|
|
|
|
|
Multiple domestic LPG connections
Bogus medical certificates issue
Social, economic and caste census |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Graft case: 2 MES engineers sentenced to jail for two years
Lack of evidence
NDRF men lauded for saving lives
SBoP union flays govt policy
12 injured as van overturns
|
|
Multiple domestic LPG connections
Bathinda, September 7 The Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) supply cooking gas to households in the city. When combined, these have around one lakh connections in the city precincts only. Oil companies supply domestic cylinders at 54 per cent subsidy. The
current rate for a domestic cylinder is Rs 420 and it is Rs 1300 for a commercial cylinder weighing 19 kg. Controlling the losses in the domestic LPG sales market has been priority of these companies. “In areas like Rampura Phul, there existed a flourishing illegal trade of LPG cylinders. People owned as many as eight connections in a single household. We identified them and 2,900 such connections were suspended,” added Sukhminder Singh Laddi, owner of then Paramveer Gas Agency. The Gas Control Order allows only one LPG connection per household. It is being done to control the misuse of domestic cylinders for commercial purposes. All the cylinders being used at dhabas, restaurants, by the milk men or even grocers to lighten lanterns are illegal. “The cascading effect of such hoarding and illegal use of domestic cylinders is felt in winters and during marriage season. People use geysers that run on domestic LPG cylinders, which is illegal,” pointed out an Indane official. At the administration level, all the oil companies have decided to create a common database wherein user records would be tallied. In many cases, people have taken multiple connections from different agencies. Meanwhile, the Bathinda zone manager of the IOC and district coordinator Suresh Kumar Sharma said in Bathinda, Faridkot, Mansa and Muktsar, around 14,000 such connections have been suspended. “None of the cylinders of 5 kg and below are authorised. All are being illegally refilled and sold,” he said. |
|
|
Bogus medical certificates issue
Bathinda, September 7 The PHRC has now decided to file a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Dr Ajitpal Singh had filed a complaint against VP Gupta on April 22, 2002, and had sought punishment for allegedly defaming him (Dr Singh) in a bogus
medical certificate scandal at the Civil Hospital, Bathinda. According to details available, Gupta had taken up the matter of a large-scale corruption in the Civil Hospital, Bathinda, in 2001 with the Chief Minister and authorities of the Health Department. During investigation, the PHRC got a bogus medical certificate issued to a relative of a convict in the Central Jail, Bathinda. Dr Ajitpal Singh had issued the certificate. The scandal was exposed and the then Civil Surgeon ordered an inquiry. All three inquiry officers held Dr Ajitpal Singh guilty of issuing bogus medical certificates to relatives of convicts at the Central Jail to facilitate leave on parole. Dr Ajitpal Singh was charge-sheeted. Later, Sangrur Civil Surgeon Dr Inderjit Kaur Walia conducted an official inquiry. She too held him guilty of issuing bogus medical certificates. However, the Health Department still did not take any action against Dr Ajitpal. Then, Gupta approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The High Court directed the Punjab Government to decide the matter within six weeks. The Punjab Government passed a notification on July 22, 2010, and reverted Dr Ajitpal from the post of senior medical officer to medical officer as punishment. |
|
|
Social, economic and caste census
Bathinda, September 7 The census work in Punjab would be conducted from September 20 to October 31. The census is being conducted in the country from June 30 to December 31. ADC (Development) Dr Abhinav Trikha inaugurated the programme wherein he informed the participants about the methodology to be adopted. He spoke on the differences between the national general census and social, economic and caste census. “The earlier census was only conducted for counting the number of people, whereas the new census exercise is different in many aspects,” he said. Deputy director, census operations, Punjab, Bhagirath Singh and Dr Bhupinder Singh of Rural Development Institute detailed about the information to be collected during the census. They explained the proformas, ways of collecting numbers at one place and departmental actions. Addressing the master trainers, they briefed about the list of houses, census blocks, identity details and other requisite aspects. They emphasised that it was important to collect separate details of different families living in the same house as tenant and
landlord. Zila Parishad XEN Rajinder Batra talked about the importance of master trainers in the census. |
|
|
Farmers seek ban on sale of liquor, meat in holy town
Bathinda, September 7 The farmers of Talwandi Sabo and Maur areas assembled under the leadership of Jeetmohinder Singh Sidhu, Congress MLA, and submitted a memorandum in support of their demands to the government. They demanded that an immediate compensation should be paid to those whose houses collapsed or have been damaged due to the rains. They regretted that although Talwandi Sabo, which is the seat of one of the five Takhts, had been declared a holy town but the sale and consumption of liquor and meat was continuing unchecked. Sidhu demanded a CBI enquiry into the “irregularities” in the expenditure of a special grant of Rs 80 crore received by the Punjab Government from the Centre for beautification of the holy town. He demanded that the master plan notified for the 41 villages near the Bathinda refinery should be scrapped as it was aimed at acquiring the precious agriculture land of farmers. The memorandum demanded that the government should take steps to provide irrigation facilities to the farmers at the tail-end of the canal and to provide potable drinking water to residents of Talwandi Sabo and Maur where due to the contaminated underground water the incidence of cancer and other diseases was increasing. The cancer patients should be provided with free of cost treatment. The memorandum alleged that funds were being misused in the beautification project of Rama Mandi where a sewerage system was being laid, and drains and roads were being built. |
