New Delhi, March 18
'Jan Ahar', the Delhi government's initiative of mobile eatery vans that can be spotted at various places in the city is operating illegally with the vans carrying eatables are running without any licence from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

According to MCD officials, the civic agency had banned the mobile vans providing food over four years ago. "We had stopped issuing licences to such vans as they were found to be highly unhygienic. But as per recent reports, these vans have again started mushrooming in the parts of the city without our permission," said VK Monga, chairman of the health committee.

He said an inquiry had been ordered into the matter.

"They had just informed us about it but no permission was sought," said Monga. Initially, it started with just seven vans but now it has increased to over 100 vans, he said.

Monga added that such vans were challaned under two main categories, sanitation challan, which is somewhere between Rs 500 and Rs 5,000 and the other was health challan, which was presented in the court.

"We have received complaints from many councilors that Jan Ahar vans are serving unhygienic eatables to the public. This is in spite of the fact that the MCD has stopped giving permission to any mobile catering vans or chef-carts in areas under its jurisdiction for the past many years," said MCD commissioner KS Mehra.

He said orders had been given to check under which policy they were allowed to run such eateries. "In case they are found violating the rule, they would be immediately removed as per the Municipal Act," he said.

The 'Jan Ahar' concept was launched by the state government for the people belonging to the economically weaker section. The scheme was launched in June last year and currently 39 Jan Ahar centres across the city are providing meal to the economically weaker section with specific calorie intake as prescribed by the government.

The idea was to provide nutritious meal twice a day at a subsidised rate. The van provides food to the poor at the rate of Rs 15 per meal.

BJP activists shout slogans against the Delhi government near the Assembly in New Delhi on Friday. Tribune photo: Manas Ranjan Bhui

New Delhi, March 18
A large number of the BJP activists today staged a demonstration near Delhi Legislative Assembly to protest against failure of the government to dismiss PWD minister Rajkumar Chauhan.

Recently, the Delhi lokayukta had recommended Chauhan's removal from the council of ministers for favouring a resort owner for a tax evasion case.

While marching towards the assembly, the party workers were stopped near Chandagi Ram Akahara and were detained. The police took all the workers were taken to Maurice Nagar special cell premises. Later they were released. The prominent among them were Delhi BJP president Vijender Gupta, Madan Lal Khurana, Ramesh Bidhuri, Pravesh Verma, Ramesh Chauhan, etc. The workers raised the slogans: "Sheila, Manmohan Istifa Do".

Addressing the workers Gupta said the Congress in Delhi and the UPA at Centre had forgotten their responsibility and were busy in the loot of public money. The Wikileaks had completely exposed the Congress. The party might go to any extent to save its government.

He said even one month after recommendations of lokayukta, Rajkumar Chauhan had not been removed. This is happening with the support of the Congress president.Leader of the Opposition in legislative assembly Vijay Kumar Malhtra said the Congress at Centre and Delhi was acting against the people.

The CAG has in its inquiry found that the private schools of Delhi are not admitting the poor children even after getting land at cheap rates. "There is a great manipulation in their accounts," he said.

Palwal, March 18
The police has so far failed to nab four criminals who last Wednesday entered a shop in the main market here and fired at the shopkeepers. A representative group of the business community, which is shocked over the incident, has met the district police chief, who assured them of arresting the culprits soon.

This was the third attack on the owner of the shop, Mahesh Chander. In the attack on Wednesday, Chander's helper was injured.

A few months back, some criminals had demanded extortion money from Chander, which he refused. Following this, on February 26, some criminals fired at him while he was sitting in his shop.

However, luckily, the bullets got stuck in the window panes of the shop and Chander escaped unhurt. The incident had occurred in the evening, the peak business hour.

On last Wednesday, when the criminals entered Chander’s shop, his son Tinku and helper Teja were present there. The criminals opened fired at them. The incident occurred around 10 am.

When the shopkeepers of the nearby shops tried to catch them while they were escaping on foot, the shooters fired several rounds in air.

On the condition of anonymity, the owner of a shop in the area lamented that the business community was shocked over the impunity with which the criminals carried out the shooting.

These kinds of attacks on businessmen have become common here.

According to him, the community was living under the shadow of terror as the police had failed to inspire confidence in them.

New Delhi, March 18
Delhi's directorate of education (DoE) today informed the Delhi High Court that notices have been sent to 25 private schools in the city over fee hike. The notices come after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its report to the high court termed as "unreasonable" the fee hike by 25 private schools, including Modern school and Delhi Public School (DPS), and indicted them for accounting irregularities.

A bench of Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Sidhharth Mridul has fixed March 29 for hearing the plea that challenges the Delhi government's decision to allow the schools to hike tuition and development fees.

Counsel Ashok Aggarwal, representing the Delhi Abhibhavak Mahasangh, sought criminal investigation by an agency like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into alleged irregularities pointed out by the CAG in the report.

Aggarwal said: "The CAG report reveals not only several accounting malpractices but commission of criminal offences. Some agency like the CBI be asked to investigate into it."

"The schools did not follow the accounting standards while preparing their final accounts. There was no prescribed accounting format," said the 64-page CAG report submitted to the bench Thursday.

The report for 2006-09 was filed on the court's direction over a parents association's petition that questioned the Delhi government's sanction to the private schools to hike their tuition and development fees.

