Mohali, February 9
With the Punjab government planning big for the Mullanpur and adjoining areas beyond PGI, urbanisation has preceded the requisite infrastructure. Over a year after the state government released the master plan for the area in Chandigarh’s vicinity, construction of proper roads and provision of adequate water and electricity supply remain on paper. In fact, bumpy rides await visitors who have to negotiate weather-beaten roads to reach various project sites.

While a private realtor has already launched its mega residential project along the Chandigarh-Baddi road, the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) is facing problems in acquiring land for four laning of the Mullanpur-Siswan road and for its proposed 500 acre urban estate.

The mega projects apart, some educational institutions and a large number of farm houses, both legal and illegal, have mushroomed in the area, which appears to have become a favourite hunting ground for investors, primarily comprising bureaucrats, politicians and the influential builders’ lobby.

Based on the land use projection and projected population of 200,000 by 2031, the water and electricity demand has been put at 165 million litres per day (MLD) and 790 MW, respectively. Planning for solid waste management and the transportation network is still a far cry.

Interestingly, the planners have their logic for the development of infrastructure facilities. “Infrastructure follows development. As projects come up, developers would create the facilities. The master plan has given a blueprint of the amenities planned”, said a town planning wing official.

Acting as a catalyst, at least for the private developers and investors, the opening of the Chandigarh-Baddi road and four-lane project of the Chandigarh-Mullanpur-Siswan road has pushed up the land prices.

While releasing the master plan for the Mullanpur planning area, the state government had earmarked 6,123 hectares of the planned area to be developed in two phases. In the first phase, 5,460 hectares will be developed, while 663.4 hectares will be developed in the second phase.

“From time to time politicians had been projecting the area as New Chandigarh and then Anandgarh. Now urbanisation is taking place on the ground which will improve the quality of our lives”, said Arvind Puri, a resident of Mullanpur.

In the master plan a state-of-the-art health village, knowledge village and eco-tourism related activities have been planned on the Shivalik foothills. Consultants for the project, Jurong Ltd, has proposed recreational facilities like an amusement park, spa village, open-air theatres, theme parks and lifestyle hub including a golf course and sports facilities around the seasonal rivulets passing through the area.

In the industrial zone only high technology in the form of a science park, business park and R&D park have been allowed with a permissible FAR of 2.0 and height of 40 metres. The entire area has been divided into three zones - between Chandigarh-Mullanpur road and the PLPA area; between Chandigarh-Mullanpur road and the proposed express highway from Mohali and Anandpur Sahib; and the third below it.

Chandigarh, February 9
Agitated at not being involved at the planning level of the event, school teachers present during the Children Science Congress at the Panjab University today complained that they had not been informed about the detailed topic of discussion in the invitation letter.

Asserting that there was hardly any contribution from their end, the teachers questioned the speakers on the impact of such seminars in shaping children’s future during the question-answer round.

With the Ministry of Human Resource and Development, New Delhi, directing universities to bridge the gap between different levels of education, teachers who accompanied students today stated that the university must engage teachers at the preparation level in the future to make such events meaningful for students.

“Guests have been talking about biotechnology and life sciences for the past six hours. I have got students of the non-medical stream who have made a career choice and have nothing to do with biotechnology. Our students were not told the topic on which they should prepare questions as the letter sent to us had vague information,” said Meenakshi Jindal, a physics teacher.

Another teacher showed the letter to this correspondent, which mentioned that interaction would be on ‘open-ended scientific projects of relevance to society’. “I am a post-graduate teacher and I cannot make out what questions students can prepare after reading this,” rued a teacher of a local convent school.

Some other teachers pointed out that they were not escorts and should have been involved at a higher level if the gap between schools and the university had to be bridged. “If teachers are properly engaged, they will spread the message about what they gained from the event at the school. But unfortunately, we were not even involved,” said Kamaljeet.

Expressing concern over the fate of pure sciences in the era of ‘hybrid sciences’, some college teachers lamented the loss of relevance of pure sciences in such interactive programmes. “Biotechnology is an emerging area, but the significance of pure sciences should not be neglected. There was no discussion on pure sciences and the focus of speakers was on stem cell technology and biotechnology,” said Prof MS Marwaha of the SGGS College, Sector 26.

Nearly 600 students and 84 teachers from 73 city schools attended a session of more than six hours’ duration at a stretch. The event was held under the aegis of the National Academy of Sciences (Chandigarh chapter) and the Punjab Academy of Sciences.

