NEIGHBOURHOOD

Wheat on 24 acre gutted
Tribune News Service

Ambala:Wheat crop spread over 11 acres in Kaulna village, near Ambala City, was gutted in a fire today. The wheat was ready for harvesting.Wheat crop on four acres belonged to Gurmail Singh while another farmer of this village also lost four acres of wheat crop in this fire.

The crop of around three acres of Harvinder Singh and Amar Singh was also destroyed in the fire.

Two fire tenders were pressed into service to control the fire, but the entire crop was turned into ashes causing a loss of lakhs of rupees to farmers. The exact cause of the fire could not be ascertained so far, but the villagers were of the view that the spark in the electric wires passing through the field could be a reason behind the fire incident.

The victim farmers demanded compensation from the state government. Wheat crop on eight acres had burnt in the Naraingarh area a few days back due to short-circuit. The farmers have been demanding that the administration should establish fire station close to the villages, especially in the harvesting time during the summers.

Patiala, April 10
Council of junior engineers, PSEB, has decided to go on strike on April 15 and 16 in view of the decision of the Punjab Government unbundle the PSEB. Hence, all junior engineers and additional assistant engineers (JE-1) working in various organisations will proceed on strike from April 14 midnight.

This was informed to the press by Davinder Singh, general secretary of Council of Junior Engineers, PSEB.

Swarn Lal and Davinder Singh, president and general secretary of the Council, respectively, informed that unbundling of the Board would be a suicidal step as wherever the electricity boards were unbundled, most of them failed to achieve commercial viability despite huge financial support at the time of unbundling and thereafter. The subsidy burden of the states had increased after unbundling.

The T&D losses in all states with the unbundling were more than that of the PSEB. Even after unbundling, some of the distribution companies in Rajasthan, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and UP were bigger than the PSEB.

Even interference in day to day working has increased after unbundling.

They further said unbundling of the PSEB was a high risk, low return and irreversible process, which was not desirable in a state where there was a peak power shortage of 40 per cent and no new project was likely to be commissioned before a period of at least three years.

Council leadership also made it clear that junior engineers and employees were not struggling for their own demands and they were rather fighting the cause of various stake holders such as farmers and poor consumers as they were bound to suffer due to unbundling.

The Council further said the junior engineers and other employees were on peaceful struggle and appealed to the consumers of the state to extend their support and bear with the inconvenience, if any, due to the agitation of the employees.