|
|
Graft case: 2 MES engineers sentenced to jail for two years
Bathinda, September 7 AE Satish Kumar and JE Thomas KP were deployed with the MES at the Bathinda Cantonment. On March 31, 2005, they were arrested while taking a bribe of Rs 10,000 from one Jiwan Kumar. The bribe was in lieu of passing Jiwan’s bill for sanction from their office. They were booked under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. They were also convicted under section 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act for accepting illegal gratification being public servant. While Satish Kumar was to retire on the day he was caught red-handed, Thomas KP was working at the cantonment. Naib Tehsildar to spend
two years in jail
In another case, the court of additional sessions judge Gurbir Singh awarded two-year sentence to Naib Tehsildar Satwant Singh from Maur, who was arrested on October 11, 2005. Satwant had asked for Rs 50,000 as bribe from Nachhattar Singh, a resident of village Tungwali, in lieu of getting a newly-bought land registered in the absence of its seller. The deal was struck at Rs 30,000. DSP Vigilance Bureau Raminder Singh had caught the Naib Tehsildar red-handed.
— TNS |
|
Lack of evidence
Faridkot, September 7 The infamous scam was unearthed in the entrance test held on June 22, 2008 and on July 4, 2008. The Faridkot police had registered an FIR under sections 420, 419, 467, 468, 471 and 34 of the IPC against 35 students, imposters and doctors allegedly involved in the scam. As many as six of the students, Ridhima, Navjit Kaur, Sahil Sharma, Ashish Kumar, Navpreet Singh and Sarpuneet Singh, were minors against whom judicial proceedings were initiated before the Juvenile Justice Board. As per the police case, these students took the services of intelligent students by paying them heavy amounts to appear in the PMET examination on their behalf. During the investigations, the police arrested these six minor students but the special investigation team constituted on the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court failed to produce sufficient evidence regarding their involvement before the Juvenile Justice Board within the stipulated time period. The Juvenile Justice Board started the process of recording the statements of the witnesses in August 2009 but the investigation team could not produce all the evidence even after numerous chances given by the Board. Finally, the evidences were closed on March 17, 2011. Today, the Board acquitted all of them from the charges. The High Court had earlier directed the Juvenile Justice Board to speed up the proceedings of trial keeping in view the future of these youths. As per the modus operandi, one group was assigned the job to arrange for imposters, the other was tasked to arrange for the real candidates interested in qualifying in the PMET through impersonation, and a third group was supposed to transport the imposters to the venue of the examination. The fourth was assigned the responsibility for a comfortable stay and smooth entry of the imposters into the examination centre after replacing the photographs of the real candidates on the admit card with their photographs. The racketeers had also succeeded in getting the question paper of the PMET leaked before it was held. They swapped the answer sheets of real candidates with those prepared by them. |
|
NDRF men lauded for saving lives
Ferozepur, September 7 DC S. Karuna Raju said the NDRF men showed exemplary courage and compassion in the discharge of their duties. Apreciating their contribution, the DC further said that the NDRF men also helped in providing relief and medical supplies to the people in submerged villages and even transported green fodder for the livestock through their motor boats during the crisis. DPS Kharbanda and G S Pannu, both ADCs, Subhash Chander, SDM, inspector Praveen Kumar, inspector Sandeep Negi, both from the NDRF, besides other officials were also present on the occasion. More than 40 jawans including the especially trained deep sea divers belonging to the seventh battalion of the NDRF camped almost a fortnight to assist the district administration in flood relief operations. |
|
|
SBoP union flays govt policy
Abohar, September 7 Punjab Bank Employees Federation secretary SK Gautam said in his address at the convention here that the government had availed loan from the World Bank to capitalize the banks and was also pursuing the policy of consolidation and merger of public sector banks. This, he observed, is totally unwarranted and would in no way strengthen the banks. The government was, unfortunately, also encouraging more FDI in the private sector banks and had introduced a Banking Regulation Amendment Bill in Parliament to remove the existing ceiling on voting rights of foreign investors.
— OC |
|
|
12 injured as van overturns
Ferozepur, September 7 The injured were admitted to a private hospital in Zira. After the accident, the college authorities along with the girls’ parents reached the hospital. The condition of the girls was stable.
— OC |
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
