Bathinda, December 5
While the nation remembers Shaheed Bhagat Singh on various occasions and pays tributes to him in different manners, Sharma Bardwala, a kabaddi player, has his own way to pay respects to his hero. He has got the martyr’s portrait tattooed on his chest.

Bardwala, a kabbadi player affiliated to the Late Harjeet Singh Bajakhana Club, was here on Saturday to participate in matches held during the Virasat Mela, organised by the Malwa Heritage Foundation at the Sports Stadium.

Though tattooing has of late become a trend, people were found to be much fascinated by the unique idea of this kabaddi player.

“Oye dekh bhalwan ne Bhagat Singh di photo banvayi hai. Eh inquilabi lagda hai. Inj japda hai is de dil vich Bhagat Singh wala josh hai.” These were one of the common remarks that the visitors to the Virasat Mela made about the player.

When asked about the tattoo, Sharma said he was a disciple of the martyr and paid tribute to him in his own way.

“From an unknown person in 1929, he grew into a national hero before he was executed in 1931 because of his remarkable words and actions. I wish to follow in the footsteps of Bhagat Singh. Besides, carrying his revolutionary teachings forward is also a part of my life’s motto,” he said.

“Though tattooing alone will not serve the purpose, it works as an inspiration for me to face any challenge in life. It really works as a motivator for me,” he added.

When asked about his views about the youth getting hooked to drugs, Sharma Bardwala said, “To make youth move on the right track, there should be ample source of employment. Besides, the government should become generous enough to promote games by offering prizes and other honorariums to sportspersons as it will help youth to refrain from all evils.”

Bathinda, December 5
Suspecting two huge iron-made tankers, parked in a zinc factory at village Jeevan Singh Wala, of containing thousands of litres of synthetic milk, the district health authorities of Bathinda today collected the samples for laboratory testing to ascertain its contents.

Though the samples were collected, people accused the health officials of attempting to help the accused by opting not to seal the tankers to check the sale of the suspected synthetic milk.

"The health officials did not act in accordance with the gravity of the situation. Merely going through the formality, they only collected the samples but spared the milk itself which was more than 20,000 kilolitres meant for sale in the open market," accused a villager, who witnessed the developments.

He was supported by others, who said, "Once you get suspicious about the contents of any consumable food or drink, the whole stuff should be sealed immediately so that the accused do not get a chance to play with the health of others."

According to information, leakage of gas took place from a zinc factory located at village Jeewan Singh Wala near Talwandi Sabo. The gas enveloped the road and reduced the visibility, which led to a series of accidents between a car, a tractor-trolley, an Innova and a bicycle. Three persons were injured in the accident, and were rushed to the Civil Hospital, Talwandi Sabo, for treatment.

Receiving the information, police, fire brigade officials and media persons reached the spot and found the unusual smell of a gas there.

To ascertain the cause of gas leakage, when media persons entered the factory, they found two iron-made tankers parked there and two containers, lying besides them, filled with caustic soda. Investigating further, it was observed that the tankers were filled with milk which made them suspicious about the contents of milk.

Getting information, the district health officials also reached the spot and collected samples of the milk. Despite smelling a rat, they did not opt to seal the tankers, which made people raise question over the integrity of the health officials.

Speaking to the TNS, the district health officer (DHO), Dr RS Randhawa said, "We have collected the samples, which would be sent for laboratory test. Once the test reports arrive, further action will be taken against the accused."

When asked why the tankers were not sealed to check the sale of the milk in question, the DHO said, "During the preliminary investigation, we did not find it was required as there was no prima-facie evidence that it was synthetic milk."

Bathinda, December 5
The Mayor, Baljit Singh Birbehman, has been nominated as the Vice-Chairman of the All India Council of Mayors (AICOM).

In a press release, the Mayor said that during a meeting held recently, Chairman of the AICOM Ashutosh Varshney nominated him for the post.

Birbehman was appointed as a member to the eight-member executive committee of the AICOM in January this year.

Birbehman said the AICOM was a non-profit organisation, which had a clear objective of creating a platform for mayors to meet and exchange ideas and to create a culture of better governance of local bodies throughout the country.

The mayors of all municipal corporations of India are ex-officio members of the AICOM during their tenure as mayors, he informed. — TNS

Abohar, December 5
Where there is a will, there is a way! Sanjeev Kumar, a differently-abled boy of Telupura village of this sub-division has proved this right by winning a bronze medal in the Israel Open 2010 Badminton Championship for the disabled held in Tel Aviv from November 24-29.

