Fatehgarh Sahib, October 5
After the procurement officials called off their strike, the process of procurement of paddy has picked up at all 33 centres in the district. The procurement agencies have started purchasing paddy and officials are working overnight to clear the backlog. “Till today, 4,070 metric tonne (MT) paddy has been purchased by various agencies,” said Yashveer Mahajan, Deputy Commissioner, while talking to mediapersons during his visit to the procurement centres today. Deputy Commissioner accompanied by the officials of the procurement agencies inspected the centres and took the stock of purchase, payment to farmers and lifting of procured paddy. He said as the procurement process had started, the arrival had picked up.

He directed the DMs of various procurement agencies to ensure payment of procured paddy to farmers within 72 hours as well as the lifting of procured paddy.

He called upon the farmers to bring paddy to mandis as per specification of the government. He said the administration was for their convenience and if they found any difficulty, they could call him and other officials anytime. He also inspected the arrangements made by the Mandi Board for the convenience of farmers like drinking water, light and boarding facilities.

They said they had not lodged a complaint earlier as they feared that the management would take action against them. They said they did not even get their arrears. They lamented that the management was also deducting 10 per cent of their salaries.

The District Education Officer said the management committee had not claimed any salary for the year 2010-2011 and his office had informed the senior officials in Chandigarh about it.

Chandigarh, October 5
Acting on a petition filed in public interest for directions to the authorities concerned in the UT administration to make provision for proper parking space in and around educational institutions, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued a notice of motion.

In his petition for utilising the grounds and empty spaces for parking, Mohali resident Inderpreet Singh Kohli asserted that on daily basis, a chaos was being created in and around Sector 26, where the educational institutions were located.

Kohli submitted that at least six educational institutions were there in Sector 26 — St John’s High School, Sacred Heart Convent School, Strawberry Fields World School, St Kabir Public School, Shri Guru Gobind Singh College for Women, and Shri Guru Gobind Singh Co-Educational College, besides Mahatma Gandhi Institute.

The petitioner claimed that a at least 6,000 students daily attended the four schools. Another 2,000 students visited the sector to attend their college.

All these students were coming to these institutions almost at the same time.

The Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice MM Kumar and Justice RN Raina was informed that the presence of so many vehicles ferrying the students was resulting in a massive traffic jam every day.

The Bench was also informed that the authorities had dug up the ground behind St Kabir School, which was being used for parking of vehicles, which aggravated the problem.

After going through the petition, the Bench directed the UT administration to submit its reply before November 22.

There are at least six educational institutions in Sector 26 — St John’s High School, Sacred Heart Convent School, Strawberry Fields World School, St Kabir Public School, Shri Guru Gobind Singh College for Women, and Shri Guru Gobind Singh Co-Educational College, besides Mahatma Gandhi Institute.

Chandigarh, October 5
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 along with 12 per cent interest on Standard Chartered Bank for sending the name of a Dhanas resident to the CIBIL as a defaulter.

The forum, comprising its president PD Goel, and members Rahinder Singh Gill and Madanjit Kaur Sahota, observed: “Sending the complainant’s name to the CIBIL, despite their own negligent acts and, furthermore, publicising his name as a defaulter in the record maintained by the CIBIL is nothing but a sheer highhandedness on the part of the opposite party. Such type of arm-twisting tactics adopted by the bank for recovery of loan amount, without any fault on the part of the complainant, is nothing but indulgence in unfair trade practice, especially when there has been zero balance against the credit card account in the books of accounts of the opposite party.”

The forum also directed the bank to pay Rs 5,000 as costs of litigation.

The complainant, Subhash Chand Sharma, said he had used the credit card of the bank for making a payment of Rs 7,322 for buying some medicines at a chemist shop. He made the payment to the bank through a cheque drawn on Oriental Bank of Commerce and the same was debited from his account.

He said he requested the respondent bank to issue a ‘no-due certificate’ against the credit card, after adjusting the payment.

However, instead of giving clearance certificate, the respondents, without giving him any notice, sent his name to the CIBIL as a defaulter, by showing an outstanding amount of Rs 30,677.18 against him.

He said he came to know about this after he applied for a car loan from the State Bank of Patiala. The same was declined due to his name on the defaulters’ list maintained by CIBIL.

After persistent follow-up, the bank agreed to settle the account at Rs 3,200 against the outstanding amount of Rs 30677.18, which the he paid under protest, to avoid any further harassment, he added.

The counsel for the respondent bank argued that the complainant did not discharge his debt liability arisen out of the transactions done by him through his credit card and kept utilising the credit card, as per his requirements.

It was further pleaded that there was an outstanding amount of Rs 10,140.87 against the complainant and the cheque payment for Rs 7,322 had been adjusted against the said account.

