Dehradun, February 28
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has expressed disappointment at the annual Budget proposals presented by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Parliament.

In a statement here today, the Chief Minister said after the Railway Budget it was again in the annual Budget that Uttarakhand had been totally ignored, showing the discrimination against the state by the Union Government.

He said while Jammu and Kashmir and north-eastern states had been given special packages of Rs 8,000 crore, the state of Uttarakhand, which was strategically important and from where each household contributed to the armed forces of the country, had been ignored. The state, which saw a massive destruction during the monsoon in 2010, had been given a cold shoulder in the annual Budget.

Nishank said the Budget had nothing to solve the problem of inflation, black money and unemployment. Women had been ignored and the measures proposed to discourage the amassing of black money were not practical.

On the issue of extension of special industrial package for Uttarakhand, Nishank said there was no mention of the extension of the special industrial package given to the state. He also condemned the Central Budget for not providing financial assistance to the states to deal with the added financial burden of giving its employees the salaries according to the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission.

He said states were expected to control their deficit budgets, but they did not have resources to cope the increasing demands of development. He also alleged that Uttarakhand being a special category state had been denied Central grants in the 90:10 per cent ratio and the states were also being ignored in the implementation of the GST system by the Central Government.

The Chief Minister said the Union Government had been trying to convey a message that inflation would be controlled and growth generated in the annual Budget, but it was during the UPA regime that inflation had crossed all limits.

On divestm ent in public sector units, he alleged that the state governments had not been given their due as these also deserved to get public money earned from the sale of these public sector units.

Dehradun, February 28
Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) President Yashpal Arya has hailed the 2011-12 Budget presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Parliament today.

Arya, calling it a Budget of aam aadmi, said the increasing development rate has been made strong by giving a special emphasis to agriculture and infrastructure.

Dehradun, February 28
Members of the Bharatiya Janata Yuwa Morcha yesterday burnt the effigies of all the five Congress MPs of Uttarakhand accusing them of being mute spectators to the discrimination meted out to the state in the Railway Budget.

Led by senior BJP leaders Goverdhan Bharadwaj and Puneet Mittal, they burnt the effigies of the Congress MPs at the Clock Tower. They also resorted to sloganeering against the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre. The BJP leaders said Uttarakhand had been continuously neglected by the Centre and the Railway Budget was the latest in this series of discrimination.

Bharadwaj said it was a matter of concern that the Congress swept the entire Uttarakhand in the last Lok Sabha elections, but all the five Congress MPs from the state had failed to raise Uttarakhand issues in the Lok Sabha.

Dehradun, February 28
Forty per cent of urban India has already developed resistance to multi drugs, and rural India is much better with only 4 per cent falling prey to it.

Pressing the panic button while delivering a lecture at a conference convened by the Dehradun Obstetric and Gynaecological Society, Director, Centre of IVF and Human Reproduction, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Dr Abha Majumdar spoke of how alarming the situation was becoming, especially even when reputed doctors throughout the country were very frequently prescribing medicines for TB to young women as a cure for infertility, even when TB did not exist in most of the cases.

She said, “The doctors have made it their business to trap patients in the garb of TB treatment for nine months and started their own franchises and availing sponsorships for subscribing TB medicines.

“Without going for elaborate and intensive tests, doctors are diagnosing women as young as 18 years old for TB treatment on flimsy grounds and unconfirmed tests to cure infertility in them. This has already made most of them multi-drug resistant and many are not even responding to the second-line treatment, thus, gradually falling in the category of extreme drug resistance”.

Dr Majumdar said on the basis of blood samples, ELISA test and one tube test, doctors diagnosed patients with TB, a reason responsible for infertility, whereas after these primary tests, they should ask for pelvis laproscopy, biopsy and culture test for reconfirmation, which they did not follow normally.

“Even in primary tests, the presence of 50 per cent latent bacteria (mycobacterium tuberculosis) is not much to worry about, as, thanks to the TB vaccination we get in childhood, they are harmless to us. The TB treatment should be given only in case of the presence of active bacteria, which have multiplying effects and are capable of destroying our tissues and immune system.

