Zirakpur, November 15
Gagan, a two-and-a-half-year-old Asiatic lion, died at Chhat Bir Zoological Park this morning. The lion was acquired from Rajkot Zoo in Gujarat on March 6 along with a lioness.

The director of the zoo, Basanta Raj Kumar, said Gagan had been ailing off and on ever since his arrival. In July, the lion did not eat for four days, but recovered after treatment.

As per the postmortem report, the likely cause of death was generalised septicaemia as a result of rupture of the urinary bladder leading to distension of abdominal cavity. The rupture of bladder was attributed to congenital defect in the kidneys.

The lion was cremated in the zoo, which is now left with two lions and a lioness. Raj Kumar said he had met the directors of Bannerghata Zoo (Bengaluru) and Shakkerbaug Zoo (Gujarat) and an exchange plan was finalised to bring a pair of lions from Bannerghata and one from Shakkerbaug.

Chandigarh, November 15
Voters registered after November 1, 2011, will not be allowed to cast their vote in the coming Municipal Corporation (MC) elections. The issue was today clarified by the UT election department following a three-page reply received from the Election Commission of India (ECI).

UT additional election officer Brijendra Singh said the ECI had instructed the UT election department that voters who had become eligible for voting (18 years and above) on January 1, 2011, and had submitted their applications before November 1, 2011, for the making of vote, should be included in the voting list for the MC elections scheduled for December 17. But the department should not entertain applications submitted after the specified date.

Brijendra Singh said as the summary revision of voter’s list for January 2012 as the stipulated date had already begun, the ECI had directed that the draft list of these voters should be prepared and given to the election department to merge in the voter’s list.

He said the election department had to publish the list on January 5, 2012, but now it would prepare it before the elections so that the voters could cast their vote.

Confusion prevailed in the department as the summary process had commenced and as per the ECI norms, no fresh application could be entertained during this process. An enquiry was forwarded to the ECI in the first week of November to suggest what should be done.

The election department found itself in a peculiar situation as votes can be made a day before the date of the filing of nominations by candidates and residents cannot be denied their voting right as per the ECI rules.

Chandigarh, November 15
Once again the UT Administration has failed to meet the deadline to complete the caste and religion-based census. A technical snag that developed in a specially designed software (supervisory module) for reviewing the locked/left out houses to prepare the final report of the caste census, is said to be the reason for the delay.

The review exercise was scheduled to begin on November 4 and end on November 14. But due to a problem in running the software, the task was delayed. Officials concerned admit that it would take another 10 days to finalise the data of the census. “Though there was a delay in kicking off the review job due to some problem in the software, the supervisory module is over for rural enumeration blocks while it is on for urban areas,” said Prerna Puri, nodal officer of caste census in the municipal area of the UT.

The original schedule of completing the census, which had begun on July 28, was August 28. “Earlier, the company could not arrange for data entry operators in sufficient number and the requisite paraphernalia like personal computers and kits in time. This led to delay,” said an official in the administration.

In the projected report of the census, about 1.25 lakh city residents were found to have apparently “disappeared”.

The discrepancy has arisen with the BEL pegging the population at nearly 9,25,000 in the caste and religion-based census, far less than the 2011 Census report of February which put the provisional figure of the city’s population at 1,054,000.

The issue was highlighted in these columns on October 4 following which the administration had decided to “look for” the “missing” residents by developing the supervisory module. Prerna Puri claimed that the job would be completed soon. 

Ward No. 23, comprising Ram Darbar, Indra Colony and Hallo Majra, has not got any major development project in the past five years. In fact, the old approved projects for the area are yet to materialise. A classic example of this is the spending of Rs 1 crore by the MC on laying canal water pipeline in Ram Darbar to improve the water pressure in the ward. However, the facility has not yet been started. Projects for playground, internal parks and roads have also been lying pending for the past five years.