Sanjeev Kumar, whose one leg is defective, won the bronze medal in the wheelchair BMW-3 single event in the championship, in which, players from nine countries participated.

Significantly, he has won the tournament without coaching from any sports institute.

Sanjeev Kumar, who emerged a national champion in the doubles event of badminton in the ‘Fifth Handicapped Para Games Championship-2010’ held at Bangalore, participated in the wheelchair singles and wheelchair doubles events in the Tel Aviv championship.

He secured second position in the singles event of Bangalore championship organised by the Para Olympic Games Committee of India. Hailing from a poor family and having no means to earn a livelihood, Sanjeev Kumar was financially supported by Deputy Commissioner KK Yadav and an NRI Balwant Kaur Gill to help him reach Tel Aviv to participate in the prestigious championship.

He also had to borrow some money to meet the expenses incurred by him for participating in the event.

Earlier, he could not participate in the Colombo championship as he failed to collect sufficient money to fund his trip to that country. He was the only player of Punjab, who was selected for the Tel Aviv championship. He was selected by the Badminton Sports Association of India for the physically challenged.

Talking to TNS, Sanjeev Kumar pointed out that he would make relentless efforts to bring maximum number of medals for India in the international competitions as he had been practising hard in his game braving all odds. His achievement has also come as a source of inspiration for many others who are physically disabled.

Abohar, December 5
The members of the Nayak community would also get benefit of the Shagun scheme by the next month, said Balluana MLA Gurtej Singh Ghuriana.

Speaking during the district conference of the community at village Nihalkhera on Sunday, Gurtej Singh Ghuriana claimed that the Punjab Vidhan Sabha had approved an amendment to include the Nayak community in the scheme during the budget session and its implementation was expected by the next month.

He informed that the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had given nod to the files that had been submitted in 2006-07 for releasing cheques worth rupee 15,000 each under the scheme.

District president of the Nayak Sabha Nathu Ram demanded that the community be listed in the Scheduled Castes at par with Rajasthan.

The MLA assured of taking up the matter with Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal after his return from the United States.

Fazilka, December 5
An employee of the Punjab State Warehousing Corporation (PSWC) was killed in a road accident on Sunday in the morning on the Fazilka-Ferozepur road near village Ghubaya.

As per the information, the deceased Madan Lal (40), a resident of village Chack Jamalgarh, was going on his motorcycle near village Ghubaya. He was moving behind a truck.

All of a sudden, the truck driver applied brakes to avert collision from the front. Madan Lal could not control the bike and collided with the truck from the rear. He died on spot. Postmortem was conducted at the local civil hospital the same day.

Fazilka, December 5
The Punjab State Electricity Board (now Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd) had initiated an ambitious scheme of replacing the traditional bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) more than three and a half years back to conserve energy.

However, it seems that the scheme has run into rough weather due to reported paucity of funds.

The government had motivated the farmers through advertisements and other means in this border belt to replace the traditional bulbs and in lieu of it the government had assured to provide them with CFLs at subsidised rates.

Since the CFL is costly, hence a marginal farmer cannot bear the cost of about Rs 200 per CFL of 20 watt. If the government could provide the CFL at subsidised rates, the farmers can replace it, said Dev Raj of village Mohammad Pira of this sub-division. As per the sources, a CFL saves up to 40 per cent of the energy as compared to the traditional one. Surprisingly, even the senior functionaries of the department do not know the present status of the scheme.

“I am not aware of the present status of the scheme. About two years back, the government had provided a few CFLs. However, after that the Corporation did not receive any supply,” stated SDO Powercom (Rural) Lekh Raj. The government is already running short of funds.

It has no funds to provide CFL as the project needs sufficient funds to meet the requirement of farmers, said a senior functionary pleading anonymity.

On the other hand, Executive Engineer, Powercom (Fazilka) Sham Lal Arora said as per the information received here, the Powercom has prepared a plan to replace the bulbs with CFLs, which has been sent for approval to the Punjab government.

Abohar, December 5
More than 80 out of 135 families (as per the official report) affected by demolition of the Labour Colony of Shree Bhawani Cotton Mills and Industries Ltd are headed by widows of the former workers, who had migrated to this town from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa.

Most of the male heads of the migrant families had worked for about three decades but their wards were unable to raise deposits in the banks.

