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From next session, NCERT books in primary schools
After protest, honour for Hooda
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Major relief for industrial units
Rising power transmission losses worrisome
Norms for hot mix plants out
School nurture policy with community efforts
No-firecracker appeals go up in smoke
Refund Rs 3,000 to complainant, consumer forum tells bank
Farmers being fleeced: Sabha
Still no arrests for Ballabgarh violence
Cong rally to mark Indira Gandhi’s birth anniversary
45 cops promoted
BJP’s dist secy, son killed in accident
De-addiction centres
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From next session, NCERT books in primary schools
Chandigarh, November 7 Introducing a new chapter in primary education, the department officials say the project to replace the textbooks with those of the NCERT has been given the go-ahead in order to bring about a qualitative change in school edication. After thoroughly going through the books prescribed for primary schools students, the officials arrived at the decision to do away with the books compiled by the State Council for Educational Research and training (SCERT). “We want to ensure quality education and want books studied by our children to be in sync with the national curriculum,” says Vijender Kumar, Director, Primary and Secondary Education. The SCERT books are prescribed and used only till Class V in government schools. As soon as a child completes the primary level and enters the secondary stage, he shifts to NCERT books. However, with the content of SCERT books way below that of the NCERT, children usually struggle to match up to the new standard of learning. The teachers, too, find it difficult to raise the learning levels of students in Class VI since the shift to a higher standard is abrupt. “Since a child eventually shifts to the NCERT books in Class VI, we have decided that it would be in the interest of students to follow one course book throughout his schooling and to do away with discrepancies in content. Also, this will help the department realise it goal of imparting quality education in government schools,” the Director said. There are over 12,000 primary government schools in the state with 13.66 lakh children enrolled. Meanwhile, the education department plans to implement a new grant-in gid-model for which comments have been invited from all aided schools and other stake-holders in the school education system. The department proposes a new grant system, replacing the teacher-based grant-in-aid system by providing aid on the basis of student enrollment that is a fixed support per child per month. In the new system, the state would expect certain performance and quality standards, including the condition that all children should pass the board exams, failing which the school may have to reimburse the aid received by the school per child. |
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After protest, honour for Hooda
Chandigarh, November 7 The guest teachers had gathered under the banner of the Haryana Atithi Adhyapak
Sangh. These teachers had been agitating for, among other things, the regularisation of their services, which is not possible for the state government to do in view of certain legal hurdles. However, Hooda assured them that they would not be removed from their assignments and hence they should contribute their best to make students “capable and employable.” At the same time he made it clear that he would not succumb to pressure tactics and, therefore, they should not allow anybody to mislead them.
Hooda said in pursuance of his dream of making Haryana an education hub of an international level, the number of universities and educational institutes, including medical colleges, in the state had been increased considerably during the past few years. He regretted that his predecessors had set up two universities. While one was set up by a Chief Minister in the name of his father, another chose to name the university after his “Guru” and these universities were set up in their home districts. Contrary to it during his tenure, a number of educational institutes, including the YMCA, a defence university, a Sainik School, a Central university and an animal sciences university named after Lala Lajpat
Rai, were being set up in different parts of the state. Hooda said when he assumed office of Chief Minister, the education system was in bad shape and nobody wanted to admit children to government schools. Therefore, he decided to give priority to the education sector and initially, guest teachers were appointed for three months to meet the shortage of teachers. Finding their performance satisfactory, their grievances were redressed from time to time. Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal also urged the teachers to shun the agitation path. Bhukkal said the Right to Education Act was being implemented on a war footing and stations for posting of JBT teachers were being decided after their
counselling. President of the Haryana Atithi Adhyapak Sangh Arun Malik thanked Hooda for giving a number of facilities to the guest teachers and redressing their grievances from time to time. He specially mentioned the enhancement made in their honorarium, facility of three months’ maternity leave with pay to women guest teachers and also the facility of getting posting in the district of their choice after marriage or in any emergency situation. |
