Amritsar, August 24
Even as the holy city is credited as the most visited place in the country thanks to the Golden Temple, the Punjab Government has failed to translate it into a profitable story as its famous outlet fondly named Phulkari, showcasing Punjabi culture, has been recording drop in sales.

The only outlet of Phulkari Emporium in the city is located at prime commercial market on the Madan Mohan Malviya Road. Sales in Phulkari, being run by Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation Limited, has dipped instead of increasing with the rise in influx of tourists.

The government’s emporium sells products of handicraft, handloom, embroidery goods, Phulkari items, furniture and others from a rented shop. The 175 square yards cost the government meager Rs 3,000 monthly as rent much less than the contemporary market value.

Naresh Johar, an RTI activist, got the trend of the sales from the Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation Limited for the past five years. A cursory glance at sales trend made it crystal clear that the store was gradually losing its ground to private players and popularity as well.

The local outlet registered the sale of Rs 46,895 in May this year whereas the sale was staggering Rs 9.9 lakh during the corresponding period in 2005. Similarly, in June the sale was Rs 43,591 whereas during the corresponding period in 2005 it was Rs 16.58 lakh.

He grudgingly said that for the past five years number of tourists visiting the holy city increased manifold whereas the sales went down. He was amazed that on the same market a number of shops of national and international brands with swanky looks have come up but the state government’s outlet threw a dreary look.

He said it seemed that no effort was made to sell products and attract customers. In financial year 2005-2006, the sale was Rs 1,32.16,194.40 while in 2006-07 it was Rs 1,09,15,588.10, in 2007-08 it was Rs 1,12,66859, in 2008-09 it was Rs 26,97,670 and in 2009-10 dipped to Rs 15,50,977.80.

Amritsar, August 24
Now, rural godowns, too, would be under the secure investment policy. Allahabad Bank, for the first time, has initiated to fund the godowns, mainly used for the storage of food grains.

J.P. Dua, Chairman and Managing Director, said Punjab being the main provider of food grains for the country was their priority for conceptualising the idea. “We will give as much loan amount as one asks for under this category. Anybody having the land ownership and want to establish godowns would be welcome. In addition to this, we finance cold storage plants to create infrastructure for progress of agriculture in the state. Special schemes for financing arhtiyas, rice shellers and commercial vehicles are also on the cards,” he said.

Speaking on financing the agriculture sector in the state, Dua said the bank had introduced many innovative farmer-friendly area-specific schemes like the White Card and Kisan Mangal Yogna and Honey Card schemes for progressive farmers of Punjab.

The White Card scheme is a revolutionary scheme for dairy farming. “We have already financed more than 1,000 dairy units of 20 to 120 cattle. Under the scheme, we take into consideration high-yielding cattle along with the entire infrastructure, including modern sheds, milking machines, etc. The Kisan Mangal scheme is for big farmers having minimum land holding of 7.5 acres wherein the term loan up to 12 lakh in addition to Kisan Credit Card is given for agriculture,” Dua said.

Dua said to facilitate its bank clients, a total of 100 additional ATM machines would be installed at various pockets of the state. The bank had transformed into a one-stop financial supermarket by making available all types of products, including mutual funds, life and non-life insurance, gold coins, etc.

Amritsar, August 24
New guidelines have been framed under the National Rural Health Mission so as to reduce deaths of women during delivery. The Health Department, on its part, has initiated a programme for identifying the causes behind the deaths.

Health Minister Laxmi Kanta Chwala addersses the seminar at IMA hall in Amritsar. Photo:Vishal Kumar

A training workshop was held at the Indian Medical Association (IMA) hall here in which civil surgeons from Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur and Faridkot besides doctors, medical officers, gynaecologist, auxiliary nurse midwives and others from the city participated. Health Minister Laxmi Kanta Chawla was the chief guest.

Speaking on the occasion, the Health Minister said the department was very serious about bringing down the rate of deaths of pregnant women while delivering a baby.

The guidelines would help keep a check on the pregnancies in various parts besides finding out the reasons behind the deaths of women during delivery.

According to NRHM reports issued this year, approximately 28 million women experience pregnancy and 26 million have a live birth. Out of these, about 67,000 maternal and one million newborn deaths occur annually while a large number of women and newborns suffer pregnancy and birth related problems, respectively. It says pregnancy-related mortality and morbidity continues to have a huge impact on the lives on Indian women and the newborns.

Quoting the report, Amritsar Civil Surgeon Dr Chandanjit Singh Kondal said although Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) has shown considerable decline in the country, there is an urgent need to implement technical strategies and interventions for maternal health in order to accelerate the pace of decline in order to achieve NRHM goal of 100 deaths per lakh live births.

