Chandigarh, June 5
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has indicted the UT’s department of food and supplies for committing irregularities in maintenance of Below Poverty Line (BPL) and Above Poverty Line (APL) cards and monitoring of procurement, allocation and distribution of food grains.

A 10-page report prepared by the CBI following a surprise raid conducted by the bureau at five out of a total 39 fair price shops being run by the UT administration revealed that all those were running without a valid licence, which had not been validated after March 31, 2008.

In a detailed report which comprised a statistical break-up of anomalies of each, the CBI specifically pointed to how the UT’s Secretary of the department, Ram Niwas, had failed to give personal attention in monitoring issuance of monthly utilisation certificates in contravention of specific guidelines of the Government of India.

A government guideline dated March 16, 2009, applicable to the union territory of Chandigarh, required that food grains allocated under the targeted public distribution system ‘be utilised only for purpose for which the same have been allocated’.

All state/UT governments were required to regularly furnish a monthly utilisation certificate under the PDS Control Order, 
2001 within 60 days of the end of each allocation month.

However, the CBI report stated that no such monitoring was done and the monthly utilisation certificate was never sent despite personally asking the secretary of the department, Chandigarh.

The report further observed that the department had not issued any instructions to maintain and preserve records of the fair price shops.

The CBI report also observed that the department had no record to correlate as to how many BPL, APL and Antyodaya Anna Yojna cards had been allotted to the fair price shops to arrive at a conclusion of entitlement of PDS rice of the shops. For this, the department had been completely relying on owners of these shops.

The CBI report accused the department of having misrepresented facts by falsely stating that the Punjab government was issuing 35 kg of ‘atta’ (wheat flour) to APL card holders per month to increase the allocation to each APL card holder family of four and more than four units. The report was sought under the Right to Information Act, 2005, by RK Garg, a city resident.

When specifically asked to comment on the CBI’s observation report that he had failed to personally monitor and furnish the monthly utilisation certificate, Ram Niwas avoided a direct reply. He chose to say 30 officials belonging to a department other than that of the food and supplies had conducted a door-to-door survey of over 5,000 families of APL beneficiaries. “There was not even a single complaint from any card holder about irregularities in the distribution system,” he said.

Records revealed that the CBI submitted its report on March 3, whereas the survey of 5,604 APL beneficiaries was done for January under the supervision of Deputy Director of the department of food and supplies Prerna Puri, SDM(East) Abhishek Dev and Assistant Commissioner J Ashok Kumar from February 10 to 16.

Ram Niwas said the department was starting with a trial of smart cards from June 7, which would enable the central server to know exactly how many kilograms of ‘atta’ and rice had been distributed in order to pre-empt any anomaly.

Chandigarh, June 5
“None of us can believe that Maninder can murder someone.” This was the first expression of Tajinder Kaur, elder sister of Maninder Singh, who was arrested by the Karnal police for murdering his ‘girlfriend’ Renu at the Karna Lake in Karnal today.

While his inconsolable mother, Bhupinder Kaur, was not in a position to talk, Tajinder and Lucky, his cousin, said they did not judge anything suspicious in the behaviour of Maninder when he left the house at Sector 30-B around 6:45 am today.

While Maninder reportedly confessed that he murdered Renu, a BSc student at MCMDAV College, Sector 36, because she was allegedly ditching him, the family members claimed that they had no idea of his affair with the victim, who had been living as a tenant at their house about one year back.

Twentyone-year old Maninder, the only son of his parents, worked with an automobile company at Zirakpur.

His father, Joginder Singh, a carpenter by profession, met with an accident two years back and was bed-ridden since then.

Tajinder claimed that he had a talk with Maninder around 9 am today and he told her that he would drop her at her husband’s house in Mohali in the evening.

“My father, along with my cousins, have left for Karnal. Only after meeting Maninder would we come to know what had happened exactly,” said Tajinder.