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BJP secy to move apex court over rotten wheat
Sirsa, November 7 Somaiya visited the Haryana State Warehousing Corporation (HSWC) storehouse at Bani in this district for a first-hand knowledge of the damage and said he would file his case after consultation with the party’s lawyers in the coming week. “I will bring to the notice of the Supreme Court that the authorities have put over 1.50 lakh bags of rotten wheat into the public distribution system without any laboratory testing of the putrid grains,” the BJP leader said. The decayed wheat put in the PDS channel would harm people’s health, he cautioned. He alleged that even the claims of the HSWC that they had received the highest bid of Rs 0.62 per kg for 99,000 bags of “highly decomposed” wheat did not seem true. “Who will pay for the wheat that can neither be eaten by animals nor by birds?” Somaiya asked and maintained that the highly rotten wheat could not even be used for manure. He said if the claims of the HSWC authorities were to be believed, it was a matter of concern as those purchasing this decayed wheat for a cost would use it for human consumption, “may be for manufacturing liquor”. “The government has been telling lies after lies on the issue of rotting of wheat in government warehouses due to poor storage conditions and has gone to the extent of filing false affidavits in the Supreme Court,” Somaiya alleged. He alleged that the government first gave an affidavit a month ago that only 7,000 tonnes of wheat had been damaged due to the rains in various storehouses in the country. However, the government later submitted a revised affidavit last week putting the figure at 67,000 tonnes. Somaiya alleged that all claims of the government on this issue were false and as a matter of fact lakhs of tonnes of wheat was rotting in the government storehouses for want of proper storage. In Haryana, the BJP leader alleged, the FCI’s wheat of the central pool had rotten at Bani and Ismailabad in Kurukshetra. As many as 1,70000 bags of wheat had become wet due to floods in July this year in the HSWC storehouse at Bani and the authorities had claimed that 65,000 bags, found fit for human consumption, had been sent to the
FCI. |
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Rising cotton prices spell trouble for ginners
Sirsa, November 7 The price quoted for Bathinda, Indore and Rajkot cotton with better staple lengths is even better at Rs 42,500, Rs 44,800
and Rs 45,500 per candy, respectively. This is in sharp contrast to about Rs 22,000 per candy during November last year and Rs 33,500 per candy a month back. This is a welcome scenario for the farmers, many of whom have starting withholding their produce in the hope of
further hike. But the situation is becoming sticky for ginners, exporters and the textile industry. The prices of raw cotton have been increasing by the day and from Rs 3,800 per quintal last month, these have crossed Rs 4,500 per quintal in Sirsa. “I’m waiting for the prices to touch Rs 5,000 per quintal and have held back my entire stock of cotton,” said a farmer from Panjuana village in Sirsa. “With the rate of raw cotton hovering at Rs 4,500 per quintal, our profits have shrunk considerably,” said Gurpreet Singh Nagpal, secretary of the Sirsa Cotton Association. Owing to early commencement of export, both domestic purchasers as well as exporters are finding it hard to meet the demand this year. The government plans to export 55 lakh bales of cotton this year and export authorisation registration certificates (EARC) have already been issued. The exporters have to ensure shipment within 45 days of the EARC or till December 15, 2010, whichever is earlier. “It is almost impossible to honour commitments, going by the fact that so far only 21.07 lakh bales (up to October 31, 2010 as per the website of the CCI) have arrived in India so far. “It will not be possible to export more than 30 lakh bales by December 15 as only the cotton produced till November 30 can reach the ports by then,” said Dharmender Bhai Jain of the Dharmender Pukhraj Exports, Rajkot, with branches in Ahmedabad and Mumbai. He said “commitment” purchases by exporters three to four months in advance had crashed with the sellers unable to honour their commitments due to the sharp rise in prices. The domestic textile industry, too, is feeling the pinch. Sanjiv Dutt, general manager (purchases), Winsome Textile Group, and directo, North India Cotton Industries Association, said in the scramble for purchases by exporters, the domestic industry is not finding enough cotton to run its mills. |
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Major relief for industrial units
