Ambala, March 1
No gynaecologist, surgeon, physician and ophthalmologist, no technician for basic investigations like x-ray and ECG, no ultrasound machine and, obviously, no patients - the Cantonment’s general hospital for the masses has virtually been “dead” for over a year.

Scattered over four independent blocks, most of them locked, the hospital, which was once the lifeline of Ambala, is practically non-functional owing to paucity of doctors and renovation work, which seems to be taking eternity for completion.

Sources in the staff maintain that the hospital, considered crucial for its strategic location on the Ambala-Delhi highway, is used as a “referral centre”, directing patients to the city hospital in the absence of infrastructure and facilities.

“We can’t admit women who come with labour pains and have to dispatch accident victims to the city hospital in the absence of a surgeon. There are only six doctors of whom two have to be on casualty duty. Of the remaining four, one is an anesthetist, another an orthopaedic, the third a paediatrician and an ENT specialist. We are managing whatever we can while we forward the other cases to the other government hospital,” explains a doctor.

Gradually, the number of patients over the past many months has been reduced to a trickle and the “popularity” of the hospital is evident from the five indoor patients it has. A visit to the hospital reveals the mismanagement, evident at all levels.

If the rooms on the premises have been reduced to equipment-dumping grounds, beds and beddings are lying exposed to the vagaries of the weather in the open. It is also interesting to see the haphazard manner in which renovation is being carried out at the hospital. On for almost a year, it seems nowhere near completion.

Instead of renovating one block at a time, work has been on in all blocks simultaneously, reducing the “workable” space. The mortuary, a small room at one end of the premises, too, seems highly inadequate to “accommodate” the dead.

On February 22, the hospital got five bodies on which a post-mortem had to be performed. The sources said while one was put on the stretcher, the others were kept on the floor and there was hardly any place for the doctors to stand and carry out the post-mortem.

“We do get OPD patients during the day who come for treatment of minor ailments. However, in the absence of specialists and staff, we are really hard-pressed and have no option but to re-direct patients coming to us from the adjoining slums,” says a doctor. While the matter has been raised in the Vidhan Sabha, the assured “prompt action” is yet to get under way.

There is common sentiment among the staff and patients alike - that the hospital is getting a “stepmotherly treatment” for sending back an MLA from the Opposition. The trauma centre proposed for the hospital has gone to the city and a plan to construct a three-storeyed compact hospital building and connect it to the four blocks, too, has been shelved. 

Chandigarh, March 1
Less than three months after a Single Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court fixed a four-month deadline for the Vidhan Sabha Speaker to decide MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi’s plea against “defection” by five members of his Haryana Janhit Congress, a Division Bench has stayed the operation of the orders.

Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Augustine George Masih made it clear they were in favour of efforts being made for expeditious disposal of the pending petitions. As the case came up, a battery of lawyers, representing the Speaker and the five MLAs, headed by Solicitor-General Gopal Subramanium, appeared before the Bench.

The Solicitor-General, on the basis of instructions received from the Deputy Speaker, said in the open court that every possible effort would be made to dispose of the “disqualification” petitions as expeditiously as possible.

Taking note of the same, the Bench fixed April 5 as the next date of hearing, and issued a notice to Kuldeep Bishnoi along with other respondents.

The Single Judge’s order had triggered a debate of sorts on the issue of jurisdiction and the offer to expeditiously dispose of the case will possibly put to rest such debate.

During the hearing before the Single Judge, the offer was not only discussed at length, but also accepted by Additional Solicitor-General of India Mohan Jain, who was then appearing for the Speaker. But the offer was not accepted by the MLAs.

The matter this morning saw the MLAs arguing in their petition that the Single Judge “has gone wrong and has decided the case against the mandate of the Apex Court, when he said because some adjournments were granted, judicial interference by the High Court is justified.

“There was no inordinate delay before the Speaker. The judgment is a nullity and deserves to be declared contrary to the judgment of the Apex Court”.

Elaborating, they contended the judgment was against the “unambiguous mandate of the Supreme Court regarding lack of jurisdiction, where a case for disqualification is still pending adjudication.”

New Delhi, March 1
A CPM member in the Rajya Sabha today expressed concern over the ‘retrograde measure’ taken by the Haryana Government in providing 67 per cent quota for men in jobs, saying the state government was depriving women of a level playing field.

Raising the issue during zero hour, Brinda Karat said: “ Reservation has a new face - the 33 per cent reservation for women in jobs has been converted into 67 per cent reservation for men in Haryana.’’

Making it clear that she had no intention of drawing any political mileage by raising the issue, she claimed that the cut -off percentage in a teachers’ recruitment exam in the state was 71 per cent for men and 76 per cent for women.