Chandigarh, February 9
With a view to upgrading the police forces, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), Union Government, has sanctioned the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System (CCTNS) for Chandigarh.

A centrally sponsored project which is an expanded and extended version of the Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA), it will be implemented by 2012.

SS Srivastava, SSP, said a governance committee had been constituted for the early implementation of the project. He said SPIC had been nominated as the State Designated Agency (SDA) for the purpose.

“The project will help make functioning of the Chandigarh Police citizen-friendly and transparent. It will also aim at eliminating various unnecessary channels which come in the way of or delay delivery of citizen-centric services,” Srivastava added.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has released initial funds to the tune of Rs 61.76 lakh under the project which has been deposited in the account of SPIC.

The broad reach of the project will cover registration, investigation, prosecution, law and order, crime prevention, traffic, emergency response management, reporting and external interfacing solutions.

Chandigarh, February 9
Shivraj Patil, the Punjab Governor and Chandigarh Administrator, today delivered the valedictory address on the closing day of the 13th Punjab Science Congress held at Panjab University on the theme ‘Climate Change: Concerns and Solutions’.

Putting the three-day deliberations on track, the Governor called for a holistic and a cosmic approach to tackling the problem of climate change. “The need of the hour is to inculcate the right mindset, which is in fact the ultimate super science”, Patil said.

He said: “Respecting the eternal connection between all things, living and dead, is the spiritual duty of everyone and there would be sustainable human and environmental development only when this becomes a lifelong duty.”

While apprising the Governor of the academic and social initiatives taken by the university of late, Vice-Chancellor of Panjab University Prof RC Sobti showcased the history of the institution from the time of its inception in 1881 in Lahore.

Dr Rakesh Tuli, director National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, Mohali, was the main speaker of the valedictory session. An eminent molecular biologist and biotechnologist, Dr Tuli, focused his talk on genes and promoters for designing plants.

The Governor also presented medals to awardees of the best poster competition in various sections of the Congress. Harjit Kaur and Karan Goel won the medal in section A (Agriculture and Environment, Biosciences and Biotechnology).

JK Gill won in the section B (Applied Chemistry, Applied Physics, Sugar Technology, Food Technology and Textile Chemistry). The consolation prize was awarded to Vandana Balli. In section C, D and E, Paramjit Kaur, Ashu Paul and Rishu Kapil won, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Young Scientist Awards were given to Dr Pallavi Mittal, Kawaljit Singh Sandhu, Sukhwinder Singh Billing, Davinder Parkash, Suresh Kumar, and a pending Young Scientist Award of 2006 was awarded to Indu Chhabra.

In his report of the Congress proceedings, organising secretary and dean, Faculty of Sciences, PU, Prof AS Ahluwalia, listed the major recommendations put forth by scientists and technologists who had attended the congress from across the country and abroad.

He also thanked his team and Prof Rajan Gaur, co-organising secretary and Prof Harsh Nayyar, joint secretary of the congress.

Chandigarh, February 9
Widespread rains in Chandigarh and its neighbouring areas of Punjab and Haryana accompanied with strong chilly winds since Sunday night brought down the temperature. The maximum temperature came down marginally to 19.5 degrees Celsius today as compared to 20.1°Celsius recorded yesterday. The minimum also plummeted to 13 ° C, 0.8 °C lower than of Monday.

As per the weather experts of the Meteorology Department, the weather will remain clear with appreciable fall in night temperature in the next 24 hours in the city. The rains were caused by western disturbances," Chandigarh’s Met Director Chattar Singh said and added that Chandigarh received 12.8 mm of rains since Sunday.

Though flight schedule to and from the city remained normal, train services were delayed by 40 minutes to over an hour. The tea-vendors had a field day in the morning, as majority of rickshaw-pullers and other commuters stopped at their stalls to get some warmth in the chilling weather. Daily walkers were seen coming late for their morning walks and daily exercises. Majority of them were seen covering their heads with scarves and caps to get respite from the chilly winds that blew before the rainfall.

The farmers of Punjab and Haryana are delighted over the widespread rainfall in the region during the past 24 hours, which the farm experts say is good for the wheat crop

DS Bains, an agro-meteorological expert, said the weather was good for all in general. He said, "Rains have brought respite to all, including human beings, animals, plants, crops and vegetables.

A farmer of Banur said the leaves of the wheat crop had started turning yellow in the past few days due to dry and frosty conditions, which if continued for another couple of weeks could have hit the wheat and other crops badly.

