Beas blockade makes 80 pc buses go off road
Amritsar, December 8
With protesting farmers blocking the Amritsar-Jalandhar highway in Beas for the past three days, the road traffic on Jalandhar-Amritsar route has gone off track and the passenger load has shifted to the railway station.

Amritsar, December 8
As anticipated, the general house meeting of the Amritsar Municipal Corporation (AMC), which was conducted after about eight months here today, saw sparks flying all around.

Amidst unruly scenes, the House was adjourned when the councillors of both sides accused each other of using abusive language. The proceedings ended up in the suspension of an opposition councilor Surinder Chowdhary.

Interestingly, the women councillors hardly found any opportunity to speak about the problems pertaining to their wards. Meanwhile, all resolutions taken up during the meet were 'passed' without any discussion.

Even as the Mayor Shwait Malik announced to regularise the services of 708 Mohalla Sudhar sewaks, 430 contractual safai karamcharis and proposed to depute another lot of 346 Class IV employees, all these proposals would be applicable subject to the clearance of a scrutinising committee that is yet to be formed.

This screening committee would ascertain the authenticity of the Class IV employees, who have been engaged in 2008. Those who have been recruited during the Congress regime (2002-2007) did not find place on the agenda of the ruling alliance.

Defying it, the leader of the Opposition representing Congress, Ranjan Aggarwal said this announcement was nothing but "politically motivated move" just to boost the "vote bank".

Pointing towards the loan of Rs 5 crore raised by the MC from Amritsar Improvement Trust by mortgaging the Guru Nanak Bhawan, which has a market value of Rs 8 crore, he said the cash-strapped MC has not spent a single penny for development.

"Had the ruling alliance be so sympathetic to regularise the services of Class IV employees, it should not have left those who were engaged during our term. They were part of the list which was made in 2002. But later, their names were struck off. This implied that it was a politically motivated move. Secondly, no discussions were held on their self-claimed development works," he said.

"Rather, it was a move from their side to disrupt the House meeting by creating chaos. Our colleague Chowdhary has been falsely accused of using abusive language", he said.

On the other hand, Mayor Shwait Malik said the ruling alliance has done development works to the tune of over Rs 540 crore, besides bringing in the state-of-the-art sewerage project worth over Rs 430 crore by engaging the services of Japanese company.

"During their tenure, they just could execute works worth Rs 50 crore," he said.

Regarding the regularisation of Class IV employees, Mayor Malik said several yardsticks have been formulated to check the misuse of this proposal. "We cannot announce it haphazardly. For the purpose, we have decided to form a committee, which would scrutinise the antecedents of the beneficiary. We have set up another yardstick that if any employee was found to be doing a regular job by furnishing wrong facts, the official or the councilor who would endorse his case, would face disciplinary proceedings. We have also decided that if by chance, any genuine employee gets overlooked, his case would be reconsidered," he said. 

Amritsar, December 8
A day after around Rs 52,000 was looted from a petrol pump near Umranangal village, unidentified armed robbers targeted another three filling stations located on main GT Road and looted more than Rs 4 lakh at gunpoint on Wednesday night.

While police has registered cases in this connection, there is no clue about the miscreants. In the first incident, four unidentified armed robbers came to Prabh filling station situated on Majitha Verka bypass road at about 8.30 pm on Tata Safari and asked for a bill after filling petrol worth Rs 2,470.

"When the accused were making the receipt, one of them entered the cabin at petrol pump and pointed a pistol towards them demanding the keys of cash drawer. Another looter took out about Rs 2.75 lakh from the drawer and locked the petrol pump employees in a room before fleeing," said Sohan Singh, SHO, Sadar police station.

The police registered a case on the statement of Dinesh Kumar, an employee of the filling station.

Earlier, adopting same modus operandi, same number of armed miscreants looted two more petrol pumps - Harbans Petrol Pump and Super Filling Station - located at Manawala and Daburji, respectively, last night.