Similarly, in other subjects too the cut-off percentage was higher for women and they were not included in the general category.

In the disability category, the cutoff was 65 per cent for women and 60 per cent for men even though 40 per cent teachers in Haryana were women. Maya Singh (BJP) and some other members joined Karat in protesting against the state government’s move.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ashwani Kumar asked Karat to give him the relevant papers on the issue, promising that he would get back to the House after ascertaining facts from the state government.

The Haryana Public Service Commission is reported to have announced reservation of 67 per cent for men and the remaining 33 per cent for women in an advertisement for 1,317 posts of lecturer in schools.

Karnal, March 1
“In view of the declining water table and small landholdings of farmers in the state, there is need for adopting integrated farming practices,” Dr NK Tyagi, a member of the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board, New Delhi, said today. Inaugurating the Rabi Kisan Mela, organised by the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI), Karnal, he observed that the per capita water availability was low in the wheat and rice-growing states of Punjab and Haryana and there was need for adopting farm technologies that consumed less water.

Highlighting the problems of water scarcity and a reduction in the per capita water availability in India due to the increased foodgrain requirement of a growing population, Tyagi said under such conditions “the use of saline/alkaline water and reclamation of saline and alkaline soils can contribute in a big way to meet the future challenges of food production”.

All ICAR institutes located at Karnal, the Department of Agriculture, the CCSHAU regional station, Karnal, and other government and private agencies displayed their exhibits at the mela while some NGOs exhibited seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and agricultural implements.

About 1,000 farmers and school students benefited from a “kisan goshthi” which facilitated an interaction between scientists and farmers. A field visit was also organised on the occasion.

Farmers were informed about technologies developed at the CSSRI for reclamation of salt-affected soils, for making use of poor-quality water, crop diversification, medicinal and aromatic plants and salt-tolerant varieties.

Seeds of rice varieties Pusa 44, Pusa 1121, CSR 10, 13, 23, 27 and 36 were sold during the mela. Soil and water samples brought by farmers were tested free of cost at the mela. Twenty progressive farmers were felicitated during the mela.

Chandigarh, March 1
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has put on hold the process of filling vacancies for the HCS (Executive) through the process of nominations.

The directions by Justice Mahesh Grover ordering a stay on the process came on a petition filed through advocate Inder Pal Goyat. In the petition, it was contended that according to clause 11.1 of the HCS (Executive) Service Rules, an annual calendar had to be followed for filling the vacancies.— TNS

Rohtak, March 1
The local police claims to have busted a gang involved in grabbing land in the town with the arrest of nine of its members. They have been booked under Sections 447, 147, 149, 384 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code.

The leader of the gang has been identified as Ramesh Luhar of nearby Bohar village. A team set up by the IG, Rohtak Range, V Kamaraja, nabbed eight members of the gang at the local Ekta Colony two days back following a complaint that they had grabbed a plot in the colony and were demanding Rs 9 lakh from the owner to vacate the same. During interrogation they revealed that they worked for Ramesh.

Those arrested are Mehar Singh, alias Soni, of Sunariyan village, Sunil and Bijender, both residents of Dighal village in Jhajjar, Amit of Rabad village, Ajit of Ladot village in Jhajjar, Sumit Sharma of Girawar village in Sonepat, Navin a resident of the local Shrinagar Colonyk, and Sunny of the local Janata Colony.

Faridabad, March 1
The police along with the help of an NGO today rescued a minor tribal girl (13) from a residence in Sector 7,where she was sent by a middleman and placement agency to work as domestic help.

Faridabad Deputy Commissioner Dr Praveen Kumar said the girl’s parents been called here from Jalpaiguri in West Bengal. They are scheduled to reach here tomorrow.

NGO Shakti Bhahi, which is in charge of a child helpline (a part of the Union Ministry of Women and Child) in Gurgaon, got a tip off about the whereabouts of the girl from the child helpline unit in Jalpaiguri. The girl gave the telephone number of the house in Sector 7, where she was working as domestic help for SK Arora, to her parents.

As per the version of the NGO, the girl went missing seven months ago after she left her native village, Charakdangi, in Jalpaiguri district for a tea estate in Darjeeling district to meet her relatives.

In Darjeeling, she was allegedly lured by a tribal person to accompany him to Delhi on assurance of a job. In Delhi, the person handed her to another tribal person, who runs a placement agency, which allegedly handed over the girl to the couple as domestic help.

According to the Juvenile Justice Act, the entire development was criminal in nature. The NGO says that it is a case of human trafficking.