“The active bacteria are also the reason for genital tuberculosis which damages fallopian tubes and uterus leading to infertility. Therefore, it is only after a combination of historic, physical examination and intensive diagnosis confirming active bacteria that TB treatment should be suggested, ” she said.

Dr Majumdar also emphasised that the patients who took the TB treatment had strong chances of falling to the disease once again, when they caught the infection from the surrounding. “It is only when the patients move from high-prevalent zone like India to less-prevalent zone like the USA (only 0.05 per cent TB cases), that they are safe from infection,” she said.

Consultants Dr Shweta Gupta and Dr Neeti Tiwari and chief embryologist from Sir Ganga Ram Hospital Dr Gaurav Majumdar accompanied Dr Abha Majumdar.

The second presentation was on the Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), commonest female endocrine disorders that affect egg formation in approximately 5-10 per cent of women, making them infertile and run the risk of catching other diseases such as diabetes, blood pressure and heart diseases.

The third presentation hinged on the problem related to endometerosis, where menstrual blood turns inward and sticks to the stomach like a lining and develops into a blood cyst. This leads to defect in the ovaries, uterus and fallopian tubes, leading to infertility.

The fourth presentation was delivered on effective and latest treatment such as Intra Uterine Insemination (IUI) and In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) in the cases where the sperm count is below 5 million. The latest international techniques to tackle infertility were also discussed.

Dehradun, February 28
A procession of 100 Class IV employees of the state government held traffic in the city to ransom for nearly 90 minutes on all the roads surrounding Astley Hall here today.

The employees were marching in a big queue towards the Secretariat to present a memorandum of their demands. Hundreds of motorists and bike riders were held up for over an hour at various points, including the Rajpur Road, Subhash road and other roads leading to the Secretariat creating a chaos.

Dehradun, February 28
The Uttarakhand Fourth Class State Employees Federation held a huge rally. The employees are demanding similar fixation of grade pay and minimum wages as given to Central Government employees and they are awaiting a government order in this regard.

“We had reached an agreement with the government regarding the enhancement of grade pay to Rs 1,800 and minimum wages in the pay bracket of Rs 5,200 and Rs 20,200 from 2006, but the government has failed to implement it,” said KK Shukla, secretary (district) of the federation.

Earlier in the morning, the members of the federation staged a dharna at the Gandhi Park. “If the government fails to implement the order by March 10, we will be forced to lay a siege to the Vidhan Sabha on March 25,” said DS Bhandari, president (district) of the federation. A delegation of the employees also submitted a memorandum to the Chief Secretary. All the government offices faced a paucity of staff as most of the class IV employees had gone to take part in the rally.

Dehradun, February 28
None of the DIGs and the SSPs of the four districts had done their homework for the two-day meeting organised to control crime and work planning on Friday and Saturday.

DGP Jyoti Swaroop Pandey had asked these officers of Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital to give a crime report of their areas and action taken for resolving the same.

However, the four officers gave a general report of the crime committed and steps taken to solve them. The DGP was not satisfied with the report and asked them to prepare it again.

“The four officers gave a general view of the crime, but we had asked them to give a specific report on the problems and steps taken,” Pandey told The Tribune.

Besides, Pandey had asked the officers to make a checklist of some important crime incidents. “Incidents like rape and MMS circulation should have a checklist, so that whenever such things are reported, the police can check what is missing at once during investigation,” he said.

Meanwhile, other burning issues were also discussed and plans were made to solve them. The officers of the districts were asked to be cautious in view of the Char Dham Yatra, Kanwar Mela, festivals and processions. They were also asked to maintain law and order.

In view of the recent incidents in which undertrials fled from police custody, the cops were asked to arrange for proper security, while producing criminals in the court.

Haridwar, February 28
Post-economic meltdown, the current time has been termed as testing for the banking industry by representatives of India’s premier Punjab National Bank (PNB) Staff Association at the ongoing second annual convention being held in Haridwar.

PN Tiwari, chief guest and national chief of the All-India Punjab National Bank Employees Federation, addressing the gathering, said the timing for organising the convention was apt as the banking industry was going through a dark phase owing to non-banking policies being chalked out by the Central Government.

Remarking that the government was formulating anti-worker policies and making changes in the service manuals, Tiwari said this was having a negative impact on the psyche as well as condition of the employees.