Earlier, it was 398 deaths per lakh live births in the country in the year 1997-98 that came down to 301 per lakh live births in year 2001-03 while it further reduced to 254 deaths per lakh births in 2004-06 as per latest RGI-SRS survey report.

In Punjab, the MMR showed a decline from 199 in year 1997-98 to 178 in the year 2001-03. However, what worried the Health Department is its rise to 192 per lakh live births in the year 2004-06 as per the latest RGI-SRS survey report released in April 2009.

Dr Kondal said Maternal Death Review will be implemented in two ways - Facility Based Maternal Death Review (FBMDR) and Community Based Maternal Death Review (CBMDR).

FBMDR is a process to investigate and identify causes, mainly clinical and systemic, which lead to maternal deaths in the health facilities and to take corrective measures to prevent such deaths.

CBMDR is a process in which deceased’s family members, relatives, neighbours or other informants and care providers are interviewed to identify various factors - medical, socio-economic or systemic failure - leading to the maternal deaths and taking appropriate measures to prevent these deaths. At district level District Family Welfare Officer would head the district MDR committee who would convene a meeting every month and put up MDR reports received from various designated officials.

All the deaths reports compiled by district MDR committee would be forwarded to the Deputy Commissioner who would further review the reports during a meeting with Civil Surgeon. These reports would be forwarded to state-level task force for further necessary steps.

Dr Eklavya Gaba, district family welfare officer, added that the main objective of the whole exercise was to reduce the maternal death rate by finding the gaps in the system at different levels and take appropriate measures and not to take any disciplinary action against any service provider.

Dr J S Cheema, Deputy Director, Punjab, said that the training programme would be launched in every district so that ASHA workers and ANMs who are in close contact with the people would be trained.

Amritsar, August 24
Yesterday’s self-immolation bid by a woman in the premises of Deputy Commissioner’s Office, has taken a dramatic turn after the alleged involvement of a photojournalist in the incident came to light.

It has been learnt that this photojournalist employed with a Punjabi daily has, reportedly, instigated the woman to enact the self-immolation attempt to attract attention of the authorities in order to get ‘due’ in the ancestral property.

Deputy Commissioner KS Pannu while ascertaining the findings said circumstantial evidences establish the involvement of a photo journalist in the whole drama.

“We want him to appear before the appellate authorities to record his statement,” he said.

While the police is on the lookout for the photojournalist in question, who has been absconding from his working place as well as his residence since last night.

Police Commissioner Varinder Kumar confirmed that the photo journalist was still at large and that legal course of action would be taken against the person involved in such a serious act.

“We have received a complaint from the relatives of the girl who attempted self immolation bid. They have also alleged that the photojournalist had demanded a sum of Rs 20,000 from them for getting the legal hurdles removed in taking over the possession of the part of property, reportedly, on her name.

Sources said the photojournalist had an aim to buy this disputed property. The police commissioner when asked said, “It has yet to be confirmed what interest he had in the property. The exact position would be clear only when he would give his statement,” he said.

It is evident to mention that a 20-year-old woman Manpreet Kaur, had a dispute with her uncles over a piece of ancestral land measuring 100 metres. Upon failing to get the possession of the property from her uncles after her parents demise, doused herself in kerosene yesterday in the DC office premises. She was intercepted by the policemen in plain clothes before she could lit the matchstick.

Amritsar, August 24
The Confederation of Indian Industry in its continuous effort to assist enterprises to gain competitive advantage organised an interactive session today where Police Commissioner Varinder Kumar spoke to representatives from various industries of the Amritsar region.

On the outset of the interaction, Jitender Jain, Chairman, CII Amritsar Zonal Council, appreciated the new face of traffic police and also stated the various issues regarding the traffic management plaguing the city, pointing the deployment of additional manpower around the schools and other busy locations especially during the start and closing time of the schools.

Speaking on the occasion, Varinder Kumar, discussed the commissionerate system in the city. He said steps had been taken to install CCTV cameras at all the police stations and at the major intersections having central monitoring system. He further stated that PCR vans will have GPRS system which will help to insure the safety and security of the citizens. For checking the over speeding of the vehicle instruments will be made available to the police.

Suneet Kochar, Vice-Chairman, CII Amritsar Zonal Council, briefed the Commissioner about the drug menace in the city. He stated that the drug abuse is one of the main reason for the increase of the crime rate. He extended full support from the industry to the commissioner of police in its endeavor to make the city safe and secure.

Amritsar, August 24
The Punjab Students Union would hold state-wide agitation to reinstate bus passes for the students against the state government on August 27.

The union said the government in a makeover mode before the crucial SGPC elections announced to run 200 buses for the students, alleged General Secretary, PSU, Dharminder Patra.