Chandigarh, November 7 Managing Director of the nigam Arun Kumar said here today that no service connection charges would be levied on these units, provided the entire electrical infrastructure had been laid in the industrial estates by the HSIIDC. He said the decision had been taken in view of the demand of various industrial associations, which had been representing that service connection charges should not be levied on consumers whose industries were located in the industrial estates developed by the HSIIDC. In support of their contention, they had been stating that since the entire electrical infrastructure had been laid by the HSIIDC and its entire cost had been recovered from the allottees, any further payment for service connection to the power distribution utilities would amount to charging twice for the same infrastructure. Arun Kumar said any extension in “sub-mains” would be done by the applicant himself for loads of 20 kW to 50 kW and beyond that, it was necessary to release the power connection from the high tension supply, for which all equipment would be supplied by the consumers. |
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Rising power transmission losses worrisome
Panipat, November 7 In a letter posted to the financial commissioner (power) on October 5, chairman of the HERC Bhaskar Chatterjee has pointed out that the losses at 11 kV feeders was an important issue and the government should immediately pay attention on it. The chairman stated that the top management of the power utilities had somehow failed to respond to the issue and the losses had been mounting since long. The commission maintained that it was of a firm view that such a sorry state of affairs resulting in line losses were continuing because of lack of proper supervision on the part of senior officers of the distribution system. The data was recorded by junior-level officials and the authenticity of the data was not verified by the seniors, stated the HERC chairman. In his letter, Chatterjee added that the 11 kV feeders with more than 80 per cent losses and above continued to exist and the number of feeders showing 50 per cent losses and above were increasing instead of going down. He said this was despite the fact that all agriculture feeders had already been segregated from rural domestic feeders. The number of feeders in the Dakshin Haryana Vidhyut Nigam with losses of more than 50 per cent increased to 313 in the second half of the financial year 2009-10 from 208 in the first half of the financial year. In Bhiwani circle alone, the increase in such feeders was more than three times from 45 to 155. In Narnaul, where there was no feeder with more than 50 per cent line losses had now 19 such feeders. In the Uttar Haryana Vidhyut Nigam, the number of feeders with line losses of more than 50 per cent was 208 and where losses were between 25 to 50 per cent, the number of feeders was 398. Jhajjar and Rohtak topped the list of such feeders with more than 50 per cent line losses in the nigam. Jhajjar and Rohtak had 83 and 55 such feeders, respectively. Panipat, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Yamunanagar were those circles where there was no feeder with more than 50 per cent line losses. Jind with 98 feeders topped the list with losses between 25 and 50 per cent. The HERC had thus advised the government to designate the Deputy Commissioner of each district as nodal officer for carrying out review work and prepare detailed reports to ascertain how much distribution losses were being incurred in each district. Besides, the commission recommended that local superintending engineers should submit monthly report to the DCs concerned so that effective steps could be taken to bring down the line losses.
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Norms for hot mix plants out
Chandigarh, November 7 A spokesperson of the Environment Department said a decision to this effect has been taken to maintain ecological balance in view of the industrial development and to maintain environment and avoid health hazard for the area residents. He said as per the prescribed norms, the minimum distance of the hot mix plant from the municipal limit should be five km and minimum distance from revenue phirni (lal dora, wherever there is no village phirni) would be one km. He said the minimum distance from the nearest National Highway would be one-and-half km. Similarly, the minimum distance from the nearest state highway would be one km and minimum distance from the nearest major district road and other roads would be 200 m. He said minimum distance from sensitive places like hospital, tourist spots, lakes, national monuments and national parks or wildlife sanctuaries or conservation reserves would be two km. He said the land required for each unit would be two acres. In future hot mix plant with the latest technology of pollution control measures having fabric filter with reverse air cleaner based on the principle of reverse air cleaning or dry dust collector (multi-cyclone) with multiple wet scrubbers would only be allowed. The elevators at loading section should be fully covered. There should be buffer green belt facing road and ‘abadi’ having width of 10 m with a minimum of three rows of plants. The emission standards required to be achieved included suspended particular matter (mg or normal cubic m). He said any other emission standards prescribed by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest or Central Pollution Control Board or Haryana State Pollution Control Board in future would also be applicable. The hot mix plant should have the stack height of at least 25 m. The existing units that do not have the latest technology, as defined above, would have to provide the latest technology for air pollution control measures within a period of two years. A notification to this effect has been issued by the state government.
