Chandigarh, June 22
While the state government is still grappling with the problems associated with the acquisition of land for the first nuclear plant in the state, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has offered to set up another plant.

An NPCIL team is coming on a two-day visit tomorrow to conduct a preliminary survey of the two sites offered by Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited (HPGCL) for setting up the second nuclear plant in Haryana. While one site is in the Balsamand area of Hisar district, the other is in the Kitlana-Nimiriwali-Ajitpur area of Bhiwani district.

Nalinish Nagaich, Executive Director of NPCIL, has informed HPGCL that the NPCIL team would like to study availability of water, cropping pattern, power evacuation arrangements and distance from the nearest railway head to proceed further.

The first nuclear power plant in Haryana is proposed at Gorakhpur village in Fatehabad district. The government has already started the proceedings to acquire land for the plant. But the land acquisition process has hit a roadblock with most landowners opposing it .

The notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act for acquiring over 1313 acres was issued on July 20, 2010. The next notification under Section 6 of the Act has to be issued within one year of the first notification lest the one issued under Section 4 should lapse.

The authorities claim that about 70 per cent of the owners have given consent to acquisition of their land. However, the consent is conditional as the owners want a compensation of Rs 50 lakh per acre, besides jobs in the plant for a member each from affected families. However, a section of farmers, who have been sitting on dharna outside the mini-secretariat for more than 300 days now, maintain that only a minuscule number of farmers have given their conditional consent.

A spokesman of HPGCL claimed that farmers of Balsamand village, through their panchayat, had submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in April, expressing willingness to sell about 18,000 acres for the nuclear plant to ensure the development of their village and its surrounding areas.

Meanwhile, NPCIL has proposed additional safety measures for the Gorakhpur nuclear plant in view of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan. The corporation feels that the area is free from the threat of tsunami and it is not prone to an earthquake of the magnitude of nine on the Richter scale. The only threat is from floods. The corporation has proposed that inverters to run water pumps to cool the plant would be kept at a height to avoid flooding.

Sirsa, June 22
A panchayat of villagers has “ordered” the banishment of a family from the village after the family head was held on a charge of raping a minor girl at Darbi in the district.

The panchayat, which met in the village today, issued a diktat to ostracise the family of the accused and served it an ultimatum of 10 days to leave the village.

A minor girl of the village had gone missing on June 15.

The victim’s father had lodged an FIR with the police that a villager, Sukhdev, and his wife, Harshdeep, had kidnapped his daughter.

Later, the police had recovered the girl from the couple, who had taken her to Chandigarh.

The police had arrested the couple and the girl had alleged that she was raped by Sukhdev.

The panchayat, which gave 10 days to the family of the accused to leave the village, has announced that if the family of the accused does not leave the village within the given time period, the villagers will decide their future course of action.

The panchayat also asked the villagers to ostracise the family. Chand Singh, SHO of the Ding police station, however, denied the banishment diktat.

Fatehabad, June 22
Local municipal councillors today took to task officials of a private company responsible for distribution of old age and other social pension in the district.

In a coordination meeting with officers of the Union Bank of India, which has been authorised to distribute pension in the district, and Financial Information Network and Operations Limited (FINO), which has been delegated this task by the bank, the municipal councilors aired the resentment of pensioners.

Complaints of irregular distribution of pension are being received in the district ever since the authorities handed over the task to various banks.

The bank, in turn, had delegated the task to FINO, who has been issuing biometric cards to the beneficiaries.

Sirsa, June 22
Local divers, who had been searching for the elder of the two minor sisters drowned in the Nohar feeder canal on Monday, met with success today when they recovered the body of the girl, Anu, near Dhukra village.

Anu (5) and Manu (3), along with their father Ravi Kumar, had fallen into the canal on Monday evening, when their motorcycle skidded.

Farmers working in their fields had saved Ravi Kumar, but the two siblings were swept away by the strong currents of the canal waters.

