Chandigarh, August 8
The Punjab and Haryana High Court today questioned the State of Haryana to explain whether its rules on land acquisition encouraged the farmers to join hands with the colonisers.

The verbal queries indicating that the court was going deep into the issue of discrimination in land release matters came during the hearing of a bunch of petitions filed by internationally renowned artist and Padma Shri awardee Anjolie Ela Menon and others.

The high court questioned whether a farmer could save his property by entering into a collaboration with a coloniser.

Referring to the contentions raised by Menon in her petition, the Bench of Justice Jasbir Singh and Justice Augustine George Masih observed that many people without filing objections under section 5-A of the Land Acquisition Act managed to get their lands exempted from the acquisition process by collaborating with the builders.

The observation came soon after the Bench went through Haryana’s policy dated October 26, 2007. The policy makes it clear that request for release of land will not be entertained after a year of award. Another clause says that the request of landowners will be entertained, if they have filed objections under section 5-A.

The rules also say exemption can be given to those, who can show experience as colonisers.

The Bench verbally observed that the farmers were joining hands with the colonisers to get the land released, on the basis of the contentions raised that the policy was discriminatory as it gave edge to the builders over others and favoured the grabbing of land belonging to the farmers.

Referring to the method adopted by the State, the Bench observed that the entire acquisition process was carried out in bits and pieces. Initially, a notification for acquiring the land for the roads is issued under section 4 — an indication to the those dealing in property to get active.

After it is followed by the notification under section 4 for the land, some landowners agree to sell. Some of those who do not, sell the land after notification under section 6. The remaining sell the land after the awards.

Quoting Menon’s counsel Manmohan Lal Sarin and Avi Singh, the Bench added that the benefit was to the builders and not to the farmers.

Sonepat, August 8
Encouraged by some of the decisions of the courts in favour of the farmers in cases relating to acquisition of the agricultural land, farmers of eight villages held a panchayat at Sevli village yesterday and demanded release of their entire land comprising 2,027 acres acquired for setting up of Rajiv Gandhi Education City.

A former sarpanch of Sevli village, Sukhbir Singh, presided over the panchayat. The farmers also served an ultimatum that if their acquired land was not released, they would agitate to any extent to get their demand accepted.

The district president of the Bhoomi Adhigrahan Virodhi Sangharsh

Samiti, Raj Pal Sevli, said more than 2,000 acres of land of the farmers of Bahalgarh, Khewra, Badhmalik, Badhkhalsa, Asawarpur, Sevli, Patla and Jakholi villages was acquired for setting up Rajiv Gandhi

Education City and the farmers were given a compensation of Rs 259 per square yards by the government, whereas the same land was being allotted to private educational institutions at the rate of Rs 5,400 per square yards, he added.

Meanwhile, the indefinite dharna being staged by the farmers of Badkhalsa village under the banner of the samiti for release of their 282 acres of land acquired for the education city entered the ninth day today.

Interestingly, the award was announced by the government in 2006 for the acquired land and except all farmers of Badkhalsa village and some farmers of Sevli, Patla and Aswarpur, the award was accepted by the farmers of these villages. 

Karnal, August 8
With the final forensic report in ex-sarpanch Karam Singh’s mysterious death confirming that he had possibly committed suicide by consuming poisonous substance (celphos), sleuths of the Crime Branch are now banking on a polygraph test of key witnesses and suspects.

Sources confirmed that the forensic report by AIIMS, New Delhi, maintained that the cause of death was suicide and the marks of pricks on the stomach were superficial and could not result in death. The report that raised many questions was sent for a second opinion but there was no change in the report.

The Crime Branch reportedly conducted the polygraph test on four aides of the main accused and was likely to conduct this test on a few more persons.

It is not certain whether former Chief Parliamentary Secretary Zile Ram Sharma and former Transport Minister Om Prakash Jain, who had been grilled twice by the Crime Bureau, would be subjected to the polygraph test or not.