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School nurture policy with community efforts
Chandigarh, November 7 The objective of the school nurturing programme includes creation of a pool of partners committed to strengthening the education sector, extend support to individuals, organisations and institutions like Panchayti Raj Institutions and non-government organisations to work more closely with the schools and lessen urban and rural disparities. A nurturer can choose a school of his choice from the list and file an application to donate any item. In case, the intention is to adopt a school for the all-round development or for any specific capacity building and training intervention within a school,
the nurturer can enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the department. As an entry point, the department has listed various possible interventions like capacity building and trainings, teaching and learning-related activities and supportive and construction activities for classrooms, drinking water facility, sanitation, protection wall, playground, school garden and kitchen garden. The other such interventions included vocational and science education.Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal said the programme would encourage community participation through donations and activities in any of the government schools. A donor can choose the school and the kind of donation that one
wants to make. The benefits for the nurturer includes more than one-third contribution in the construction activity to be acknowledged with naming the structure in the name of the nurturer’s choice, put up display board on the school premises and on the school information wall, publicity and documentation, rightful place on the
departmental portal and acknowledgement on major occasions.
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No-firecracker appeals go up in smoke
Thanks to their fad for the momentary excitement, the city literally turned into a gas chamber, particularly on the Divali night. While most grown-ups now treat Diwali as an occasion to indulge in the number game before those in positions of power, including Goddess Lakshmi, for the children, the festival has become synonymous with firecrackers. It is also quite ironical to note that Divali, which commenced from the heartfelt sentiments of the people in welcoming Lord Ram on his return to Ayodhya, has now become a festival of show-off with hardly any feelings. The ban imposed by the district administration on bursting firecrackers from 10 pm to 6 am as well as the appeals by the local authorities and social and educational organisations went up in smoke this time as well. Owing to the skyrocketing prices of firecrackers and availability of a wide variety thereof, the children’s “enjoyment” burnt a deep hole in their parents’ pockets. Apart from causing numerous instances of burn injuries, the firecrackers also led to aggravation in the cases of asthma, besides ENT and other disorders. “The children continue to blow up heaps of money in the form of firecrackers, which can lead to serious health risks, apart from polluting the environment,” said Rajpal Katyal, a resident of Sector 15 here.
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Refund Rs 3,000 to complainant, consumer forum tells bank
Yamunanagar, November 7 Raj Kumar, a resident of Yamunanagar, filed a complaint that Punjab National Bank in October 2007 had deducted a penalty from his account twice saying that a customer was required to maintain a minimum balance of Rs 5,000 or else he would have to pay Rs 250 as service charges. He stated that he approached the officials of the bank and requested to rectify the account. However, a bank official disclosed that the bank had changed the policy and enhanced the minimum balance. The official replied that they were not bound to give any information to the account holders and they had put up a notice regarding the change of policy on the notice board. Atul Jaiswal, an advocate who appeared on behalf of the bank before the consumer forum, stated that Raj Kumar knew about the bank circular and bank was a public institution and act as per the policy set up by the RBI. The complainant was supposed to keep a minimum balance of Rs 5,000 in his account and in case he did not, the bank was entitled to deduct incidental charges. President of the District Consumers Disputes Redressal Forum Dina Nath Arora and its member VK Sharma, after hearing both the parties, in its order said the bank had not issued any notice to Raj Kumar that he did not have minimum balance in his current account. It was the bank’s duty to inform the complainant before making any deduction. Therefore, it is clear that there was deficiency in service on the bank’s part as such the complainant is entitled for relief.
