Chandigarh, October 11
The one-man commission constituted to probe the Mirchpur incident of April 21 in which two Dalits lost their lives and over a dozen houses belonging to members of the community had been set ablaze by members of the dominant community, has got an extension.

Without any fuss and without much noise, the commission constituted under Justice Iqbal Singh, a former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, is learnt to have been given a six-month extension. Its deadline to submit a detailed report on Mirchpur now ends on March 16. A formal notification in this regard is yet to be issued by the Haryana government.

Initially the commission, constituted on June 18, was given three months to probe the Mirchpur muddle, study the circumstances leading to the death of two Dalits - Tara Chand and his physically challenged daughter Suman. Besides the death of the father-daughter duo in the incident, several other persons sustained injuries in the arson and rioting and houses of Dalits were damaged and set ablaze.

The commission is also to identify those responsible for the loss of life and property, violence and assess the damage caused to the houses of Dalits and consider the steps taken by the state government, including compensation, to the affected families.

Sources said the three-month period seemed inadequate to study the run-up leading to the incident and the subsequent developments.

Speaking to TNS, Justice Iqbal Singh said the commission was already on the job. “We have issued notices which have been published in all leading newspapers for people to come forward and volunteer information. The response is awaited. I will also personally visit the site shortly,” he added.

Immediately after the incident, Mirchpur had become a hotbed of controversy even as tension between members of two communities continued.

The problems of the government were compounded when Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi made a flying visit to Mirchpur and interacted with the Dalit families who later shifted base to Delhi.

Under fire from various quarters, the government subsequently upped its confidence-restoring measures in Mirchpur and announced compensation even as a parliamentary panel visited the village. Later, the accused in the case were also arrested. 

Fatehabad, October 11
The state government’s scheme for promoting institutional deliveries in the government hospitals is being undone by Health Department’s own staff in Fatehabad.

A woman, who was shifted to the community health centre (CHC), Bhuna, for a delivery, learnt this the hard way as she had to lose her unborn child due to the alleged greed of an auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM) working there.

The ANM allegedly “hijacked” the woman to her own house for delivery by telling her kin that they would not get proper care in the government hospital.

When the case went out of her hand, she took her to a private hospital in Uklana, who demanded Rs 25,000 for a surgery.

The poor kin of the woman later rushed the woman to the general hospital, Fatehabad, in serious condition, only to learn that the baby in her womb has died.

The family members have approached the police for action against the ANM, while locals have alleged that a nexus had been thriving in the CHC for long in connivance with some doctors to fleece patients.

Civil surgeon OP Arya has instituted an inquiry by deputy civil surgeon Ramesh Chakarvarty, who today raided the house of ANM Bimla Punia with the help of the police and recovered a delivery table and a large amount of “hospital supply” medicines meant for expectant mothers and those used during delivery.

“We shifted our daughter-in-law Sapna to the CHC for her delivery yesterday, where Punia tempted us to opt for delivery in her house for Rs 4,000. She assured us that it would be a normal delivery and also cautioned us that nobody would care for our daughter-in-law in the government hospital,” alleged Bimla and Munshi Ram Bishnoi in a complaint given to the police at Bhuna.

They alleged that the condition of Sapna deteriorated in the evening and the ANM took her to a private hospital in the nearby Uklana town, where she demanded Rs 25,000 for a caesarian operation.

Unable to afford the extra expenditure told by the ANM and the private doctor, the couple decided to shift Sapna to the Fatehabad general hospital late in the night.

However, it was too late and the ultrasound tests of the woman confirmed that the unborn baby had already died in the womb.

Chakarwarty said she had already recorded the statement of the ANM, who had admitted the practice of performing deliveries at her residence, but denied having charged any money from the woman’s kin. Arya said action would be taken once he gets the inquiry report.

SHO Subhash Saharan said he had received the complaint and added that he would be seeking legal advice before registering the FIR.

Nuh (Mewat), October 11
Thousands of quintals of wheat and lakhs of litres of kerosene, which was supposed to be distributed among poor residents of the district, have been lying unused because of the stalemate between the local police and officials of the Food and Supplies Department.