However, Rajinder Singh, son of Karam Singh, who had already filed a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court to hand over the case to the CBI, said “we will file a counter-affidavit when the case comes up for hearing on October 19.”

Hisar, August 8
The Federation of Haryana University Teachers Associations (FEDHUTA) has demanded that the Haryana government should implement in toto the notification issued by the UGC and the Union Human Resources Development Ministry on teachers’ pay scales.

In a statement issued here today Dr Somveer Rathee and Dr Sandeep Rana, president and secretary, respectively, of the federation, said the state government had issued the notification six times but with modifications to the UGC notification.

This was causing financial loss to the teachers.

They said the pay fixation was being done on a notional basis, which was contrary to the UGC notification.

The age of retirement of teachers had been raised by the UGC and the HRD Ministry to 65 years.

However, the Haryana government was still adamant on keeping it at 
60 years.

The government had been extended financial help by the UGC to implement the new pay scales on condition that the notification would be implemented in toto.

They said a deputation of the federation would meet the Chief Minister in this connection this week to seek proper implementation of the new pay scales. 

Chandigarh, August 8
Mock youth parliaments for students and young professionals may become a reality in Haryana soon while a symposium on “Women as agents of chage” is also in the offing .

Back from an “educative” four-nation tour after attending the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in London, Haryana Speaker Kuldeep Sharma said the idea had come from observing youth parliaments held abroad.

“I am very keen to invite young professionals and students to organise these mock sessions in the Vidhan Sabha. It will provide us an insight into how they foresee the future, their expectations from us, their vision on issues as also how they can contribute towards nation-building. The entire concept seemed very impressive and England has successfully conducted them,” he said. Sharma has already asked his office to secure lists of educational institutions for the purpose.

He maintained that all countries at the conference were particularly concerned about poor representation to women in their Parliaments. “There was a country which had only one woman in its Parliament while the Caribbean countries had 50 per cent women 
parliamentarians.

The participants were of the unanimous opinion that more women should be brought into politics since they were found to be heavily under-represented. The consensus was that countries should enact laws for ensuring women participation,” he said. This has prompted Sharma to organise a symposium in Haryana and invite students and NGOs.

Maintaining that the growing breed of “corrupt politicians” found mention at the conference, Sharma, a part of a 35- member delegation from India led by Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, said everbody was of the view that transparency was going down. “They concluded that respect for Parliament was decreasing because of individual acts and needed to be checked by emphasisng on e-governance,” Sharma said.

He explained that water and agriculture were two key issues which were given dedicated sessions along with land acquisition and environment. “There was a consensus that through e-agriculture, technological development should be shared within the Commonwealth countries’ pool while vertical growth was recommended to meet land shortage. Everybody was of the view that despite legislation, environmental logistics were not showing any improvement. A suggestion came up that a moratorium on water-consuming crop should be imposed,” he said.

Sharma said he would urge Haryana’s legislators to debate these concerns in the Vidhan Sabha during the forthcoming monsoon session since they were as applicable in Haryana as elsewhere in the world .

Rohtak, August 8
Deficient monsoon can be a cause of concern for farmers in the district if the situation fails to improve in the next 15 days.

A shortfall of 10 to 15 per cent in the normal rainfall has been observed in the past one month. The total crop area in the district has been over 98,000 hectares and agriculture production is mainly dependent on irrigation that gets supplemented heavily with rains during the period.

Admitting deficiency of rainfall, officials of the Agriculture Department claim that rain arrival often gets delayed in the region due to meteorological factors and the main burst of seasonal rains could be anytime in the period ranging between July and August end, adding that a delay more than two weeks could be cause of concern.

The region witnessed some rain a few days ago and this could improve the situation if the rain continued, claimed Deputy Director Agriculture JS Kadian.

He said the main kharif crop that had been awaiting irrigation was paddy, which was due to ready by September end or early October.

The district received an average rain of 415 mm each year.

“I had put manure and fertilisers in my fields a few days ago in a hope that it get well diluted with rains, but there had been very less rainfall in the past 15 days,” said Ranbir Singh of Madina village.

