Fee-waiver Scheme
‘Applicants to get benefit’
Jalandhar, September 24
Technical Education Principal Secretary Suresh Kumar today assured that all 1,900 applicants of the 10 per cent fee waiver scheme would get their due benefit.

Jalandhar, September 24
A majority of parents these days prefer to get their wards admitted in private institutions. The day is not far when private universities will be preferred over the government ones.

This was stated by Punjab Governor Shivraj Patil while addressing a convocation of Lovely Professional University here today.

A total of 5,882 students of the LPU and 2,500 students of Lovely Institutes received their degrees, diplomas and medals during the ceremony.

Patil said as the private universities were growing, they should be more careful that they do not get exploitative. “They need to care for those who cannot afford to pay big amount of money,” he said, adding that in Rajasthan, the private universities had outnumbered the government ones.

“Now it is being planned to allow entry of foreign universities. It is being done with logic that knowledge is a common heritage of mankind. It has to be made available to everyone and not just one region or one country,” he said.

Vice-Chancellor of LPU Vijay Gupta presented the university report. Chancellor LPU Ashok Mittal, PTU Vice-Chancellor Rajneesh Arora and principal secretary Technical Education Suresh Kumar were present on the occasion.

Chandigarh, September 24
On the opening day of the 10th session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, rich tributes were paid to former Vice-President of India Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, 21 freedom fighters and others important people who had died after the last session of Vidhan Sabha was adjourned sine die.

Bibi Jaswant Kaur, wife of former Chief Minister Beant Singh, former ministers Sukhjinder Singh Khaira and Gulzar Singh and three former MLAs namely Jasmail Singh, Basant Singh and Mohinderpal Kaur were among those to whom tributes were paid.

As the House assembled for the Monsoon Session, leader of the House and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal got up to pay tributes to those who had died in the past few months. He went through the list with details about political career and achievements of various leaders.

However, deviating from convention, the CM also paid tributes to two Punjab Police officials who died in an encounter with Pakistan trained terrorist in Gurdaspur district recently.

The list of 28 names printed out to be read out by the Chief Minister did not include the name of Bibi Jaswant Kaur, due to an oversight by the staff of the Vidhan Sabha, but just before the CM ended reading, he received a slip containing the name of Bibi Jaswant Kaur. Then the Chief Minister read out her name saying, “these office staff always leaves out important names”.

After the leader of the House, leader of the Opposition Rajinder Kaur Bhattal paid tributes to those in the list of obituary references and added a few more names that included that of Sindi Ahluwalia Hawkins (Satinder Kaur Ahluwalia), the first-ever Sikh woman elected to a provincial assembly in Canada, who died of cancer earlier this week.

Following Bhattal’s address, BJP leader and Industries Minister Manoranjan Kalia took turn to pay tributes saying that had it not been for the 21 freedom fighters named in the House today and many others like them, who would not have been walking free. He expressed his deep concern and sympathy with the families of the deceased.

Independent member of the Vidhan Sabha, Charanjit Singh Channi, too quoted from scriptures and paid tributes to the freedom fighters and former politicians.

He requested the Chief Minister to include names of Army jawans and officers in the list of obituary references. He further demanded that memorials should be built in villages whose jawans die fighting on the nations borders.

A speaker, Nirmal Singh Kahlon, asked the House to observe a two-minute silence in the memory of the dead and announced that the House would now assemble for business on Wednesday afternoon. Earlier, the next session of the House was scheduled for Monday afternoon.

Sangrur, September 24
Even as the procurement season of paddy is to start in less than a month, thousands of tonnes of paddy procured by the state agencies last year are going waste in rice mills due to tussle between the agencies and the Food Corporation of India (FCI) in the district.

The FCI reportedly refused to buy rice from the state agencies, which had stored the paddy procured by them in private rice mills, on the pretext that the quality was not of the prescribed standards.

