Chandigarh, July 20
Haryana is likely to get more investment from German companies in the near future with the German Ambassador to India, Thomas Matussck, evincing a keen interest in visiting Haryana’s prominent Industrial Model Townships and industrial estates.

The German Ambassador, who made a courtesy call on Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda at his residence here today, expressed satisfaction over the functioning of German companies in Haryana. Stating that Germany was an export-oriented country, he said entrepreneurs were looking towards Asia, especially India and China. Since China had reached a saturation point, the focus now was on India, he added.

The Chief Minister suggested that the ambassador encouraged German companies to invest in Haryana in areas of infrastructure development, automotive parts and food processing. Hooda said the state government would appreciate German cooperation in upgradation of quality marking and testing centres so as to help medium and small-scale units in improving the quality of their products through GTZ, the German Organisation for Technical Cooperation.

Matussck said the Economic Minister of Germany would be visiting India later this year. Prominent German entrepreneurs too would be coming to India during that time. He suggested that during this visit, they could meet their counterparts in Haryana.

Hisar, July 20
The city and its vicinity saw heavy showers this morning that brought down the temperature considerably. The low-lying areas of the town were flooded for some time. The rain, accompanied by high-velocity winds, is considered highly beneficial for the crops.

A report from Sonepat said heavy rains late last evening and this morning almost paralysed life in the town with most roads under 3 ft to 4 ft deep water.

The town’s drainage system failed once again.

In several localities, rainwater entered a number of houses and shops. As a result, the residents remained confined to their homes for hours.

Commuters were seen stuck with their vehicles at Shani Mandir, Kakroi Chawk, Mission road, Rohtak Road near the Kalupur octroi post and Rathdhana Road.

There was panic among commuters as well as traffic police personnel when the earth gave in at Geeta Bhawan Chowk.

The functioning of the local vegetable market was also affected with a large part of it experiencing water-logging.

Though the Deputy Commissioner, Ajit Joshi, had assigned duties to Public Health officers and those of the local municipal council about a week back to ensure that there was no waterlogging in case of heavy rains, hardly any precautionary steps were taken.

However, the rain brought much cheer to farmers in Gohana (100 mm) and Sonepat (95 mm) who had been struggling to complete paddy transplantation.

In Fatehabad, heavy rains lashed the town on Tuesday, compounding the miseries of farmers in flood-hit areas but providing the much-needed relief to others.

It started pouring at about 3 in the morning and continued till well past noon. The rain was widespread in the district, according to reports.

Almost all areas in Fatehabad town were waterlogged and commuters had a difficult time reaching their destination throughout the day.

Sirsa also had intermittent rains, said reports. 

Sirsa, July 20
Both “Panchkula” and “Chandigarh” are submerged under 10-ft-deep water for the past one week. These are the names of two large localities in Bani village situated on the Rajasthan border.

As the right bank of the Ghaggar flowing east to west breached on July 13, millions of gallons of water started flowing towards ther fields and after deluging villages 
Ther Shahidanwala and Ther Mujjal on its banks, the water progressed towards Bani.

Bani is located at an equidistance of 9 km from the Ghaggar on the south and the Rajasthan Canal on the west and is among the biggest villages of the district.

The villagers had hardly begun to settle down after the initial torrents when floodwaters, that struck against the embankment of the Rajasthan Canal, also called Indira Gandhi Canal, surged back to the village, submerging it almost completely.

Bhanwari Devi was washed away by the floods and her body recovered yesterday. Over 50,000 quintals of wheat lying in the storehouse of the Haryana Warehousing Corporation has also been damaged in the village.

“The entire village was submerged in floodwaters in 1962 and a whole generation worked hard to rebuild their houses. Now once again, the houses are gone,” said Swaran Singh Virk, national council member of the All-India Kisan Sabha.

The Ellenabad-Rania road that was closed to traffic last week has been almost completely washed away.

The Sirsa-Barnala road that remained under water for several days has also been damaged. “Standing crops on 41,158 acres in 47 villages and 4,334 tubewells have been submerged.

“As many as 47 roads have been damaged,” said Deputy Commissioner CG Rajini Kaanthan. 

Chandigarh, July 20
Taken aback with an astounding 2.15 lakh new old-age pensioners in the 21 districts of the state during November and December last, the Social Justice and Empowerment Department has ordered re-verification of the numbers at the district level before putting its stamp on the names.

According to the data collected during the survey, Yamunanagar has “added” the maximum of 4,122 and 14,066 beneficiaries in the urban and rural pockets, respectively.