Since the onset of monsoon, the rainfall so far had been on the weaker side and this could affect the crop production if this continued for the next couple of weeks, said Sandeep Singh, a resident of Nindana village.

Sirsa, August 8
The candidates aspiring to take the Haryana Teachers’ Eligibility Test (HTET) are a harassed lot as they are not getting the prospectus-cum-application forms while the last date draws closer.

The Board of School Education, Haryana, which is organising the tests, had announced that the prospectus and forms were available at its coordination centres at the district level and these were to be submitted on or before August 12 up to 5 pm.

In view of the complaints from various districts, the Education Board today extended the last date for submission of forms up to August 20, Shekhar Vidhyarthi, Secretary of the board, said.

He said while about 1.50 lakh applicants had appeared for STET exam in 2008 and 2009, more than 3 lakh would apply for this year’s examination.

He said HTET forms would be available at all district coordination centres in the state from August 11 while these would be available at the board headquarters from August 10.

The examinations for various categories of teachers would be held on September 24 and September 25.

However, the candidates visiting the coordination centres of the board at the district levels had been complaining that the forms were difficult to get.

Ramesh Kumar, a teacher, alleged that he had visited the centre at Sirsa twice for the forms, but he had not been able to get one.

He said like him a large number of candidates had been visiting the coordination centre daily, only to return empty-handed.

Chandigarh, August 8
Demanding an amendment to the Punjab Village Public Land Act,1961, Congress MLA Sampat Singh today demanded that panchayat land given away as gift and donation to societies and institutions in the past should be given on lease with a retrospective effect.

Addressing a press conference, he said this should be made effective from November 1,1966, and lease money should be charged at the rate of 5 per cent of the collector rate on all such land.

He said the state government should enquire about the use of panchayati land given to trusts and societies and the allotment of such land should be cancelled in case the land was found to be used for purposes other than it was allotted for.

Justifying the land given to Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, he said that it was as per rules.

Rohtak, August 8
To popularise the use of solar energy and energy-efficient equipments, the state government has raised the subsidy on CFL and solar cooker to about 50 per cent and these could be acquired from the district headquarters.

Announcing this, the Additional Deputy Commissioner, Amarjit Maan, said today that efforts were on to popularise the use of energy-saving bulbs and the use of solar energy-based equipments at both the rural and the urban levels.

He said while there had been a problem of adequate power supply especially in the rural areas, the use of solar energy equipments in daily life could result in less dependence on the traditional sources of power supply, which were quite costly as compared to the renewable sources of power.

To promote the idea and to bring a change, the department had taken several measures, including increasing the subsidy given on such products. He said the price of the CFL bulb and the solar cooker had been reduced to half due to the hike in subsidy. Anyone who was interested in such products could get these at a rate of Rs 60 and Rs 2,600, respectively. The regular price of a CFL was Rs 120 while a solar cooker was available at a price of Rs 5,100 without the subsidy.

The solar home lighting system has been provided to as many as 1,830 families in the district during the past one year. Besides, 21,720 CFLs, 2,800 dish-type solar cookers, 5,000 solar lanterns, 10,127 holder-mounted CFLs, 294 solar street-lighting systems and 91 solar water-heating systems were distributed during the period. The department also provides a subsidy ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,500 per unit of water pump and motor for irrigation, which were ISI marked.

Fatehabad, August 8
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has started the process of setting up a nuclear power plant at Gorakhpur in the district.

Soon after the Haryana Government issued a notification under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act for the acquisition of over 1,300 acres of land for the project, NPCIL has issued a notice inviting tenders for carrying out some works for the project.

The tenders for carrying out “Topographical survey, geotechnical investigations, field tests and allied works for the proposed 2X700 MW nuclear power projects” were notified by NPCIL on July 28, 2011.

The work is to be carried out at an estimated cost of Rs 3.10 crore. NPCIL has invited tenders till September 12 and the works under this tender will include several things like data of natural and man-made features of the land, as well as its elevations, information on the physical properties of the soil and rocks around the site to design earthwork and foundation for the proposed structures of the plant.