A rice miller of Longowal told The Tribune that at least 40,000 MT paddy procured by the state agencies last year and stored in private rice mills across the state was getting destroyed as the FCI had turned down the government’s request to buy it on the pretext of it not being of the prescribed standards.

“I have decided that this year I won’t allow the state agencies to store the paddy in my rice mills since we are yet to mill the paddy stored by them to earn milling charges in lieu of storage of the procured paddy,” said a miller.

“There are 200 millers in the district, who are suffering because of the tussle between the FCI and the state agencies. The state is suffering a loss of Rs 4,000 crore because of the paddy getting waste in the private rice mills procured by the state agencies,” he added.

Highly placed source in the district administration confirmed that the state agencies and millers were facing problems since the FCI was not accepting the paddy procured by state agencies like PUNGRAIN, PUNSUP, MARKFED, Punjab State Warehousing Corporation and Punjab Agro.

However, Harkesh Singh Sidhu, DC, Sangrur, said the state government had taken the matter with the FCI.

Mohinder Singh, area manager, FCI, Sangrur, said they were ready to accept the paddy procured by the state agencies, but the paddy had to be of the prescribed standards.

Bathinda, September 24
In yet another case of honour killing, a 23-year-old girl was allegedly strangled with a piece of cloth by her father and paternal uncle in Jandawala village in the district late last night.

As per information, deceased Sandeep Kaur of Khemuana village had an affair with a boy, who was her distant cousin in paternal relations. Intolerance of their relationship led her father to take the extreme step.

The girl was a student of BA-I studying at Dashmesh Girls’ College, Badal, which was far away from her native village. To make her comfortable in studies, her father Kala Singh, who runs a small provision store in the village, sent her to some close relatives in Channu village, about a year ago.

The girl gradually developed relations with the son of the relatives with whom she was staying. The boy in question was her distant cousin and both were in the same age group.

After getting information about their relationship, Kala Singh warned both to mend their ways and shifted his daughter to some other cousin’s house in the village.

Despite the warning, they kept meeting each other. Finally Kala, along with his cousin Jagdev, went to Channu village and asked his daughter to accompany them to leave for Khemuana village.

Taking her on a motorcycle, Kala and Jagdev left for the village in the evening.

However, on reaching near Jandawala village, they stopped the motorcycle and allegedly strangled the girl with a piece of cloth. They then threw her in mud lying on the roadside. After confirming her death, they took her to the Civil Hospital, Goniana.

They then concocted a story that they were riding on a motorcycle that skidded and the girl sustained serious injuries and fell unconscious. Suspecting foul play, doctors referred the case to the Civil Hospital, Bathinda, where they declared her brought dead.

However, the Nehianawala police this morning received information that it was not an accidental death but the girl was allegedly killed for honour by her father and paternal uncle.

After preliminary investigations, the police booked Kala and Jagdev for murder and tampering with evidence.

The investigating officer, Gurpreet Singh, SHO, Nehianwala police station, claimed the accused were absconding. However, sources at the police station said both accused were nabbed from the hospital.

Chandigarh, September 24
Members of the Punjab State Ministerial Services Union (PSMSU) today wore black badges on the second consecutive day of their pen-down strike throughout the state.

In a press release here, state president of the union Darshan Singh Bajaj and general secretary Raman Kumar Sharma stated that the two-day strike was observed in other districts of the state also.

Bathinda: Thousands of members of the PSMSU may go on a week-long pen down strike from September 27 in the state. An indication to this effect was given by state president of the PSMSU Darshan Singh Bajaj here today when he said the government’s adamant and indifferent attitude towards their demands was forcing them to take a step.

He said a meeting of the state executive of the union was going to be held at Ludhiana tomorrow to chalk out the next course of action of the agitation and review the agitation.

The main demands of the union include payment of arrears of 43 months of the revised pay scales from January 2006, BEd Teacher’s pay scale to clerk, computer training to clerks at district headquarters in place of passing of typing test by them.

Kharar, September 24
Incessant rains have hit the vegetable production hard in state. While garlic and coriander are priced at Rs 200 per kg, the price of a quintal of onions has risen from Rs 1,600 to Rs 2,200 in past just one month.

