Jalandhar, February 2
Engulfed in the smog generated by the industry, residents of Prem Nagar and its surrounding areas live on polluted air. Terms like “Copenhagen” or “low-carbon emissions” are yet to reach these shanty dwellings as the “settlers” have no approach to the offices of bureaucracy.

The magnitude of the problem can be gauged from the fact that some of the families of this locality were left with no option but to vacate their homes.

A pungent air welcomes you as you enter the area. Streets lie strewn with thousands of particles of limestone and ash. Sewer channels have been blocked for months.

Sound of generators, used to provide power to the industry, adds decibels to the deteriorated surroundings.

Nobody knows the concepts of distilled or clean drinking water. All in all, the place is ruled by diseases, pollution, clique of owners of industries, politicians and bureaucrats.

While talking to The Tribune, Prem Nagar Welfare Society vice-president Maan Singh said, “We have approached all offices from the Punjab Pollution Control Board, the Municipal Corporation, the Deputy Commissioner and the electricity board. However, none of the officer concerned is ready to give an ear to our problem. Factory owners use bulk of LPG and other highly inflammable materials in the factories. It seems that the authorities are waiting for a big tragedy.”

Gurmeet Kaur, who has been living in the locality for the past 20 years, said the environment of the area was not conducive to her children for study owing to the deafening sounds of generator sets. “Our children are not able to study in this environment. Mushrooming of factories in the area has also given a rise to anti-social activities. My neighbour left her home as her home faces one such factory. Factory owners propagate that this area is not a residential but an industrial one. They encroach upon our houses, health and personal lives,” she laments.

However, officials of the Pollution Control Board confirmed that they had little room to act.

“Factories, about which residents complain, run after getting authorisation from the office of the District Town Planner. It’s the job of the office to decide whether this is an industrial or a residential area. We can take action only after that,” said PPCB environment engineer Harbir Singh.

“We have already served a show-cause notice on the owner which aims at directing him to lower the level of pollution. We are no authority to direct them to shift the industry until the category of this locality is established,” he added.

On the other hand, District Town Planner Inderjit Singh said he was not adequately aware of the status of the locality as he joined the office just a few days back. But the president of the Welfare Society claims that the locality is a residential area.

“The environment here is not conducive to running an educational institute. Continuous voice of hammers hinders the smooth functioning of the institute. No one has a clue whether the area is industrial or residential,” said Munish Mehta, who runs a private school in the locality.

Jalandhar, February 2
For the villagers of Chamiara near Jalandhar, the solar streetlights were nothing short of a miracle as the lights get automatically switched on after the sunset and get off in the morning hours. Courtesy: the Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA), which has taken the task of spreading awareness and helping the common man adopt non-conventional energy.

The people of the village woke to the solar way of life after some of them visited the ‘Exhibition Vans of PEDA’ where they learnt about various solar equipments. “The villagers approached us after they received funds from the panchayat in this regard. It was one of our office employee who was also the resident of this village who created awareness about the solar products,” said Yashpal, Executive (Technical) at the PEDA office.

The solar streetlights work on the concept of two solar panels (37 Watt each) and 12 volt or 75 AH battery with a subsidised cost of Rs 15,000.

Talking to The Tribune, the authorities claimed that people are becoming aware of the solar energy and its uses and there has been a rise in the number of queries pertaining to such devices. Under PEDA the major thrust is given to promotion, development and implementation of non-conventional sources and collection of energy date to build a reliable database to provide information to the state government to form its future energy policy.

Last year the residents of Pandori village falling under Nakodar sub-division got installed four biogas plants in their village. While 10 biogas plants were installed in Lohian Block.

Highlighting the use of solar equipments, the PEDA officials maintained after making one time investment as compared to electrical appliances, a layman can enjoy benefits for a longer period of time. “Right from the solar street lights to solar water pumps, solar cookers, solar invertors and solar water heaters one can rely upon these alternative energy technologies”, he added.

The PEDA officials maintained that with the gradual decline in conventional sources of energy and resultant increased environment pollution, people will have to adopt the non-conventional sources of energy in the coming times. “We conduct solar exhibitions in schools and colleges to make students aware about the abundant supply of renewable sources in the form of sun”, he maintained.

Even the local DAV College also got installed solar water heater in their hostel recently. “We have received queries from some other local educational institutes for the solar devices as well”, he said.

However, lack of mass awareness programmes about solar energy by PEDA at the grassroots has marred its popularity. Replying to this query, ADC (D) Sarojini Gautam Sharda said she has directed the local PEDA officials to distribute the literature and put up billboards in the city for mass awareness. “In fact I recently got a billboard installed right atop my office at the local district administrative complex as a move to popularise solar energy equipments”, she added.