All of the nearly 400 ration depot holders in the district had recently resigned collectively, citing “police terror”, while the officials of the Food and Supplies Department, right from the DFSC, DFSO, AFSOs, Inspectors, Sub-Inspectors to other staffers, have also vanished from their offices, apprehending arrest/harassment.

The chain reaction was triggered by the arrest of an inspector of the Food and Supplies Department, which was followed by a series of police raids ostensibly aimed at weeding out corruption from the department.

As of now, all six offices of the Food and Supplies Department, including the district office and five field offices, as well as the ration depots are lying closed for the past several days. Due to this, nearly 13,000 quintals of wheat and 2.5 lakh litres of kerosene of the public distribution system (PDS) have been lying undistributed.

According to sources, about 20,000 quintals of wheat and 6 lakh litres of kerosene will not be lifted or distributed if the crisis is allowed to continue for some more days.

However, despite the alarming situation, the state as well as the district authorities concerned have completely failed to take any concrete action in this regard till date.

The Tribune had highlighted the matter in these columns earlier as well, following which a delegation of the Food and Supplies officials from the district also met the top bosses of the department in Chandigarh and apprised them of the situation.

Though they were asked to join duty and assured that nothing untoward would happen to them, the officials have not reported for work due to fear of being victimised by the police. The Food and Supplies Commissioner had also sent a deputy director to resolve the impasse, but to no avail.

On condition of anonymity, an officer of the department maintained that so far they had got only verbal assurances by the state authorities. “None of us will join duty until and unless we get an official undertaking in black and white that we will not be arrested or harassed by the police,” said the official while talking to this correspondent from his place of hiding.

Sources in the department pointed out that the Chief Minister had been apprised of the matter and the top functionaries of the department were awaiting his response. It seems that till then, the poor residents of this backward town will have to feed their kids only on assurances.

Rewari, October 11
In response to a call given by the Haryana State PWD Mechanical Workers’ Union, hundreds of workers of the Public Works Department, Public Health and the Irrigation Department from Rewari, Mahendragarh, Gurgaon, Mewat, Palwal, Faridabad, Rohtak, Jhajjar and Bhiwani districts held a protest rally and staged a demonstration in Nehru Park here today.

Alleging government apathy towards their long-standing demands, the protesters expressed resentment against the “anti-employee” policies of the state government. The demonstration was led by state president of the union Shiv Kumar Prashar.

Prashar said owing to the non-framing of service rules of the employees, the departmental bosses had been persistently according precedence to their “favourite” junior employees over the seniors in the matter of promotion. Besides, the ever-increasing workload, caused by non-filling of hundreds of vacant posts, had been causing considerable hardships to the serving employees.

Stating the anomalies due to the “erratic” implementation of the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission, Krishal Lal Gujjar, state general secretary of the workers’ union, lamented that not only the payment of the LTC allowance had been lying in abeyance for a long time, payment of wages to unregularised workers was also aberrant.

Raising slogans against the state government, the irate workers marched to the local minister’s residence where they submitted a memorandum of their demands to his private secretary.

Chandigarh, October 11
Haryana Congressmen will have to wait for some more time before they get their new president. Though the party’s organisational elections have been completed, the Haryana Congress is yet to get a new president because the electoral college had, instead of discharging its duty, authorised AICC chief Sonia Gandhi to nominate the new president of the state unit last month.

This is not something unprecedented in the Congress. Rather the decision to authorise Sonia was keeping in line with the past practice and traditions of the party.

Various factions of the Haryana Congress have conveyed their views to Sonia about the next president, who will be a non-Jat.

The Congress has an unwritten law that that the Chief Minister and the state unit president should not belong to the same community.

Sources in the party say that the high command is no hurry to appoint a new president of the Haryana Congress. The issue is quite down in the list of its priorities. At present, the high command is busy with the Commonwealth Games and the Bihar elections.

After that, an exercise will be undertaken to revamp the AICC. The sources say first new general secretaries of the AICC will be appointed and made in charge of various states. The new general secretary in charge of Haryana will naturally like to assess the situation and interact with leaders of various factions before he or she reports to Sonia Gandhi, who will take the final decision.

The entire exercise, the sources say, is likely to take about two months. Till then Phool Chand Mullana will continue to head the Haryana Congress. 