Various parts of Punjab, Haryana had also isolated spells of rain today. The weatherman has forecast light to moderate rain or thundershowers in isolated places of Punjab and Haryana in the next 48 hours.

“We had mild spells of rainfall in most parts of Punjab and some parts of Haryana. Patiala, Ludhiana, Amritsar and Bathinda towns and predicted night temperature might fall two to four ° C in the region, the Met official said. He further said “We are expecting similar conditions to prevail in the region for the next 48 hours”.

Amritsar recorded a minimum temperature of 14.0 ° C. Ludhiana and Patiala registered minimum of 14.1 and 13.3 ° C respectively. In Haryana, Ambala recorded a low of 11.6 ° C, four degrees above average. Hisar and Karnal recorded lows of 15.6 and 14.4 ° C respectively..

Medical experts said this present spell of rain was healthy and diseases like cough, cold and respiratory problems would be solved. They added that prior to the rain, the environment was polluted due to dense fog containing virus, bacteria and dirt particles that were causing infections and allergies.

Chandigarh, February 9
Members of the executive body of the Chandigarh Sanjha Morcha and representatives of an NGO, Citizens’ Voice, held a public meeting today at Sarangpur village, better known as the proposed site for the UT administration’s scam-ridden Film City and Entertainment City projects that never took off. The administration acquired hundreds of acres of land from villagers for transferring it illegally to private players for these much-publicised projects in the name of development.

Taking note of former home minister Shivraj Patil’s appointment as the new Punjab governor & UT administrator, Chandigarh Sanjah Morcha president Kuldeep Singh Kahlon said, “We welcome the change of guard in the Chandigarh administration and hope Patil will come up to the expectations of the city’s residents. Being a senior politician and having served the country for so many years, we expect him to empathise with common people’s issues.”

Kahlon said the struggle of farmers and landowners was not aimed against any particular person or any public authority but against the “ill-conceived, shortsighted and whimsical anti-people policies framed by local bureaucrats”.

“Such policies are repressive and against the constitutional spirit. The shortsightedness of bureaucrats has also undermined the City Beautiful’s basic ideals. During the past five years the concept of a green belt around Chandigarh’s periphery has been totally destroyed, resulting in landowners and farmers becoming virtually beggars. All the villages in the union territory which were inhabited by their original residents have been destroyed.” Kahlon added.

Social activist Hemant Goswami of Citizens’ Voice said, “Since it has now been established that Film City, Theme Park and other such projects were nothing but a sham and meant to make easy money for the bureaucrats, the UT administration should return the land it acquired to the farmers to whom it rightfully belongs and cancel the acquisition notifications. In cases where requirement of land is justified and is absolutely necessary, the farmers should be given compensation at current market prices so that at least they can shift elsewhere and buy an equal amount of land to carry on with their livelihoods. If the government gives a compensation of only Rs 15 to 20 lakh per acre, all marginal farmers with holdings of a couple of acres of land would be driven to penury. With this paltry amount they wouldn’t be able to buy even a one-room apartment in Chandigarh. Besides, nowhere in the country would they be able to purchase the same amount of land”.

Chandigarh, February 9
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum II has directed Parima Through Proprietor to refund a sum of Rs 4,800, being the price of RO Water Purifier (Aquafresh), to Jasbir Singh and to reinstall the old water purifier (Nuvec) at his residence.

It has been directed to pay a sum of Rs 4,000 as compensation to the complainant for mental agony and harassment, besides Rs 5,000 as cost of litigation.

Singh mentioned in his complaint that he had purchased a RO Water Purifier (Aquafresh) on February 12 last year under the Exchange Scheme from Parima Through Proprietor for a sum of Rs 4,800, which had a warranty of one year and lifetime free service. At the time of installation of the RO system, the existing water purifier (Nuvec) was removed by the representatives of Parima.

He claimed that the said RO system stopped working within a week, as it was not drawing water. He made repeated complaints and visited the showroom, but to no avail. On March 28 last year, Deepak from Parima checked the RO system, but he failed to repair the same and stated that membrane inside the system needed to be replaced. Thereafter, he made repeated requests to Parima for replacing the part but he was told that the said part was out of stock and it would be replaced within a day or two on receipt of the same.

Ultimately, a legal notice was served on Parima on April 6 last year, but to no effect.

The order stated that Prima needed to pay the same within a month from the date of receipt of its certified copy, failing which it shall be liable to refund the amount of Rs 8,800 to the complainant, along with penal interest at 18 per cent per annum from filing of the complaint i.e. June 25 last year till its realisation besides cost of litigation.