Urging the association members to be united in fighting against this discrimination, general secretary of the PNB Staff Association MM Rai said members, like the stern agitation carried out by them which forced the government to allow them the pension option, should also be pressing forth their demands against suppressive policies.

Rajkumar Saxena of the host association shed light on the significance of the pilgrim city. He described it as being religious, spiritual and having Kumbh importance and emerging as an industrial city on the global map due to public sector undertaking Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Hindustran Lever Limited, Hero Honda, SKF, Indian Tobacco Company, Hawells, Kirby and Cello among hundreds of industrial units.

Among others who addressed the convention were PR Mehta, MP Singh, Avinash Chandra Chugh, NB Kapoor and Dheeraj Bisht.

Nainital, February 28
A senior official of the North Eastern Railways has pulled up the personnel, who have been entrusted with the job of getting various construction works done at the Kathgodam station, for the slow pace of their execution.

According to sources, Senior Operational Manager (SOM) OP Kala carried out a survey of the station and went around taking stock of the various tasks that have been taken up to renovate and improve the infrastructure at the station, which is the gateway to Kumaon.

It is learnt that Kala inspected the construction of platform number two, the overhead bridge, the office of the Station Master, Electric Room and the shunting facilities. He was annoyed at the delay in the upgrading of the shunting facilities that have been hanging fire for almost two and a half years.

The Railways plan to enhance the shunting facilities to the extent that at least two trains can be taken care of at a time. In addition to this, the official also went around inspecting the facilities for washing of trains and the charging of engines. He asked the officials to ensure that everything was in order.

Meanwhile, the attempts of the Railways to get its land at Lal Kuan, which has been encroached upon by miscreants, vacated has met with opposition from the people residing on it. The residents of the Khaddi locality of Lal Kuan carried out a demonstration against the serving of notices on them for vacating the land. They alleged that after assuring that they would not be evicted from their houses, the Railways is now trying to throw them out from the land under the plea of extending its infrastructure.

The Railways officials have been facing a stiff resistance wherever they have been trying to get their encroached land vacated. Official estimates indicate that almost 1.04 lakh square metres of land belonging to the Indian Railways has been encroached upon in the zone between Kathgodam and Lal Kuan alone. A large number of unauthorised, illegal settlements have come up on this land.

According to the Railways, the Uttarakhand High Court had previously given a ruling in favour of the removal of the encroachments but the occupants got a stay from the Supreme Court, which in its order said the encroachments were to be removed while following the due procedure.

Officials point out that the due procedure is not an easy thing to do. The occupants would not allow the personnel of the Railways to go to their respective illegal colonies without the police protection to measure the extent of the encroachment so that due notices can be served on them and they be evicted. They would instead thwart any such attempt by even using force. The officials say it is a matter of political will.

Nainital, February 28
Two major instances of an outbreak of fire have been reported from Kumaon in the past 24 hours. In the first instance, nine tenements were reduced to ashes in a fire that raged at Puchdi village near Ramnagar. The incident took place on Sunday afternoon.

According to information, the tenements belonged to labourers. It was late in the afternoon that people saw flames coming out of one of the tenements. Before they could do anything, the fire spread, on account of the fast blowing winds, engulfing nine tenements. All the meager belongings of the residents of these tenements were reduced to cinders.

The cause of the outbreak of the fire is yet unknown. Three cattle heads also perished in the fire.

People of the area informed the Fire Brigade and police personnel of the incident, but before any help could reach, the nine tenements had been destroyed.

The administration has carried out a spot analysis to tabulate the losses on the basis of which the residents of the tenements will be given compensation.

In the second instance, three shops were burnt to ashes when a massive fire engulfed these in the main market of Banbasa. It was at around 9 pm on Sunday night that smoke was seen coming out from a general merchant’s shop. Nearby shopkeepers informed the shop owner who rushed to the spot. As soon as he opened the shop, huge flames leapt out. Although the people present at the spot tried to douse the fire, they were unable to control it. The fire reduced the shop to cinders and also spread to two adjoining shops of cloth and general items.

The fire was brought under control by the personnel of the Fire Department.