Jalandhar, September 24
Hundreds of city residents and commuters were put to a great hardship following the visits of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal to the city today.

The traffic moved at a snail’s pace for over four hours as the father-son duo remained in the city.

Parkash Singh Badal was here to console Kamaljit Singh Bhatia, Senior Deputy Mayor, whose son had died in a hit and run case on September 18 while Sukhbir Badal was chairing a function organised at the PAP Complex to honour Punjab Police personnel.

The city and the rural police had deployed cops at every nook and corner in an attempt to provide full security cover to VVIPs. Starting from 9 am onwards, the police had been regulating the traffic in such a manner that there were no traffic rules for vehicles with red and blue bacons atop.

The cops left no stone unturned to please their bosses, especially the Deputy Chief Minister who was here to pin stars of their new ranks on their epaulettes. Over 5,000 police personnel were promoted by the Deputy Chief Minister who is also holding the home portfolio.

Long queues of vehicles were witnessed on the busy GT Road starting from Rama Mandi Chowk, PAP Light Point Chowk, BSF Chowk, Guru Nanak Mission Chowk, Nakodar Chowk, Football Chowk, Basti Nau and Basti Shekh, and 120-feet road.

As Prakash Singh Badal came by the road at Hotel Redisson, owned by Gautam Kapoor, a ticket aspirant from the Congress, there was traffic chaos at BMC Chowk till the CM left the place.

Interestingly, the cops stopped the vehicular traffic joining the main route to be taken by the CM almost 30 minutes prior to his arrival. Even ambulances that was ferrying patients remained stranded at PAP and BSF Chowks for a long time. The cops did not allow them to go.

The locals, however, were seen taking shortcuts and alternate routes to reach their destination. The visitors and long route buses were the worst affected.

Jalandhar, September 24
With the arrest of three persons, the Jalandhar (Rural) police today busted a gang of inter-state auto-lifters here. The police also recovered 18 cars, two pistols, two magazines and four cartridges from them.

The gangsters admitted to have committed over 100 auto-thefts at gunpoint.

Addressing mediapersons, Punjab DGP PS Gill said the gang was fond of Santro cars as the vehicle was in much demand in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Acting on a tip-off, the police had laid a trap and nabbed Hardeep Singh and Sandeep Kumar, residents of Patti-Ram-Ki in Jandiala, while they were planning a theft.

During questioning, it was revealed that they along with their aide Balwinder Singh, also nabbed, were active in the trade for the last couple of years and had snatched over 18 cars at gunpoint.

Five members of the gang - Baba Anokh Singh, Sarabjit Singh of Fatehgarh Churian, Shamsher Singh of Kala Afghana in Gurdaspur, Samuel of Nakodar, Monu of Kapurthala, and Vicky Malhotra of Motihari in Bihar - are, however, absconding and the police has laid a trap to nab them. Raids are being carried out at their suspected hideouts.

The police also recovered four vehicles including a Volkswagon, a Pajero, a Tata Safari and a Swift Dezire, from a plot owned by the NRI in Noormehal. Other cars recovered included Tata Indica (1), Maruti 800 (2), Santro (4) and Wagon-R (1).

The gang kingpin Sandeep Kumar admitted to have committed 15 thefts. The gang was active in Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, Amritsar. They sold cars in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir by preparing fake documents through their agents in these cities.

The gang had also shot at Jaswant Singh at Shahjot and snatched his car. They have also lifted nine cars from Adampur area, claimed HS Maan, SSP (Rural) police.

He said the police has sent parties to question the buyer and agents involved in the racket. The accused must reveal some more clues during interrogation, he added.

Jalandhar, September 24
The boycott by the ANM and LHV Union of the pulse polio campaign tomorrow is all set to bring a major setback to the programme.

The absence of around 300 to 350 ANMs and 200 LHVs - considered the backbone of the national health programme - across the 11 blocks in Jalandhar district will greatly affect the pulse polio campaign.

While the health department officials say they will manage the show with hired workers, there is a general feeling that the immunisation programme will be a huge failure this time.

The urban population has one ANM against 10,000 people, rural population has one ANM against 5,000 people.

It is these workers, who keep in touch with people all through the year and know about expectant women, new born (and grown up) children in every house.

While people trust ANMs and LHVs, it seems unlikely that they will trust hired workers for the future of their little ones.

Sources say, some parents have even started calling ANMs and authorities that they will not let unfamiliar, ‘untrained’ workers (who have never been in touch with them earlier) feed polio drops to their children.

Most of these workers will visit the areas concerned for the first time.

Sources say even the workers themselves are not confident enough about the campaign tomorrow due to aforementioned reasons.

While the numbers in Jalandhar are about 550, more than 6,100 workers across the state will boycott the pulse polio programme.

Speaking about alternate arrangements, Civil Surgeon HK Singla said, “We plan to employ ASHA workers and other volunteers for the job since ANMs and LHVs might boycott the programme.”

District Immunisation Officer, Rita Jairath said, “While 919 urban teams (2-member teams) will be employed on the occasion, 100 rural teams will be on the field. Since they were supposed to be the supervising officers, we will employ other staff in their place. As many as 131 mobile teams will also be active tomorrow.”

“While we shall lose 60 urban ANMs and about 200 rural ANMs due to the protest, we will employ 250-300 alternate contract workers in their place. Out of these, 198 are contractual ANMs and the rest will be ASHA workers. The work takes three days earlier, at the most it might take an extra day to get it completed but we don’t expect any major glitches,” Rita added.