“As per a rough estimate, more than 50 per cent vegetable crop has gone waste and the rest depends on mercy of weather. Even four days of sunshine can repair some damage,” said general secretary, Punjab State Fruit and Vegetable Commission Agents Association, Amarvir Singh.

He added that five years ago, too, the situation was same. “At that time, the price of coriander has skyrocketed to Rs 1,000 per kg and this year, too, I foresee same trend,” he said.

While fresh peas are priced at Rs 100 per kg, the vegetable vendors prefer selling frozen peas.

“The frozen peas, too, are Rs 100 for a kg. But when you actually retrieve peas from the fresh one kg pea pods, it yields less than 700 grams. Considering customers’ choice we have started selling frozen peas,” reasoned Krishan Kumar, a vendor.

The yield of tomato, cucumber, saag, coriander, fenugreek, spinach, cauliflower, capsicum and even green chilly is worst hit. Continuous rains have led to stagnant water in the plants.

Punjab gets its vegetables imported mainly from parts of Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh and onions are bought from Nasik (Maharashtra).

“Entire country is facing flood-like situation, especially UP and Himachal. Consequently, the cost of vegetables have increased, while quality has tumbled down by several times,” PS Rangi, an agriculture economist.

He added that with flood crisis, the cost of transportation and storage has escalated leading to the overall increase of prices.

Even the eatery business of dhabas and restaurants has started feeling the heat. “Neither we can regulate the quantity of eatables provided, nor we can increase the price.

The only way out left is to forget about profit and live from hand to mouth,” said a dhaba owner, on the old Morinda road, at Kharar.

He added that while some dhaba owners prefer to leave profit margin, others have indulged in producing adulterated food.

“The dhaba owners are now resorting to usage of substandard cooking oil and other such things. It seems that such high prices will continue for at least another one month,” added another dhaba owner Jaswinder Singh.

Farmer Ripudaman Singh said the farmers are now waiting for rains to stop. “We will have to sow new seeds. The seeds sown earlier have gone waste,” he said.

Meanwhile, director, horticulture, Punjab, Labhvinder Singh Brar said field officers have been directed to conduct a recce to assess damage to the vegetables.

“We will get results in next three to four days,” he claimed.

Chandigarh, September 24
The Congress in general and some legislators from the party in particular have condemned the cancellation of Monday’s proceedings of the Punjab assembly.

Describing the decision to call off the Monday’s proceedings, Qila Raipur MLA Jassi Khangura said today that it was yet another nail in the coffin of the democracy in the state.

Reacting to the cancellation of the House proceedings, Khangura observed the house session was already too short and now the government had cut it further.

He remarked that it simply reflects the lack of confidence of the government to face the House.

Khangura said the government was answerable to the legislature. “But this government is running away from the legislature for the obvious reasons that it had to answer a lot of questions like productivity bonus to farmers, Central government compensation and other things which it does not want to.”

He said ideally the House should meet at least for 10 days, but the government had fixed it for just five days and now, cut it further by another day.

Meanwhile, Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira has written a letter to the Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon saying the Congress resented the mere five sitting sessions of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha monsoon session. It is a farce being enacted in the name of democracy by the Badal government to hoodwink the electorate of the state.

Khaira added that state’s primary sectors of education and health services were in a shambles, unemployed ETT teachers were being beaten each day for demanding jobs, poor Anganwari workers were demonstrating in various places in the state.

Sirhind/ Rajpura, September 24
The incessant rains have forced farmers to harvest the high moisture content crop and many have already sold off their produce at a mere Rs 800 to Rs 930 per quintal to rice millers in the Rajpura and adjoining Sirhind areas.

However, the labourers are charging exorbitantly to harvest the paddy crop as it got flattened due to rains. As compared to the last season, wherein labourers charged around Rs 1,800 per acre to harvest paddy fields, this time they are demanding Rs 3,200, besides food and shelter.

