Sirsa, June 11
In a day of hectic political activities, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda participated in as many 17 programmes that included laying of foundation stones and inauguration of development projects, while the INLD organised a complete “Sirsa bandh” here today.

Hooda laid the foundation stone of a Rs 72.23 crore waterworks project at Panjuana village, inaugurated the 96-km-long Guru Gobind Singh Marg near Sangwan Chowk, laid the foundation stone of two dharamshalas for the Agarwal and Arora communities, inaugurated a veterinary polyclinic on the Kanganpur road and laid the foundation stone of its second phase. He also laid the foundation stone of the four-laning of the Sardulgarh-Sirsa-Ellenabad road, the foundation stone of Baba Tara Charitable Trust and inaugurated the building of a school.

Infighting in the ruling party came to the fore during Hooda’s public meeting at the site where he laid the foundation stones of two dharamshalas. Hooda was seen expressing his displeasure with minister Gopal Kanda over some issue and went back to his vehicle after a few minutes without laying the foundation stone.

He, however, came back after a few minutes, while Kanda emerged after about half an hour with Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar, who wore a sullen look on his face.

Sources close to Tanwar said irked at being ignored, the MP had boycotted the meeting. Hooda expressed displeasure with Kanda over the issue and sent him to persuade Tanwar to attend the meeting.

In both his meetings, Hooda castigated the INLD for its “Sirsa bandh” and alleged that former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala did nothing for the local people during his six-year regime.

“Chautala spent Rs 789.33 crores on Sirsa during his six-year regime, while I have already spent Rs 2,446.94 crore since 2005 and projects worth Rs 1,098.38 crore are in the pipeline,” Hooda claimed.

He said his government had given record prices for the produce of farmers and lowered interest rates of cooperative loans, while the Chautalas did nothing to improve the lot of the farming community.

Meanwhile, the “Sirsa bandh” organised by the INLD was complete, as hardly any shop, except chemists, was seen open.

Hundreds of INLD workers, including women, had gone to various markets of the town and were seen sitting in groups under sheds of closed shops in an effort to save them from the sun. With mercury hovering around the 46°C mark, both the Congress as well as the INLD supporters had a tough time throughout the day.

INLD secretary-general Ajay Singh Chautala led a procession of the INLD workers from the local grain market to Surkhab Chowk, where the party gave a memorandum to the authorities.

Talking to mediapersons, Chautala alleged that the “countdown” to the fall of the Hooda government had begun, as the ministers and chief parliamentary secretaries were facing allegations of “murder” and bribe.

Rohtak, June 11
The Haryana Civil Medical Service (HCMS) Association has opposed the changes in the policy for doctors interested in pursuing PG courses. The association has said the changes are a major deterrent.

A spokesperson for the association said here today that a large number of seats, including 28 in MD course, meant for government doctors had been lying vacant due to a faulty policy and conditions issued by the department concerned.

The association claimed that all three seats in MDS (Masters in Dental Surgery) were lying vacant.

Maintaining that the conditions for getting the NOC are irrelevant and unnecessary, he said pursuing PG course had become an uphill task for a majority of government doctors.

The association said the policy had been devised to dissuade young doctors from pursuing higher education.

“The policy will prove disastrous for both the medical professionals and the patients as the latter would be denied the services of trained doctors in various disciplines and several young doctors will be forced to give up government service,” he added.

The spokesman said the state government had recently made some changes in its policy aimed at tackling the shortage of specialist doctors in government hospitals.

It had announced that eligibility to get an NOC for HCMS doctors was three years of service, out of which two years should be at a hospital in a rural area.

However, after the exam on March 2 and publishing of merit list the next day, the government circulated a new policy in which the condition to get an NOC was changed to five years of total service, out of which three years should be at the district or sub-divisional hospital and two years at a hospital in rural area.

While 57 candidates qualified the test, a majority of them were declared ineligible as per the new conditions. Though NOC was issued to only to 23 HCMS doctors in the reserved seat category, an RTI enquiry revealed that only eight doctors were duly eligible for 36 seats as per the revised policy.