Roads

Internal roads in Hallo Majra have not been re-carpeted in the past five years. While residents have been raising the issue time and again, especially during the rainy season when it becomes difficult for them to commute in the area, the MC authorities have failed to act. Also, the outer road of Ram Darbar has been encroached upon but no action has been taken in this regard so far. Residents feel the policy of re-carpeting of roads every five years is applicable only to the urban areas and not the rural areas. This is why no road work has been initiated in the ward.

Green belts

Open spaces in the ward have turned into encroachers’ hub, as the authorities have failed to chalk out a plan to develop these. They have also turned a blind eye to encroachment in parks. Consequently, a majority of parks in the ward have been encroached upon by local residents. At some places, these have been converted into parking lots, used by residents to park their vehicles during night, as the roads are quite narrow in the area.

Playground

A playground project worth Rs 85 lakh was approved for Ram Darbar two years ago but work on it is yet to start. Besides this pilot project, no other project has been mooted by the councillor for the ward so far. Residents resent the manner in which the project has been handled and not been implemented for such a long time.

Canal water pipeline

Two years ago, a pipeline was laid in the ward to improve the water pressure in the area. Even as the MC spent around Rs 1 crore on the project, the residents failed to get the facility, as the pipeline could not be made operational. When the project was proposed, the authorities in a report had cited leakage in the old pipeline as the reason for low water pressure in the area. In spite of the anomaly, the authorities went ahead with the project.

Blocked manholes

Every year before monsoon, the MC boasts of cleaning up roads gullies in the city by carrying out a special drive. However, the fact remains that no sweeper has ever visited the area to clean the manholes or road gullies in this ward. As a result, a majority of manholes remain blocked and residents have to live in insanitary conditions.

Sanitation

The MC has shirked from its responsibility of collecting and disposing garbage in the ward. As a result, residents have been forced to hire their own employees to collect and dispose of day-to-day garbage in the residential area. In fact, the authorities have not even appointed sweepers in the area for regular cleaning.

Chandigarh, November 15
The list of Congress candidates for the forthcoming MC elections was finalised at a meeting today. The names would be officially announced soon.

Chandigarh, November 15
A meeting for cancer patients, suffering from chronic myeloid leukaemia (most common blood cancer among adults), was organised under the aegis of MAX Foundation at Bhargava auditorium, PGI, yesterday. More than 1,000 patients interacted with experts from across the country.

Doctors said there were 19 centres across the country where patients were given free medicines after their enrolment under the Glivec Patient Access Programme.

At present, almost 14,500 patients are being provided this facility across India and more number of patients are getting enrolled regularly under the programme.

The common queries raised by patients revolved around the side-effects of medicines, duration for which the drug needed to be continued and issues related to marriage, pregnancy and transmission of the disease. Responding to these, Professor Goldman and Dr Mauro opined that most of the side-effects of the drugs were manageable with simple measures like drinking lots of water, exercising, taking good sleep, eating calcium rich diet to avoid body cramps and simple pain-killers for pain.

Experts said, “If there is no problem in growth and development of a newborn, then there is no need to go for tests.” Regarding the duration for which the drugs needed to be taken, the experts said present evidence suggested that it needed to be taken life long though studies were being conducted to answer the question whether treatment could be stopped earlier if a patient remained disease free for more than two to three years.

It was emphasised that patients should strictly adhere to the dosage prescribed and should not reduce or stop the drug on their own as it could result in loss of response to treatment and disease might resurface again. Another highlight of the meeting was the experience shared by cancer patients, who are surviving and taking medicines for years and are still continuing their treatment while living a normal life.

Chandigarh, November 15
Owing to Bharatiya Janata Party senior leader LK Advani’s yatra, the traffic will remain affected from 5.15 pm to 6.15 pm on the Zirakpur-Tribune Chowk road on Wednesday. The Chandigarh Police has requested general public to either avoid the route at this time or use alternative routes.

A UT police spokesperson said traffic at Aroma trafficlights, Kiran Theatre in Sector 22, road separating Sectors 22 and 23, Cricket Stadium Chowk, Sector 16, and Kisan Bhavan Chowk would also be affected 5.30 pm onwards.