Their decision is all set to have a huge impact on the children’s immunisation programme, since 15 per cent of the state’s population comprises children below the age of five years.

Tired of the government health department’s lackadaisical approach towards their demands, ANMs (while their official designation is ANM, they now work as multipurpose health workers (female)) and LHVs (lady health visitors) had first held a state-level dharna on September 19 outside the office of the Director Health Services (Chandigarh).

Speaking on the occasion, union leader ANM Rajwinder Kaur said the pen-down strike would continue till the government accepts all their demands.

Their demands include raising of the pay scale of ANMs from Rs 5,910 to Rs 20,200 along with Rs 3,800 grade pay.

They said the scale of LHVs should be raised from Rs 10,300 to 34,800 along with grade pay of Rs 4,800.

They also demanded that they should get uniform allowance (Rs 6,000 annually), diet allowance (Rs 20 per day) and laundry allowance (Rs 300 per month).

Jalandhar, September 24
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has started on-line submission for the Post-Graduate Indira Gandhi Scholarship for single girl child from this academic session; however, the scheme has failed to evoke much response.

The online submission of this scheme has started from August 25.

The scheme, which is otherwise aimed at promoting higher education among single girls and to make them financially independent, has rather turned out be a mere eyewash.

The reasons for the scheme’s failure are the restrictions levelled by the authorities under the scheme as well as the poor publicity of the scheme by the UGC authorities.

This is a shame for a city that has some of the leading women colleges and co-educational institutions of the region.

Only two to five students from two institutions were able to avail this scholarship. The highest number of students to avail this scholarship was from Apeejay College of Fine Arts, where five girls received Rs 20,000 each. In 2009, a student of MSc (Chemistry) of DAV College received a scholarship of Rs 32,000.

This scheme was introduced by the UGC based on the initiative taken by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in the year 2005. The UGC provides scholarships to 1200 girl students per year. Under this scheme a single girl child who takes admission in the first year of a Master’s degree programme in any recognised university or in a post-graduate college will be awarded Rs 2,000 per month. The student would receive scholarship for a period of two years (for ten months in a year).

Even academicians maintained that the ambit of the scheme is very small. There are few such girl students who are single and at the same time pursuing a Master’s degree program. That is why the welfare scheme is receiving a lukewarm response.

Jalandhar, September 24
In an attempt to provide affordable coaching and guidance for competitive exams to aspirants of UPSC and SSC, the Doaba College has started ‘DCJ School of Competitive Examinations’.

The initiative of the college has come up as a breather for many aspirants who had to think twice before opting for a professional coaching institute. The college is charging Rs 1,000 as fees for coaching that has helped attract students from the city and its vicinity. To begin with, the college has got as many as 76 students.

On such aspirant, Shruti from Kapurthala said, “It is my aim in life to become an IAS officer but hefty fees structure of private coaching institutes always stopped me from pursuing my dream. The college is charging just Rs 1,000 and providing us study material.”

Another aspirant, Parul Sharma from DAV College, said not only the fee structure but even the faculty is well trained. “Professor Sukhwinder Singh, dean of coaching classes, had qualified the IAS Group A exam in 1992 while the Deputy Dean Assistant Professor Sandeep Chahal had cleared the CRPF and ITBP exams. We are glad that professional faculty with experience of such competitive exams are teaching us. Moreover, for students of middle class families this has come up as a big boon,” he added.

Assistant Professor Sandeep Chahal, deputy dean of coaching classes, said they were conducting classes from 2.30 pm to 5.30 pm daily. “It has been just three days since we began the classes and the response has been wonderful. In fact we have roped in not only the students but working people like teachers and doctors too for the coaching. We will begin our next batch in January,” he said.

Jalandhar, September 24
As many as 262 examination centres would be set up in the city for the first semester examinations of the Punjab School Education Board slated to begin on September 26.

Speaking on the issue, DEO (secondary) KK Aeri said as many as 15 flying squads would be set up for the purpose this time.

Five of these will be special squads constituted to keep a watch over mischievous elements.

Aeri said special attention on another aspect has been paid this year, “The teachers will not be granted any casual or medical leaves during the exams. Availing of leaves by superintendents in the past might have caused the manpower handling children to be decreased but we will be very strict about it this time. There will be no striking off of duties.”The DEO also said prohibitory orders, to prevent people assembling around centres, shall be issued under Section 144 of the CrPC.

Out of these 262 centres, there are 108 government schools, 53 aided schools and 101 affiliated schools.

As many as 14,714 students will appear for the 9th standard exams, 11,481, for the 10th standard, 10,204 foe the 11th standard and 7,670 for the 12th standard exams.

Jalandhar, September 24
It is an irony that vendors are openly selling unhygienic cut fruits at the entrance of the offices that are responsible to prevent the sale of unhealthy food products in the city.

The district health and civil surgeon office not only failed to curb the sale of cut fruits on major roads and streets, but also failed to stop the practice in front of their offices.

The District Health Officer, Dr R L Bassan, admitted that despite repeated raids on such vendors in the past, the sale of unhygienic cut-fruits continues in the city.

“Cases have been registered against many vendors. But, since most of them have migrated from other states, it becomes difficult to ascertain their identity for the purpose of initiating legal proceedings against them”, said Dr Bassan.

“We have imposed heavy fines on some of the vendors in the recent past. But, lot more have to be done in order to curb the menace”, he added.

Dr Kashmiri Lal, senior Physician at the Civil Hospital Jalandhar, said that it is advisable to ban the sale of cut-fruits across the city during the monsoon to avoid gastro diseases.