Ratia (Fatehabad), November 22
The inclusion of 6,824 new voters in a little over a month, against 7,650 new voters added in two years (from October 2009 to October 2011) has raised many eyebrows.

Out of the 1.76 lakh voters, who are going to decide the fate of 16 candidates contesting the November 30 Ratia assembly polls, 6,824-odd voters have been included in the electoral rolls in the last one month.

The number of voters in Ratia was 1,61695, when the General Election was held in Haryana in October 2009.

The number reached 1,66928, when the revised electoral rolls were prepared with January 5, 2011 as the cut-off date, an addition of 5,233 votes in 14 months.

During the continuous update programme of the Election Department, 2,417 new voters were included in the electoral rolls in nine months from January, 2011 to September 30, 2011, taking the total number of voters on that date to 1,69345.

Surprisingly, 6824 new voters have been included in the electoral rolls for the Ratia seat in 35 days, from October 1, 2011 to November 5, 2011, taking the total number of voters to 1,76169.

When the Election Commission announced byelections for the Ratia and Adampur assembly seats on November 1, the process of revision of electoral rolls was in progress.

Fresh applications for addition of new names to the electoral rolls were received till November 5, for five days after the elections were declared.

Many of those included in the voter lists in these 35 days had given their applications after the announcement of the election dates.

The inclusion of 6,824 new voters in a little over a month against 7,650 new voters added in two years from October 2009 to October 2011 has raised many eyebrows.

The District Election Officer ML Kaushik, however, said that the voter population ratio in his district was 567:1000, which was still much lower than the national ratio of 610:1000.

Kaushik did not rule out the possibility of some fake voters having succeeded in getting their names included. He said those included in the voter lists could not be stopped from casting their votes, though their votes could be challenged.

Hisar, November 22
Elaborate security arrangements have been made by the police to conduct the Adampur bye election in a fair and peaceful manner. Special security arrangements have been made for the sensitive and hyper-sensitive villages in the constituency.

While stating this today, a spokesman of the police said that about 2,700 police officers and other officials would be on duty in the Adampur assembly constituency on polling day to ensure foolproof security. In addition to police personnel, nine companies of paramilitary forces and 477 homeguard personnel would also be on duty.

As many as 40 checkposts would also be set up at various places and 20 patrolling parties would be on duty to make the whole constituency impregnable.

There are 1,38,221 electors in the constituency.

As many as ten villages of the constituency have been identified as sensitive and 15 as hyper-sensitive.

Hyper-sensitive villages: Balsamand, Salemgarh, Sadalpur, Chaudhariwali, village Adampur, Mandi Adampur, Kalirawan, Bhana, Bhodia Bishnoiyan and Siswal.

Sensitive villages: Ladwi, Kabrel, Telanwali, Ghursal, Modakhera, Darauli, Chuli Bagrian, Sarangpur, Durjanpur, Khasa Mahajan, Dhani Kumharan, Dhani Sadalpur, Dhani Sadalpur Bhodia Road, Mahalsara and Burak. As many as 159 polling booths have been set up in the constituency.

Rohtak, November 22
The district police seems to have woken to the need to curb the alleged violation of safety rules by autorickshaws and private passenger vehicles. It has announced that removal of side and rear stands installed by drivers of these vehicles to accommodate more passengers. It has also directed the authorities concerned to put light reflectors on the vehicles in view of the foggy weather conditions. There are around 15,000 such vehicles operating in the district at present.

According to a spokesperson of the Police Department, the drive to remove the ion grill extended to provide support to the passengers who like to hang on the moving autorickshaws and jeeps had been recently launched to ensure more safety on the city roads. Claiming that while such extensions or stands installed had been unlawful, he said the police would ensure the removal of these stands in next few days so that no passenger was allowed to travel while hanging or standing on these extensions.

The Inspector-General Alok Mittal, who recently took over the charge in the district, has directed the authorities, including the police, to take measures to improve the road safety in the city and the district.

It would be ensured that only the designated number of passengers are carried at one time and the drivers would be penalised in instances of overloading or violation of traffic norms.

“There has been a huge surge in number of three-wheeler autorickshaws in the town and the district in the past couple of decades mainly due to absence of a proper public transport system and this has made local traffic chaotic and unruly”, claims Yoginder Singh, a local lawyer. An efficient public transport system in the town and all the leading cities of the state is needed and there is hardly any option left in view of the increasing private vehicles.