Karnal, October 11
The Akhil Bharatiya Jat Mahasabha has deferred its proposed rally to be held in Jind on October 30 to December 5. However, it has announced to intensify the stir by starting an indefinite fast at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, if the demand for giving the OBC status to Jats is not conceded.

President of the state unit of the Jat Mahasabha Om Prakash Mann said the rally had been postponed due to the ongoing paddy season and elections to Maharaja Suraj Singh Educational Institutions slated for October 31.

The farmers were busy in sale of paddy and a large number of Jats were engaged in elections, he added.

Mann said the Jind rally would be non-violent and the government would be compelled to accept the demand. In case the government remained indifferent, the agitation would be further intensified by resorting to indefinite fast, he added.

Lashing out at president of the All-India Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti Yash Pal Malik for misguiding the Jats and blaming him for the death of a Jat youth in police firing at Hisar on September 13, Mann demanded that a case of conspiracy under Section 120-B of the IPC should be registered against him.

“Malik compromised with the police leaving the agitators in lurch and the police registered cases against them”, he alleged. He also sought action against the erring SP.

He demanded that all cases against the agitators be withdrawn immediately, failing which the mahasabha would be forced to take some radical action. 

Chandigarh, October 11
In reaction to the demand for reservation for the Jats, former MLA Roshan Lal Arya has launched an organisation, “Haryana Vanchit Varg Sangharsh Samiti”, which, he says, will work for safeguarding the interests of the non-Jats in the state.

Arya, who claimed here today that he was a Congressman, said he had floated the organisation to fight for “justice for the people of northern Haryana, which comprises districts of Panchkula, Ambala, Yamunangar, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Panipat.”

He said the samiti was opposed to the Jat reservation demand because the community had been cornering more than its due share in government jobs and state politics since the formation of the state.

Arya regretted that the participants in the Jat reservation agitation burnt public and private property on September 12, but no one had been arrested so far.

Condemning the registration of a criminal case against former SP of Hisar Subhash Yadav, he said this had demoralised the bureaucracy.

Demanding a white paper on the share of the dominant community in government jobs, Arya said the samiti would launch a peaceful agitation to demand the proper share for the non-Jats in government services. If this agitation did not evoke a positive response from the government, he said, the samiti would give a call for social boycott of the Jats.

Arya, who was the chairman of the Haryana Seeds Development Corporation for about three years in the Hooda government, said the recruitment to government jobs should be on the district basis instead of being on the state basis. 

Sirsa, October 11
Cotton ginners have demanded reduction in the market fee and the Haryana Rural Development Fund (HRDF) on cotton in the state.

The ginners complain that taxes are too high in the state, putting them at an unfavourable position as compared to their counter parts in Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

The state government charges 2 per cent market fee and 2 per cent HRDF on the cotton crop coming to the grain market. Disproportionate taxes also harm the interests of the state as the government loses a huge amount due to evasion of taxes.

Sirsa, considered the cotton bowl of the state, produces about 9 lakh bales of cotton every year out of 20 lakh bales produced in the state.

However, sources reveal that only 50 to 60 per cent of the production comes in record for the purpose of taxes.

In a large-scale evasion of market fee and the HRDF in collusion with the market committee officials, the government is being deprived of huge revenue every year.

A trader in the grain market said it was not difficult to detect the evasion, but the market committee officials were hand in glove with the evaders.

“They have only to see the electricity bills of the millers to find out how much cotton is being ginned in their mills,” he added. Cotton ginners of Sirsa and surrounding areas recently invited Industries Minister Gopal Kanda to the office of Sushil Mittal, president of the Haryana Cotton Association, and apprised him of the problems faced by the cotton industry. “The Punjab government has recently decreased its market fee from 4 per cent to 2 per cent. Rajasthan is charging 0.8 per cent, while the market fee in Gujarat is only 0.50 per cent,” said Gurpreet Singh Nagpal, secretary of the Sirsa Cotton Association. He said the government would not loose a single penny if the market fee and the HRDF were reduced, as the evasion of taxes would stop immediately.

Meanwhile, the Haryana Cotton Association also brought to Kanda’s notice the need to promote spinning and garment industry in the state.

“Out of the 20 lakh bales produced in the state, over 90 per cent go outside, while Punjab has to purchase raw cotton from other states though its own production is about 35 lakh bales,” said Subhash Garg, a trader from Fatehabad.

