Abohar, August 17
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Monday assured a deputation of senior SAD activists and farmers that decks would be cleared within a week for the long-awaited desilting of the Abohar branch canal that originally flows in the Muktsar district and supplies water to this region through the Malukpura distributary.

Official spokesman of the Rajasthan SAD and convener of the Daulatpura Tail-end Farmers Sangharsh Samiti, Kulwant Singh Sandhu informed The Tribune here that he along with Tejwinder Singh Aulakh, former sarpanch of village Kallarkhera, Jaswinder Singh, sarpanch, Usmankhera, Bhupinder Singh Tikka of village Panniwala Mahla, Prahlad Khatwan, chairman, Improvement Trust, Dhanpat Siyag, chairman, Market Committee and Kaur Singh, circle SAD president, Balluana, met the CM at his residence at village Badal on Monday in the presence of his younger brother Gurdas Singh Badal, former MP, to discuss the issue at length.

The deputation informed the CM that the brick lining of sidewalls of the Abohar branch canal was carried at an initial cost of Rs 2.70 crore in early 1995 by the Beant Singh-led Congress government. Now, it has been completely covered by the wild growth of shrubs, silt and plants resulting in loss of 200 cusecs for the Malukpura distributary that feeds a major area of Muktsar including Lambi segment and Abohar sub-division of the Ferozepur district.

The lining project spread over 19 kilometres in length was later not taken care of by the successive governments. No efforts to clean the Abohar branch canal since its lining had been made. The canal was designed with 1914 cusecs capacity. Out of this, Malukpura and Arniwala distributaries are entitled to get 650 cusecs each. The deputation also carried photographs of the wild growth in Abohar canal. While strongly advocating the cause, Gurdas Singh Badal, known as thinktank of the SAD, convinced his elder brother, the CM, that Rs 23.40 crore needs to be sanctioned without further delay as non-availability of water in the tail-end villages had triggered off repeated agitations by hundreds of farmers at Abohar, Sandhu informed.

The CM immediately spoke to Amarjit Singh Dullet, Chief Engineer (CE), Irrigation, over the phone and informed him to put up the file for sanction.

The Chief Engineer has been further told to plan closure of the Abohar canal accordingly to get the work done on a war footing. 

Bathinda, August 17
To check the cheating and copying menace during the forthcoming class X and XII Board semester exams, Director General School Education (DGSE), Punjab, today issued a list of 20 directives to all district education officers (secondary education) throughout the state.

While issuing the directions, the DGSE Krishan Kumar clearly mentioned that reports of unfair means being used during the Board examinations was common in the past. The wrongful practice was not only giving a bad name to the state education department but also spoiling the future of students, he added.

Giving full detail of the ‘well-designed’ directions, the DGSE forewarned that the controller, superintendent and the DEO concerned would have to face the consequences if they failed to check the menace.

The letter, a copy of which is with The Tribune, starts with a direction to the DEOs that only honest and credible staff should be assigned duty at the examination centres.

The letter further states that any teacher making repeated requests for examination duty, should not be assigned the job at all and if he/she has been put on duty, then they should be relieved immediately.

Taking yet another precautionary step, the DEOs have been asked that no teacher should be assigned duty as a supervisor, if the examination was of his respective subject.

Forewarning the controller and superintendents, the letter states that all examination halls should be free from copying and cheating and if some carelessness was noticed, they would be held directly responsible.

The controllers and superintendent have also been asked to impose section 144 around examination halls and ensure that students’ kin and teachers, not assigned duty in the examination hall, remain away from the hall during the examination.

Interestingly, the letter directs the DEOs to keep vigil over the supervisory staff, students and their parents, while they leave the examination centre. If their meeting seemed to be objectionable, strict action should be taken against the staff concerned.

The superintendents have been further asked that assistant superintendent should not enter the examination hall, the sitting plan of students should be changed on a regular basis and the duty of supervisors should be fixed rotation-wise. Besides, they will have to ensure that all deputy superintendents and supervisors perform their duties actively.

Besides frisking the students, the duty staff would ensure that no material for help should be hidden in the toilets and bathrooms. Further, the DEOs have been categorically asked that neither supervisors nor students should be in possession of mobile phones. Despite this, if some objectionable article is recovered from students during the examination, not only will the student be booked but the supervisory staff and superintendent shall also face departmental action.

