Bathinda, November 27
Irked over the lackadaisical attitude of the civil administration towards checking the acute shortage of domestic LPG cylinders, activists of about a dozen social organisations today launched a signature drive in the city.

Taking an initiative to bring people on a common platform to take the authorities concerned to task, dozens of social activists visited people door-to-door and asked them put their signatures on a memorandum addressed to the Union minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas. The signature would denote their consent to the details in memorandum.

Speaking to The Tribune, state general secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat Ashok Kumar Garg, who is leading the drive, claimed that dozens of activists had been assigned duties in area-wise manner. They would sensitise people about their rights and get their consent in form of signatures on the memorandum.

“We target about 2,100 signatures before sending the memorandum to the Union minister through Bathinda deputy commissioner,” he said.

The memorandum reads as the agencies supplying LPG cylinders to consumers here have made their “own” rule to supply a domestic cylinder after 21 days of booking. Interestingly, a consumer has to wait for another about 20 days to get the gas.

“The situation is so grim that people line up outside the agencies and godowns to get the delivery of booked cylinders in the morning, but fail at a number of times, as after reaching close to the counter, the staff tells them that the cylinders have run out of stock. Ironically, even as these consumers don't get home delivery service, still they have to pay the ferry charges,” the memorandum stated.

It further said, “Getting a new connection is an uphill task. We have sent you hundreds of complaints using all sources like internet, toll-free customer care telephone number, posting letters and even through newspapers, still neither the administration paid heed towards the issue nor the salesmen of the gas companies here.”

“Irked over the non-redressal of our grievance, we have resorted to this step-the signature drive,” it said.

Reacting over the recent statement of the state government that the senior officials of the three petroleum companies had assured the food and civil supplies minister, Punjab, of supplying uninterrupted cooking gas within a week to the consumers, the agitators said, “The government has lost its credibility as the promises hardly get implemented in this state. If this drive too failed, we would observe a complete bandh and even observe a hunger strike.”

Bathinda, November 27
To issue an NBH accreditation certificate (National accreditation Board for Healthcare organisations and hospitals) to the Civil Hospital, Bathinda, a quality consultant of the Octavo Solutions Private Limited, Delhi, has started working on the first phase (preparatory) of the assessment at the hospital.

Talking to this reporter today, Akanksha Pande, the quality consultant, said that before getting the NBH accreditation certificate, the hospital had to pass through four phases, namely preparatory or gap assessment phase; implementation phase; pre-assessment phase; and assessment phase, in that order.

She said the quality consultants of the Octavo Solutions had started work in this regard in five government hospitals situated at Mohali, Bathinda, Patiala, Amritsar and Jalandhar.

However, she said till now, no hospital had the NBH accreditation certificate in the state.

In the preparatory phase, deficiencies in various medical departments of the hospital like emergency wing and OPDs will be noted. Besides, an analysis will also be done regarding quality of structures and infrastructure (building, licences of facilities like blood bank), flow of process (patients' flow, doctors' attitude towards patients, availability of doctors to patients, availability of wheel chair or stretcher to patients) and outcome (number of patients in the OPDs, treatment of patients, satisfaction of the patients).

Akanksha said that on Monday, she would give a presentation to the staff about the NBH.

It is learnt that completion of all processes with regard to the NBH accreditation certificate will take a couple of years to complete. It is the prestigious certificate for any hospital.

Ferozepur, November 27
The district consumer dispute redressal forum while holding Allahabad Bank authorities guilty for breaking the promise of extending house loan to an applicant after getting required formalities completed from him, has directed the same to pay compensation of Rs 10,000 to the applicant.

While disposing of the application Lal Chand, a resident of Ferozepur district filed against Allahabad Bank, the forum, also directed the bank authorities to pay Rs 30,000 with interest to complainant as this amount had been spent by him in completing the formalities for getting the loan sanctioned.

As per the copy of judgement delivered by Sanjay Garg and Tarlok Singh, president and member of forum respectively and given to The Tribune, today, complainant Lal Chand has filed the present complaint against chairman-cum-managing director, Allahabad Bank, pleading that he alongwith his mother namely Jaskori had applied for a house loan of Rs 7,00,000 to Allahabad bank. The bank authorities agreed to provide loan to him subject to completion of formalities including mortgaging his piece of land as security of the loan amount.

The complainant mortgaged his land to bank, entered the same into revenue record and then completed other required formalities in 2004. He had to spend about Rs 30,000 on this process. The bank authorities promised that loan will be released within 2-3 months and as per assurance of bank authorities, Lal Chand started construction of his house.

