Unaccounted income of ~27.5 cr recovered
Amritsar, September 3
The Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (Amritsar Range) has recovered unaccounted income of Rs 27.5 crore in the current financial year following a survey conducted on the colonisers, property dealers and architects during the first quarter of the year in the region.

Amritsar, September 3
The Amritsar Municipal Corporation (AMC) is busy trying to beautify the circular road leading to the periphery of the Walled city area.

The Municipal Corporation authorities are busy installing new and expensive decorative road lights. Areas without any streetlights, however, do not seem to be on its agenda.

The project, worth Rs 2.6 crore, has been initiated under the Centre-funded 'Beautification of Circular Road' scheme and the funds were to be spent solely for the beautification project.

As many as 694 CFL light (T-5 type) tubes, costing Rs 6,300 each, are being installed on the Wall city circular road.

A survey of other parts of the city during evening hours found a large proportion of the Walled City areas comprising the most thickly populated areas of the old city like Katra Jaimal Singh, Lohgarh, Gilwali Gate, Sheranwala gate, Khajana Gate are without proper streetlights for the past many years.

The residents rue that even the key outer areas like Majitha road, Putlighar, Ram Tirath road and Batala road have non-functional streetlights. This often helps snatchers to flee taking advantage of the dark.

For a change, the ornamental lights on Queen's Road were functional but the next stretch leading up to Bhandari Bridge was in dark as no streetlights here were functional.

Similarly, the main entrance of the holy city through the Jalandhar-Amritsar GT road leading to the elevated road also remains dark after dusk. The headlights of vehicles are the only hope for the commuters.

Situation on the main road leading to the Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) towards Putlighar area and the entire stretch leading to Ram Tirath Road were no different.

Due to heavy traffic on these roads, the chances of accidents especially with the manly dragged slow-moving vehicles like cycles, rehris and cycle rickshaws cannot be ruled out in the absence of proper streetlights, residents complain.

What's the logic of wasting public money and energy on such decorative lights when the MC cannot afford to keep the basic streetlights in order. —  Manoj kumar, a resident of katra moti ram

I have booked a private room on the third floor of the Civil Hospital for my father’s treatment. I have been paying Rs 100 as charges towards rent but none of the electric gadgets have been functional for the last four days and this has left us sweltering in the midst of summer. There is no water in the washroom and we have to fetch water from the ground floor. I lodged a complaint with the authorities concerned four days ago but nothing has been done so far. — Ghanshyam Tewari, a resident of Old NarayangarH

}Constant monitoring of tax evasion is being done by the department. It was the result of proper recce of income assessment of the firms by the department teams that we could recover such an amount.— KS Pathania, chief commissioner, region 

Amritsar, September 3
Scores of rehris (handcarts), a majority of them plying illegally, have added to the traffic chaos in the city even as scores of them daily clog the labyrinthine network of lanes and bylanes of the city.

These rehris can be seen plying on busy areas like Court Road, Lohgarh Chowk, Rialto Cinema, Putlighar and the Irrigation Office. The situation is even worse within the walled city. Once a handcart selling snacks, vegetables or fruits enters the narrow alleys of the walled city, it becomes almost impossible for a motorist to negotiate his or her way through the lane.

Davinder Kumar, a schoolteacher, who lives near Hall Gate, fumed, “It is impossible for me to drive my bike through the lanes. The MC had earmarked a site for these handcarts near Ram Bagh some years ago, but for some inexplicable reason the proposal failed to materialise.”

However, the rehriwallas contend that the rehris which keep on moving do not pose that much problem as compared to the rehris which station themselves permanently on the roadsides.

Balwinder, a rehriwalla, said, “Rehris selling vegetable are not the offenders because they have to go from house to house to sell vegetables. In that way they keep on ‘floating’. Fruit-selling handcarts pose the bigger problem as they station themselves on roadsides throughout the day. This leads to traffic chaos and if the traffic cops are missing this chaos becomes almost impossible to control.”

Ram Bharose, another rehriwalla, says, “A majority of these illegal rehris are being run by labourers from Bihar and UP, who have made this city their second home.”

The MC seems to be doing little to eradicate this menace. Several rehri owners disclosed that the MC people swoop on their handcarts “once in a blue moon” and when the “raid” was over, the handcarts were back in business. Once it had proposed to shift them near the old Civil Surgeon office, but today the site had nothing but a board with “Rehri Stand” written on it.

Dharam Pal Gupta, MC Commissioner, disclosed that the corporation regularly confiscated these rehris. However, he agreed that he had a tough task because little or no information exists over the number of such illegal carts plying in the city.

“As for now, we have no plans to start a rehri market as they have it in Chandigarh,” the Commissioner added.

Amritsar, September 3
Two hundred players in both the boys and girls sections have arrived in the city to take part in the All-India ranking junior and sub-junior tennis championship slated to be held at the Ram Bagh tennis courts from tomorrow. The winners of their respective age groups will rake in 25 ranking points while those coming second will get 20 points. The losing semi-finalists will get 15 points while those going out in the round of 8 will get 10 points.

The organisers, the Punjab Lawn Tennis Association, have made elaborate arrangements for the smooth conduct of the tournament. Players, however, are making their own boarding-and-lodging arrangements while the organisers are paying them a daily allowance of Rs 400.

In today’s qualifying matches, some of which were played under an overcast sky, the spotlight was held by Kerala lad Alex Johnson in the under-16 age category. Johnson never had to exert a sinew as he blanked out Rajat Rawat of Uttarakhand 8-0. He repeatedly caught his rival off-guard with his fine placements and so precise was his playmaking that within the first 15 minutes of the match his rival was already gasping for breath. 