Going by the details of the cases, it is likely that the same gang is involved in all the three incidents.

Sikander Singh, SHO Chatiwind police station said the accused came in black colour Scorpio and looted Rs 1.50 lakh from the Harbans filling station after pointing a pistol on one Pinku, an employee of the petrol pump. He said, earlier the same accused had snatched Rs 10,000 from one Murali, a employee at Super Service petrol pump. However, Murli bravely resisted the robbers by attacking them with a sword. But the accused fled by firing at him. It is to mention here that three petrol pumps were looted in the intervening night of December 5-6. The miscreants robbed a petrol pump at Subhanpur, one at Tangra and another near village Umranangal. They looted Rs 1.50 lakh from Tangra petrol pump and Rs 52,000 from a filling station near Umranangal.

Amritsar, December 8
With protesting farmers blocking the Amritsar-Jalandhar highway in Beas for the past three days, the road traffic on Jalandhar-Amritsar route has gone off track and the passenger load has shifted to the railway station.

The authorities at the local bus stand said only 80 per cent of buses that ply on this route have discontinued their service since the protest began. Prashant Purohit, manager of company that is running the bus stand under the public private partnership, said usually 650 buses ply on the route out of which 230 are government-owned buses.

The very few buses, which have continued to provide service, have to take a diversion from Mehta towards Shri Hargobindpur to cross Beas. Purohit said buses have to cover an extra distance of 50 kms which increase the duration of journey by an hour and 15 minutes.

He said the company had lost revenue of Rs 23,000 on the first day of the protest. Second day, the loss stood at Rs 40,000. The company charges a fee of Rs 50 from each bus for its services.

Anil Kumar, station supervisor, Punjab Roadways, said, "The bus drivers are facing it difficult to reach destinations at scheduled timings. Because of which timetable of buses has been disturbed."

Kumar said even though the buses are traveling an extra distance, they are charging the same fare. "The journey has exceeded by 50 kms, but still the ticket from Amritsar to Jallandhar costs Rs 62 only," he said.

A visit to the local bus stand revealed that six out of the total eight counters for the route were lying vacant. Because of the non-availability of buses, most of the passengers have shifted to the railways.

Amritsar, December 8
Off late, there has been a lot of talk about passive learning, out-of-classroom learning and edutainment. The fact that kids need more engaging ways of learning and gaining through self-experience has been highlighted by the growing popularity of the alternative ways of imparting knowledge.

Parents, academic institutions and kids stand on a parallel line of thought with activities like performing arts given a priority when it comes to learning without being burdened.

Amritsar has a growing number of children who are exploring their creative side both inside and outside the classroom. With a number of workshops and activities regularly being offered at various platforms, it is a win-win situation for both kids and parents.

"Education has changed from being academic centric to a whole experience now. It is not about how many marks you score, but how many skills you can develop into a child," says Rajiv Sharma, principal, Springdales Senior Secondary School.

The school has become a live theatre workshop for its students with annual productions, seeing participation from primary to senior secondary level students. "Theatre is a good medium to learn skills like expression, confidence, public speaking and facing an audience. Apart from becoming a channel for emoting and expressing their thoughts, kids learn about topics that are changing the world like global warming, peace through these plays," he adds.

The alternate method of education has become a part of their school routine. Regular plays, activities, workshops and one-on-one interaction with known artistes though planned events have had a positive feedback. "Last month we had senior students staging a play and next week we have kids from Class I and II performing," informs Rajiv.

Similarly, KT Kala Art Gallery and SG Thakar Singh Art Gallery have become the addresses for those who want to paint the town red with their thoughts. Organising workshops for children and not keeping any age brackets here is paying its results. "Two days back, we had organised an activity for children and had over 120 entries from the city alone. We had participants as young as four-year-old painting and drawing. This means that kids are lapping up the opportunities being provided to them," says Brijesh Jolly, director, KT Kala. These are a part-of-year round activities that art galleries plan, especially to nurture young talent.