Kapurthala, February 2
The district police played an important role in getting a boy reunited with his family residing in Bihar. DSP Bahadur Singh and Sadar SHO Sarabjeet Rai handed over Mankeshwar Ram to his father Nageena Ram on Monday after finding him from a potato farm at Jassal village falling under Dhilwan police station.

A student of fifth standard, Mankeshwar Ram (11) had run away from his house located at Jagirhara village falling under Balthar police station in Western Champaran Betia of Bihar on December 17, as he was annoyed with his father Nageena Ram because he had scolded him for not attending school.

According to police sources, his parents tried to find him from the places of his relatives and friends but to no avail.

On a lucky day, one Manoj Paswan made a call (from his mobile number 9855941775) from the New Delhi railway station to Mankeshwar’s father and informed that he had found his child there.

Nageena’s son also talked to him on his mobile.

Thereafter, Paswan lost his mobile as whenever Nageena tried to contact him on his phone, he could not succeed.

At this, he contacted the Delhi police, who managed to get information that the mobile number had been issued in Kapurthala. Subsequently, he reached Kapurthala and tried to find him in Sultanpur Lodhi and surrounding areas.

When he could not find his son on his own, he met SSP Ram Singh who constituted a team, led by DSP Bahadur Singh including SHO Sadar Sarabjeet Rai, ASI Sucha Singh and head constable Gursharan Singh, as its members.

The police sources said when the team came to know that the sim to the mobile number had been issued from a particular shop which was found to be closed for the past two-three months, they procured the call details of this number from which they came to know that several calls from this number had been made to a particular number of Bihar.

After calling that particular number, the police team found Paswan working at Sangha Potato Farm in Jalalabad of Tarntaran district. Paswan informed the police that Mankeshwar was staying at another potato farm located at Jassal village, falling under Dhilwan police station.

The Sadar SHO provided a track suit, chappals and Rs 1,500 cash to Mankeshwar, ASI Sucha Singh told The Tribune. The 11-year-old boy was finally reunited to his family by the Kapurthala cops. 

Jalandhar, February 2
It has become an established notion that the delivery of babies without the facility of electricity is a thing of past. However, the case is slightly different when we talk about the city that we live in.

Even today, most of the 24X7 health centres in Jalandhar, which were established solely to promote institutional deliveries, run without the facility of generators.

Nearly 15 health centres in the district have been established as 24X7 units.

Women of villages situated around these centres have been told to deliver their babies in these centres to promote safe deliveries. However, emergency power facility is non-existent in 10 of these centres.

“The situation gets worse during the night hours when we are left with no other option but to assist deliveries in torch light. Similarly, it is nearly impossible to maintain disinfection of instruments and other minor surgical equipments and dressing materials without electricity. Rural areas, in which these centres are established, usually suffer from power failures, especially in the summers. Due to the absence of these basic facilities, people never take risks and usually find their way to private clinics,” said a staff nurse, requesting anonymity.

However, health authorities have refuted claims that the absence of this facility is shadowing the basic aim of NRHM.

“As of now, these centres provide services only during the day hours. Hardly any case is reported during the night hours”, said the District Family Welfare Officer Dr. Maninder Minhas.

“The staff posted at these centres is not available during the night hours”, she added, when asked about the reasons of very few reports during the night hours.

In addition to this, these centres run without boundary walls and security persons.

“Most of these centres are located in the outskirts of villages. How can anybody expect that a female medical officer or staff nurse stay can stay in these centres during night hours”, said a staff nurse. 

Jalandhar, February 2
Students exhibited their knowledge and technical skills at “Plasma-2010”, an intercollegiate IT fest organised by the Department of Computer Science and IT of Lyallpur Khalsa College.

Students from 26 colleges participated in 280 events, including website development, IT collage, logic whirlpool, ad-mad show, idea snapshot, net savvy, and IT in colours.

Phagwara, February 2
The Punjab government has sanctioned Rs 38 crore for the installation of a water treatment plant near Hadiabad, a sub-town of Phagwara, and laying sewer lines from the local Mohalla Gobindpura to Hardasspur Bein.

This was announced by Technical Education, Industrial Training, Social Justice, Women and Child Development Minister Chaudhary Swarana Ram while addressing a gathering after distributing cheques for Rs 18.9 lakh among the beneficiaries under the various welfare schemes here today.

