Hoshiarpur, February 15
The district police, Hoshiarpur, has claimed to have busted a fake foreign currency racket with the arrest of three persons and recovered fake US currency with a face value of $5,000 from them.

According to Randhir Singh Uppal, SP, on a tip-off, a special naka was led by Sukhjinder Singh, sub-inspector, Narcotic Control Cell, near Woodland School on the Hoshiarpur-Hariana road last night.

During the naka, Pardeep Singh, alias Deepu of Sandhu Chatha, Satnam Singh of Dhaliwal and Vijay Pal of Chammo were intercepted and fake $5,000 was recovered from them. A case under Section 489 ABC of the IPC had been registered against them.

The SP said the arrested trio, along with their accomplices Amarjit Singh of Sultanpur and Happy of Malsian, used to prepare fake foreign currencies of various countries and sell it on half the price. Efforts were on to nab Amarjit and Happy, he added.

Meanwhile, the SP said during a special naka, the Mahilpur police arrested Shiv Kumar of Waryana PS Maksudan last night and seized one 315-bore pistol along with a live cartridge from him.

A case under Sections 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act had been registered against the accused.

Phagwara, February 15
Incessant rain followed by hailstorm lashed Phagwara, Phillaur and Nakodar town today, considerably bringing down the day temperature.

The downpour across the cities hampered the vehicular traffic. Residents of several localities, including Hargobind Nagar, Model Town, Gaushala Bazar, Subhash Nagar, Khaira Road, Onkar Nagar, Rattanpura Mohalla and Palahai Gatephagwara, faced a lot of problem due to stagnation of water as sewerages were blocked. Residents of the areas blamed the inefficiency on the part of the Phagwara Nagar Council for the poor sanitation.

Amritsar, February 15
In order to eradicate tuberculosis from Punjab, the central government would establish DOT (directly observed treatment) plus sites in Amritsar, Ludhiana and Patiala under the Revised National TB Control Programme.

In Amritsar, it would be set up at Government Medical College for which the site has already been earmarked, informed District TB Officer, Dr Naresh Chawla.

Dr Chawla said estimate cost to carry out the renovation work in district TB hospital to set up the DOT plus site is pegged at Rs 19 lakh and a project report regarding this has already sent to Central TB division for releasing the funds. The amount is expected to reach the TB centre here within a fortnight, he added.

Meanwhile, to strengthen TB-HIV coordination, an integrated counselling and testing centre (ICTC) would be stared at the TB hospital.

“Under the DOT plus programme, free treatment would be extended to proven cases of multi drug resistance (MDR) TB patients,” said Dr Chawla adding that MDR TB is a challenge for Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP). The treatment costs about Rs two lakhs in private hospitals which took 24 to 27 months to heal.

“The high cost factor makes it out of reach of poor patients. However, DOT plus programme would help in providing this treatment free of cost to such patients,” Dr Chawla pointed out.

According to statistics available, Amritsar recorded 3,978 TB patients during 2010 while it could be pegged at approximately 5,000 if we consider the number of patients visiting in the private hospitals, said District TB Officer.

“Each year about 9.1 million develop tuberculosis out of which 1.9 million cases are from India while in every four seconds a person contracts TB while one of them dies in every 10 seconds,” Dr Chawla said.

Meanwhile, a quarterly meeting of state task force of RNTCP was held at Sri Guru Ram Dass Institute of Medical Sciences and Research at Vallah here. Dr. Jagdeep Whig, Vice Principal Dayanand Medical College, Ludhiana was the chairperson while Dr. Geeta Sharma, Director-Principal of the institute inaugurated the meeting.