He opined that there were about 6.5 lakh students travelling in the buses in the state. Keeping in view the gigantic number of students, the strength of buses were grossly insufficient. He said it was a political gimmick as there would be 16,000 students against a bus.

The union maintained that the Akali-BJP coalition government toeing the dictates of capitalisation, privatisation and globalisation had turned away from its moral duty of imparting education.

He alleged that the privatisation of the education led to mushrooming of educational institutes in the state and added that they enhance the students fee whenever they like. He said the state government remained mute spectator to the loot of these private institutes and hardly even intervene to support the students and their families.

He said the students coming from rural background faced the maximum brunt in the absence of bus pass facility as they had to travel a long to reach their colleges and schools.

Amritsar, August 24
Amritsar buried the ghost of paid kidney transplant scam and saw a kidney transplant happening after eight long years since the scam broke out.

The operation was performed at Fortis Escorts Hospital, which had the recognition to conduct kidney transplant operations.

The surgery was performed by renowned urologist and transplant surgeon Dr S.K. Bhagat who has been trained at the world famous Christian Medical College, Vellore. During his 7 years stay at CMC Vellore, he has to his credit more than 350 successful renal transplants including fair number of cadaveric ones.

The 59-year-old patient, Surinder Kumar Bhagat, an FCI employee, had a lot to say about the hospitals expertise and his suffering. “Since the last five years I have been on medication to conserve my failing kidney. I came to Fortis Escorts Hospital looking for a better life. I was told that my condition had deteriorated into a renal failure and that I should chose between renal dialysis and kidney transplant. My sister aged 51 voluntarily donated her kidney to me. Now, I feel relieved with no sufferings or renal dialysis sessions,” he said.

Dr Bhagat said it was a great moment for him to see this patient go home, hale and hearty, in mere six days. This was all due to the state-of-the-art infrastructure, well-trained doctors and nurses in critical care, best multi-disciplinary team and fully supportive management.

Dr H.P. Singh, Medical Superintendent of the hospital, remarked that long-awaited dream has been realised. It is a moment of great pride for the hospital.

He said the hospital was well equipped with all expertise to tackle all such high-end surgeries. He had all the faith in the expertise of Dr Bhagat and his team and they performed beyond expectations. He further said now many patients would be able to lead a fruitful life despite renal failure in their own home town.

Jasdeep Singh, Director Fortis Escorts Hospital, said despite the myriad circumstances shrouding the nobleness of this rewarding transplant, we have managed to give a productive life to a person. “It was very difficult to do this procedure given the circumstances due to the reputation of the city, hesitancy of the patients and antecedent events. But we at Fortis believe to do the right thing in the right way. To maintain sanctity of all legal protocols a multi layered screening system was laid in place.

The donor and recipient verifications were done at various levels by the hospital committee before seeking an approval by the external committee”, he said.

Amritsar, August 24
The National Service Scheme (NSS) Unit of the BBK DAV College for Women has been observing the birth anniversary of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as “Communal Harmony Fortnight” since August 20.

Principal of the College, Dr Neelam Kamra said the initiative was taken following the directions of the ministry of youth affairs and sports and this would conclude on September 3.

The function was held at the DAV Red Cross School for special children where Dr Kamra motivated volunteers and special children to promote national integration and communal harmony among people of various religions, languages and regions. In a separate function, the Department of journalism and mass communication of the College also held a two-day media fest 2010.

Amritsar, August 24
From the next month, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is introducing Call Detail Record facility. The service would be inaugurated from September 5.

Besides this, another significant step to be adopted by BSNL soon would be that the bill disbursement facility would be open at Suvidha Centres.

While addressing mediapersons, Labh Singh, General Manager, Amritsar apprised about various schemes to be launched in the financial year 2010-2011.

“BSNL is introducing the service of Internet Protocol TV, particularly in Amritsar, on a prepaid basis. For this service, two prepaid IPTV plans of Rs 199 per month, having 126 channels, five time shift channels and free VOD (video on display) for 50 movies would be included. In the second plan of Rs 249 per month, having 126 channels, 10 time shift channels and free VOD for 75 movies would be offered. The set top box would be provided with zero rentals against the refundable security amount of Rs 1,499”, he said.

To enhance network quality, Labh Singh said new towers would be added soon. “For 2-G services, we plan to introduce about 60 more towers in addition to the existing 224 ones and for 3-G services, there would be an addition of 43 towers, which would make it a total of 117 towers. Besides this, we would switch over to Ringtopology technology, which would allow us not to disrupt telephone lines in case of repair or fault detection time.

The live supply would be shifted to alternative lines in that case,” he said.