Kurukshetra, November 22
The Kurukshetra University teachers called off their seven-day long agitation, following talks between the Vice Chancellor Lt Gen DDS Sandhu and representatives of Kurukshetra University Teachers Association (KUTA) here this evening.

Earlier, the talks had ended in a deadlock and the Vice Chancellor had announced at a press conference that “All the demands of Kurukshetra University Teachers’ Association (KUTA) regarding the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission guidelines have been met by the university administration. Only two demands which are beyond the purview of the university and require the consent of the Government remain unresolved."

He clarified that the two demands, implementation of the five-day week for university teachers and granting the post of professor and Department status to University College had not been met as the state government’s endorsement was mandatory for the five-day week, while the second demand was sub judice and the matter was pending in the Haryana High Court.

The Vice Chancellor initiated a fresh dialogue with KUTA leaders and persuaded them to call off the strike in the interest of the students and the KUTA leaders relented. Dr. Sandhu informed the media that the administration has set up a grievances committee to look into the implementation of demands of the teachers.

Regarding the issues of 5-day week for university teachers and post of Professors in University College, VC said that the matter will be taken up in the next meeting of the Executive Council scheduled for November 29 next. The teachers were urged to take extra classes to make up for the loss of teaching work during the strike period.

The Vice Chancellor said that the University Executive Council accepted the Haryana Governments Guidelines for implementation of Sixth pay commission for University teachers in July. However, there were certain academic and administrative procedures which were essential before implementing them.

The KU teachers were on indefinite dharna and chain hunger strike since November 16 and had resigned from all additional responsibilities. The KUTA president Pradeep Chauhan said that agitation have been called off as the univesity authorities are positive.

Chandigarh, November 22
Acting on a petition filed in public interest alleging favoritism in granting extension for second term to a Haryana tax tribunal member, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today issued notice of motion to State Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

The Bench of Justice M.M. Kumar and Justice Rajiv Narain Raina also issued notice to the chairman and three tribunal members of the tribunal.

The petitioner-cum-advocate, Vikas Miglany, claimed the second term extension to Yudhavir Singh was given by violating the provisions of Haryana Vat Act.

The petitioner went on to allege: “Yudhavir Singh is the brother-in-law of Hawa Singh Hooda, the present Advocate-General of the State of Haryana”. He elaborated: “Thus, it is clear that even by violating the provisions of Section 57 of the Haryana VAT Act, 2003, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, CM Haryana, in order to oblige the Advocate-General of his State, has given appointment to Yudhavir Singh as a member of Haryana Tax Tribunal for the second term.”

The appointments of retired IAS officer K.S. Bhoria as the Chairman, and Yudhavir Singh, Subhash Kaushik and Mukesh Lata Gupta as member of the tax tribunal also came under the High Court scanner, with the Bench taking cognisance of the matter.

Karnal, November 22
Many VVIPs made a beeline to the much-hyped wedding of the Haryana assembly speaker Kuldeep Sharma's daughter with the son of Ambala City MLA and Congress heavyweight Venod Sharma.

Security was beefed up and cops were deployed at every 100 mts in view of the visiting dignitaries. The civil and police administrations have been on their toes with additional security forces reaching the district to ensure that no untoward incident occurs during the wedding.

The venue for the marriage, Noor Mahel, the only five-star hotel here had all top political party leaders, including Congress leaders from the Centre.

Special chefs for continental, Punjabi, South Indian, Indian, Chinese, Rajasthani and even some Mexican dishes have been called in by the hotel to prepare different cuisines.

Ambala, November 22
The district administration has launched a campaign against the use of domestic LPG cylinders for commercial purposes. Raids were conducted at a number of places in Ambala Cantonment today, wherein 20 domestic LPG cylinders were seized from commercial establishments.

LPG cylinders meant strictly for domestic consumption are being openly used in restaurants and hotels in the town and the nearby areas of the district in blatant violation of rules and regulations even as consumers continue to have a harrowing time procuring a cylinder.

The open use of cooking gas cylinders meant for domestic purposes in commercial places, exposes the total inertia of the government, the Food and Civil Supplies Department in particular. Any unauthorised handling of the cylinders is a punishable offence.