Electricity wires dangle in the middle of the road at Sector 27, Chandigarh,on Saturday.Tribune photo: Manoj Mahajan

Panchkula, June 5
The last night’s high-speed dust storm claimed the life of a 24-year-old boy. The victim, who was driving an Alto car, hit a tree due to poor visibility resulting in his death.

The victim, identified as Jaiveer (24), a resident of Barwala, was going to Jagadhri along with his friend Satya. As soon as they left the town at 9.30 pm they were caught in the dust storm and hit their car into a tree near Rajju Majra village on Barwala-Ambala road causing severe head injuries to Jaiveer.

He was taken to the Sector 6 General Hospital where doctors declared him brought dead. His friend, however, escaped with minor injuries. The body was handed over to the family members after the post-mortem.

Various unipoles located at various roundabouts in the city fell after the dust storm. One of the unipoles fell on a house in Sector 9. It also damaged the electricity wires passing through the area. However, the authorities immediately swung into action and lifted the unipole from the site with the help of a JCB machine. Two antennas also fell from the sixth floor of a society at Sector 20 and children playing outside had a miraculous escape. The power and water supply was hit in the district and people had to spend the whole night without power. The water supply was also disrupted in the morning, as tubewells didn’t function due to power failure.

The condition was worse in the surrounding townships such as Pinjore, Kalka, Barwala and Raipur Rani where the power supply was restored only this evening. The water pressure in the city was low.

Hundreds of trees were also uprooted and some of these fell on the high-tension wires. A total of eight poles of high-tension wires and six low-tension wires passing through Pinjore-Kalka fell disrupting power supply in the area and authorities had to close down the 132 KV power station at Pinjore which supplies power to Mallah and Shahpur sub-stations. Meanwhile, president of the Citizen’s Welfare Association SK Nayyar lashed out at district administration for failing to supply water. He said authorities should have pressed generators into service.

Chandigarh, May 5
The tricity woke up to widespread havoc caused by a dust storm, followed by rain, last evening. Two persons were killed in two separate road mishaps on the Chandigarh-Ambala and Panchkula-Barwala roads.

Charanjit of Baltana, who was injured in an accident, succumbed to head injuries at the Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32.

Jaiveer of Barwala, who suffered head injuries when the car he was driving hit a tree, was declared brought dead at the General Hospital, Sector 6, Panchkula.

Trees were uprooted along several busy roads of the tricity, leading to disruption of traffic. The storm disrupted power and water supply in many parts of the city. Telephone services in different parts of the city were also hit as falling branches of trees snapped telephone cables.

The sudden occurrence of the storm brought down the mercury considerably, giving much respite to city residents even as power supply to the city was disrupted. Several localities of the city were hit hard as power could not be restored till the morning.

Water supply to many parts of the city, especially its villages, fed from tubewells, was disrupted due to power failure. Water supply could be restored only in the afternoon, said an officer of the public health wing of the municipal corporation.

The rain, which followed the dust storm, brought the maximum temperature down to 35.2°C, against 39.4°C recorded yesterday.

The minimum temperature dipped to 22.3°C, compared to 28.5°C recorded on Friday. The city recorded 9.4mm of rainfall, said a Met department official.

The Met office said sudden change in the weather pattern last evening was due to a low pressure created over the city.

The weatherman predicted a partly cloudy sky, with possibility of rain and thundershowers in the next 48 hours in the region.

While the maximum temperature is likely to be around 38.0°C, the minimum temperature was likely to be around 25°C.

Mohali, June 5
The Mohali Police would seek legal opinion in the inquiry being conducted into the circumstances leading to the death of Dr Gurpreet Kaur, mother of YPS Class VII student Rattanpreet, who was allegedly thrashed by his two teachers during a trip to Manali recently.

On receiving the distress call from Rattanpreet, she had suffered a cardiac attack on May 28, her family alleged.

Demanding money back from a teacher during a trekking trip to Manali last week had proved costly for 13-year-old Rattanpreet, his classmates had earlier alleged.

