Bathinda, June 4
Whenever and wherever this teacher of Bathinda moves, the endeavour aiming at establishing a ‘harmonious man-nature tie’ takes a stride.

Providing some breathing space to environment, which has been weathering human cruelty for long, the 53-year old science teacher of a Government School, Phoos Mandi, Bathinda, Rakesh Narula, has been distributing saplings of ‘Tulsi’ (Ocimum tenuiflorum) free of cost. “What I have been handing over to people over the years is a seed of environment conservation with the plant that possesses medicinal properties,” said Narula.

Narula’s journey towards making every house have a ‘Tusli’ plant began a decade ago when he was reading a fiction related to Lord Krishna. From that day till today, he has distributed innumerable saplings of ‘Tulsi’ among the residents of Bathinda and its adjoining areas and in this way also acquired the nick name of ‘Tulsiwale baba, Tulsiwale uncle’.

Bathinda, June 4
With society, including the farmers, becoming sensitive towards the threat looming over ecology, net house farming of vegetables has started gaining popularity in Malwa, which has otherwise earned notoriety for excessive use of pesticides, fast depletion of groundwater and extreme variation of climate.

Net house farming is a concept introduced to shield the crops from insects/pest attacks, with the allurement that the crop (vegetable) is pesticide-free and fetches better price. Further, it saves groundwater as drip irrigation inside the net house is very effective. Moreover, it guards the vegetables from extreme temperatures in both winter and summer.

The main crops cultivated under the net house farming are capsicum, coriander, tomato, brinjal and hybrid seedless cucumber.

Because of its beneficial effects for farmers, consumers as well as for the environment, five farmers raised net houses on their land at Maesarkhana, Lakhi Jungle, Ghudda and Gumti Kalan villages of this district, on an experimental basis, during the past two years.

A net house in Maesarkhana village was found to be closed on all sides to check the pest attack. The double door net house was designed in such a scientific way that the outer door did not lead directly to the inner door.

Expressing satisfaction over the results of the scheme, the owner of the farm, Sukhvir Singh Sidhu said, “We all know that spraying of pesticides directly affects our health. Adopting net house farming has not only saved our expenses but also gives us vegetables free from the harmful pesticides. People prefer pesiticide-free vegetables and crops. We do not have to go to the market to sell our vegetables. Instead, people come to us. The quality of vegetables is much better than the normal produce.”

The technique is also being used to cultivate early vegetables, which starts providing income earlier than the vegetables sown in an open area. It proves beneficial for small farmers as they get higher yields and reap better profits.

The net house campaign in Punjab is being run as a joint venture by the Farmers’ Commission and the state horticulture department.

District Horticultural Development Officer Narenderjit Singh said, “Raising a net house farm is not very expensive as a net house over one kanal of land costs only Rs 1 lakh. Of this, 40 per cent is borne by the Farmers’ Commission as subsidy. Among other measures, net house farming is very effective in preventing social-cum-ecological strife.”

Bathinda, June 4
In support of their demands, including repair of the Thandi Sarak and the Hospital road, residents of Parsaram Nagar, Partap Nagar and other localities today staged protest in front of the office assistant divisional engineer (ADE), Northern Railway, Bathinda.

Besides repair of roads, the protesters under the banner of Pool Banao Sangarsh Committee led by ex-MC Vijay Kumar also demanded widening of iron bridge at the church and cleanliness of the water ‘diggi.’

The protesters reportedly snapped the power supply of the office and locked the door. Following information, officials of GRP and RPF also reached there. The protest was lifted following an assurance from ADE MP Singh of starting the repair work from Saturday, said Kumar. — TNS

Bathinda, June 4
From Monday onwards, the owners of new vehicles would get computerised registration certificates (RCs) of their vehicles instead of manually-prepared booklets.

In the first phase of computerisation of the work, the office of district transport officer (DTO) here will start issuing computerised RCs. The second phase would see the work related to issuance of computerised driving licences, which is likely to begin in a month.

To start the preparation of computerised RCs, a computer system has been installed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) at the office of DTO here. Besides, the NIC has also provided a system manager here to send the soft copies of the RCs through a computer system to the NIC at Chandigarh.

According to information, approximately 1,000 RCs of the vehicles are being prepared every month by the DTO’s office here.

Talking to TNS today, DTO Amandeep Bansal said after starting issuing computerised RCs from Monday, his office would also start issuing computerised learning driving licences, regular driving licences, renewal of driving licences and duplicate driving licences etc. He said though the efforts were being made by his office to start issuing computerised driving licences at the earliest but it would take at least a month.

The DTO said the owners of two-wheelers and four-wheelers would now get the computerised RCs from his office, instead of the Suvidha Centre here.

It is learnt that new records will only be available on the computers installed in the DTO’s office, as more staff was required to upload the entire old records on computers or the government will have to outsource the work.

The main benefit of a computerised RC to the owner of a vehicle will be that the data related to the vehicle would be stored in a secured form. It means that in case of loss, the owner would not have to face inconvenience in getting a duplicate RC from the office of DTO.