After 2-3 months when he enquired about the release of the loan amount, the bank authorities again put off the matter on the one pretext or the other. As he had already started construction of his house, he had to face difficulty in arranging funds . Till date the bank authorities have failed to release loan amount without disclosing any reason.

The forum held that bank authorities, which were proceeded against ex-parte as its representative failed to appear, had not put any defence to the averments of the complaint and as such impliedly admitted all the averments of the complaint. The complainant is to be compensated for the financial loss suffered by him and also for the mental agony suffered by him at the hands of the bank authorities. This order is directed to be complied with within a period of thirty days from the date of receipt of its copy, ordered the forum. 

Abohar, November 27
The rail overbridge (RoB) that had been inaugurated by the top ruling politicians with much fanfare last year has turned out to be major accident prone zone due to inadequate designing and faulty side lanes. The wife of a doctor was killed and a dozen occupants sustained injuries when four cars collided head on with short intervals on the RoB last night. Intriguingly, the street lights that had cost the PWD much remain switched off.

As per information gathered from different sources, a Zen and an Icon collided head on at about 11.30 pm resulting in the death of Santosh Rani, wife of Dr Pawan Manak of street 10 in Nai Abadi locality, while five others sustained injuries. Their daughter-in-law Aarti has been referred to Ludhiana as her condition was stated to be serious while daughter Neeru, sister-in-law Rajni and niece Nancy have been admitted to a local hospital. The driver and other occupants of the Icon car flee leaving behind a physically-hallenged Manga Singh in the vehicle. He too was hospitalised.

Few hours before this mishap, two other cars had also collided head on at the same RoB resulting in injuries to occupants of both the vehicles. The fate of two youths who sustained injuries could not be known since the car was driven away perhaps to avert legal proceedings.

One of the vehicle scaled the footpath and hit a house also but no more casualty was reported, sources said.       

Some of the social activists, including Devinder of the Pal Sabha who rushed to the RoB regretted that the local administration had not taken any step to prevent such accidents.

The NGOs had demanded that a round circle be created and red lights should be installed to regulate the traffic but none bothered.

Notably, a motorcyclist college student, who had been injured seriously, was taken away in the jeep that had hit the bike few months back. His body was later found near a link road. The police had failed in identifying the culprits so far.

The RoB connects the old city with the college road but the traffic police could be found only penalising the students instead of regulating the traffic, the NGOs had regretted.

Sriganganagar, November 27
The National Highway 15 will be renovated with a budgeted cost of Rs 700 crore during the next financial year, superintending engineer (SE) Ashok Khanna said. 

Notably, the NH-15 connects Kandla port in Gujarat with Pathankot in Punjab. This 1,526-km-long highway passes through Pathankot, Amritsar, Bathinda, Abohar, Sriganganagar, Bikaner, Jaisalmer and Barmer. At Bikaner, the NH-11 terminates on this highway.

Of its total length of 1,526 km, the NH-15 traverses 350 km in Punjab, 906 km in Rajasthan and 270 km in Gujarat. Heavy vehicular traffic had resulted in hundreds of deaths during the mishaps in the recent past. The causalities go up when the weather is foggy.

Indicating that the Union Ministry of Surface Transport had given a nod to revise the renovation plan, the SE informed during visit to this district that width of the highway would be increased from seven metres to 10 meters. It will help in ensuring smooth flow of traffic and checking mishaps.

Initially, the renovation was planned for about 250 km, beginning from Bikaner, but the Central government had now decided to cover 650 km to cover the length of road in Punjab also.

Sanction has been granted to renovate the NH under public private partnership (PPP) norms and revised project submitted to the finance ministry. The work is expected to start after six months and the survey has been completed.

The NH Bikaner division has submitted plan to create a mini by-pass so that heavy vehicles need not pass through the district town of Sriganganagar. A new bridge will be constructed on the Gang canal in village Sadhuwali that connects Sriganganagar with Abohar.

This correspondent found that NH-15 had recently been widened from village Khuyiansarwar to Sadhuwali by five feet on each side but rest of the work could not be taken up as Punjab PWD and Ferozepur district administration had not been able to remove encroachments that had reduced the width of the NH road near village Khuyiansarwar.

However, Rajasthan government had recently delegated powers to a tehsildar to demolish all the structures that had come up on both sides of the NH-15 in Sriganganagar.