Since, it was only a part payment, it could not be said that the complainant had cleared the outstanding amount. It was asserted that the complainant never approached the bank for the issuance of a “no-due certificate” against the credit card.

Since the complainant had defaulted in repayment of amount in his credit card account, despite receiving monthly statement and reminders from the replying to the respondent bank, it had rightly updated his status account in the CIBIL.

The forum observed that respondents, instead of adjusting the cheque amount, continued to levy late charge interest, service tax and cess, unilaterally and arbitrarily and the amount swelled to Rs10,140.87, when the cheque amount of Rs 7,322 was shown adjusted.

Had this amount been credited in July, 2005 itself, the amount shown due would not have swelled to Rs 10,140.

Chandigarh, October 5
The vigilance sleuths yesterday arrested two peons working at the municipal corporation in connection with the fake driver’s licence case unravelled a few days ago.

Vigilance inspector Dalip Rattan said the two - Dhan Singh, a resident of Sahapur colony, Sector 38; and Vikas Kumar, resident of Dadu Majra - used to act as a mediator between the gang preparing the fake licences and applicants coming to the RLA. The peons had worked out a networking with touts. He said the tout would bring the prospective customers in touch with the peons, who assured them of hassle-free documentation without undergoing the mandatory driving test.

The peons would get the file from the applicants and complete the paperwork before asking for the payment. They would also fill the required columns of the driving test.

The police is probing the matter seriously as preliminary reports suggest that over 200 licences were procured on forged documents without completing the formality of conducting the tests.

A senior police official said: “The loophole of missing the driving test had cropped up in the current system of issuing licences. We are contacting the RLA office staff to understand the mechanism to make recommendations for a fool-proof procedure in the future.”

Manvinder Singh of Mani Majra, arrested earlier, used to work as a conduit between the prospective licence buyers and peons. He was found to be involved in the handing over of licence to the applicants. The sources added that the role of certain officials in the RLA, Sector 17, was also under scanner.

Chandigarh, October 5
Revati Devasthale of Maharashtra defeated Vidhu Nair of Kerala by 21-12, 21-17 in the girls’ U-17 category during a match of the ongoing 21st Krishna Khaitan Memorial All-India Junior Ranking Badminton Tournament being held at the badminton hall of Panjab University here today.

In another match of the same category, Sri Kri Priya K of Andhra Pradesh defeated Sanchali Dasgupta of West Bengal by 21-23, 22-20 and 21-17. In the boys’ U-17 category, Sai Tanuj M of Andhra Pradesh defeated her counterpart Kanishq M by 21-15, 21-13 and Arshalan Naqvi of Uttar Pradesh defeated Sumit Sharma of Punjab 21-15, 21-11.

Results:

Girls (U-17): Reshma Karthik bt Kailash 25-23, 21-9; Haritha MH bt Sreya P 21-10 10-3; Smirti Nagarkoti bt Pooja 21-8, 17-21, 21-18; Shenan Christian bt Komal Antil 21-13, 21-18; Sindhu Bhardwaj bt Harika V 16-21, 21-12, 21-19; Vrushali G bt Khushboo Patel 21-8, 21-18; Anuriya Das bt Gargi Singh 21-5, 21-6; Rasika Raje bt Pramada V 21-18, 21-16; Muskan Sohi bt Sonika Sai P 16-21, 21-16, 21-5; Deepali Gupta bt Vibhuti Agarwal 21-18, 14-21, 21-10; Meghana J bt Daaman Sharma 21-9, 21-11; Riya Mookerjee bt Bhakti Dahasahasra 21-17, 21-12; Anjali Rawat bt Agna Anto 21-14, 21-9.

Boys (doubles): Hemanagendra Babu T and Meghana J bt Kabir Kanzarkar and Vallari Bukane 21-6 21-14; Venkatesh B and Sonika Sai P bt Tushar Aggarwal and Rimjhim Sachdeva 21-8 21-13; Aditya Kiran K and Shaleni Y Aditya Kukreja and Palak Kukreja 21-5, 21-12; Gopi Raju G and Vijeta Bhargava bt Puneet Inder Singh Grewal and Aditi Mahajan 21-16, 21-19; Santosh Ravuri and Farha Mather bt Nitish Kumar Arora and Shruti Mundada 21-10, 21-15; Chaitanya Reddy K and Sudha Kalyani D bt Ketan Chahal and Daksha Gautam 16-21, 21-11, 21-15; Arun George bt Rishabh Sahdev 21-13, 21-13.