The body of the younger sibling, Manu, was recovered from the canal at the Rattanpura head near Nohar in Rajasthan yesterday.

The divers, who searched the entire length of the canal, recovered Anu’s body near Dhukra village today.

The police handed over the body to her parents as they said they did not want a postmortem.

Meanwhile, the girls’ father, Ravi Kumar, is a shattered man today.

He loved his daughters very much and had gone for his vasectomy surgery after the two girls as he treated girls and boys as equal, said villagers.

Hisar, June 22
The Federation of Haryana Universities Teachers’ Association (FEDHUTA) has decided to approach the Union Human Resources Development Minister to seek his help in getting a proper notification on their new pay scales issued by the Haryana Government.

Dr Sandeep Rana, general secretary of the FEDHUTA, said here today that the Haryana Government had issued several notifications but none of them was as per the norms prescribed by the UGC and the HRD Ministry. The latest notification was issued on April 29 but even this notification was not as per the recommendations of the UGC and the HRD Ministry.

In this notification there was gross deviation from UGC guidelines on certain vital issues related to pay fixation, arrears of advance increments for higher qualifications, promotion and age of superannuation.

The government had issued more than four notifications but these were in tits and bits.

Sirsa, June 22
Two minor girls were saved from becoming “balika vadhus” here today.

Sadhna Mittal, child marriage prohibition officer, who had received complaints about the proposed marriage of the two minor girls, intervened and with the help of the police dissuaded their parents from going ahead with their plan.

“I had received two complaints that two minor girls aged between 14 and 15 from Pajuana and Aboobshahr villages, respectively, were to be married off on June 25. The marriage parties were to come from Rajasthan,” said Mittal.

She said she informed the police and summoned the kin of the two girls to her office today. The girls’ parents maintained that their daughters were over 17 years, but they could not produce any proof of their age. Sadhna Mittal said she told the kin that it would be illegal to solemnise the marriage of the two girls before they attained the marriageable age.

Later, the girls’ parents as well as the sarpanches of their respective villages gave a written undertaking that they would not perform the marriage till the girls turned 18.

Jhajjar, June 22
Two Haryana policemen, accused of the gang-rape of a minor girl at Bahadurgarh town here, were dismissed from service by the Jhajjar SP here today. The duo, identified as head constable Mahender Singh and constable Rakesh Kumar, was already under suspension after they were found involved in the crime during the investigation.

Jhajjar SP Patram Singh confirmed the dismissal of the cops. He said they were in judicial custody.

Six persons, including two policemen, had allegedly raped a 13-year-old girl while she was on her way home on June 14.

The police had arrested five of the accused, identified as constable Rakesh of Bohar village in Rohtak, Ravi and Ajay of Barahi village, Sandeep of Jakhoda village and Vipul of Vikas Nagar, Bahadurgarh, within 24 hours but failed to nab head constable Mahender Singh even after five days of the registration of the case. He was arrested by the police yesterday.

Karnal, June 22
The Karnal police today booked 24 persons of Gagsina village near here in connection with the mysterious death of a 15-year-old girl, Neha. It is being suspected to be a case of honour killing.

Karnal SP Rakesh Arya said the police booked relatives of the girl under Section 302, IPC, while cases were registered against the other accused under Section 201, IPC, for destroying evidence.

The girl was allegedly cremated in a hush-hush manner without informing the police. The incident came to light when the police got a clue to it and registered a case after making preliminary investigations.

Though the girl died two days, the incident came to light today after the police questioned villagers. Not only the relatives of the girl, even villagers were tightlipped about the death.

The victim was allegedly having an affair with a boy, Sandeep, from Chhana village in Jind and had eloped with him a few days ago. However, they were arrested in Bareilly. While the girl was later sent home, the boy was arrested and sent to a jail in Karnal.

The entire village kept the news regarding the incident a “secret” and when some TV cameramen reached the village, they were virtually chased away. The police suspects that the girl was murdered. It suspects the villagers’ complicity in “destroying evidence”.