Shortage of labourers and flat crop, which is difficult to harvest, has lead to increase in cost, said Chhajju Singh of Neelpur village.

Gurdeep Singh, owing 40 acres of land, near Neelpur village, and another 80 acres on contract in Rajpura, added that he had harvested more than 15 acres of his paddy crop and managed to get 30 quintals out of one acre.

Gurmel Singh, a farmer from Saidkheri village said, “The entire crop will rot in the coming few days due to terrible weather conditions. Its better to sell off the entire short duration varieties at the earliest even at a throwaway price,” he said.

The farmers said the rice millers purchase their produce, who then mix this paddy with the better quality yield to increase the quantity and in coming few days when the government purchase would begin.

The farmers are ready to sell their grains early due to lack of storage space and badly required money to sow seeds for next crop. Agriculture development officer, Amloh, Jaswinder Singh pointed out that around 500 acres under paddy in Amloh got inundated and farmers are taking their crop to the Rajpura and Khanna areas in search of buyers.

“Amloh and Khamano blocks of Fatehgarh Sahib is potato belt and the farmers have already harvested the yield to make way for the new potato crop. Hence, the area is being vacated early,” he said. Plant hopper, false smut and rust infestation has also damaged plants and the farmers are forced to immediately harvest their entire crop at the earliest.

Chief Agriculture Officer (CAO) of Patiala SC Khurana, having additional charge of Fatehgarh Sahib, said the rains may reduce per acre yield this season.

Jalandhar, September 24
Technical Education Principal Secretary Suresh Kumar today assured that all 1,900 applicants of the 10 per cent fee waiver scheme would get their due benefit.

He was here on the occasion of the first convocation of Lovely Professional University. On the recent flip-flops in the implementation of the scheme, he accepted that it was extremely difficult for the department to make colleges admit poor students for free.

He said, “It has to be a voluntary effort. We cannot force them to admit students when they do not have the AICTE approval for 10 per cent extra seats”.

He said, “Even if the colleges allocated to the deserving candidates did not give them the fee waiver, we will make sure that they are admitted to the same course elsewhere”.

A few candidates who had been allotted seats under fee waiver at Chitkara Institute said they had been asked to pay a sum of Rs 92,000 per annum.

Kumar said as per the AICTE norms, the colleges were supposed to give only tuition fee waiver. But asked as to why the Punjab government had passed a notification for total fee fund waiver, he said it had been passed with a clause, which needs to be read out carefully.

Patiala, September 24
The Punjab Government has given a three-year extension to Punjabi University Vice-Chancellor Jaspal Singh. Dr Jaspal Singh’s term was to end on December 11, 2010. Under an order issued in this regard by the government on Wednesday evening, his term has been extended by three years.

Speaking to The Tribune, Dr Jaspal Singh said his main objectives were betterment of the university and promotion of the Punjabi language and culture in a big way. “Punjabi University is continuously making efforts for the propagation of the Punjabi language and culture, but the results will be better if we play a more pro-active role”, he asserted. — TNS

Jalandhar, September 24
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been urged to direct the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) to commence exploration to find oil and gas traps in the Gurdaspur belt. In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, Congress MP and senior leader Partap Singh Bajwa has drawn his attention towards the programme, which was chalked out by the ONGC to conduct a survey to find oil and gas traps in the Gurdaspur belt during 2007-08 and 2008-09. But the programme was not executed.

Bajwa said the earlier exploration with the objective of a survey was conducted in the area in 1956 and later 1962. Besides in the Himachal area, five wells were set up in the Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur belt. However, then the exploration programme was abandoned, perhaps owing to want of money. But now the ONGC has enough money and also equipment to conduct the survey.

He said it had been proved that the Gurdaspur belt — starting from Pathankot to Dasuya — was a high-perspective hydrocarbon zone. And Hoshiarpur falls in the medium-perspective hydrocarbon zone. The Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur belt has a vast river area.