Fazilka, June 4
More than 160 years old, this town would witness a unique event on Saturday when the members of the Graduate Welfare Association Fazilka (GWAF) would start fixing taps on the open water sources to save the same to mark the World Environment Day.

The members would also put efforts to make it a peoples' movement by motivating them to adopt the open water sources in their respective localities and area and fix taps on the same to regulate the supply of water by stopping its wastage.

"Household survey has been conducted by the students of the Environment Club and Dost Model School in the three suburban localities namely Nai Abadi, Teacher Colony and Dhingra Colony. About 63 such open connections have been detected in these three colonies by the students," pointed out Navdeep Asija, secretary (Administration), GWAF.

He added, "Such open connections are not just reducing discharge pressure but also wasting almost 70 per cent of the fresh water. Low household income in these sub-urban localities is another reason for the continuation of water supply connection without any taps."

The Association would fix taps on these 63 open connections by June 2010. The Association would keep on making efforts to generate more funds so that other such connections could be corrected. The people would also be requested to adopt this practice to save drinking water and to save the fertile land of Punjab from turning into a desert, he claimed.

"Tomorrow, a team of the GWAF is going to install PVC taps (low cost, durable and theft proof) on these open connections. On an average, municipality supplies monthly about 7,000 litres of fresh water per connection, out of which 70 per cent goes waste as surface runoff. With our small initiative, we are expecting to save about three lakh litres of fresh water monthly," Asija said.

As the open connection faced problems connected with low pressure in pipes and it always made difficult for the people to get adequate supply of water. This situation had been giving rise to the number of incidents where individuals had started installing pumping motors on the water supply pipes, which had become a source of wastage of electric energy, he pointed out adding that a number of colonies of this town had been facing problems on account of water pipes without taps.

Rishab Khanna, funding director, Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN), the organisation, which is involved in the project, said, "Each individual can take up such small initiatives in their neighbourhood and we need to save the water for our next generations may be in the form of small contribution." He also proposed to promote this initiative on pan India basis through the IYCN network.

“Repair of each open connection would not cost more than the cost of one mineral water cane, but there is a huge saving of water associated with it," said Meenu Kamra, the brainchild behind the initiative.

Moga, June 4
The Vigilance Bureau has today nabbed a drug inspector for accepting a bribe of Rs 5,000 from a local chemist from his office situated on the premises of the district hospital here, this morning.

The Vigilance Bureau officials taking the drug inspector Balram Luthra into custody on graft charges in Moga. A Tribune photograph

DSP of the Bureau, Amarjit Singh Matwani, while confirming this said the drug inspector Balram Luthra had allegedly demanded Rs 15,000 per month from one Sukhdev Singh, son of Tara Singh, a resident of Dhurkot village running a chemist shop on the Akalsar road in the town on the pretext that he was selling psychotropic drugs. However, the deal was struck at Rs 5,000 per month.

The information was given to a senior official of the Vigilance Bureau posted at Chandigarh by this chemist, following which; a trap was laid down by the local officials of the Bureau to nab him.

On Friday, when the chemist handed over the amount to the drug inspector, the Bureau officials immediately raided his office and arrested him.

The bribe money of Rs 5,000 was also recovered from his possession.

A criminal case under sections 7, 13, 2 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 has been registered against him at the Ferozepur Vigilance office. He would be produced before a local court on Wednesday.

Ferozepur, June 4
To conduct the PMET in free and fair manner, the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) has taken certain “unusual measures”, never heard in any competitive exam conducted by any institution hitherto.

For the examination, to be conducted in 29 centres located in Kotkapura and Faridkot on June 6, 2010, vice-chancellors, registrars and controllers of exams of different universities dotting Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Haryana and Delhi would play the role of observers. Each centre would cater to 250 candidates.

Gazetted officers of the Punjab Government would also be deployed, along with doctors from PGI, Chandigarh, CMC and DMC of Ludhiana and other medical colleges of the state to play the role of invigilators, a step never taken by BFUHS before. A large number of bunglings, including impersonation, were found during the PMET in 2008.

“We want to bring error level in the conduct of examination to zero and, hence, we have taken certain measures,” said SS Gill, Vice-Chancellor, BFUHS, adding that thumb and finger print impressions of candidate would be taken, videography would be done and answersheets would have secret codes to block any kind of bungling into the test expected to be taken by about 7,500 candidate.

“Even pens will be given to candidates by the university authorities. Candidates photos in videos will be matched with their photos during the counselling and also at the time of joining of colleges,” he added.

Raminder Singh, commissioner, Ferozepur and Faridkot division, who presided over a meeting to review arrangements to conduct the PMET, said support was being given to the BFUHS for this task. Special buses would be plied for candidateson June 6.

Abohar, June 4
While rectifying the blunder made in census operations, more than a dozen government employees including a woman today thronged village Dhaani Des Raj that was left out earlier.

Door-to-door survey was started besides making announcement through the Gurdwara public address system. Sukhdev Raj, husband of sarpanch Vidya Bai, said a revenue patwari had earlier visited the village to mark serial number on the houses but none turned up later to collect information about the residents.