He said the residents of Bhagatpura, Gobindpura, Santokhpura, Onkar Nagar, Tibbi and several low-lying areas, who were facing inconvenience due to stagnation of rainwater and sewage, would benefit after completion of the project.

The minister disclosed that people residing in jhuggis would be provided a financial aid of Rs 1.35 crore to construct temporary dwelling units. He said the government was providing 10 per cent reservation in colleges for poor and handicapped students.

Earlier he distributed Rs 5.10 lakh among poor persons for the repair of their kutcha houses and Rs 6.30 lakh among 42 beneficiaries to solemnise the marriages of their daughters. He also distributed scholarships worth Rs 2.69 lakhs among 14 brilliant poor students and gave Rs 4 lakh to two riots victims families.

SDM Amarjeet Paul, Tehsildar Harminder Singh, Naib-Tehsildar Mulakh Raj, Improvement Trust Chairman Tejaswi Bhardwaj and Market Committee Chairman Sarwan Singh Kular were also present on the occasion.

She said that warnings by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal given to the civil and police officials at a meeting had proved that the government was losing its grip from on the administration. She alleged that the people were fed up with the wrong, corrupt and selfish policies and now were waiting for the return of the Congress to power. — OC

Jalandhar, February 2
Thanks to the high slabs of VAT, labour shortage, unbridled electricity cuts and increased cost of raw material, the Jalandhar sports industry is going through tough times. When the Khel Udyog Sangh was demanding the scrapping of VAT to zilch, acting on the contrary the government increased it further to 5 per cent.

While cheap labour is the foundation of industrialisation, export oriented policies of the state government are the strongest pillars of its sustenance and promotion. The recent hike in VAT and shortage of skilled/unskilled workforce has marred the already weak industry, plunging it further into one of the worst-ever crisis. According to sources, the production in most of the sports units has dipped by about 30 per cent in the past six months.

“Adoption of the recommendations made by the Sukhbir-Kalia committee shows a policy change at the level of the government. While it emphasises on pocketing money by levying unjust charges on the people, hardly does it bother about their affording capacity. At the first place customers prefer Meerut over Punjab as the VAT is zero there. There is no C-Form required for interstate sales and it charges 0 per cent CST to all their dealers where in Punjab the charge on CST is 2 per cent with a Form-C. Now the government has dipped our hopes further by increasing the VAT rates. Why will customers come here when they can get the same stuff for cheaper rates in Meerut?” asked Ramesh Anand of Clix Sporting Goods.

While old problems were not solved, new ones were added to make the situation grimmer. Shortage of raw material like Kashmir willow cleft, mulberry wood and good quality leather was a problem, now, the recent hike in their duty has made it worse. Competition from China, acute electricity shortage and the alleged wrong policies of Punjab government has increased the woes of the traders in Sports industry.

Since 1980 the sports industry of Punjab is facing sharp competition from Meerut due to disparity in the race of Central Sales Tax and other incentives. While the government of Uttar Pradesh is promoting the sports industry, the Punjab government is lacking far behind. “Even at present, the rate of VAT in UP is zero whereas it is 5 per cent in Punjab. The dealers from all over the country make purchases from Punjab only when their orders are not fulfilled from Meerut. Meerut industry is flourishing not because of the incentives given to them by the UP government but because of the anti-industry policies of the Punjab government,” said Ravinder Dheer, convener of the association against VAT.

“How will the industry survive when the Industry Minister of Punjab has no regards for his own words? Manoranjan Kalia had promised that immediately after the Lok Sabha elections, the Punjab government would look into the matter and slash the VAT to zero. It was only on his promise that the sports industry had called off its 14-month-old agitation. But now after more that 9 months of his promise, the government has instead increased it further,” added Dheer.

Shortage of labour, especially after December tension in Ludhiana, has also impeded the growth. “The industry at present is facing 40-50 per cent workforce shortage. The situation is so grim that some of the units are almost on the verge of closure. The inflow of migratory labourers had reduced due to the implementation of centrally funded schemes like NREGA in Bihar, UP and other poor states. The December tension has increased the problem. The workers who were earlier ready to work for a salary of Rs 2500, now demand a minimum of Rs 4000,” added Ramesh Anand. He said Punjabi workforce is more skilled and demand higher wages, hence not feasible for the industry in this time of crisis.

“Suppose if we get a huge order, we won’t be in a position to fulfill it. Electricity cuts and labour shortage will not allow us… the government should look into our problems and promote the industry by giving incentives on the lines of Jammu Kashmir, Uttaranchal, Himachal and Uttar Pradesh,” he concluded.