Mohali, November 15
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Mohali, has imposed a penalty of Rs 1 lakh on Taneja Developers for harassing an investor on account of not registering a plot at TDI City, Ballo Majra, Mohali, is their name.

Further imposing Rs 10,000 as litigation costs, the forum comprising BS Mehandiratta, president, and HK Ghuman, member, held the builder guilty of deficiency in service.

The builder has been asked to restore registration/allotment of the plot and transfer it in favour of the complainants on receipt of amount of Rs 8,06,813 and also remaining 10 per cent of the amount from the complainants, which needs to be deposited within one month from the date of receipt of a certified copy of the order. The possession of the plot will have to be given within two months.

A couple, Jaswinder Kaur and Parminder Singh, residents of Phase VII, Mohali, had complained to the forum that they had purchased a plot measuring 250 sq yd in TDI City for Rs 8,06,813. A transfer fee of Rs 25,000 was paid by the complainants and the requisite documents were also given.

As per the schedule, the last installment of the plot was to be paid by the complainants after the transfer of the plot in their name and at the time of possession of the plot.

The complainants made many visits to the builder’s office but the plot was not transferred to their names.

When a notice was served, the builder said with a view to attracting new investments in the state, the Punjab government had formulated Industrial Policy, 2003 for housing and urban development. Their proposal to set up a mega housing project at Ballo Majra (Mohali) in an area measuring 160 acre with an investment of over Rs 266.50 crore was accepted by the Directorate of Industries and Commerce, Punjab.

It was stated that Kam Raj Nagar had been allotted the plot in question but the provisional allotment was later cancelled when he failed to follow the payment schedule.

It was again restored on his request when he made a payment of of Rs 1,62,500 and another of Rs 1,87,500 towards sale consideration.

The plot was later sold to the complaints. But one of the cheques of payment bounced and again the allotment was cancelled. Since the plot was not transferred to the complaints’ name, they were not the consumers.

After hearing both sides, the complaint was allowed and the builder was held guilty. 

Chandigarh, November 15
The Cancer Awareness Society and the Community Hygiene and Public Health Society of the Postgraduate Government College for Girls, Sector 11, organised a talk on cancer awareness here today.

A team of oncologists from the department of radiation oncology of the PGI gave a presentation and delivered a talk. Prof RK Kapoor and Prof Sushmita Ghoshal were the resource persons.

They highlighted the major causes of cancer and the means through which it could be prevented. They said contemporary lifestyles were serving as a major contributor to the spread of cancer.

They stated that it was curable if detected well in time. The thrust area was malignancy, especially that of breast-cancer amongst women. — TNS

Mohali, November 15
The 6-km stretch from the PTL traffic junction near Phase V to Phases VII and VIII traffic junction is witnessing chaos, thanks to the non-functional traffic signals on one of the busiest road sections that is being widened by the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA).

Ever since the work to widen was initiated about two months ago, the power supply to the traffic signals was disconnected due to digging. But no alternative arrangement was made, resulting in traffic snarls on the road section. As a result, the numbers of fatal and non-fatal accidents on the stretch have increased, said officials in the traffic wing of Mohali police.

The SP, Traffic, has written repeatedly to the Mohali Municipal Corporation and GMADA to make the traffic signals functional, at least for the time being. The executive officer of MC, Vijay Kumar, said the work was being done by GMADA.

The traffic signals at Phases III and V junction, Phases III and VII junction, 3B2 and Phase VII junction and PTL junction are non- functional.

Before the road widening work started, the entire stretch, including traffic signals, were taken over by GMADA. In the process of digging, the power supply to the traffic signals was snapped and never repaired. The traffic police has been demanding that the traffic signals be made operational.

Incidentally, GMADA Chief Administrator’s Saravjit Singh also hold the post of Commissioner of Mohali MC.