Cotton traders say the state has only two spinning mills against 40 in Punjab, while in the matter of the garment industry too, Punjab is much ahead of Haryana. Garg said Kanda has assured that he would make efforts in this direction. 

Sirsa, October 11
Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGA), the government pays wages of labourers through their accounts opened in nationalised banks.

However, the authorities have received complaints from various parts of the state that in several cases, banks have adjusted the wages received from the government towards the outstanding loans of labourers, most of whom are small farmers from villages.

P Raghavendra Rao, Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Panchayat and Development Department, today made it clear that banks, at their own level, could not recover their loan amount from the wages received under the MNREGA.

Rao was addressing a review meeting of Hisar Division-level officers here today.

Rao said strict action would be taken against bank officers found recovering loan amount in this manner.

Reviewing the construction work of anganwari centres in rural areas, Rao said anganwari centres should be constructed at places that were easily accessible to children. 

Rohtak, October 11
Launching a state-level forum to promote education, representatives and members of several left front organisations have asked the government to hike the budget on education to at least 6 per cent.

The organisations, including the School Teachers Federation of India (STFI), Students Federation of India (SFI), Janwadi Mahila Samiti, Haryana Abhibhawak (parents) Ekta Manch and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), in a meeting held here today called upon the government to take more measures to provide education to each and every citizen of the state.

The meeting announced to start “Save education - expand education” campaign in the state.

A former education minister Shayam Chand asked the government to raise the budget to ensure that every child gets the opportunity to study.

Satyapal Siwach was elected state convener of the drive and a four-member propaganda committee was also set up. It was resolved to hold district-level conventions till November 10. 

Karnal, October 11
In a major initiative to bridge the gap between labs and fields, the state Agriculture Department today launched the first mobile soil testing lab at Rambha village in Karnal district, providing a major relief to farmers.

Launching the lab, Director of Agriculture AK Yadav disclosed that three more mobile labs would be provided before the rabi season and 2.5 lakh soil samples would be tested by November 15.

Yadav said the labs would help create awareness among farmers and provide them the necessary information about soil components, use of fertilisers, seed varieties and other technological inputs.

He urged the farmers to go to labs for getting their soil samples tested in case the mobile van facility was not available. 

Sirsa, October 11
The police and the prohibition officer (PO) under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, Sadhna Mittal, saved two minor girls from marriage at Baruwali-II village near here last evening, just hours before their bridegrooms were to arrive with the barat from Rajasthan.

The girls are aged 15 and 13, according to a complaint received by the police in the Jamal police post, and now their parents have given a written undertaking before the PO that they would not marry them till they attain the marriageable age.

“Some close relative of the girls lodged a complaint with the police at about 3 pm yesterday that the two minor girls were being married to two brothers - Hunta Ram and Subhash - residents of Balasar village in Nohar tehsil of Rajasthan,” said Sadhna.

The marriage party was to reach the village by the evening.

SP Satinder Kumar Gupta constituted a police party and sent it with Sadhna Mittal to stop the marriages.

“Unlike the resistance we have to face in most such cases, the family members of the girls were cooperative and admitted that their girls were minors, though they described their age as 17 and 15 years,” said Sadhna Mittal.

However, they could not provide any proof of their age.

She said the parents of the boys, who had come by the evening, were also called to her office today and asked to give a written undertaking that they would not marry their sons to the girls as they were still minors.

She said she would also move court to seek an injunction against the families so that they could be legally proceeded against in case they violated the court orders.

Jind: A 12-year-old girl, who was to be married on Monday by her parents at Bahadurpur village in the district, was saved from this unlawful act by officials of the local administration.

The family of the girl was made to stop the marriage just an hour before the ceremony. The family reportedly agreed to marry their daughter only after she was of marriageable age.

According to the officials concerned, the authorities reached Bahadurpur village where Bijender had fixed the marriage of his minor daughter with a youth, who was several years older. The marriage was scheduled to be held around noon, when a team of police officials reached the house of the girl. The officials told the parents and kin of the girl that she could not be married as she was a minor following which they agreed to stop the marriage.

“The groom, along with the marriage party, was on the way to the girl’s village when they were told about the decision,” said an official.