After the incident, the school authority had shunted out the two teachers, who had accompanied students to the trip.

Dr Barinder Singh, husband of the deceased, had complained to the police authorities about the circumstances leading to the death.

Stating that an inquiry would be conducted within a week, an official said the police was questioning all persons related to the incident, including the students, the sacked teachers and family members of the victim.

“It would too premature to comment whether a case could be made out or not,” said the official.

Chandigarh, June 5
Worst fears of horticulture experts came true, as they spotted an uprooted tree at the rear side of Hotel Shivalik View on the World Environment Day today. Fifteen-year-old Chakrasia tree with a trunk of around 3-ft diameter was one of the 63 trees that were left to fall by digging the soil around them to extend the parking space last month. Unfortunately, the silent victim fell prey to the ego clashes between municipal councillors and CITCO over the land under these trees.

A perusal of official records shows that on November 13, 2009, the MC Commissioner had approved Rs 34.47 lakh for widening the parking area. As the work on the spot progressed, chief engineer of the municipal corporation wrote a letter to the chief architect on April 23 to reconsider the layout plan, mentioning that 63 grown up trees were coming up in the alignment of proposed parking area, which could fall any time during a storm or rainy season.

A request in this regard was also sent by CITCO. Harjit Singh, Xen, horticulture, Chandigarh administration, also shot off a letter to the authorities concerned to take appropriate action against the digging work in the area.

The municipal councillors, who were at loggerheads with CITCO over the alleged encroachment by Hotel Shivalik View on the land meant for parking, however, got enraged over the letter alleging that the letter was written by the chief engineer under the pressure of his seniors to please CITCO officials, who did not want to vacate the land for the parking area. Even municipal corporation officials, including Roshan Sunkaria, Arun Kansal, Xen, horticulture, and chief engineer SS Bida were taken to task and were asked to explain the motive behind writing the letter during the house meeting on May 4 and a resolution was also passed that the parking would be constructed as per the old layout.

Chandigarh, June 5
Separate forms for hostel allocation in Panjab University will now be available in respective departments at the time of admission in July 2010.In a bid to clear the bottleneck likely to arise this year due to the newly introduced centralised system of hostel allocation on the campus, the office of Dean Student Welfare is gearing up to propose certain curative measures to the Vice-Chancellor in advance.

The forms would be available in the departments for the students seeking admissions for the first time in various courses. The procedure for the old hostel residents, who are continuing their studies in the university, would remain same. They are required to submit their application forms to the respective wardens at the time of admission in the department.

“We are planning to introduce the forms for the hostel allocation in the respective departments for new students. The procedure for the old students who wish to continue their stay in the hostels would remain same. The matter will be discussed with the Vice-Chancellor,” said Naval Kishore, Dean Student Welfare.

With the new hostels coming up on the campus this year, there would be 2,920 hostel seats for boys and 3,024 seats for girls now. In addition to this, 600 seats have been added for the girls this year.

In addition to the introduction of the forms in the departments, the authorities had recently decided to scrutinise the applications of nearly 100 students residing in the PU hostels on “guest charges” on the basis of merit for any extension.

Last year, out of nearly 160 students who did not get seats in the hostels, nearly 100 were accommodated on the guest charges. 

Chandigarh, June 5
Panjab University’s faculty members, students and Vice-Chancellor RCSobti celebrated the Environment Day by cleaning the campus and planting about 700 saplings on the campus.The saplings were planted at the Children’s Park near the Faculty House, Rose Garden, Palm Garden and Herbal Garden on the PU premises this morning.

Kharar, June 5
The World Environment Day was celebrated at the Civil Hospital, Kharar, wherein Civil Surgeon, Dr PK Shridhar, Mohali, presided over the function.Members of various NGOs, social organisations, municipal councillors, village sarpanches and other eminent personalities of the area attended the function.