"There was no evidence of scrutiny of annual accounts and other returns to ascertain that the receipts and expenditures of the schools were in consonance with the projected budget estimates of the schools and any fee hike was not unreasonable," read the CAG report. — IANS

New Delhi, March 18
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has taken steps for a balanced teacher-student ratio in central universities. For this, the commission had constituted a committee under professor J.A.K. Tareen to decide on the most balanced teacher-student ratios for different disciplines in central universities across the country. The committee recently submitted its recommendations to the UGC.

"The UGC has long been mulling over the perfect student-teacher ratios for central universities across the country. Traditionally, in undergraduate classes, the number of students tends to be much larger and the student-teacher ratio had been imbalanced for sometime. The idea was to tackle this imbalance and come up with a perfect teacher-student ratio," said an official of the UGC.

"The recommendations of the Tareen committee are being considered seriously by a panel of experts from within the UGC. The commission is likely to take a final decision soon," the UGC official said.

The Tareen committee recommends that for undergraduate classes, the ideal teacher-student ratio varies from discipline to discipline. For instance, for the social science stream, it is 1:30. For science subjects, it is 1:25 and for media and mass communication classes, it is 1:15.

Further, the Tareen committee recommends that for postgraduate classes, the teacher-student ratio should be much lesser as compared to the undergraduate classes.

New Delhi, March 18
With the arrest of two persons, the Delhi police today claimed to have busted a gang of cheats who allegedly cheated a businessman in the outer Delhi area. The accused have been identified as Sudhir Kumar (32) and Ajit Singh (33). They were arrested following a complaint from Suresh Mandowra, director, Valbhav Laxmi Impex, Shahbad-Daulatpur. Mandowra alleged that he was cheated by the duo of Rs 2 lakh by on the sale of 600 kg brass and copper scrap.

According to Chhaya Sharma, DCP (Outer), the accused did not pay for the material bought from Mandowra and slipped away after loading the scrap in their vehicle.

"They loaded the scrap in their vehicle. While one of them stayed at the office, the other left the place with the scrap, saying he will return after withdrawing cash. After a few minutes, the other accused also left the office on some pretext," said Sharma.

When Mandowra enquired about the company the accused claimed to be representing, he found that the company did not exist. The duo was arrested from Mangolpuri yesterday after a tip-off.

New Delhi, March 18
The special cell of the Delhi police has arrested four persons allegedly for selling illegal arms to the criminals in the national Capital. According to the police, the accused have been identified as Rajesh, Sunil, Naeem and Akash Gupta and were arrested few days ago from the Subzi Mandi area of north Delhi.

According to Arun Kampani, DCP (special cell), two 9 mm pistols, two .32 bore pistols and two country-made pistols, along with 13 live cartridges, have been seized from their possession.

"The arrest came following the police being tipped-off about Rajesh coming to deliver the arms. When intercepted, they opened fire and injured some of our personnel, but we managed to arrest Rajesh and Sunil," said Kampani. Other two accused were arrested at the instance of Rajesh.

Rajesh said he used to purchase the weapons from Naeem of Malka Ganj and further supply to some criminals in Delhi. Rajesh is previously involved in 12 criminal cases, including a case of murder, while Sunil is involved in seven cases, including a case of murder.

New Delhi, March 18
Several areas in south and west Delhi will face power cuts on Monday for up to six hours as discom BSES will carry out upgrading and maintenance of its network in the areas.

"In view of the ensuing summer season, we are undertaking preventive maintenance activity at critical grid sub-stations and distribution sub-stations in south and west Delhi tomorrow," said a BSES official.

The areas likely to be affected in south Delhi include Vasant Vihar (A, B, E, F-block), Vasant Enclave, Subroto Park, Westend Colony, Vasant Vihar, Sirifort Complex, Panchsheel Park, Gulmohar Enclave, Vasant Kunj, Sarita Vihar, Khan Pur, IGNOU, Saket, Pushp Vihar, Shiv Nagar, Virender Nagar, Okhla, old IIT campus and Malviya Nagar.

Power supply may be affected between 10.30 am and 4:30 pm, said the official.

He added that a special care was being taken to ensure that there were no power-interruptions during the days of ongoing board examinations. It was also being ensured that the planned shutdown in an area would not be repeated, he said.

New Delhi, March 18
A 21-year-old man, believed to be the second-in-command and running the 'burgle and fire gang' after the arrest of its leader last month, has been arrested by the south district police recently.

According to HGS Dhaliwal, DCP (South), the accused Suraj was arrested a few days ago from Pillanji village in the Sarojini Nagar area.

According to Dhaliwal, after the arrest of gang leader Sanju, Suraj had been running the gang.

"Suraj was wanted in two cases of burgle and burn cases in Sarojini Nagar recently. Three minors were apprehended earlier in these two cases. Suraj, who had become the leader after the arrest of Sanju, has previously been involved in many cases of burglary and loot," said Dhaliwal, adding that the accused is in habit of consuming fluid, ganja and other drugs. The police even recovered 55 grams of charas from his possession at the time of arrest.

New Delhi, March 18
A jeweller was robbed of Rs 10 lakh gold jewellery in the Chandni Chowk area of central Delhi last night.

According the to police, the incident took place around 8 pm when Virender Jain, owner of Bhansali Jewellery was held at a gunpoint by three unidentified robbers and fled with cash and jewellery.

"He was in his shop last night when three men held him at the gunpoint and decamped with Rs 50, 000 and gold jewellery worth over Rs 10 lakh," said a police official. A case in this regard has been registered at Kotwali police station and further investigation is on. No arrest was reported till late this evening.