This led to 28 seats vacant and resentment amongst a majority of applicants. The association has filed a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Panipat, June 11
Stepping up its campaign against former Transport Minister Om Prakash Jain and former CPS Zile Ram Sharma in connection with the murder of former sarpanch Karam Singh, the INLD today served an ultimatum to the state government to arrest the duo within a week or face statewide agitation.

Participating in a dharna organised by the district unit of the INLD in Palika Bazaar here, former speaker of the state Assembly Satbir Singh Kadian and INLD legislator from Israna Krishan Lal Panwar said the state government should first arrest Jain and Sharma to ensure fair probe into the incident.

They also demanded that the probe should be entrusted to an independent agency outside the state so that the accused could not influence the investigations. Kadian said the government was morally bound to initiate action against the two former ministers and their party would not rest until justice was delivered to the aggrieved family of Karam Singh, former sarpanch of Kambopura village.

Sher Singh Karab, senior spokesman for the INLD, claimed that the party had collected affidavits from at least 30 persons from across the state, who have alleged that Om Prakash Jain had collected money from them in lieu of government jobs. He said that these affidavits were being forwarded to Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for appropriate action.

Meanwhile, hundreds of INLD workers led by Gharaunda MLA Narendra Sangwan took out a procession in Karnal and handed over a memorandum to the District Magistrate demanding arrest of the former ministers.

The Sain Samaj today constituted an 11-member action committee to seek justice.

Sonepat, June 11
Kuldeep Singh (27) of Salimsar Majra village was shot dead during the marriage ceremony of Ramesh of the same village late last night. The assailants took him to the Jaipur Golden hospital without informing his family members, where doctors declared him brought dead.

Enraged over the incident, family members and villagers today staged a protest for an hour at Kakroi Chowk here by placing the body on the chowk. They demanded immediate arrest of the alleged accused. The blockade led to traffic disruption.

DSP Randhir Singh reached the spot and persuaded the protesters to lift the blockade, assuring that the alleged accused would be arrested soon. A case of murder has been registered.

The victim’s wife, Pramila, said her husband was invited to participate in the “Ghurchadi” ceremony of Ramesh. Later, the family members came to know that some miscreants opened fire at him and taken him to a hospital.

Former spokesman of the BSP Balbir Chhachhia condemned the incident and demanded immediate arrest of the alleged accused. 

Manesar (Gurgaon), June 11
The strike at Maruti Suzuki India’s Manesar plant continued for the eighth day today despite the Haryana Government banning it yesterday, while the loss to the company mounted to about Rs 390 crore.

The management of Maruti Suzuki India today continued to prevent photojournalists and other media professionals from covering the workers’ agitation.

The security personnel deployed at the entrance to the MSI’s local plant not only barred the photojournalists from entering the plant to cover the dharna, but also misbehaved with them.

Some of the workers sitting on dharna inside the plant premises later told this correspondent on the phone that they had not been allowed to interact with the media ever since their protest began.

The workers have been demanding that the management should let them form a union so that they get a platform to put forward their grievances and demands; apart from seeking the reinstatement of the 11 workers sacked by the management. 

Kaithal, June 11
A fresh survey will be conducted to identify left-out BPL families and include their names in the BPL list. The names of families which do not fulfil the eligibility conditions and whose names figure in the BPL list will be deleted. This was stated by Dharamvir Singh, Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Agriculture and Panchayats, while addressing a district-level Panchayati Raj sammelan in Pundri, 15 km from here, yesterday.

He also inaugurated a building of Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendra, constructed at a cost of Rs 25 lakh.

Dharamvir Singh said according to fresh guidelines, the name of family, which did not work under the MNREGA scheme, would be deleted from the BPL list as it had been made mandatory to provide a minimum of 100 days’ employment to such families. In case BPL families have to go to other villages for work due to the non-availability of employment in their native village, such persons will get 10 per cent extra remuneration. — OC