The works will also include testing of the soil and water.

The Haryana Government had issued a notification under section 6 with regard to the land required for the project on July 25.

The project has already been delayed much from its original schedule, largely due to the delay in issuing a notification by the state government.

According to the initial schedule, prepared by NPCIL, the corporation had expected the land to be handed over to them in October-November 2010.

After completing the groundwork like finalisation of designs, water testing, soil testing, preparation of the environment impact assessment and several other necessary tasks, the construction activities were to start by March 2012, had the initial schedule been adhered to by the government.

The schedule included commissioning of the first twin unit of 700 MW each by 2017 and the second twin unit of 700 MW from the 4X700 MW Gorakhpur Atomic Power Project by 2020.

However, the state government took one full year for coming out with notification under section 6 after its initial notification under section 4 on July 28, 2010 and hence the project is likely to get delayed accordingly. 

Hisar, August 8
The Vice-Chancellor of CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Dr KS Khokhar, today pleaded for more incentives and support for the farm industry as it was confined to the unorganised sector which lacked infrastructural support and expertise.

He was speaking after inaugurating a Farm Machinery Manufacturers’ Meet organised by the university here to mark the opening of a Farm Machinery Testing Centre in the university.

He said this centre had been established in the Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering (FMPE) of the College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology of the university. The Union Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperation had allocated a sum of Rs 85 lakh to set up this centre. Only those farmers who would get their implements tested from the HAU centre would be allowed to avail of the subsidy on purchase of improved implements.

The agriculture sector, which was contributing nearly 16 per cent to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country and was a source of livelihood of 65 per cent of the Indian population, depended greatly on the support of farm machinery industry, he said.

Highlighting the importance of farm mechanisation, the Vice-Chancellor said that it helped in effective utilisation of inputs to increase productivity of land and labour besides reducing the drudgery of farm operations. Though the pace of farm mechanisation in the country had accelerated, this industry required the attention of agriculture policy planners and experts to meet the bulk of requirement of mechanisation inputs.

The HAU Director of Research, Dr RP Narwal, said that farmers had realised the importance of farm machinery and implements in augmenting productivity. In order to achieve maximum returns, it was imperative that their designs and efficiency were tested thoroughly to ascertain their field performance, he added.

More than 200 participants, including agricultural scientists, agriculture-engineers and members and office-bearers of the Haryana Farm Machinery Manufacturers’ Association, participated in the meeting. 

Panipat, August 8
The police today unearthed a fake bitumen manufacturing unit and arrested two persons in this connection.

Acting on a tipoff, district police chief Pankaj Nain along with senior officials raided a unit on the outskirts of Khotpura village where they found a full-fledged plant where real bitumen was removed from trucks and replaced with fake bitumen.

The police said the owners of the plant, Rajinder Malik and Manish, used to bribe truck drivers, who brought bitumen from the IOC’s Panipat refinery and unloaded it in the plant. Fake bitumen was then filled in these trucks. These trucks would then supply this fake bitumen in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal and Jammu.

The police arrested Balwinder, who had come to the plant to collect cash, and Rajesh, a regular employee, from the unit. Meanwhile, teams had been sent to arrest the owners of the plant.

The police impounded three trucks from the unit premises in which 31 metric tonnes of fake bitumen was found. The police had registered a case. 

Sirsa, August 8
As many as 122 cases were settled at a lok adalat organised in the district courts here yesterday. District and Sessions Judge Subhash Goyal presided over the adalat. Naresh Singhal, secretary of the District Legal Services Society, and the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Sirsa, said 356 case were brought before the lok adalat of which 122 were settled .

As many as 50 of the 168 cases of civil nature were settled. As many as 25 of the 35 cases of summary nature were settled by the adalat.

The adalat settled one of the 13 cases of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT), awarding a claim of Rs 2.65 lakh to the victim.

Among others, the adalat also settled two cases of marital discord and domestic violence, two cases of bank loans amd two miscellaneous cases.