Chandigarh, September 3
The Haryana Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, today announced the decision of the state government to effect a 20 per cent increase in the remuneration of guest teachers in the state with effect from July 1, 2011.

The hike comes as a gift for the guest teachers even as Teacher’s Day is just a couple of days away. The revision will benefit as many as 15,400 teachers. This is the fourth hike in the remuneration of guest teachers effected by the Hooda government. It will cost the state exchequer Rs 50 crore a year.

The Education Minister, Geeta Bhukkal, said with this increase, a lecturer would now get Rs 19,400 per month against Rs 16,200 per month; masters and language teachers Rs 15,840 per month against Rs 13,200; and JBT/drawing teachers Rs 14,400 per month against Rs 12,000. “This will help boost the morale of guest teachers and motivate them to improve teaching in schools,” Bhukkal said.

This is the fourth time that the Haryana Government has hiked the remuneration of guest teachers in the state. The first increase was made in January 2008, the second in April 2009 and the third increase was effected from July 2010. "The decision to hike the remuneration has been taken to ensure adequate strength of teachers for the 27.33-lakh children studying in government schools, to mitigate the impact of rising inflation and to improve the quality of education,” Bhukkal said.

With a view to achieving the objective of ensuring quality education in Haryana, the state government had decided in 2007 to fill all vacant posts by hiring guest faculty so that students may benefit and their studies did not suffer for want of teachers. At present, there are about 15,400 guest faculty teachers in different categories in the state. 

Rohtak, September 3
It could be bad news for the art lovers. Raj Kishan Nain, the famous photojournalist of Haryana, is on the verge of losing his already deteriorating eyesight completely if he does not get undergo surgery immediately at a world-class eye hospital. It is unsure whether he would be able to shoot from his camera in the near future, even after treatment, as the problem is one of a rare kind.

Fiftysix-year-old Raj Kishan, a resident of Ajaib village in the district, had suffered eye damage when the retina of his eyes got burnt during a laser treatment at the AIIMS in 1987. His eyes were hit by cowdung thrown at him during the Holi festival. His family and friends got a shock when the doctors at the PGIMS, Rohtak, told him to get operated upon if he wanted to retain partial vision.

It is learnt that the ace photo artist who had to leave his government job due to poor vision has only five per cent visibility at present. Nain is perhaps the only photojournalist in the country whose work has been featured in three permanent art galleries set up at Panchkula, Kurukshetra and Rohtak, while the fourth one is coming up at Jaipur.

According to experts, he is the only artist so far who has worked so intensely in the field of rural photography during the past several decades besides writing on the subject of art. Still based at his village and carrying out work in the field, Nain told The Tribune that it was in 1987, when the trouble with his eyes began and major damage got done after the laser treatment at AIIMS. He claimed that this treatment was a new technique and he was one of many patients who were left with a severe damage due to lack of expertise in using laser treatment at that time. While he had to run from pillar to post to get his vision right, the damage to retina could not be reversed till date, though the doctors have advised him to go for another surgery.

“As the doctors have told me that there are very few chances of recovery due to absence of technique to replace the damaged retina, I have been consulting surgeons for the removal of the cataract that has developed. It could leave me totally blind, said Nain, who has over three thousand still photographs and hundreds of articles in his name. 

Fatehabad, September 3
Fertiliser major Indian Farmers Fertilisers Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) has taken upon itself the task of removing blindness among old and infirm farmers due to cataract in the Fatehabad area.

The Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Prahlad Singh Gillankhera, who is a director of the IFFCO Kisan Sewa Trust, inaugurated an eye check-up camp at Dhingsara village near here today.

The camp was the sixth in the series being organised by the IFFCO Kisan Sewa Trust through the efforts of Gillankhera.

“Over 1,700 farmers have visited these camps being organised in different villages of Fatehabad every week and nearly 85 farmers have been successfully operated for intra-ocular lens implantation,” Gillankhera said while addressing villagers.

He said while Dr Vinod Sharma, an eye surgeon in the General Hospital, Fatehabad, examines patients in these camps, operations are performed in the hospital at the expense of IFFCO, which also arranges for transportation of the patients.

He said IFFCO, though a company involved in the manufacture and sales 
of fertilisers, had farmers as its owners and consumers, too.

The company functions on no-profit no-loss basis and spends its earning for the welfare of farmers.

Gillankhera announced the setting up of Rajiv Gandhi Sewa Sadan in the village at a cost of Rs 10 lakh.

He also announced to contribute 50 per cent of the consumer share from his discretionary funds, in case families living in dhanis applied for domestic power connection from the DHBVN.

The DHBVN charges 50 per cent of the estimated cost from consumers while giving domestic power connections in dhanis.

The CPS also listened to the grievances of villagers and took up these with the officials accompanying him. 

Chandigarh, September 3
The Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam recovered Rs 317.12 crore from electricity consumers during August as compared to Rs 251.65 crore recovered during the corresponding month last year. Thus, there was an increase of 26.02 per cent in remittance into banks (RIB) last month.