Some of the women including daughter-in-law of a former worker were not able to arrange a rented accommodation for them till today even after the constant efforts of her husband (a rickshaw puller).

Some of the families said they had received about Rs 20-30,000 as arrear while one Kashmir Singh was awaiting decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court over his petition for a reasonable compensation. He had preserved the job card that was issued to him in 1968.

Sources said more than two dozen families had not been able to get the payment of arrears since the heads of the families had not made any nomination during the job and there were disputes over the list of the claimants now.

Municipal Council member Nirmala Devi Tiwari too found herself helpless in redressing grievances of the displaced families since the colonisers enjoyed strong legal as well as administrative support. The leaders of the defunct worker unions or the NGOs have also not come to the rescue of the affected families so far.

Abohar, December 5
The district union of the unemployed DPE/MP.Ed (Physical Education) teachers has criticised the state government for talking too much on promoting sports by developing new stadiums.

Addressing the meeting at Nehru Park here today, state president Jagdish Kumar Jaggi criticised the new sports policy that had recently been unfolded by the Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal and rued that more than 4,000 unemployed physical education teachers were waiting for recruitment.

Some of the youths at the meeting said adequate funds had not been released for holding annual sports in the government schools even.

Sriganganagar, Dec 5
A sum of Rs 25 crore has been sanctioned for the long-awaited construction of RoB near Azad Talkies railway crossing (C-119) on the Abohar-Sriganganagar road, sources confirmed on Sunday quoting the Central government officials and local MLA Radhey Shyam. The project would give relief to hundreds of vehicles that are held up at the crossing due to passing of 18 trains.

Earlier, District Collector Subeer Kumar had informed after attending a high-level meeting that 50 per cent of the budgeted cost would be paid by the Railways and work was expected to begin before March 31next year.

Ridcore, an agency that was assigned the task of conducting survey and finalising the plan, had submitted a detailed plan to the Urban Improvement Trust (UIT) here and XEN of the UIT had been designated as nodal officer.

Municipal Council commissioner has been delegated the powers of land acquisition officer.

As per the plan, eight shops on the power house road, office of the sectional officer and state cotton pressing factory land are to be acquired by December 15.

Having taken into consideration the problems being faced by the people after construction of poorly designed RoB at Abohar and narrow RoB at Hanumangarh, the Ridcore has fixed the length of the RoB at Sriganganagar as 750 metre with 8.5 meter height, 50 metre radius and 58.23 metre level crossing.

The minimum width of the RoB has been fixed as seven metre whereas it would be 12-15 metre wide at the zero points.

Sriganganagar, Dec 5
NGOs and elected representatives have resented deferring of gauge conversion work on the Sriganganagar-Sarupsar rail track by one month.

Even as the foundation stone of the project was laid a decade back, the work could not be completed due to various reasons.

The conversion of meter gauge to broad gauge is considered significant as it could pave way for running express trains from Abohar (Punjab) to Rajasthan and Gujarat.

To link Jaisalmer with Udhampur cantonment also through the Abohar-Fazilka-Ferozepur, the gauge conversion was also necessary.

Lok Sabha member Arjun Meghwal said, “I met the Railway Minster Mamata Banerjee in Parliament House during the weekend and informed her that trains were to be suspended on the Sriganganagar-Sarupsar route from December 1 to facilitate laying of rail-lines since stone metal laying had been completed. Her OSD immediately enquired from the Railway Board officials. Intriguingly, it was revealed that the task of preparing estimates for modifying the signal system was inadvertently not completed.”

This would result in delay for about a month, the MP regretted. He informed Mamata that there was no technical problem in expediting the gauge conversion work on the Raisinghnagar-Dalpatsinghpur section. However, the Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee has assured to take it up on priority basis, he said.

Meanwhile, during a meeting at Panchayati Dharamshala in Srikaranpur today, the Rail Sangharsh Samiti warned the Central government that indefinite agitation would be resumed after the conversion work was further delayed.

Convener Baldev Raj informed that a memorandum has been faxed to Mamata Banerjee and chairman of the Railway Board in this connection. The Samiti has been extended support by the city BJP President

Rajesh Gupta, president (Municipal Council) Jugal Kishore and president (Youth Congress) Naresh Kumar. Secretary of the Rail Road Sangharsh Samiti Gurprasad Behal and vice-president of Railway Passengers Association (North Zone) Hanuman Dass Goyal have also urged the Central government to release adequate funds and pull up the erring officials of the railways to ensure speedy conversion of gauge work.