Panipat, September 10
A 100-ft-wide breach in the Yamuna embankment between Pathargarh and Tamsabad villages this morning flooding agricultural land in several villages in the Bapoli segment. The water did not enter houses.The Yamuna crossed the danger mark around noon today. The administration said boats had been sent to the affected areas.

There were reports that the riverwater was spilling over the embankments at Simbalgarh village. District officials was rushed to the spot.The DC said efforts for revetment of the banks at some crucial spots had been started.

Four persons were swept away by the gushing Yamuna waters in Goyalkalan village of the district today. Two of them were recued. The four were running along the embankments when one of them fell into the river. The other three jumped into the river to save him but were washed away.

The victims were identified as 15-year old Rohit, Sunil (20) and his brother Anil (24) and Ankit (17).

Bystanders saw the four struggling against the water current and initiated rescue measures. They managed to pull out Anil and Ankit. It took some time to pull out Sunil. He was rushed to the civil hospital where he was declared dead.

Rohit’s body was fished in the evening.

Senior officials monitored rescue operations.

Fatehabad: The rise in the water level in the Ghaggar, has caused an alarm among farmers living along the banks in Jakhal and Ratia blocks of this district.

Heavy rain in the catchments areas and gushing waters in the Markanda and Tangri rivers has increased the flow in the Ghaggar.

“The discharge of water at Guhla Cheeka rose to 43000 cusecs yesterday. By this evening, it had come down to 36,000 cusecs,” said Om Parkash, XEN, Irrigation,Tohana.

The discharge at the Khanauri head works in Punjab also rose to 12,000 cusecs this evening. Flood waters start flowing through spillways after the discharge crosses 14,000 cusecs at Khanauri.

Water from the spillways then flows into the fields of Punjab and neighbouring Jakhal areas in Haryana.

The discharge at Chandpura has also risen to 6600 cusecs and 1490 cusecs in the Rangoi nullah.

New Delhi, September 10
The Supreme Court today took the Haryana government to task for the delay in arresting this year.

“Why did you have to wait for this court’s order for arresting the accused, ” a Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly asked Additional Advocate-General Manjit Singh Dalal.

The posed the query after Dalal informed the court that the government had arrested all those wanted in the case. In all, 111 persons had been arrested, he said.

The court was not impressed: “You are a democratically elected government and have the law and order machinery. Why didn’t you arrest them earlier,” it asked the counsel.

Also, it wanted to know from where the accused were arrested - Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, within Hisar district or within the village. Dalal said he had got information about the arrests only this morning through e-mail and offered to provide the details later.

“We will ask more questions about this,” the Bench somewhat warned the state government.

“These are not matters in which courts are associated with normally.

“We would have been happy if the state government had taken action on its own.”

Senior counsel Colin Gonsalves sought two weeks to respond to the official document. He said the violence had been preceded by gender harassment of weaker sections.

At this, the court said: “These are social problems. Society is conservative, still living 200 years behind.

“It will take time to change.”

The court fixed the next hearing for October 22 as the state government wanted two months’ time to file a further status report.

Chandigarh, September 10
The Haryana unit of the BJP will urge its central leadership to press for a legislation fixing a minimum number of days for holding of an assembly session as also for making available funds to the MLAs on the lines of the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Fund Scheme (MPLADS).

Leader of the BJP Legislative Party Anil Vij termed the just-concluded three-day session of the Haryana assembly as a “mockery of democracy”. Maintaining that three sittings were not enough for a 90-member strong House to debate crucial issues and raise welfare demands, he said elected representatives were not even taken into confidence while planning for the constituencies they represented.

“If Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is going to take all decisions without consulting the MLAs, where is the need for assembly elections?

“Let the people vote for a Chief Minister who can direct the DC for governance. We are not needed in the system.”

Critical of Haryana’s land acquisition policy, Vij said UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the Congress general secretary’s praise meant nothing. “The government is acquiring fertile land in the name of development which is being resisted by the people, who are holding protests and demonstrations,” he said.

Contrary to the claim of the Chief Minister that the Opposition had no issues to raise, Vij said the government had disallowed a number of call attention and adjournment motions on crucial issues during the session.

“The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is a big scam. In Ambala, two officers detected the fraud and brought it to the notice of the government. The Principal Secretary of the Panchayat and Development Department directed the officials to register an FIR.