A spokesman said here today that the maximum amount of Rs 52.63 crore was recovered in operation circle Ambala comprising the districts of Ambala and Panchkula followed by Rs 51.44 crore in operation circle Panipat, Rs 50.77 crore in Sonepat, Rs 33.47 crore in Yamunanagar, Rs 32.79 crore in Karnal, Rs 29.26 crore in Rohtak, Rs 22.52 crore in Jhajjar, Rs 17.63 crore in Kurukshetra, Rs 13.96 crore in Jind and Rs 12.65 crore in operation circle Kaithal.

He also said there was a maximum increase of 40.16 per cent in the RIB in operation circle Jind followed by 38.86 per cent in Kaithal, 31.62 per cent in Rohtak, 31.53 per cent in Panipat, 29.05 per cent in Sonepat, 27.34 per cent in Karnal, 22.74 per cent in Yamunanagar, 18.71 per cent in Jhajjar, 18.7 per cent in Ambala and 13.23 per cent in Kurukshetra in August.

He further stated that the nigam had recovered Rs 1,487.29 crore of energy bills from April to August this year as compared to Rs 1,176.83 crore during the corresponding period last year. An overall increase of 26.38 per cent has been observed in the RIB.

The Haryana Power Utilities managed 12 per cent extra power supply to the consumers during the August as compared to the corresponding month last year. On an average, 1,187 lakh units of power were supplied daily in August this year as compared to 1,060 lakh units daily in August, 2010.

Sirsa/Fatehabad, September 3
Villagers levelled serious allegations of outraging the modesty of young widows by officials of Financial Information Network and Operations Limited (FINO), a doorstep banking company that has been outsourced the job of distribution of pension, at Bothan Kalan in Fatehabad today, even as Ashok Khemka, the Director of Social Justice and Empowerment Department, presided over a meeting to streamline the distribution of social security pensions in Sirsa and Fatehabad.

The villagers also accused FINO officials of unauthorised deduction of money from their social security pensions.

The government has outsourced the work of distribution of pension in Sirsa and Fatehabad to FINO from the current financial year and their business correspondents are supposed to distribute pension at the doorsteps of the beneficiaries.

Hundreds of villages from Bothan Kalan village today held a demonstration at mini- secretariat in Fatehabad and levelled serious allegations against FINO officials responsible for distribution of pension in their village.

The villagers alleged that those manning the customer service point of FINO deducted Rs 50 per person from their social security pension and misbehaved with them, if they raised any objection.

Some villagers, including women, recorded their statements before SDM Baljit Singh and the women have accused the FINO officials of making obscene gestures.

The SDM said that he had sought explanation from the FINO officials and they had been asked to submit their report by tomorrow.

Deepak Chaudhary, district coordinator of FINO, admitted having received such complaints and said that he would take suitable action after getting the version of the other side.

Meanwhile, presiding over a meeting of Deputy Commissioners, ADCs, SDMs, bank officials and FINO officials of Sirsa and Fatehabad at Sirsa yesterday, Khemka emphasised the need for prompt redressal of the grievances of pensioners.

Khemka directed the officers of banks and FINO responsible for distribution of pensions to set up grievance redressal centres and provide toll-free numbers to pensioners. He asked the financial company to complete enrolment and opening of bank accounts of pensioners by September 30 positively.

He also asked the FINO officials to appoint business correspondents after every 800 beneficiaries. 

Panipat, September 3
The CBI team that today came to take the custody of the three persons, who had been arrested by the district police on Friday in connection with the kidnapping of Tejas Gaba, retuned without the accused, who were instead sent in judicial custody by a local court.

District police chief Pankaj Nain said that “disclosures in Tejas kidnapping case had been made in the court and the CBI team will come back on Monday along with production warrants for CBI court Panchkula to seek their (accused) custody.” He said as the CBI was investigating the case, the district police had little role to play other than handing over the custody of the accused along with the evidence that were in their (police) possession to the CBI.

Nain had yesterday claimed to have made a major breakthrough in the infamous Tejas kidnapping case with the arrest of three persons, whose identities were today revealed in the court as Satinder Malik, Sandeep Thakur and Ram Kumar. He had stated that there was sufficient proof on record to link the three persons with the Tejas kidnapping case. The three were also said to have criminal backgrounds with cases related to murders, robberies and kidnapping and even bomb blast registered against them.

The CBI team under an SP rank officer reached here this morning. The team members constantly remained in touch with their superiors throughout the court proceedings over the phones and later decided to leave the three accused in judicial custody.

The CBI had been informed by the district police yesterday about the arrests made by them in the infamous Tejas Gaba kidnapping case, who had been kidnapped from the local Paruthi Chowk while waiting for his school bus on the morning of December 12, 2008.

Meanwhile, the family members of Tejas stated that with the arrest of the three more persons the chances of Tejas coming back home had brightened up.