Amritsar, September 3
In a rare surgery, an ovarian tumour weighing 35 kg was successfully removed from a woman patient at a local private hospital here last evening. This is one of the largest ovarian cysts removed from any patient in the Asian region, if the claims of the senior doctors who conducted the surgery are to be believed. “I have never seen such a huge ovarian tumour in my 40-year career,” said Dr P S Bedi, a senior doctor who retired as Head of Department of Surgery and Principal of Government Medical College here.

Dr Bedi, who is a consultant surgeon with the hospital, was a part of the four-member team which operated upon Gurmeet Kaur (65), a resident of village Chhina Bidhi Chand, falling under Tarn Taran district.

Dr Surinder Kainth, Dr Kanchan Mahajan and Dr Pali Sehgal were other members of the team. Gurmeet was operated upon yesterday evening and is recuperating well, said Dr Ashok Mahajan, Managing director of the Mahajan hospital where the operation was conducted. He said the cyst removed from the ovary had a diameter of 40 cm.

Answering the media queries, Dr Bedi said that due the advancement of techniques such huge tumours are rare. However, because of lack of knowledge among the people in the rural areas and poor economic conditions (due to which patients fail to approach the physician on time) sometimes results in the enlargement of tumour to this extent, he added.

Satnam Singh, son of Gurmeet Kaur said that the family approached many hospitals before coming to Amritsar as doctors there refused to conduct the operation due to the age factor and her physical condition.

“We approached many hospitals before we were referred to Amritsar by doctors of a Tarn Taran hospital. She had been suffering from the tumour for last four years. She even could not move or lie on the bed. Even she was answering nature’s call in bed,” said Satnam while adding that recently, she started experiencing respiratory problems.

Initially, the family and patient did not bother much about the disease. However, when her condition deteriorated with the passage of time, they decided to approach doctors.

Dr Mahajan said that the cyst would be given to Government Medical College for research purposes of the students.

Amritsar, September 3
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in collaboration with the state government would organize four-day "Destination Punjab" to promote brand Punjab for the first time in the holy city from October 7.

CII Punjab chairperson Kamna Raj Aggarwala here said the exhibition would create a platform for the business world to interact, forge partnerships, bring fresh investment and entrepreneurship opportunities for the future in the state. She said it was for the time that the CII would be holding the event here otherwise all its previous had been organised at Chandigarh.

The event, to be held at Ranjit Avenue Ground, will offer opportunity to key sectors of the region, including farm equipments, implements, machinery, textile, textile machinery, engineering goods, auto, machine tools, leather, sports goods, tourist and hospitality to showcase their products.

She said Destination Punjab could be considered a proactive step towards branding Punjab and to fetch more investments into the state. "Especially for MSME, which forms the backbone of the state, it is a great platform for showcasing their strength and benefit from visiting delegations and corporate clientele", she detailed.

Deputy Commissioner Rajat Agarwal appreciating the CII's move said that Punjab had always been a leading state of the country whether it was green revolution or defense.

He said, "Punjab today offered conducive governance and the best of infrastructural support for a safe and growth oriented investment".

He said the show envisaged partnerships from various sectors of Punjab, representatives from international trade bodies and government of Punjab discussing business partnerships and foremost the interactions with policy makers.

Amritsar, September 3
To enforce the Punjab Plastic Control Act in the district, a special squad under the supervision of the Amritsar Municipal Corporation’s Health Officer Yogesh Arora, today raided various shops in different markets to scrutinise the type of poly-bags being used by them.

The team confiscated five quintals of carrybags which did not comply with the prescribed standards and destroyed them.

It is to mention that as per the Punjab Plastic Carry Bags (Manufacture, Usage and Disposal) Control Act-2005, there is a blanket ban on polythene bags below 30 microns in width, having dimensions less than 8X12 inches or not complying with the specified colours.

Meanwhile, on spotting the raiding team, some of the shopkeepers tried to evade them by closing their shops.

Confirming this, the Chief Sanitary Inspector, GS Bhullar, said about eight shops were raided at Katra Baghian and one at IDH market. “We had a clue that these shopkeepers were using substandard polythene bags. Even as some shopkeepers were spotted closing their shops after spotting us, when we warned them to get their shops sealed, they had to surrender”, he said.

Amritsar, September 3
The CIA staff today nabbed two persons, Rajinder Singh alias Raju of village Pandori Waraich and Amritpal Singh alias Bablu of Silver estate of Majitha road, for allegedly stealing vehicles and selling them after installing fake number plates.

Rajinder was declared a proclaimed offender by the court in connection with a fraud case. The police recovered six motorcycles and two activa from them.

Vikram Sharma, in charge CIA staff, said that they received specific information that the accused were involved in stealing the vehicles from various parts of the city and selling them, after putting fake number plates, in rural areas.

The police got a tip-off that the vehicle thiefs were standing near the Ajnala Road petrol pump with the stolen vehicle. “A police team that was patrolling the area raided the designated place and arrested them with a stolen motorcycle,” said Sharma.

The police recovered four motorcycles and one Activa from Rajinder Singh and two motorcycles and one Activa from Amritpal Singh. Sharma said the accused stole the vehicles from the Golden Temple, Gurdwara Shaheed Baba Deep Singh Ji, Ranjit Avenue and Prince Bagh situated on Batala road area. A case has been registered.