Bathinda, November 27
A meeting of the district unit of the Mazdoor Mukti Morcha (MMM) under the presidentship of district president Harwinder Singh Sema was held here today in connection with preparation for dharnas to be held on December 22 at district headquarters by 17 farmer and labourer organisations.

State secretary of the MMM Bhagwant Singh Samao also attended the meeting. He asked the workers to make preparations for the dharna in a big way, besides exposing discrimination the labourers in villages were subjected to by the government.

He said the government wanted to weaken the unity of farmers and labourers by way of creating a wedge between them so that they could not fight against the government together.

He said furthering this policy, the government had waived the power bills of tubewell motors of the farmers.

Sema said the MMM would also approach other organisations that were fighting for protecting the interests of the labourers, to participate in the struggle of the Morcha. 

Abohar, November 27
While lambasting the BJP for adopting double standards, former Lok Sabha Speaker Bal Ram Jakhar regretted that millions of rupees pocketed off by the people as taxes were being wasted by not allowing the Parliament to function for about a fortnight.

He was accorded a warm reception by his decades-long friends and supporters. Terming installation of former CM Captain Amarinder Singh as PPCC president a positive step, he said the Congress would give a united fight to the SAD-BJP alliance in the next Vidhan Sabha elections.

Political workers including some former legislators, ex-chiefs of the civic bodies, councillors, principals, teachers and senior functionaries of NGOs greeted him.

Faridkot/Kotkapura, November 27
Former finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal has today lashed out at the state government alleging that the state intelligence agency was spying on him and his supporters as if they were criminals.

Talking to the media after meeting members of the Faridkot district Bar Association, Manpreet said he would write a letter to the DGP (Intelligence) and also file a writ petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. “I am open and there is nothing to hide,” he added.

In the Bar, Jagbir Singh Brar, Kushaldeep Singh Dhillon, Narain Das Kali, Fateh Singh Sekhon, Chamkaur Singh and many other local leaders also accompanied him. In reply to a question, he admitted that many senior leaders of the SAD had approached him for a patch-up but once again reiterated that he had no plans what so ever to go back to the Akalis or the Congress party. Later, he addressed public rallies at Kotkapura town and a few other locations in the Kotkapura assembly segment, On the occasion, he announced to hold a big conference on the eve of Maghi at Muktsar on coming January 14 at the end of the first phase of his yatra. 

Ferozepur, November 27
The minor boy, a student of class second, who was allegedly sodomised by his senior schoolmates for days is yet traumatised. He failed to record his statement before the police today. Gurcharan Singh, additional SHO, police station Sadar (Ferozepur) said the victim was not able to gather enough courage to record his statement before him.

However, the victim accompanied a police team led by Gurcharan Singh to the school premises and identified the places where the alleged crime took place. A map of the venue had been prepared by the police as a part of investigation, he added.

Information gathered by the TNS revealed that the father of the victim had to approach the police when he failed to get any positive response from the school authorities.

However, it is learnt, school authorities had also been conducting a probe into this matter so that students, if found guilty, could be taken to task.

Meanwhile, Gurcharan Singh said that when he alongwith victim visited the school premises, he could not find anyone of the three accused in the school. He added that after completing the formalities, which were required under investigation, the accused would be arrested in this case.

Fazilka, November 27
The letter issued by the state health department on November 19 carrying instructions for cancellation of deputation and temporary duties of employees working in all the districts of Punjab in health department would not be applicable for the surplus pharmacists and class IV employees of the heath department, claimed Punjab State Pharmacists’ Association state president Ravinder Luthra and state press secretary of the Association Shashi Kant in a joint statement issued here today.

The letter was misinterpreted at certain places and under the cover of this letter the district heads of the health department reportedly arbitrarily cancelled the adjustment of surplus pharmacists and class IV employees which caused resentment amongst the employees. — OC

Moga, November 27
A 50-year-old farmer has allegedly committed suicide by consuming some poisonous substance at Dhilwan Kalan village in Baghapurana sub-division here on Saturday.

The exact reason of the death was yet to be ascertained, however, during preliminary inquiries, it came to light that the farmer lost his Rs 6.5 lakh kept in a bag at Baghapurana bus stand, a couple of days ago. He reportedly complained to the police but no FIR was registered on his complaint.

It was presumed that the farmer identified as Sukhdev Singh could not bear the financial loss and allegedly consumed some poisonous substance to end his life. While he was being rushed to the district hospital at Bathinda, he died on the way. The police had initiated inquest proceedings into the incident. — TNS