Among other directives, the DGSE has asked the DEOs to ensure that if there were only girl students in a hall, there should be a female teacher on supervisory duty.

Bathinda, August 17
About seven years ago, heart patients from the entire Bathinda belt had to go to far away places like Chandigarh and Delhi, to get angiography, angioplasty and bypass surgery conducted for serious heart ailments. But with the arrival of high-tech modern heart-care facilities in a few private hospitals here, the city has been emerging as a major heartcare hub in this belt.

Though the 100-bed Civil Hospital here has an OPD, which attends to about 900 patients on a daily average basis, it has only cardiac monitors, ECG and holter test facilities for heart patients nowadays. The TMT machine for heart patients has been out of order for the past about one month.

According to information available, though many doctors treat heart patients in the city but four private hospitals in the city are considered to be major heart-care centres. Three of these hospitals have been conducting angiography, angioplasty and bypass surgery for past some years while the other is not equipped to conduct bypass surgery.

These private hospitals claim to have requisite infrastructure, including machines, equipment, power generators etc. for conducting heart surgeries besides angiography and angioplasty. These hospitals also claim that no heart surgeon is engaged by them from Delhi or anywhere else.

The success rate of heart surgery and angioplasty in these hospitals is said to be nearly 100 per cent. It is also learnt that the cost of bypass surgery in Bathinda is about Rs 1.25 lakh while about Rs 50,000 to 65,000 is charged for implanting stent apart from the cost of stent. Patients from the entire Bathinda belt and neighbouring towns of Rajasthan and Haryana are also getting treatment from these hospitals.

Dr KL Bansal, a cardiologist at the Delhi Heart Institute, said they conduct angiography, angioplasty, valve replacement and bypass surgery. He said their institute conducted about 500 bypass surgeries in a year besides about 4,000 angiography, angioplasty and pace maker cases.

Dr GS Gill, DM (Cardiology), Pragma Hospital, said he conducted four to five bypass surgeries in a month. Besides, about 12 stents were implanted.

Dr Rajesh Jindal, DM (Cardiology), Jindal Heart Institute, said though he tackled mostly serious cases but he preferred to refer high risk cases to big institutions in Delhi or elsewhere. He said he did not conduct bypass surgery but implanted stents (about 10 cases in a month) and pace maker, and ballooning of valves.

Dr Harshpreet Nagpal of the Nova Heart Institute said her institute had been conducting angiography, angioplasty, bypass surgery, valve operations and implanting pace maker etc since 2004. However, she admitted that for past about two months, there was no cardiologist at the institute, so no surgery had been conducted since then. However, in any emergency, the institute arranged a cardiologist on call, she added.

Bathinda, August 17
A group of Congress activists from Malout led by their district president and a former MLA today accused the district administration of Muktsar of being hand in glove with the land mafia.

Addressing media persons at a local hotel, the Congress leaders accused the officials of PUDA, district Red Cross society and the working committee of the Edward Ganj Welfare Society, Malout, of selling a park, located in the city, without any legal authority.

Speaking over the issue, the district Congress president, Gursant Singh Brar, former MLA Baldev Singh Balamgarh and others alleged that members of the working committee of the society were not democratically elected but had been imposed by the ruling Badals. Further, the Congressmen accused some of the committee members of being the land mafia of the town.

Narrating past incidents, the leaders accused the committee members of selling a huge chunk of land with the connivance of district officials. They claimed that an investigation was marked in the case during the previous Congress government but with the change of government in 2007, the inquiry was squashed..

Showing copies of newspapers, which mentioned the invitation to all for the auction of the land in question (park), they claimed that the officials of PUDA, district Red Cross society and the working committee of the Edward Ganj Welfare Society were going to sell the land, jointly.

They apprehended that the land, which was of high value, could be sold at a cheaper rate to please some favourites of those in power.

“We want that the auction should be cancelled in public interest as the park was the only open space in the town, where people can enjoy their morning and evening walks,” they claimed.

When asked about adoption of the legal procedure, they said, “We have been collecting all the legal documents and once it is done, we will file a case in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.”

About the purpose of holding the press conference, they said it would help them in building a mass movement to check the administration from committing the “illegal” act.

Despite repeated attempts, chairman of the Edward Ganj Welfare Society, Babru, and the district Red Cross Society chief Varun Roojam could not be contacted for their comments.

