be fixed for this lapse. The food and supplies wing of the Amritsar administration, after a lapse of over two years, has woken up to find that the wheat flour and pulses on special economy rates under the scheme are being misused by the “not so needy” families too and, therefore, thousands of blue cards should be withdrawn.
Though these steps are being initiated to rectify the lapse, all is apparently still not well with the department policy and the government’s notification over the scheme has been solving little purpose. As per the laid-down conditions, the prominent clause was that families with an annual income not exceeding Rs 30,000 from all sources, do not have any land or property and are devoid of the modern luxuries like car, scooter, motorcycle, refrigerator, airconditioner, etc., should be provided with an identification in the shape of a blue card. This card would enable them to have basic essential commodities like wheat, rice, pulses, kerosene at subsidised rates. But scores of persons, who otherwise fall under the category on the basis of less income were being denied benefits because they have little luxuries in their homes. A domestic help was denied benefits of blue card because she had a concrete entrance and the gate of her house was located opposite to New Amritsar. An auto driver’s card was not accepted because he had an autorickshaw financed in his name. Another victim rued that since she had a gas connection in her name, her card was cancelled. Officials of the Civil Supplies Department confirmed that the probable lapse had been noticed now and withdrawal of these economy cards happened to be an exercise to rectify the fault committed during the survey in 2007, but failed to give a satisfactory reply on the eligibility criterion. Around one lakh cards were issued by the department in Amritsar and till date around 6,000 cards have been cancelled. Nevertheless, fingers are being raised over the credibility of those negligent officials who did not perform their duties in letter and spirit while carrying out the survey done two years back and misinformed the state department. “Because of their folly, ration worth crores has been squandered and no one but the state exchequer bears the brunt of it all. Who is liable for it all?”, questioned residents. OfficialSpeak: Anjuman Bhaskaran, District Food and Supplies Department: The cards are being cancelled because it was discovered recently that many families concealed their credentials during a survey done earlier. Most of them were pension holders, ex-defence personnel etc. but still I do not say that it’s an error-free exercise. Lapses still remain. If some genuine persons are being victimised by our officials, stern action would be taken against them.
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2 weeks on, PSEB consumers a harried lot
Amritsar, January 22 The slow pace of the functioning of the PSEB has come to notice as these automatic machines, installed at different locations in the city, have been out of order for the past two weeks. Automatic cash and cheque receiving machines are located at Hall Gate, Sultanwind, Madan Mohan Malviya Road, Ranjit Avenue and Verka. A consumer, Ranjit Singh, resident of Sultanwind, said he had to incur a penalty for his inability to pay the electricity bill within the stipulated time. He said first he could not pay the bill through the broken down machine and then had to stand in a queue for long hours at the cash receiving counter, but to no avail. He said grudgingly that he had to again spend more hours in the queue for paying the bill. The tall claims of the PSEB of offering public convenience services notwithstanding, the people, including the aged, women and working, coming from far-off places to deposit their bills, found these machines in disarray and then had to go to cash counters. Superintending Engineer (City Circle) Balbir Singh said the software of the cash and cheque receiving automatic machines had developed a snag and the Mumbai-based software company had been asked to fix the trouble at the earliest. He said that power back-up would be provided to these automatic machines to assure their uninterrupted working. With a view to easing pressure on cash receiving counters, he said another option of paying bills was made for the public on net billing. However, he said, it was yet to pick up in this area. He said posters were pasted at cash receiving counters and advertisements were carried in newspapers to popularise the net billing mode.
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New lease of life to septuagenarian
Amritsar, January 22 Thanks to the Cardiothoracic team at the Fortis Escorts Hospital Amritsar which, in one of the rarest reported cases, the team here successfully removed a giant tumor from the chest of this 72-year-old woman and also reaffirmed faith in the infrastructure and expertise available in the country. Narrating the patient’s history, Dr Pankaj Goel, Chief Cardiac Surgeon, who led the team, said she consulted many top notch doctors with a CT scan of the chest which showed a giant tumor on the left side. The tumor appeared to be arising from the left upper portion of the lung. It was compressing the lung and was so huge that it pushed the heart to the opposite side. It was also compressing the arteries carrying blood to the lungs. A needle biopsy was done and it turned out to be a non-cancerous tumor. The only option was surgery, but she was turned down by many hospitals due to the high risk of the operation and mortality. With a prospect of certain death, if not treated, Dr Goel, who decided to take up the challenge, said, “The first impression from the scans was that we would have to remove the entire left lung, which was a major operation for a 72-year-old person. Another challenge was to preserve the arteries arising from the heart, as any damage to them would have been fatal”. Nevertheless, the surgery, which lasted for more than four hours, was performed by Dr Goel (Chief cardiac Surgeon) and his team, assisted by anaesthetist Dr. Rajesh Arora. “A special anaesthesia tube for only one lung ventilation was used. The entire chest was opened and the heart lung machine was kept as standby. The tumor was skillfully dissected out of the chest and the arteries. The most remarkable thing was that the patient’s lung could be saved. The tumor was 17x12 cm and weighed nearly 3 kg”, said Dr Goel. The occurrence of such a large tumor is rare, with less than 200 cases reported world over, informed Dr Goel. Dr HP Singh, Medical Superintendent of the hospital, said Cardiac Bypass Surgery, Valve Replacement etc. are now routinely-conducted surgeries at this hospital, but this team has exceptional skills which are rare to find even at bigger centres across the country. Jasdeep Singh, Director
of the hospital, congratulated the entire team. |
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Students undertake cleanliness drive
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, January 22 Talk on environment
Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia, Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, Punjab University, Chandigarh, delivered a lecture on environmental planning in the Seminar Hall of BBK DAV College for Women. Member of its National Committee on International Year of Planet Earth (a UNO Programme) and a visiting scholar, Geology, Department of University of Cincinnati, Ohio, Dr Ahluwalia displayed eye-opening video-clips based on water-scarcity and impacts of global warming. He had an interesting interaction-session with the faculty and students of Department of Physics and life-sciences of the college. He visited College Library, Department of Bio-Informatics, Physics Lab, Chemistry, Nanotechnology Labs and digital library.
Date with engineer
Tejinder Aulakh, a mechanical engineer from Intel Corporation, here today said although a mechanical engineer remains at the background in computer industry, he/she plays a crucial role in its design. He was addressing staff and students of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Global Institutes on ‘The Role of a Mechanical Engineer in Designing the Computer.’ About important qualities of an engineer, he said apart from sound technical knowledge they needed to imbibe excellent communication skills so that they could explain and sell the ideas effectively. He said unlike system of American education, the Indian education system lay solid foundation for higher studies in the students. Vice-Chairman A.S. Chandi of the Institute also addressed the students. |
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Probe involvement of cops in criminal cases: KMO
Tarn Taran, January 22 The KMO leaders said according to information collected through the RTI Act, it was said that there were as many as 1,398 policemen facing different criminal cases and of them 863 were facing criminal proceeding in different courts, whereas inquiries were pending against 505 others. The leaders said that the sad side of the picture was that 30 policemen had been convicted by the courts and even though 28 of them had not been dismissed by the Police Department as they had been getting their salaries as usual. They added that many other policemen had been facing inquiries. They said inquiries in 35 cases had been pending for the past 10 to 15 years, whereas in 45 cases, inquiries had been pending for past about five to 10 years.
— OC |
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