Meanwhile, it has been learnt that the first phase of the Census had been completed and documents submitted to the administration.

The staff had reportedly been directed to submit report by June 1 even when the Census was to be conducted from May 1- June 15, sources said.

Abohar, June 4
The Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA) has identified 26 unauthorised colonies that had been developed within the Municipal Council (MC) limits during the past few years.

Interestingly, most of the colonisers claiming proximity to political top brass had managed to get electricity, water and sewerage connections without paying development charges.

The Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board officials confirmed that the connections were not valid.

While responding to the MC letter, the additional chief administrator of PUDA informed that Shyam Vihar, Ganesh Vihar, Uttam Vihar, Civil Lines, Geetanjali, Ganga Vihar and Sai Vihar had been developed with sanction of the state government.

Interestingly, the Municipal Council had earlier displayed the list of such colonies on its notice board in response to the information sought by chief of the Consumer Movement and district president of the RTI Association Sat Pal Khariwal, about two years back but it passed on the buck to the PUDA asserting that the action can be initiated only by the latter. And that action is still awaited. projects.

Also there were reports that most of the colonisers were getting sale deeds of the plots in unauthorised colonies, registered in the name of the buyers in alleged connivance of the concerned department at nominal rates resulting in major loss of revenue on account of stamp duty, sources said.

Moga, June 4
A minor girl belonging to a Jat Sikh family studying in Class X, a resident of Chuhar Chak village of the Moga district, was allegedly gang-raped in a village falling under the Ludhiana district by some youths for about six weeks after abducting her from the village bus stand and also made her porn videos on a mobile .

The victim managed to escape from their clutches on Thursday and came back home, after which, the matter was reported to the police. The police has registered a criminal case under sections 363, 366, 376, 506 and 120 B of the IPC against six youths at the Ajitwal police station and launched a hunt to nab the alleged culprits.

The medical examination of the girl has confirmed that she was sexually abused. The investigating official ASI Ajmer Singh while talking to The Tribune said that the alleged accused would be nabbed soon. — TNS

Abohar, June 4
A police party led by the ASI Bikkar Singh has recovered the girl who was allegedly kidnapped by Gursaj Singh of Anand Nagari here last month.

The culprit was arrested under section 376, 363 and 366 of the IPC from Gharsana town of Sriganganagar district in Rajasthan.

The victim has been handed over to her parents, the police said.

Opium recovered: Two persons identified as Kalyan and Budh Ram of Churu district in Rajasthan were on Friday arrested under the NDPS Act upon recovery of two kg opium by a police party led by sub-inspector Darshan Singh near Dhaani Bishesharnath close to the city bypass.

Talwandi Sabo (Bathinda), June 4
After working hard round-the-clock for three months, eight students of mechanical engineering from the GGS College of Engineering and Technology (GGSCET), here, today claimed to have invented a unique four-wheeler that rotates on its own axis.

The concept is designed to solve the parking congestion, which we all face everyday. To display the functioning of the special mechanism, these students have fabricated a two-seater car-Axi-Ro--- which can rotate at 360 degree on its axis. It can turn at a radius of zero meter by toeing in and out of front and rear wheels, respectively. The wheels are toed in and out at an angle of 45 degrees with the formation of a ring that takes place at the axis of which the vehicle rotates.

To implement the toe in and toe out mechanism of front wheel, the students have installed two track rods in such a way that there is no relative movement between these two rods, by introducing a “fresh” concept of steering lock system to make possible the working of the steering.

Working upon Pro e-technique, a worm gear arrangement for steering the rear wheels was made in it. With the rotation of the worm gear clockwise and anticlockwise, rear wheels tend to toe-in and toe-out, respectively. Though the students today put the Axi-Ro on display to make one understand the basic concept, it is yet to be completed as the major component of it- DC motor is not installed in it.

Though the vehicle has provision for tri-fuel-hybrid (petrol, LPG and electricity) it is also incomplete due to non availability of the DC motor. Citing monetary constraints as a hurdle in completing the project, the students said, “We have made arrangement in the car for future installation of the DC motor whenever it is made possible.”

As the students had initiated the project by pooling their pocket money and arranging some from their parents, the special car-Axi-Ro-- over which they have spent around Rs 30,000 till date, has been fabricated with the installation of a used one-cylinder 198 CC engine of a three-wheeler auto, having four gears to give 20 BHP power. The two front tyres are of a two-wheeler scooty, while the rear ones are of the auto.

Speaking to the correspondent, the students, who developed the concept, namely, Simranjeet Singh, Saurabh Banerjee, Avinash Kumar, Vijay Kumar, Neeraj Kant, Pritam Kurmi, Manas Ranjan and Kaushal Kumar, all students of the final year B. Tech (Mechanism) said, “We know it well that our project requires a lot of improvements. Once it gets completed, we will apply for the patent.”

Admiring the efforts, college authorities gladly announced monetary support, terming it as a prestigious project. They also assured the students of arranging technical assistance from some noted automobile company.