Not only the 6-km stretch, the road stretch being widened from the Balongi bypass to PCL junctions are also lying non-operational due to the road widening.

Panchkula, November 15
In order to check illegal plying of vehicles by private educational institutes, the traffic police impounded two school buses, besides issuing challans to 54 others here this morning.

According to information, the traffic police laid a naka near the roundabouts of Sectors 17/18 and 11/15 and near Tau Devi Lal Stadium in Sector 3 for about two hours from 6.30 am.

Inspector (Traffic) Narinder Singh said two buses were impounded as drivers of the buses failed to show the documents of the vehicles. He said challans were issued to others for not possessing documents like registration, insurance and other documents.

Mohali, November 15
As the earlier scheme “Payment on your doorstep” of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited has failed to take off, the authorities concerned have now launched another concept “Easy bill” for the convenience of power consumers. Under the new plan, consumers can now pay their electricity bills at shops authorised by the power corporation authorities in various sectors. The shopkeepers authorised to collect power bills will receive payments only in cash and up to Rs 5,000.

Sources said to begin with five shopkeepers had been authorised to collect power bills of consumers. Two of them were based in Phase VII, two in Sector 70 and one in Phase XI. There was a plan to authorise 100 shopkeepers to collect power bills. Once the authorities concerned were able to authorise 25 shopkeepers for collecting payments, their addresses would be displayed at the office of the power corporation located in the industrial area. The power corporation had hired the Hero Group for the implementation of the plan, which has fed the required software in the computers of the authorised shopkeepers.

The aim was to avoid rush at counters of the power corporation and also to create a convenience for consumers.

The authorities concerned were also planning to increase the number of bill payment machines from two to four. Earlier, one such machine was installed at the power corporation office in the industrial area and another in Sector 68. The power corporation had, however, failed to properly implement its earlier scheme to collect the payment of electricity bills on the doorstep of the consumers. Under the scheme launched about a year-and-a-half ago, the consumers could hand over payments to persons who visited their houses for issuing on-the-spot power bills. Payments up to Rs 1,000 could be given in cash and for any amount through cheque. Consumers were to be given receipts for the payments received by these employees.

As per the terms of the contract carried out with KLG Systel, a private company, which has been given the work for the on-the-spot power billing, the contractor was bound to collect at least 15 per cent of the payments on the doorstep, failing which he was to be fined. It is learnt that the authorities concerned were imposing fines on the private company for failing to collect payments from consumers but to no avail.

Chandigarh, November 15
“Married life is a mingled web of romance and hatred; its recurrent joys and woes, lavish gifts and mysterious denials but a sincere relationship based on mutual trust, making it a miracle to be celebrated and sung about.”

This was eloquently sermonised in the sleek presentation of the Hindi play “Bina deevaron ke ghar,” staged at the Randhawa auditorium on Day Four of the Sixth CSNA Chandigarh Theatre fest here yesterday.

The captivating play, written by Manu Bhandari, flourished under the direction of Rajeev Mehta. It virtually mesmerised the audience by excelling in all departments of production, with actor Yogesh Arora stealing the limelight.

With social and philosophical formulations, the play depicted the psyche of a husband, played by Arora, believing in male chauvinism, blissfully ignorant that not all women were a deprived and tormented lot, and doubting the integrity of his loving and sincere wife, played by Deepti Arora, who helped him get his job back.

Chandigarh, November 15
Clad in red uniform, 33 students of Yishun Secondary School in Singapore could not curtail their excitement when they entered the ‘chalk-and-talk’ classrooms at the GMSSS in Sector 35 here today.

Accustomed to studying with virtually silent teachers and hi-tech laptops, the students were left thrilled after attending classes here.

“It was fun to be here. The teacher was reading from a book and writing on the blackboard. The way she was able to maintain discipline was commendable. Mischief being planned on the back benches made my day,” said one of the students.

School principal Indira Dhingra, along with students and staff, ensured that the guests were comfortable. The five teachers accompanying the delegation were appreciative of the inter-personal teaching methods.