Amritsar, April 22
Hospitality, tours, travels and transport industries in the holy city anticipate soaring business in the forthcoming summer tourist season, which starts in the last week of this month.

In the summer season, generally tourists from West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat and peninsular India visit Amritsar in large numbers.

Overseas tourists prefer to visit this part of the country from September to February.

APS Chatha, general secretary, Amritsar Hotel and Restaurant Association (AHRA), said pilgrims and tourists are visiting in plenty in the current month. The number of tourists was expected to rise manifold in the last week of this month.

He said the summer tourist season would last till August.

The annual average occupancy of hotels here is less than 50 per cent, which is expected to rise to 80 per cent during the summer. Rakesh Nayyar, marketing executive, Country Inn, said the occupancy rate in his hotel increases in the summer.

He informed that in order to attract more tourists and locals in the forthcoming season, his hotel had been organising fortnight long Kebab and Kulcha festival from April 15.

The demand of air conditioned rooms and taxis sharply increases in the season. Chatha said the government must ensure regular power supply to prolong tourists stay.

Educational institutions in various parts of the country remains closed for one and a half month during the summer. The six-week long vacation provides ample time to families for recreation.

Ashok Kumar of the Taxi Drivers Union said the tourist season provided ample opportunity to taxi operators to do roaring business. He said the demand for taxis between the Golden Temple and Attari-Wagah Joint Check Post had increased.

He said a large number of tourists hire taxis for visiting tourist places in neighbouring Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

Guninder Singh of an air travel company said arrival of tourists by air slightly enhanced in this season. He said pilgrims and tourists coming from far away places like Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata reach here by air. He said many of them stayed here for a shorter duration as they return after paying obeisance at the Golden Temple.

Amritsar, April 22
The World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature-India launched the Nature Club, the state’s first, in the holy city on Wednesday. After formal inauguration of the club at the Millenium School, WWF- India CEO and Secretary General Ravi Singh, said the club was doing great work in various parts of the country, including, Delhi, MP, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

He said the club members, primarily school students and nature lovers, were made aware of bio-diversity. The Nature Clubs were now gradually transcending formal and non-formal education sectors and working towards generating awareness through community works. For this task, these clubs were in touch with both public and private sector organisations.

He said the WWF-India, in collaboration with the Department of Forests and Wildlife Preservation, Punjab, and the Nokia Corporation aimed at establishing a suitable wildlife habitat in the Satluj-Beas-Ravi rivers and the Harike wetland in Punjab.

Amritsar, April 22
The Islamabad police has booked two unidentified persons for trying to break open an ATM of the State Bank of India (SBI) in the Haripura area.

The close circuit TV camera fitted in the ATM machine grabbed the pictures of the two accused and a manhunt has been launched to nab them.

M.G Kosiv, Manager of the SBI, Haripura branch, in his complaint lodged with the police stated that the bank staff found the ATM machine broken on April 15 morning. As per the CCTV footage, there were two persons who tried to break open the ATM on the intervening night of April 14 and 15.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Amar Singh Chahal disclosed that the accused had been identified and manhunt launched to nab them. A case under Sections 379, 511 and 427 of the IPC was registered in this regard.

Two incidents of attempted robbery at ATMs within a couple of days have highlighted the fact that little attention is being paid by the various banks authorities to the security aspect of the ATM machines. The banks get themselves secured by insuring the cash-loaded ATM machines, but they deliberately ignore the aspect of putting up security guards for the safety of these machines. The problem is more persistent at the ATMs of nationalised banks.

“We even do not have proper working staff in the banks, what to talk about hiring private security guards for the safety of ATMs,” said an official of a nationalised bank.

Even the frequent meetings of senior police functionaries with the banks authorities have failed to break the ice. During these meetings, the police officials constantly instruct the banks to put up security guards at the ATMs, besides installing CCTV cameras. But it helped a little as the CCTV cameras of several ATMs are non-operational.

Chahal said he had already briefed the banks’ authorities in this regard. He said a meeting was called with the banks’ authorities and the nodal officer for the security of banks. He said the police had instructed them to install CCTV cameras outside the banks and ATM machines, besides putting up trained security guards there.

Amritsar, April 22
The only question “What kind of drug do you take?”, posed to people living in the district and its bordering belt revealed some interesting and alarming facts.