Deputy Commissioner Shekhar Vidyarathi said he had issued instructions to the district officials to conduct more raids to detect the misuse of the cylinders. He said instances had been brought to his notice where domestic gas cylinders were being used at marriage palaces, restaurants and roadside ‘dhabas’.

The officials said there was a spurt in the demand of LPG cylinders during winters. Keeping this in view, the Civil Supply Department was regularly monitoring the situation about the availability of LPG cylinders. They said efforts were being made to ensure that there was no black marketing of LPG cylinders.

Jhajjar, November 22
An ex-Army man was hacked to death by some assailants at his house in Madana Khurd village last night.

The deceased has been identified as Mahipal (50). The motive behind the killing is yet to be ascertained while the Beri police has started investigations after registering a case of murder against unidentified assailants on a complaint of the deceased’s wife Kamlesh in this regard.

Kamlesh in her statement lodged with the police said Mahipal went to his room to sleep after having dinner last night. She suddenly woke up after hearing screamings coming from her husband’s room around 2 pm. When she reached his room, Mahipal was found dead lying in a pool of blood on the floor. He was attacked by some sharp-edged weapon on the neck.

A case under Section 302 of the IPC had been registered against unidentified assailants in this regard. Statements of kin of the deceased and other villagers had been recorded to get any vital clue about the crime.

Gurgaon, November 22
The Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon, will soon have a new campus at Murshidabad in West Bengal and another one in the southern part of the country, preferably in Chennai or Bangalore.

This was disclosed by MDI Director, Prof Vinod K.Gupta to The Tribune on the sidelines of Delphique-2011, the institute’s national management convention, which commenced here . Professor Gupta asserted that the MDI, which had been ranked among top five business schools in the country, was the leading institute in providing executive education as well as Ph.D programmes in management.

“As of now, we have 130 research scholars and spend Rs 4 crore annually on research activities and the entire amount is raised by the institute from its own resources and not provided as a grant by government agencies,” he maintained.

The MDI director said Delphique was a student-driven initiative in which professionals from the industry guided students about the latest trends in the corporate and industrial sectors.

Chandigarh, November 22
Conceding one of the demands of the Haryana Civil Medical Service Association (HCMS), the Haryana Government today announced that 285 posts of medical officers would be filled in the state. The government had shifted 285 posts of medical officers from the primary health centres (PHCs) and the community health centres (CHC) to civil hospitals some time ago. The HCMS, members of which had gone on mass casual leave from November 8, had demanded, among other things, that these posts should be reverted back to the PHCs and CHCs.

The Health Minister Rao Narender Singh said here today that these posts were being again shifted to the PHCs and the CHCs. The government would fill these posts soon. He said there would be no shortage of doctors in rural and urban areas with the creation of these new posts in the PHCs and the CHCs. One each male and female doctor could be appointed at every centre.

Karnal, November 22
While the Haryana Government has launched a drive to eliminate bogus ration cards, some unscrupulous residents of the adjoining UP have not only managed to get ration cards issued in Haryana but also got their names registered in the voter lists of both the states. The number of such families is difficult to ascertain but according to the documents procured by The Tribune, at least four families from Budhakhera panchayat in Saharanpur district of UP have not only managed to get ration cards in Byana village in Indri subdivision of Karnal district but also enrolled themselves in the voter list in the village.

The names of these families also figured in the register as well as in the voter list in Budhakhera in UP and two of these families were also in the list of BPL availing various financial benefits and subsidies.

The official machinery has no mechanism to check double ration cards in two different states and as such these malpractices go unnoticed and subsidies meant for poor people are siphoned off by such manipulators, who cheat the government with impunity.

The documents revealed that the names of Prithvi Singh and Kamla of Budhakhera in Saharanpur appeared in the family register in their village while the names of Sita Ram, Shanti Devi, Kanwar Pal figured in the family register of Sikandrapur in the same area.

Similarly, Om Prakash and Roshni’s names are entered in the family register in Kadambkhera panchayat and Om Prakash, Prithvi Singh, Som Prakash and Sita Ram were shown as heads of the families in their ration cards issued in Saharanpur.

The names of these persons were enrolled in the 2010 voter list of Gangoh developmental block in Saharanpur. Surprisingly, the names of these persons also figured in the voter list of Byana in Karnal and two of these families were also issued ration cards and BPL cards in 2007.