Bathinda, June 9
The candidates belonging to Bathinda district, who appeared in PMET-2011, scored second, sixth, ninth, 15th, 21st and 30th rank in the overall merit list.

About 15 candidates of Bathinda district were placed in the first 50. While the second topper is boy, the sixth, ninth, 15th and 21st positions was acquired by girls.

Manjeet Goyal, the second rank holder in PMET-2011, also wants to be a cardiologist. "If I do not become an IAS officer, I would like to be a cardiologist," said Goyal.

An iron merchant, Raj Kumar Chumbewale, Manjeet’s father and his mother Santosh, expressed joy over their son’s success.

Amanpreet Singh of Faridkot, who came third, was inspired by his father Jugraj Singh, a medical specialist at the local civil hospital and brother Jai Preet Singh, who has been doing internship at Mumbai after completing his MBBS. He also credited his mother Sukhbir Kaur, lecturer in district Institute of Educational Training (DIET), Faridkot, for his success.

Eesha, who scored sixth position in the overall merit list of PMET-2011, said she always wanted to be a doctor and to serve people in rural areas.

Daughter of a doctor couple, Simrat Kaur Chawla, who bagged the ninth position, says she wants to be a neurologist or paediatrician. S

Simrat, whose father Jagjit Singh is a renowned paediatrician of the region and mother Surinder Kaur a gynaecologist, while talking to TNS said that she wanted to serve the rural masses, which always faced deficient medical care.

"I knew it from the beginning that relentless efforts to achieve a goal never go waste. I prepared for every entrance examination with a positive mind and with confidence that I will score a higher rank in the merit list," says Simrat.

Surbhi Bansal, who scored 15th rank, says she aspires to be a doctor only. Daughter of Sumesh Bansal, an engineer in GNDTP and Manju Badal, a housewife, Surbhi said she was motivated by her brother Sidhant, an engineering student. 

Bathinda, June 9
In protest against the non-acceptance of their demands and the administration’s alleged ‘indifferent attitude’ regarding seeking time from the CM for a meeting, members and activists of the AIE (Alternative innovative education) Teachers Front, Punjab, blocked traffic and staged dharna on the main road in front of the Mini-secretariat here, this afternoon.

During the road blockade, district president of the Inclusive Education Volunteers Association (IEVA) Inderjit Singh, who also joined the AIE teachers’ protest, almost fainted due to the extreme heat. The police and the Bathinda Tehsildar Avtar Singh visited the site.

The Tehsildar persuaded the protesters to lift the blockade, but they were adamant on not doing it till the administration fixed their meeting with the CM.

Meanwhile, the fast-unto-death by an AIE teacher, Sarbjit Kaur from Faridkot, today entered its third day here. 

Bathinda, June 9
The declining water table coupled with higher concentration of Total Dissolved Solubles (TDS) in underground water in certain pockets has started posing a serious threat to the agricultural operations in Bathinda district.

In the year 2000, the maximum depth of water level in the district was 11.40 metres. Thereafter, every year, the water level started declining at an alarming rate and it reached 21 metres in the past 10 years or so.

The Agriculture Department officials were of the strong view that if corrective measures are not taken within the reasonable time, the yield of various crops including wheat, paddy, cotton, moong and others would come down drastically due to bad impact on the fertility of soil and hence it would affect the economy of farmers adversely.

Ashok Kumar, Assistant Geologist, Department of Agriculture, Bathinda, said the trend of declining water table was serious in certain pockets as it had started due to extensive cultivation of paddy by using electric tubewells.

He said Bathinda had also been receiving below normal rainfall in the past 15 years except in the year 2005 and 2008.

Information gathered by the TNS revealed that underground water had become almost unfit or marginally fit for agriculture use in Sangat, Talwandi Sabo and Maur Mandi block of this district due to high concentration of TDS and Residual Sodium Carbonates (RSC) and hence no crop in these pockets could be grown to its full potential without using canal water.

The other blocks of the district including Phul, Bhagta Bhai Ka, Rampura, Nathana and part of Bathinda had been suffering on account of alarming decline in underground water level, which had gone down from five feet to six in a period of one year from June 2009 to June 2010.

The overall scenario in agriculture, which had developed in Bathinda district, was that the farmers had been finding themselves forced to install deeper tubewells by spending lakhs of rupees to irrigate their paddy fields in Phul, Bhagta Bhai Ka, Rampura and part of Bathinda blocks.

In Sangat, Talwandi Sabo and Maur Mandi blocks, the farmers had to depend on canal water for irrigating their fields by mixing that water with the underground brackish water drawn by tubewells to maintain the fertility of soil and get normal yield of crops.

Paramjit Singh Sandhu, Chief Agriculture Officer, Bathinda, said overexploitation of underground water by the farmers had been causing various problems.

He added that a regular campaign for motivating the farmers to shift to cotton and other less water consuming crops from paddy was the need of hour.

He said the department had also been urging the farmers not to go for deep tubewells, the trend, which was prominent in paddy growing blocks of the district. He added that this trend would make the underground water level decline further. 

Bathinda, June 9
The much-hyped feedstock changeover project for converting the National Fertilizers Limited (NFL), Bathinda, from a fuel-based plant to a gas-based unit, hangs in balance due to protest by farmers of village Gillpatti in Bathinda.