If it was the smack and “bhang” (Cannabis sativa or opium) prevalent extensively in the rural belt, it was the intoxicant tablets and capsules which ruled the roost among the urban population. These startling facts came to light during a study conducted by the district administration at randomly selected villages and urban areas of Amritsar with the help of some government agencies with a view to understand the profile of chronic drug addicts and the prevalence and trends of drugs addiction in order to frame a remedial strategy.

Nevertheless, the study was conducted on at least 700 rural and 125 urban “identified” drug addicts between the age group of 18 and 47 years.

The age-wise analysis indicates that addiction to one or another drug has been found to be prominent among 18-27 years in case of urban population and 28-37 years in case of rural.

Another interesting point came to light was that it was the members of Scheduled Castes who occupied the top slot with 70 per cent in taking prohibitory intoxications (other than permissible IMFL), followed by Jats (58 per cent), Backward Classes (56 per cent) and Brahmins (38 per cent). They use prohibited tablets and capsules.

While in the Chheharta and Gharinda areas there is more use of smack, in Kathunangal (Majitha constituency) it is the intoxicating tablets, whereas in the Beas river belt and areas around Mehta police station, it is the opium, which is the rage.

The Deputy Commissioner, K.S. Pannu, said this could be indirectly attributed to illegal cross-border smuggling of smack. “The younger population, more so in the urban areas, is getting increasingly addicted to smack hinting easy availability of smack in the urban areas.

The study points out that more and more youth are being addicted to drugs, which of course can be attributed to unemployment, peer pressure, thrill seeking, lack of youth participation/engagement in vocational courses or higher education courses and lack of support during periods of stress.

“The intoxicating tablets and capsules are the most commonly abused drugs by all groups, which is probably because these capsules are cheap and easily available at all chemist shops in both rural and urban areas. Although law prescribes that drugs with addiction potential are strictly for medicinal use only and are to be dispensed only on the prescription of a competent physician, yet this practice is not followed and all intoxicating tablets are freely sold without the prescription at chemist shops,” said Pannu.

The study has shown that drug addiction varies from 0.53 per 1,000 in the Verka police station area to 5.18 per 1,000 in Chheharta, which is contrary to the claims made by various studies and surveys about very high prevalence of drug addiction in Punjab. The reason for the alarming reports presented

by earlier investigations is that they have labelled all the occasional and experimental users of drugs as addicts, whereas the present study has taken into consideration only the chronic drug addicts.

“It has also been found that the percentage of drug addicts found in Schedule Castes is higher than their corresponding percentage in overall population which points out that the population of the downtrodden is more vulnerable to drug addiction,” said Pannu.

The various recommendations made in the study included treatment of the identified drug addicts by referring them to drug de-addiction treatment centres being operated by government or the approved non-government organisations. However, the study stressed on the need to involve schools and colleges for the dissemination of knowledge about the ill-effects of the drug use, establishment of sports clubs for channelising the energy of youngsters and inculcation of jobs skills for employment.

“This needs to be coupled with strict implementation of law on prohibition of sale of tablets and capsules with addiction potential at the chemist shop. Providing financial assistance to the NGOs like Red Cross for opening drug de-addiction centres at all the district and subdivision headquarters would prove to be useful,” he said.

Amritsar, April 22
‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’, this adage is apt for locals who without having any information associate some heritage structures, shrines and buildings to those figures in history who have nothing to do with these structures.

This is leading to distortion of history, said heritage lover Surinder Kochar.

He said it has been noticed that locals were unaware of the historic background of the heritage structures, buildings and gates of the holy city and associate them with those persons who did not have link with these structures at all.

Citing an instance, it is widely believed that the swimming pool in historic Ram Bagh was related to Maharani Jindan. On the contrary, it got constructed by French origin General Ventura in 1823 to escape the searing summers. He was the General in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Army.

He said the wall between Ram Bagh Gate to Hathi Gate was raised by the British in 1868 whereas the people credited it to Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

Similarly, structures in Qila Gobindgarh were credited to different persons, he said. Residence of Qiledar Imamudin was stated as Toshakhana and original Toshakhana was widely believed to be the residence of General Dyer.

He said Thakurdwara Dariana Mal is believed to be Mandir Thakurdwara while Mughlai Mandir is originally Thakurdwara Rai Kishan Chand, which was constructed in 1875.

He informed that a heritage route for the pilgrims and tourists visiting the holy city has been identified. He said the route included 100 buildings out of 400 heritage buildings identified in the city.

He said a heritage walk on the route was held to commemorate the World Heritage Day. He said identification of original heritage buildings was extremely necessary. Next step was protection of these buildings so that they aren’t lost with time. He advocated that protection of these buildings would ensure there being handed over to posterity.

