Ratia, December 10
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today offered a bonanza for Ratia, when he announced a plethora of development projects worth over Rs 300 crore for the area.

Addressing a “dhanyavaad rally” here to thank the people of Ratia for electing Congress candidate Jarnail Singh in the November 30 bypoll, Hooda announced a women’s college, a 60-bedded hospital, four primary health centres, an Industrial Training Institute, three power substations, half a dozen water supply schemes and a myriad of other development schemes in the Assembly segment.

The Congress has broken a three-decade old jinx by winning the Ratia seat as the last time the party won this seat was in 1982.

During his campaign, Hooda had assured Ratia voters that he would ensure more development of Ratia in the next three years than the Assembly segment had witnessed in the last 30 years, if his candidate won the election.

Hopes were running high, when Hooda rose to address a sizeable gathering, which had assembled to listen to what the Chief Minister would announce for Ratia to keep his promise.

Hooda did not disappoint the responsive crowd that cheered every announcement with loud claps and slogans.

“By electing my candidate, you have got two MLAs for your area. While Jarnail Singh will look after your area as your elected legislator, I, too, will be available to you as your representative from now on,” Hooda said, assuring the voters that he would nurture Ratia like his own constituency.

He said his gifts for Ratia did not end with the announcements made today, but he would continue giving more, as and when demanded by people. While Hooda was announcing a special relaxation for Ratia farmers living in “dhani” by reducing farmers’ share in expenditure on domestic power connection from 50 per cent to just 5 per cent, the chief parliamentary secretary, Prahlad Singh Gillankhera, rose and requested for a similar respite in his Fatehabad constituency.

However, Hooda declined his request and said he had come today for Ratia only, and would speak about Fatehabad, when he visited there.

Making a scathing attack on the INLD supremo Om Prakash Chautala and the Haryana Janhit Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi, Hooda said while the former did not look beyond his sons, Ajay Singh and Abhey Singh, Bishnois had also fielded their family members whether in Adampur, Hisar, Kalka, Bhiwani or Fatehabad.

The Sirsa MP, Ashok Tanwar, ministers Randeep Singh Surjewala, Geeta Bhukal, Paramvir Singh, Gopal Kanda, CPS Gillankhera and former minister Sampat Singh were among those who addressed the rally. The HPCC president, Phool Chand Mullana, who was in charge of the Congress campaign, did not attend the rally due to indisposition. 

Gurgaon, December 10
Shortly after restoring about 1,900 acres of Sohna Municipal Committee land and saving it from land mafias, Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner PC Meena has got another scam, involving a huge chunk of panchayat land, unearthed in Nainwal village of the district.

This case involves 165 acres of prime panchayat land worth hundreds of crores of rupees situated in the proximity to Manesar, where an Industrial Model Township is located.

This land, belonging to the Nainwal village panchayat, was fraudulently converted into ‘Shamlat Deh’ allegedly with connivance of the then Revenue officials to benefit private shareholders and land-grabbers. The land has been taken back from the land-grabbers and restored to the village panchayat.

The Deputy Commissioner ensured that the village panchayat not only got possession of the land, but the ownership title was also transferred in its name.

As of now, the possession as well as the ownership title has been handed over to the Nainwal Gram Panchayat.

In December 2004 the status of the Nainwal village panchayat land was changed to ‘Shamlat Deh’ by the then Revenue officials. It was then illegally distributed among private shareholders without an order from any competent legal authority.

Out of the total 165 acres of panchayat land, 42 acres were with Gamma Buildwell Private Limited, another 42 acres with Zenith Real Private Limited and 81 acres of land was in the name of numerous other persons.

Due to persistent efforts of the district administration the entire land
has been restored back to the Nainwal Gram Panchayat, confirmed Manoj Yadav, Sarpanch of
Nainwal village.

“The panchayat has taken over the possession of the land,” he said adding that of the 165 acres of land, about 80 acres was irrigated and the Panchayat would like to give this piece of land on lease so that income can be generated.

According to the sarpanch, apart from these 165 acres, some land belonging to the village panchayat was under acquisition by the government.

Chandigarh,December 10
In a heartening news for the state notorious for khap panchayats and honour killings, its rural pockets have left urban areas behind in the sex ratio.

Call it a sustained campaign by government agencies or increased awareness among the masses, Kosli tehsil in Rewari district tops the state in the sex ratio with 924 females per 1,000 males, according to data released by Neeraja Shekhar, Director,Census, here yesterday.