The farmers of village Gillpatti, through which the underground pipeline (gas feeder) is to enter the NFL, are determined not to allow the laying of the pipeline beneath their agricultural lands.

Assuming it to be a simple task to get the Right of Use for laying the pipeline under the provisions of the Petroleum and Minerals Pipeline Act 1962 (P&MP Act), the authorities of the GAIL India Limited had started the project (Bawana (UP)-Nangal gas pipeline) about 18 months ago.

The project was started from the village Gillpatti but the villagers' protest made the authorities drop it midway. It was then started from Doraha in Ludhiana, from the pipeline splits for NFL-Nangal, local industry of Ludhiana and Jalandhar and NFL-Bathinda. Now, after completing 119 kms out of a total of 122 km (approximately) stretch, the work has been stalled after reaching its last leg at village Gillpatti.

Despite their best efforts, the administration and the GAIL India officials could find no alternative. The administration could neither get the right of use from the villagers nor could it distribute the compensation awarded.

Speaking to The Tribune, some villagers, whose land come under the project, said their land had come within the limits of the Bathinda Municipal Corporation so it would soon be demanded for residential and commercial purposes. “If we give our nod to lay down the pipeline under our lands, we will be debarred from raising any building over it. That means, the monetary value of not only that particular strip (100 feet wide) but of the whole chunk would never rise,” they rued.

The villagers demanded that the pipeline should be laid on the government land along the Behman canal distributary, running nearby. They proposed to change its route and divert it to villages Joganand and Kothe Amarpura. However, both the options are proving unacceptable to the administration and the GAIL as on the one hand, the Forest Department has refused to lay the pipeline along the canal distributary and on the other, the residents of village Joganand and Kothe Amarpura have warned the administration of launching a massive protest, if the pipe route was taken to their lands.

Moreover, the change of route plan at this moment would make the GAIL incur a loss of nearly Rs 20 crores as four kms of the already laid pipeline would have to be dug out. As per the details, the GAIL authorities had requested the administration to revise the collector rates manifold for getting the Right of Use over the lands but the administration, finding it an invitation to future problems in acquiring any other land in that area, turned it down.

The SDM Bathinda KPS Mahi, when contacted, said, “Efforts are on to find an amicable solution. We have now decided to have one-to-one meeting with the villagers and hope to resolve it soon as the whole project is almost complete except for this three km stretch.”

The regional representative of the GAIL India Limited, Harpal Singh said, “If the issue is resolved and work is started this month, the whole project is expected to be commissioned before the end of this year.” It was also informed that nearly 1.5 MMSCMD of gas would be supplied to the NFL daily through the pipeline.

Bathinda, June 9
Taking notice of the news item published in The Tribune, “Poverty stalks three-time MLA’s family” that narrated the plight of the family of late ex-MLA Hardit Singh Poohli of village Poohli in Bathinda district, who was also a member of the SGPC, Rajya Sabha member Avinash Rai Khanna today took up the matter with Chief Minister Punjab Parkash Singh Badal and the SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar.

Giving reference of the news item, Khanna mentioned that it indicated the fate of honest politicians who during their life-time, gave preference to social and religious works than collect money for their family.

Shooting off letters to the CM and the SGPC president, he asked them to take the incident seriously and do the needful for the honourable survival of Poohli’s family.

It may be mentioned that The Tribune had highlighted the miserable condition of Poohli’s family mentioning that when a large number of politicians were minting money for their kin, the family of three-time MLA of the Shiromani Akali Dal was facing starvation. Winning the assembly polls three times in a row, once from Pakka Kalan and twice from Nathana, Poohli worked for the welfare of the people.

An active member of the SGPC from 1961 till his death in 1990, he was jailed a number of times and also participated in the Dharam Yudh Morcha.

Going by the statements of the distressed family members, it was reported that no Akali leader had come forward to help them when they were in dire straits.

His eldest son had died after prolonged illness for lack of adequate medical aid and his widow (Poohli’s daughter-in-law) Dyal Kaur began collecting garbage from the houses of rich landlords to earn a livelihood after one of her sons got injured in a road accident and another was paralysed following an electric shock.

It was also added that penury forced Dyal Kaur to pull her grand-daughter out from school last year after matriculation. Her kitchen was sans foodgrain or utensils and the whole family was living in a single room partitioned by a plastic sheet.

Abohar, June 9
Hundreds of workers today took out a rally extending support to the campaign launched by Baba Ramdev against black money. Led by an advocate and social activists BS Makar, the workers assembled at village Bhagsar under the banner of Grameen Ekta, an NGO.

More youth joined them as they passed through village Bhagu, Amar Pura and Ramsara. The rally was addressed by Makar at Nehru Park before it culminated in the sub-divisional complex. Makar exhorted the people to join the decisive battle against corruption and black money.

Abohar, June 9
Anguished over non-payment of arrears of enhanced pay-scales for the past 43 months, sanitation workers of the MC have started indefinite strike.

The workers assembled in the Council complex and shouted slogans against the state government for not fulfilling the promises made during the bilateral meetings.

Union president Mukesh Soni regretted that the state government had not issued the notification to meet the demands pertaining to uniform allowance and other facilities. — OC