Senior medical official, Dr Jai Singh, while speaking during the occasion stressed upon the need to save environment with conservation of water resources, limiting the use of water in day-to-day life, save earth by planting maximum trees and reduce air pollution by using vehicles by pooling system.

Dr PK Shridhar launched a tree plantation campaign. Shridhar and Dr Jai Singh also planted a sapling each.

Chandigarh, June 5
The city is set to embark on bicycle tourism in a big way with the Tourism Department planning Chandigarh Cyclothon, a fun-cum-sports extravaganza, on June 27.

The route plan for the competitive section of the Chandigarh Cyclothon, to be organised on June 27. A Tribune photograph

To be organised in collaboration with the Cycling Federation of India (CFI), the mega entertainment-cum-sport event will see a host of film and sports personalities cycling along with the common bicycle enthusiasts in the competitive and non-competitive fun categories.

“Chandigarh has a huge potential for promoting bicycle tourism with specially-laid cycle track along beautiful gardens like Shanti Kunj, Rose Garden and Leisure Valley to enjoy the scenic beauty of the city and also to maintain personal fitness 
amidst clean environment,” Home-cum-Tourism Secretary Ram Niwas said.

“In fact, Chandigarh seems to be a paradise for cyclists with entire cycle tracks covered with shady trees. The city is catching up with tourists, particularly foreign tourists, as far as cycling tourism is concerned,” informed AK Malhotra, CITCO’s General Manager (Tourism).

Officials highlighted that the city had clean and green environment apt for promoting bicycle tourism. Besides being eco-friendly, bicycle tourism reduces congestion on the roads as Chandigarh has the highest vehicular density in India.

While in the competitive section, 22 state teams with 5 riders from each state will vie for the top honours, in the non-competitive section, corporate and amateur riders will participate to create awareness about twin issues of health and enviornment consciousness. The non-competitive sections will be open to all sections of society-students, housewives and corporate executives.

Fun ‘n’ frolic for kids

With a view to imbibe love for cycling among kids, the organisers have planned a special fun non-competitive 2-km ride for children from the age of 8 years to 13 years. 

Chandigarh, June 5
The department of environment and forests in collaboration with an NGO, Yuvsatta, celebrated the World Environment Day at the Botanical Garden near Sarangpur village here today. UT finance-cum-environment and forests secretary Sanjay Kumar was the chief guest.

EDUCATION

Class XI admissions may go online
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 5
Going a step ahead of the centralised counselling, the UT education department is planning to make its Class XI admissions online this year.

The move aimed to ensure a hassle-free allocation of streams in the government schools and it will come as a remedy to the long speculated confusion due to “CGPA tie” in Class X results.

“We had a successful centralised counselling last year but things are different now. Though we have worked out a three-tier admission process, we expect a lot of confusion and hassle due to the CGPA tie. Unlike our counterparts, we will have to stick to the CBSE circular, so to ensure everything is hassle free we are planning to make the counselling online. We will have a special software made, which will justly judge all parameters of the result and allocate the streams and sets to the students,” said a senior official of the UT education department.

According to sources, the department plans to follow the counselling model of the Haryana technical education department, which is used to allot the seats to the engineering students in various engineering colleges from across the state. The department will upload names of the schools, streams and respective seats available. A student will fill his result details and give a priority list based on his preference. He will be allotted the best possible seat based on his priority list and result.

When contacted for further details, district education official Chanchal Singh said, “Yes it is one of the options we are thinking about, but I will only say anything once the proposal in finalised the next week.”

Recruitment scam continues to haunt

The infamous cash-for-job scam, which stormed the UT education department, recently seems to be haunting the idea of online counselling also. Some senior department officials have raised their

concern of transparency in such a system where hundreds of students will stand on same pedestal.

“Even after months we are facing the aftermath of the altered merit list. We don’t want the same thing to happen with the Class XI results. We are working hard to ensure impartial and transparent admissions,” said an official. The department, according to the sources, is looking for an alternative of DOEACC to conduct the counselling