Fazilka, August 17
Former Congress MLA, Mohinder Kumar Rinwa, while alleging that a section of the leaders, who mattered most in the corridors of power, have been possessing various pieces of land belonging to the state government by tampering with the revenue records in this sub-division, demanded a high-level probe by an independent agency.

Talking to the media, Rinwa said a section of officials of the revenue department had also been facilitating the politicians to grab land belonging to the Punjab government. Rinwa claimed that during the previous Congress government a huge development of this sub-division was carried out without selling or pledging an inch of land belonging to the state  government or the local Municipal Council. 

Bathinda, August 17
Dr Gurmeet Singh Buttar, Director, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), regional station, Bathinda, was bestowed the State Award by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal at the state-level Independence Day function held at Ferozepur on Sunday.

Buttar, a renowned agriculture scientist, was honoured for his contributions in agricultural research and dissemination of PAU improved agricultural technologies among the farmers.

Having a wide experience in agronomic research on water management, use of poor quality water, Bt cotton, pulses and oilseeds, Buttar has to his credit more than 200 research/ extension papers in world reputed international and national journal.

Dr Buttar’s research contributions have been recognised through several awards and appreciations, earlier too.

Meanwhile, noted social worker and UNAIDS educator Narinder Kumar Bassi was honoured by Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal at the Independence day function held at local Sports Stadium. — TNS

Bathinda, August 17
As the experience of the last festive season is still fresh in the minds of sweet shop owners in Bathinda, this time they appear to be in no mood to sour their business on account of spurious khoya.

Reducing the dependence of their business on khoya-made items in the light of the recovery of spurious khoya last year and general aversion towards it, sweet shop owners are likely to turn to cashew and dal or pinni-made items to regain the trust of sweet lovers.

“The recovery of spurious khoya hit the business of sellers of genuine sweets and those who believe in quality,” rued local sweet shop owners.

The recovery and even the news of seizing of sweets by the administration created panic and koya sweets suddenly lost a major chunk of aficionados to other items, they said, adding that even chocolates and dry fruits came on the festival plate in many houses. “That adversely affected the sale of sweets to a great extent,” they said.

“This time, we are likely to rely more on sweets made of cashew like kaju nargish, kaju rajmahal, almond, besan and others,” said Gaurav Goyal of Manoj Sweets situated at Dhobi Bazaar in Bathinda.

Sweets made of dal, flour and besan are also likely to occupy a major part of the shelf in sweet shops across the city, he added.

About the cost of kaju-made sweets, Gaurav said that hike in the price of milk and other raw materials had put kaju sweets and items made of khoya or milk products almost at par, so people would not find big gap in their price. “Sweet lovers would be at an advantage this time,” Gaurav added. The situation is not like a few years ago when the difference in prices between khoya-made items and kaju-based items was large. General price hike have put all items at par, sweet sellers said.

Sandeep Kapoor of Kapoor Sweet Corner, situated at Nai Basti, also echoed similar sentiments. “Business suffered major setback last year due to fear of spurious materials as people in general developed aversion towards sweets,” Sandeep said, adding that regaining the faith of sweets buffs is a challenge for all the genuine sweets makers. “We have chalked out plans that include relying more on kaju-based items, petha, besan-based items like sonpapri, patisa, pinni made of besan and flour etc,” he said.

Further, we would not use colour this time; in short, emphasis would be more on quality, he added.

About kaju-based items being costly, he said that there would be options for all. “Besan or flour-based items come cheaper than kaju-based and moreover, like always we will also have genuine khoya items,” Sandeep said. 

Moga, August 17
Three youths were injured when some unidentified persons fired shots at them with automatic fire weapons in broad daylight on the premises of a disputed building in the new town area at Moga district headquarters on Tuesday. The youths have been identified as Neeraj Kumar, Amarjit Singh and Sukhbir Singh. They have been referred to the Dayanand Medical College and Hospital at Ludhiana. As per the details available, the disputed building belongs to a UK-based NRI and these youths were kept in the building by one of the parties to look after the work being done for breaking down the building, which is in a dilapidated condition, for the past few days.

Tension gripped the area after the incident. A nearby school was closed to enable the students to go home. The probe has been handed over to DSP Balwinder Singh. A person has been rounded up but no arrests have been made yet.