“The ONGC has not give due attention to the area while executing its programme to conduct a survey to find the hydrocarbon zones,” said Bajwa in his letter to the Prime Minister. The ONGC already has a presence in the Madhopur area and it will have no difficulty to carry out the exploration in identified high-perspective zones, he said.

In fact, corporate giant Mukesh Ambani had shown interest in carrying out an oil exploration survey in Punjab’s border belt a few years ago. He had held a discussion with the state government and the Union government. His plan was to conduct a survey in the Gurdaspur-Ferozepur belt and some part of Rajasthan.

Amritsar, September 24
The Railways has decided to install closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras at vital and sensitive railway stations in the border states of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.

Vishwesh Chaubey, divisional railway manager, Ferozepur division, Northern Railway zone, confirming the development, said the proposal for this had been forwarded to the headquarters in Delhi and the same was approved.

The jurisdiction of the Ferozepur division includes parts of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

He said the tenders for the project would soon be floated to install CCTV cameras on railway stations at Amritsar and Ludhiana in Punjab, besides Udhampur and Bajalta in the Kashmir valley, which are part of the 345-km Jammu-Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla railway link.

A part of the Ferozepur division, the railway line has been under construction since 1983. Scheduled for completion in 2007, the line, as per the revised schedule, would be completed in 2012.

The surveillance equipment were expected to be installed at railway stations by March next year.

Once operational, functioning of the cameras would be looked after by the Railway Protection Force(RPF), which would have state-of-the-art control rooms, equipped with the recording facility.

Meanwhile, 13 out of the total 27 CCTV cameras installed at the Attari International Railway Station, about 35 km from here, became operational recently.

Located a few metres away from the barbed fence on the International Border with Pakistan, the Railways got the CCTV cameras set up on the station, which would be handled by the RPF.

Vijendra Singh, inspector, RPF, said initially 13 CCTV cameras were covering the entire operational area of the Attari station while the rest of them would be functional once the ongoing renovation was completed.

The need for installation of the CCTV cameras at the Attari railway station has been felt for a long for security considerations as contrabands were seized many times from the trains arriving from Pakistan.

Patiala, September 24
A fortnight celebration in lieu of the Hindi Day concluded at Government Mohindra College, Patiala, today amidst presence of various intellectuals and educationists.

Editor, Dainik Tribune, Naresh Kaushal was the chief guest on the occasion. College principal Dr Sudeep Bhangoo presided over the function.

Addressing the gathering, Kaushal said Hindi 
as believed by people is not in a miserable condition. He said, “It’s just that things change with time and therefore, even Hindi language has undergone a change. As far as its development in Punjab is concerned, there is no threat. With Hindi being the mother language, it is most commonly understood and spoken and under no circumstances it is under danger of extinction.”

Talking about the role of Hindi journalism, Kaushal said it was the most powerful language as majority of people read Hindi newspapers. Therefore, this automatically increases the importance and responsibility of Hindi journalism.

He also encouraged the students to learn mother tongue properly stating that he was not against the use of other languages, but everyone must be well conversed with the national language.

He also gave away prizes to the winners of various events organised during this function.

Patiala, September 24
Registrar of Punjabi University, Patiala, Dr Manjit Singh today released a book ‘Universal English Grammar and Vocabulary Study’ written by former Head of English Department, Nehru Memorial Government College, Mansa, Prof Achhru Singh and presently teaching communication skills and personality development at Desh Bhagat Institute of Management and Computer Sciences, Mandi Gobindgarh, here today.

Congratulating Achhru, Manjit said in this age of globalisation and liberalisation, the knowledge of English along with the knowledge of the mother tongue was indispensable.

He hoped that the grammar in hand would prove quite useful for all those who were interested in learning English and improving their communication skills.

Achhru has been teaching English in different colleges for the last 40 years and is acknowledged as one of the most successful and popular teachers.

Speaking about the book, Achhru said he had tried to explain all rules of English Grammar in as precise a way as possible in order to make it student friendly and time relevant.