Amritsar, December 8
To enforce the Punjab Plastic Carry Bags (Manufacture, Usage and Disposal) Control Act-2005 in the district, a special squad under the supervision of the Municipal Corporation’s Health Officer, Yogesh Arora, raided various establishments in the Anngarh area and issued sealing notices to three factories, manufacturing polybags below prescribed standards.

These factory owners neither had the Pollution Control Board’s permission, nor MC’s licence to manufacture plastic bags. The team seized 10 quintals of carry bags, which did not comply with the prescribed standards, and destroyed them.

According to the Punjab Plastic Carry Bags (Manufacture, Usage and Disposal) Control Act-2005, there is a blanket ban on polythene bags below 30 microns in width, having dimensions less than 8X12 inches and not of specified colours.

Amritsar, December 8
The city’s first approved and authorised hallmarking centre to testify the purity of gold was inaugurated by the Additional Director-General of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), New Delhi, Alka Panda, last night.

With the yellow metal having gained status of a trusted investment sanctuary internationally, the government has taken upon itself to sensitise customers and jewellers about certification of the purity of gold. The ongoing “Hallmarking Awareness Week” from December 5 is an attempt towards this direction.

“The Indian consumer often becomes victim of irregular gold quality and the awareness programmes being organised by the Bureau of Indian Standards will provide an opportunity not only to consumers, but also to jewellers to clear their misconception about the hallmarking of gold jewellery,” said Alka Panda in her address at an awareness programme for jewellers, organised by the BIS, Chandigarh, last night.

Panda urged the jewellers to take maximum benefits of the BIS hallmarking scheme in order to create their credibility and provide complete satisfaction to customers. In order to promote gold hallmarking among consumers and to bring more jewellers under the ambit of assaying, she said the Central Government is giving one-time financial incentive of 30 per cent of the cost of machinery and equipment for setting up of hallmarking and assaying centres.

She said there were 8,650 operative licenced gold jewellery outlets and 162 BIS-recognised assaying and hallmarking centres in the country as on October 31, 2011. So far 1180.48 lakh articles had been hallmarked, she informed.

The Deputy Director-General (North), BIS, Chandigarh, KK Narang, said the programme objective was to create awareness in the region for the promotion of hallmarking schemes.

Highlighting the creator in the form of the mother and the girl child as ‘Bibba’, the Delhi Public School gave a strong message of protecting the girl child.

Major Jyoti Mitter (retd) and Dr Mamta Arora as chief guest and guest of honour, respectively, were extended a warm floral welcome by principal Sangeeta Singh. The programme commenced with the recitation of Saraswati vandana and the lighting of the lamp of knowledge by the chief guest and other dignitaries.

The festive scene of Rakhi between brother and sister was brought to life with a melodious beat of “Bhai bhehn ka tyohar” that moves the boy’s parents who pray to Goddess Durga for a daughter to fulfil the desire of their son who expresses his wish for a baby sister, presented by student of pre-nursery and nursery.

Amritsar, December 8
Intensifying their protest against the state government for revised pay grades, pharmacists have decided to proceed on a mass causal leave from December 12 to 17.

Addressing a press conference here today, Satnam Singh Kohri association president, said pharmacists would give a notice to the Deputy Commissioner in this regard on Thursday.

Kohri added that the pharmacists would stage protests at all primary health centres on December 12. He said the association would gherao the residences of cabinet ministers on December 14.

Kohri said on December 17, the pharmacists would protest outside the residence of Health Minister Satpal Gosain in Ludhiana. The association said that state government should fulfil their demands of increased pay grades and regarding changes in the names of the designations.

Meanwhile, in a respite for the patients at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital, the nurses association has decided to call off their indefinite strike. “Instead, the nurses would hold a two-hour protest daily till December 13,” said Narinder Buttar, vice president of the association.