Boys (U-17): Rahul Yadav C bt Akshay Jasrotiya 21-16, 21-10; Kaushal Dharmamer bt Ashish Rathee 21-13, 21-17; Sai Tanuj M bt Kanishq M 21-15, 21-13; Arshalan Naqvi bt Sumit Sharma 21-15, 21-11; Sushrut Karmarkar bt Gangadhara Rao V 19-21, 21-11, 21-12; Sanyam Shukla bt Ankit Chhikara 21-16, 17-21, 21-8; Adrian George bt Kawaldeep Singh 16-21, 21-17, 21-11; Kabir Kanzarkar bt Balu Mahendra S 21-19, 21-10; Sudhanshu Medsikar bt Chirag Sen 21-12, 21-17; Sahil Sipani bt Sumit Goyat 22-20, 21-11; Rupinder Singh bt Ashutosh Tiwari 21-11, 21-14; Harshit Aggarwal bt Yuvraj Shinde 22-20, 21-12; Vighnesh Devlekar bt Yash Nain 21-12, 12-21, 21-13; Shreyansh Jaiswal bt Siddharath Thakur 21-12, 21-14; Shruti Mundada bt Shreya Agrawal 21-11, 13-21, 21-17; Rasika Raje bt Agna Anto 21-15, 21-12; Riya Pillai bt Muskan Sohi 21-10, 21-8.

Boys (U-19): Abhishek Yeligar bt Sudhanshu Medsikar 21-8, 22-20; Gopi Raju G bt Bhaskar Chkraborty 21-16, 28-26; Jayank Ahuja bt Hemanagendra Babu T 26-24, 21-19; Rohit Yadav C bt Ketan Chahal 21-18, 21-11; Kaushal Dharmamer bt Kenneth Wong 21-9, 22-20; Devansh Jaiswal bt Shivam Sharma 21-16, 13-21, 21-17; Harshvardhan Bisht bt Rahul Yadav C 21-18, 21-14; Subhankar Dey bt Kawaldeep Singh 21-16, 21-17; Shreyansh Jaiswal bt Arshalan Naqvi 21-14, 21-16; Srikanth K bt Rajeeb Boruah 21-10, 21-4; Neeraj Vashisth bt Vishal Dev Reddy A 21-13, 14-21, 21-14; Arun George bt Rupinder Singh 21-9, 19-21, 21-19.

Chandigarh, October 5
All is not well with the Chandigarh Tae-kwon-do Association (CTA), as players accused officials of step-motherly treatment meted towards them.

Interestingly, there are two associations and both claimed to be an affiliated unit. However, only one of the associations is active in organising tournaments, but that, too, neglects players’ interest.

According to information, one of the associations was dissolved in 1999 as it failed to organise any tournament for three years, but office-bearers are still using its name.

The inadequacy of the present association was also seen in the recently held State Tae-kwon-do Championship.

The players were asked to pay while representing the city in the recently held National Games in Ranchi. A few players, on the basis of anonymity, revealed that after paying, they were given a tracksuit and a kit that was later taken back by officials.

“It is against the rules to take any money from the players, but due to the ongoing tussle between the associations, the sports department does not allot any kind of grants to organise any tournament or to send teams for the nationals, which left the organisers with no other option. If they will not send the teams or conduct tournaments, they will loose the affiliation,” said a coach on the basis of anonymity. According to the players, the officials also failed to provide facilities or a venue for practice or organising events.

“We were asked to pay an entry fee in the recently held state tournament and even then we were not provided with the facilities. There is no question of organising a state-level tournament in a temple. They don’t even provide us mats to avoid injuries,” said a player.

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, October 5
Panjab University Campus football team went down against Punjab Technical University (PTU), Jalandhar, during the ongoing North Zone Inter-Varsity Football Tournament being held at SBBSIET, Padhiana, Jalandhar district, here today.

PU Campus tasted their second consecutive defeat today after going down against the host team by 2-0. In their first match, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, thrashed the local team by 4-1.

Chandigarh, October 5
Luxmi got the better of Shiv Kumari in the final of the girls’ 48-kg category of the 11th State Senior State Women Boxing Championship being held at SD School, Sector 32, here today.

In the 51-kg category, Sunita got the better of Rinku.

While in the 54-kg category, Ravia defeated Sangeta and Sudhir defeated Kanchan to win the 57-kg category.

Results:

Sandeep defeated Anmol (60 kg); Shivani defeated Alka (63 kg); Darshan defeated Anjali (75 kg), Amrinder defeated Shalija (+80 kg).

Chandigarh, October 5
The second Pitch ‘n’ Putt Golf Tournament will be organised at the British School Golf Academy 9-Hole Miniature Golf Course, Sector 44, on October 8 and 9. The tournament will be organised for golfers under the age group of 8 to 18 years.

“The tournament will be played under the guidance of professionals at the developed golf course. The tournament will provide budding golfers a platform to exhibit their talent,” said Manjit Kochar, joint director, golf academy. — TNS