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Farmers being fleeced: Sabha
Sirsa, November 7 “Farmers are being forced to sell their produce at cheaper rates in distress in grain markets in the district as the authorities have failed to ensure regular procurement through open bids,” alleged Swaran Singh Virk, vice-president of the state unit of the Kisan Sabha. The farmers also demanded a minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 1,500 per quintal each for wheat as well as paddy. The farmers demanded that the MSP for various basmati varieties of paddy should be fixed between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,500. The sabha demanded the inclusion of a clause in the land acquisition policy of Haryana that no fertile land of farmers would be acquired without their consent. The sabha demanded reduction of domestic tariff for power. Among some other demands of the Kisan Sabha are compensation to flood-hit farmers, repairs of water channels to ensure supply of water till the tail-end and filling of all vacant posts in rural primary health centres. Hardev Singh Sandhu was elected president of the district unit of the sabha.
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Still no arrests for Ballabgarh violence
The SHO, Ballabgarh (City), Narender Singh, said today that the arrests could not be made as the police was busy with the upkeep of law and order for Divali. The police had booked 200 persons under Section 307(attempt to murder).The dilly-dallying by the police in making the arrests has generated resentment among the people as well as raised questions on police efficiency. The police has also been criticised for its failure to protect the office of Sharda Rathore, Chief Parliamentary Secretary which was ransacked. It is intriguing as to why the mob chose to target Rathore’s office. Some smell a conspiracy.
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Cong rally to mark Indira Gandhi’s birth anniversary
Kaithal, November 7 The Chief Minister will also lay the foundation stone of many projects and dedicate the completed projects to the public. This was stated by PWD and Public Health Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala at a press conference here today. President of the All-India Kisan Khet Mazdoor Congress Shamsher Singh Surjewala, MP Naveen Jindal and state ministers and MLAs will also address the rally, he added. He said the Chief Minister would also be honoured for his farmer-friendly policies and announcements, including increase in floor rates for land acquisition. The minister said the youth of the area would be provided special training through MNS Company to prepare them for interviews in multinational companies. Surjewala participated as chief guest in many functions held in Sain Vidya Mandir and Vishvakarma Jayanti function in Dogran Gate area. The organisers presented mementoes and shawl to Randeep Singh Surjewala and Shamsher Singh Surjewala. DCC president Tejinder Mann and Congress party office-bearers were also present in these functions.
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45 cops promoted
Bhiwani, November 7 Eleven EHC and HC had also been promoted as EASI, including seven of Sirsa and four EHC of Fatehabad, the SP said. He said EASI of Bhiwani Shish Ram had been promoted as
ESI.
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BJP’s dist secy, son killed in accident
Fatehabad, November 7
He was returning home on his bike with his son Akash (18) and a relative, identified as Parmod, when a truck hit them from the rear at 10 pm last night. The three died on the spot. The bodies were brought to General Hospital here for postmortem after which Sharma and his son were cremated at Bhuna. Parmod was cremated at his ancestral village Chanana in Rajasthan today. Capt Abhimanyu, national secretary of the BJP, Subhash Barala, president of the kisan cell of the party, Dura Ram and Nishan Singh, former MLAs, Om Parkash Ralhan and Bharat Bhushan Midha and local BJP leaders were among those who attended the cremation at
Bhuna. |
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De-addiction centres
Chandigarh, November 7 District and state-level committees
would be constituted under these rules. The latter would have 16
official and non-official members, with Administrative Secretaries of
Health and Medical Education, Social Justice and Empowerment, Technical
Education, Higher Education, School Education, Social Justice and
Empowerment Department The Director General, Health Services, would act
as member secretary. — TNS |
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Gurgaon, November 7
Ballabgarh (Faridabad), November 7