School students enthusiastically took part in the walk and visited the heritage buildings.

Amritsar, April 22
Punjab-based Impact Projects in collaboration with South Asian Real Estate (SARE), FDI organisation, launched the “Crescent ParC” integrated township project spread in an area of 104 acres on the Amritsar bypass road.

The SARE invested Rs 150 crore with Impact Projects in Punjab, said SARE’s Executive Director, Operations, David Walker.

Director, Impact Projects, Pankaj Malhotra said the international-class residential township would have a range of world-class facilities for healthcare, education, transportation, communication, entertainment, water bodies, landscaping, uninterrupted power supply and round-the-clock security.

He said these apartments would be ready for possession from December and a sample flat was ready.

Amritsar, April 22
As many as 14 deserving students belonging to various departments of Guru Nanak Dev University were given Rs 10,000 each as scholarship during a function organised by the university here today.

Constituted by the name of “Harnarinder Jot Sarup”, these scholarships were distributed by Vice-Chancellor Prof A.S. Brar.

While speaking on the occasion, Prof Brar said the scholarship was constituted last year with the donation of Rs 25 lakh given by Tej Singh Butalia from Hoshiarpur to the university. “With this amount, the university opened a corpus fund and the interest so accrued is to be disbursed among the meritorious and needy students selected for the scholarship,” he said.

“Butalia has given Rs 25 lakh more, which would be added to that corpus fund and the amount of scholarship would also be subsequently increased from the next year,” he added.

It is to mention that this year about 50 candidates applied for the scholarship and after considering their meritorious performance in the examination and financial status, 14 students were selected for the scholarship.

Prof Rajinderjit K. Paur welcomed the chief guest and others. Apart from the heads of various departments, Dr M.P.S. Ishar, Dean, Students Welfare, Dr A.K. Thukral, Director, Research, and Dr Harish Chander Sharma, Professor In charge, Public Relations, were also present.

Amritsar, April 21
The Progressive Educational Society, constituted by the Guru Nanak Dev University, would conduct an entrance test for the second batch for the session 2011-2012 on May 25 for the selection of 50 meritorious students hailing from rural Punjab.

The selected students would be provided boarding and lodging and education free of cost for 10+1 by the Punjab Government.

They would be given quality training to enable them crack IIT entrance test and other national level tests at the newly established centre at Khalsa College Public School under a project of the state government going on with the initiative of GND University Vice-Chancellor Prof AS Brar. The first batch started in 2010, has already completed one year (10+1).

Prof Brar, who is also the chairman of the society, said those students who had passed matriculation from a school in Punjab or Chandigarh in 2011 with 60 per cent marks or CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) of 6.32 out of 10 (in case of CBSE) are eligible. The candidate must be a domicile of Punjab and his/her parents must be residents of a village and their name should figure in the voter's list of the village or they should have the voter's ID card. The income of parents should be less than Rs 4 lakh per annum from all sources, he added.

He said filled application forms are to be submitted on April 30 in the Office of Dean, Students' Welfare of the university, alongwith an entrance test fee of Rs 500 to be paid by a demand draft drawn in favour of the ‘Progressive Educational Society, Amritsar’, payable at Amritsar.

The test would be held on May 25 and result would be declared on May 26, verification of certificates and counselling would be held on May 30 and orientation & commencement of classes from June 1, 2011.

The entrance test would be based on PSEB syllabus (science and mathematics) of Class 10. There would be 100 multiple choice questions (50 each in mathematics and science) and there is no negative marking.

Amritsar, April 22
Air Marshal DC Kumaria, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Western Air Command, on Wednesday made its first visit to Amritsar after taking over the charge of Western Air Command.

He was on a two-day inspection visit to the Forward Base Supporting Unit located at Rajasansi as well as the Signals Unit located at Amritsar. Air Marshal Kumaria addressed the air warriors of the station and interacted with the key appointments besides taking an inspection tour of the various administrative and operational setups of the station.

Tarn Taran, April 22
Gurwinder Singh, the then Patwari of Sheron village, eight kms from here, has been booked under Sections 420, 409, 467, 468, 471 and 218 of the IPC for making wrong entries in the revenue records related to the village.

The Kisan Sangarash Committee (KSC) had been agitating to get the Patwari booked for the crime since the last two months.

According to the information, Gurwinder Singh during his tenure as Patwari in the village made wrong entries, as a result of which so many land owners were shown as tillers and other landless holders were made holders of the land. Further investigation is on.