In fact, all top slots on the sex ratio front are dominated by tehsils in rural and semi-urban areas with tehsils in the urban and industrial towns cutting a sorry figure with a low sex ratio. Ratia (917), Punhana (911), Pataudi (911), Ferozepur Jhirka (910), Loharu (907), Pehowa (904), Guhla (904).Taoru (902) and Farrukhnagar (902) are some of the subdivisions that score high on the sex ratio front.

However, more “urbanised and industrialised” tehsils, including Manesar (776), Ganaur (836), Kharkhoda(846),Gurgaon(847), Bahadurgarh (848) and Samalkha (849), fared poorly even to the state’s female sex ratio of 877 per 1,000 males.

According to the data, urban Haryana has grown at the rate of 44.25 per cent in the last decade.

Panipat, December 10
Partial failure of the power gird at Panipat resulted in tripping of four units of the second stage of the Panipat Thermal Power Station (PTPS), late last night.

According to official sources, the power grid failed due to foggy weather conditions which led to tripping of four units at 12:15 am. Several parts of the state plunged into darkness following the grid failure, the sources said.

The tripping of the four units deprived the state of 920 MW of power due to which the authorities had to resort to heavy over drawl of power from the northern grid to meet the power demands. Even as the authorities had been working to restore the tripped units, these had not been revived till the filing of this story.

The sources said that units numbered 6 and 8 of the Panipat Thermal Power Station tripped last night due to ID fan problem and jerk in system at around 10.30 pm. Though the engineers revived the two units at around 12:00 am, the partial grid failure at 12.15 am resulted in tripping of units numbered 5, 6, 7 and 8.

It may be mentioned that the 600-MW unit of the Khedar thermal power plant is under scheduled maintenance for the past 15 days and the 300-MW unit at Yamunanagar Thermal Power Plant, which had developed some technical snag about two and half months ago has not yet been put back into operation.

As of today, the total power available to the state from own sources of generation remained at an all-time low of 1,270 MW. The state drew more than 1,000 MW of power from the northern grid to meet the power demand which was more than 1,023 lakh units. It was learnt that the power utility could manage to supply only 898 lakh units.

The shortage hit several parts of the state as long power cuts were witnessed in various towns and cities. The power pang also affected the state industry which had already been reeling under frequent interruptions and shortage of electricity.

Yashpal Malik, president of the Panipat Dyers Association, said production at a large number of industrial units had been affected badly due to the erratic power supply. He said it was high time that the power utilities started provided quality power to consumers. 

Chandigarh, December 10
The Haryana Housing Board has received a rap on its knuckles, with the Punjab and Haryana High Court holding that it had made a clear attempt to “victimise and harass” an assistant engineer.

Taking up an appeal filed by the board against assistant engineer SB Kumar, the Division Bench of Justices Permod Kohli and Tejinder Singh Dhindsa asserted: “We have no hesitation in observing that the Housing Board, Haryana, has made a clear attempt to victimise and harass respondent SB Kumar”.

The observation came as the Division Bench upheld the Single Judge’s orders. The Judge had not only set aside the order of Kumar’s dismissal from service but also held him entitled to all consequential benefits.

The Housing Board had initially moved the high court, challenging the order dated January 21, passed by the Haryana Financial Commissioner-cum-Principal Secretary (Housing Department). The commissioner had set aside an earlier order dated March 13, 2003, imposing the penalty of dismissal upon Kumar.

After the Single Judge dismissed the Housing Board's petition on September 14, it filed the appeal. The issue hovers around the construction of 600 four-storeyed flats in Sector 14, Panchkula, in 1993. Kumar was dismissed from service following an adverse report by an inquiry officer, but the appellate authority directed his re-instatement

After hearing the arguments, the Bench ruled specific note was taken of the fact that biased reports of the technical audit committee headed by a superintending engineer were examined and relied upon by the inquiry officer. These were also taken on record at Kumar’s back. As such, the conduct of the inquiry officer was held to be against the basic principles of equity, fair play and natural justice.

Dismissing Housing Board’s appeal, the Bench added: “The facts of the instant case are peculiar. After having been placed under suspension in 1995, the matter was entrusted to the vigilance department for an enquiry.

“In spite of no finding having been returned against Kumar, a technical audit was also approved and that too at the hands of an officer, which the state government had itself opined to be an interested and biased person.”

Chandigarh, December 10
Palwal and Mewat districts continue to be educationally backward regions of Haryana.

This is more than evident from the recently declared results of the Haryana Teachers Eligibility Test conducted by the Haryana Board of School Education, Bhiwani.

Palwal had the lowest average pass percentage of 12 followed by Mewat district with an average pass percentage of 13.

Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal’s home district Jhajjar reported as the best performer with an average pass percentage of 18.5 as against state’s overall pass percentage of 16.86 percent in all the categories.