The number of new beneficiaries in the urban areas of the five districts of Sonepat, Hisar, Bhiwani, Rohtak and Jhajjar are more than 3,500 each while nine districts have crossed the 2,000 mark.Hisar, Bhiwani and Mahendragarh top the charts with 10,000 plus new beneficiaries each in their rural areas. Seven districts have reported 8,000 to 9,000 new beneficiaries. While Panchkula has the least number of new beneficiaries in the rural (1,286) and urban (731) pockets, Mewat has only 857 beneficiaries in urban areas but 9,956 in its rural areas.

Not convinced by this giant leap in the number of beneficiaries, the department has shot off a letter to all DCs, stating that the numbers seem “unrealistic and abnormal”.

A thorough re-verification of the newly identified persons in urban areas is to be done through committees headed by an HCS or IAS officer. The department has specified that other members on the committee should include a medical officer, representative of the District Social Welfare Office and local representative of the area. Stating that 98.5 per cent people aged above 18 had been issued the voter identity cards, the department has specified that the voter card or birth certificate may be used to verify the age of the claimant.

“It seems highly unlikely that the number of pensioners has gone up so drastically in some pockets. The idea of the re-verification drive is to strike off names of ineligible persons.

“I am holding a review meeting of the district social welfare officers tomorrow to know the progress of the re-verification exercise. With the panchayat elections over, we will take up the matter with the DCs shortly,” Director, Social Justice and Empowerment, Anand Mohan Sharan, said.

Haryana has a 1,400 crore pension budget which includes old-age pension too. 

Chandigarh, July 20
In Haryana, a panchayat election was decided by “toss” - a process decried by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

When both Bala Devi and Mehta Singh polled 94 votes each for the panch’s post in elections held on June 6, little did they know that Jind’s deputy education officer Dilbag Singh Malik would fling a coin in the air to decide the fate of the candidates. At that time, Malik was in charge of the election process in Jalalpur Khurd village in Jind district.

Bala Devi was declared elected after fate favoured her in the toss. But to make the matters worse, victory certificate was also issued to rival Mehta Singh.

Taking a serious view of the matter, Justice Mahesh Grover of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued strictures. “It is intriguing to notice that Dilbag Singh Malik, who was primarily in charge of the election process in the village, was present and it is he who conducted the toss of coin, even though prima facie it was totally against the provisions of Rule 71 of the Haryana Panchayati Raj Election Rules, 1994.”

The order also saw Justice Grover coming down heavily on returning officer Dilawar Singh. “The court cannot overlook the saddening facts before it. Dilbag Singh Malik and Dilawar Singh have consciously subverted, undermined and sullied the entire democratic process, which threatens the confidence of the public in the same.

“The conduct is sacrilegious, scandalous and reprehensible. Both the respondents have displayed gross negligence and scant respect for the election process, disregard for their duties and utter contempt for the entire process of law,” the order said.

Justice Grover has already imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Dilawar Singh. In her petition, Bala Devi had asserted that she was declared elected panch, but respondents in collusion with each other declared Mehta Singh a winner. 

Chandigarh, July 20
Haryana has decided to provide 1 per cent rebate in stamp duty to the serving armed forces personnel and ex-servicemen for purchasing their house.

This decision will benefit as many as 4.37 lakh serving and ex-servicemen.

The stamp duty is seven per cent in the urban areas and five per cent in the rural areas, which would be brought to six per cent and four per cent, respectively, for the armed forces personnel and ex-servicemen. The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda here today. Hooda said the decision had been taken as an appreciation for the contribution of the armed forces personnel. There are 2.8 lakh ex-servicemen and 1.57 lakh serving personnel in the armed forces.

The rebate would be available for all serving armed forces personnel and ex-servicemen having domicile of Haryana.

The facility would be available only once for purchase of a residential house. Haryana is perhaps the first state in the country to provide relief to the serving and ex-servicemen.

Sonepat, July 20
An engineering student of fourth semester was reportedly run over by Shatabdi Express train at a level crossing near the Kami road here yesterday.

The deceased has been identified as Mustkin.

Mustkin’s father is a rickshaw-puller and his mother earns her living by selling bangles.

The incident took place when Mustkin was going on a motorcycle to PM Engineering College for appearing in the fourth semester examination yesterday.

attempting to cross the manned-level crossing, he got trapped in front of the train and died on the spot.

After receiving information, the GRP reached the spot and brought his body to the local Civil Hospital for a postmortem examination. A case has been registered.