However, that has not happened so far because the Chief Minister has yet to constitute a committee to decide the matter,” he alleged. Holding the government responsible for the floods, he claimed the authorities had failed to strengthen embankments and clean up drains. Vij said the MLAs had no finances available even to get a drain constructed. “A number of states, including Delhi and Rajasthan, have funds for MLAs. We will meet our high common and seek a legislation in this regard,” he said.

He said his party had submitted a plea under the RTI to know the status of godowns of the Marketing Boards following reports that these had been let out to private parties while the foodgrain acquired by various government agencies was lying in the open and rotting.

Sirsa, September 10
Doctors and nursing home owners complain that large quantities of bio-medical waste end up in the municipal dumps and the notices sent by the pollution board are a mere cover-up.

The board has launched a campaign to check violations of the Environment Protection Act and notices have been served on some government and charitable hospitals. Doctors complain that so far only those in the private sector have been at the receiving end of the pollution board authorities.

They allege that they are being fleeced in the name of waste management with hefty charges even as most of the biomedical waste continues to finds its way to the municipal waste.

“The board has been targeting certain categories of professionals whereas several other categories like quacks in the midwifery profession, unqualified doctors and butchers, who produce large amount of dangerous waste, are not being touched,” said Dr Ved Beniwal, patron of the Haryana Chapter of the Indian Medical Association. Dr Beniwal also objected to the monopoly of service providers leaving the doctors with none other option than to pay the charges demanded by the company assigned for their district.

Another doctor claimed the slab system imposed by the service provider was proving counter-productive and a large quantity of biomedical waste in Sirsa was finding its way to the municipal waste. “Doctors like dermatologists and eye surgeons have to pay through the nose, even though the waste generated by them is lesser than the slab limit.

“On the other hand, surgeons and gynaecologists tend to throw excessive waste into the municipal waste to ensure they do not cross the limit,” said the doctor.Dr AS Chahal, chairman of the HSPCB, however denied monopoly by any service provider.

Meanwhile, Sumit Amrohi, regional officer of the board, clarified that the notice of prosecution had not been served on Synergy Waste Management, but to another service provider outside his region.

Surajkund , September 10
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today inaugurated “Jungle Fowl Camp” consisting of huts for lodging tourists during the Commonwealth Games. Union Minister for Tourism and Housing and Povery Alleviation Kumari Selja was also present.

The camp site, consisting of 50 huts on 50 acres, has the capacity to provide accomodation to more than 140 persons. A similar camp site, also on 50 acres, will be later inaugurated by Kumari Selja at Dundahera on the Delhi-Gurgaon border.

Selja said the Union Ministry of Tourism had provided Rs 361 lakh and Rs 321 lakh for developing camp sites at Surajkund and Dundahera, respectively. The camp site at Dundahera had been named “Dhanchiri”.

The “Jungle Fowl Camp”, is nestled in the Aravalli hills. Selja said the camp sites, could be used for tourism even after the Commonwealth games were over. has provided a sum of about Rs 32 crore for the project. Hooda said the state government had plans to make Kurukshetra an international tourist destination.

Gurgaon, September 10
The shaky run-up to the Commonwealth Games has sent shock waves across the hoteliers in the national capital region (NCR).

The hoteliers, who were shown a rosy picture of nearly 2 million visitors flying down to New Delhi for the games, now feel cheated as the estimated number now stands at 60,000.

“With a number of room bookings being cancelled in Delhi hotels, the hoteliers have already begun to feel the heat,” laments Ranjit Goel, CMD, Best Western Resort Country Club, Gurgaon. Goel, who is also the director of the Gurgaon chapter of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Haryana (HRAH), said an emergency meeting of the Gurgaon chapter of the association had been called on September 15 to chalk out the further strategy.

He said pumped up by the inflated projections regarding the number of expected CWG visitors by the Haryana Tourism Development Corporation, the hotel industry registered a growth of nearly 350 per cent in the past four years.

Now, thanks to gross mismanagement and fears of threats posed by dengue, malaria and rain, the CWG scenario has lost much of its steam. Consequently, the number of expected visitors has taken a nosedive and the availability of hotel rooms seems to be in excess of their demand.