The board had conducted the test in three categories, Category I (Class I to V), Category II (Class VI to VIII) and Category III (Lecturers), for the selection of teachers in the state. The break-up for Jhajjar was 21.13 percent (Category I), 18.31 percent (Category II) and 16.12 percent (Category III), according to the data collected by The Tribune.

The data showed that the fast-emerging district of Panchkula reported an overall pass percentage of 18.25 with pass percentage of 22.1 in Category I, 14.65 in Category II and 18.10 in Category III.

The lowest pass percentage of 12.89 in Category I was reported from Mewat. In the Category II, the highest pass percentage was reported from Hisar (18.66). The lowest number of 11.25 percent candidates, who cleared the examination, was from Yamunanagar. The highest pass percentage (18.1 per cent) and lowest pass percentage (10.12 per cent) was reported from Panchkula and Palwal district, respectively.

Panipat, December 10
The Reserve Bank of India has moved the Delhi High Court seeking a stay order on the recent verdict pronounced by the Central Information Commission (CIC) in which the policy maker bank had been directed to reveal the names of the top 100 industrialists of the country who had failed to repay loans sought from nationalised banks.

While pronouncing a verdict on a petition filed by local RTI activist PP Kapoor on November 15, the CIC had directed the RBI to provide Kapoor with names of the loan defaulters by December 10 and upload the same on the official website of the bank by December 31.

It was on August 16, last year, that Kapoor had moved an application with the RBI under the RTI Act seeking details of the top 100 industrialists of the country who had sought huge loans from the nationalised banks, but had not returned the same causing losses to the public sector banks. He had also sought the details of what action was taken by the banks to recover the defaulting amount.

However, the RBI had denied the information stating that even as such “information was received from the banks, but was held by the bank in judiciary capacity and thus the same could not be disclosed under Section 8 (1) (a) and (c) of RTI Act of 2005” (copy available with The Tribune).

Not convinced with the reply given by the RBI, Kapoor had then moved a petition with the CIC, which in its orders issued on October 12, this year, a copy of which is available with The Tribune, had asked the public information officer of the RBI and Kapoor to appear before the commission on November 8 with all relevant documents. After listening to both the sides, the commission on November 15 asked the RBI to upload the names of top 100 loan defaulter businessmen and other details on the bank’s website by December 31 and update it every year. The commission upheld that Section 4 of the RTI Act mandated disclosure of such details.

Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi in his order had agreed that information was ‘fiduciary in nature’ but said that such exemption did not stand ‘when there was larger public interest in the disclosure’, a point contended by Kapoor during the November 8 hearing.

Kapoor said in the wake of a hue and cry being raised to bring back the black money stashed away in foreign banks, he had decided to get the details of the loan defaulters of the nationalised banks. This, he said, could coax the defaulters to return the money to the banks, thus bringing down the NPAs of the public sector banks.

He said the reluctance being shown by the RBI in revealing the names of the defaulters was beyond comprehension and also it was not above suspicion. 

Panipat, December 10
After having been duped by his relatives in India, who bagged the compensation awarded by the Railways Tribunal for victims of the Samjhauta train blasts, a Pakistani national has approached the Union Government to help him recover the relief.

Munne Khan, a resident of Malir town in Karachi district, had lost his wife, Zarina Begum, and his two children, Azam Khan and daughter Farzana, in the Samjhauta blasts on February 17, 2007. Zarina Begum had come here to visit her sister, who lived in Aligarh.

After the Union Government announced compensation for next of kin of the victims, Munne Khan authorised his brother-in-law, Abdul Rafik, of Bulandshahr to pursue the compensation case in the Railway Tribunal on his behalf, sending him a general power Of attorney (GPA) for the purpose.

On February 19, 2008, Rafik filed a petition with the Railway Tribunal to claim compensation and the tribunal decided in Munne Khan’s favour on May 14, 2008. He was awarded a compensation of Rs 13.5 lakh for the death of his wife and two children.

However, the compensation never reached Munne Khan. Instead, his brother-in-law managed to bag the said amount and told Khan that the tribunal had rejected his petition and no compensation was awarded.

Munne Khan, however, came to know that he had been awarded the compensation. He then got in touch with Momin Malik, a senior lawyers of Panipat, who used RTI to confirm that Rs 13.5 lakh had been paid to Abdul Rafik on behalf of Munne Khan.

Munne Khan has now approached the Union Government through the Indian high commission in Islamabad, requesting recovery of the compensation fraudulently pocketed by his brother-in-law.

Though Munne Khan sent a letter to the Cabinet Secretary for recovery of the compensation from his brother-in-law on April 1, no action had so far been initiated by the authorities.