Chandigarh, January 12
It has been a long wait for the parents and the relatives of hundreds of missing children in Haryana.With the police failing to make much headway in tracing the missing children, the kin of the missing children are forced to move from pillar to post in search of their children.

“For the past three months, it has been a futile search for our 10-month old son, Nishant. We have been told by the police that it was making concerted efforts to trace the child. Now we have left everything to God,” says Sarita, Nishant’s mother, a resident of Manakpur (Pinjore) in Panchkula district.

Nishant had gone missing from the Mansa Devi temple on September 28 last year and his parents had lodged a complaint the next day.

Umesh Kumar, an uncle of Akash Kumar, an 18-year-old boy from Tohana (Fatehabad), who went missing on August 6, alleged that the police had failed to trace the boy despite repeated visits to the police station. “Though he is grown up and went away on his own, the police must help the family to trace the teenager,” he asserted.

The father of a 15-year-old girl, who went missing from Faridabad early last year, said they had stopped going to the police station as the police personnel asked “embarrassing” questions about the girl.“Though we fear for her physical security and well being yet there is hardly anything we can do to trace her,” he said, adding that the involvement of a child-trafficking racket in the districts in the National Capital Region(NCR) bordering New Delhi could not be ruled out.

Senior police officials, however, claimed that all-out efforts were being made to trace the missing children.Whenever a complaint is received, the message about the missing persons is flashed to all police districts and the state headquarters in Panchkula besides the distribution of pamphlets.

Haryana has another dubious distinction to its credit. The state has the highest number of children missing in the region with over 1,800 children of the nearly 3,900 children missing from the region comprising states of Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

In a shocking development that points to the involvement of child-trafficking gangs in the region, over 700 (about 40 per cent) of the minors missing in Haryana are girls as against about one-third of the girls in other states, data collected by The Tribune revealed.

Punjab is placed at number two with at least 1,400 children, including about 400 girls, missing since 2005.

“The involvement of child-trafficking gangs is definitely behind the missing of such a large number of children,” said Nirmal Chaudhary, Inpsector-General of Police (IGP), Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD), New Delhi.

In fact, a majority of the cases of missing children were reported from the districts bordering Delhi, which reported five missing children daily, in the NCR.

For instance, Faridabad district reported the highest number of missing children with 45 children, including 20 girls, reported missing in the past months. Sonepat with 33 missing children and Hisar with 23 missing children were the other districts with a sizable missing population below 18 years.

At least 200 children, including 72 girls, have gone missing in the past six months.

Fatehabad, January 12
The proposed nuclear power plant at Gorakhpur in Fatehabad appears to have run into rough weather with the farmers, both those opposed to the plant and those in favour of it, rejecting the rates of their land offered by the authorities.

The authorities today offered rates of Rs 20 lakh per acre for non-irrigated land and Rs 32 lakh per acre for irrigated land for the agriculture land to be acquired for the Gorakhpur Atomic Power Project (GAPP).

The prices include everything, said ML Kaushik, Deputy Commissioner, Fatehabad, after a meeting held on the issue in the mini-secretariat today.

TR Arora, Chief Project Engineer (Haryana Projects) of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), elaborated that the prices included the basic floor rates, 30 per cent solatium on it, 20 per cent non-litigation incentive and 12 per cent per annum interest on the basic floor rates from the date of issuance of notification under Section 4 and the actual award under Section 11 of the Land Acquisition Act.

MP Bansal, Commissioner, Hisar Division, presided over the meeting and among others who attended the meeting were Sanjay Gumasta, project manager of the GAPP, DD Jha, Chief Engineer (Rehabilitation and Resettlement) and Richa Sinha, Head, Finance, from the NPCIL, Mumbai.

Kaushik said besides these rates, the farmers would get an annuity of Rs 21,000 per acre for 33 years with enhancement of Rs 750 per annum, according to the Haryana Government’s Land Acquisition Policy 2010 and jobs to the eligible persons, according to the policy.

He said the rates had been assessed keeping in view the minimum floor rates and the prevailing market rates in the area. However, the farmers, whose land is sought to be acquired for the project, have rejected the offer.

Hans Raj Siwach, president of the Kisan Sangharsh Samiti opposing the project, said they would not yield an inch of their land, whatever the rates the authorities offered.

Sumit Siwach, co-convener of the “Parmanu Sayantra Lagao Samiti”, a section of farmers favouring the nuclear power project, said anything less than Rs 70 lakh per acre was not acceptable to them.

The government had issued a notification for the acquisition of 1,503 acres, 4 kanal, 19 marlas of land for the project, out of which 1,313 acres, 5 kanal and 8 marlas is located in Gorakhpur and the rest is from Badopal and Kajalheri villages.

Rejection of the rates by the farmers notwithstanding, Arora said he was still optimistic that the farmers would accept the offer.

“In case no immediate solution is found, the NPCIL will put the Gorakhpur project on hold and shift its focus to the other proposed site in Balsamand in Hisar,” said Arora. 

Rohtak, January 12
The state government has accepted the three main demands of the Haryana Civil Medical Service Association (HCMS) that include consideration of Non-Practising Allowance (NPA), leave encashment and changes in graduation study rules.

The HCMS doctors had resorted to two days’ strike by taking mass leave across the state on November 8 and 9 in support of their demands.

Dr Sheel Kant Pajni, general secretary of the district unit of the HCMS, said a communique in this regard had been received from the authorities of the Health Department recently. He said a majority of the members of the association felt relieved in view of the acceptance of some of the main demands.

Two thousand doctors, employed in the government sector, were a part of the HCMS. Pajni said it would be easier for the HCMS doctors to pursue a PG course during their service tenure -- one of the main issues, raised with the state government.

He said the state government had also accepted the demand of restoring about 285 posts of medical officers, which had been withdrawn earlier after being shifted from rural to urban areas.

Expressing satisfaction over the development, a spokesperson of the HCMS Association, however, claimed that there were some issues which were still to be sorted out. 

Chandigarh, January 12
Contrary to the high prevalence of malnutrition in its state capital where 31 per cent children are stunted and 23 per cent are underweight, Haryana seems to be “eating right” to keep malnutrition low. Unlike its capital and other poor states, malnutrition is not a “big problem” in the state, courtesy the healthy eating habits of its children.

The state has pegged its malnourished children at 2.6 per cent though the number is expected to go up since the survey has covered only half of the target population. Of the 11.58 lakh children so far examined in the 6-18 year age group, 31,140 children are malnourished in varying degrees, according to a survey by the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).

However, the number is expected to go up given the fact that the survey is still on and there are a number of children still to be covered in the 6-18 years age group to arrive at the exact numbers.

While the anganwaris are still untouched, seven lakh children were examined in the 6-12 year age group of which 18,197 children were found to be malnourished. The survey conducted under the Indira Bal Swasthya Yojna revealed that while 11,470 suffered from mild malnutrition, 6,630 were moderately malnourished. As many as 97 had severe malnourishment.

Similarly, in the 12-18 year age group, 4.56 lakh children were examined of which 4,220 had stunted growth and 4,306 were underweight. While 8,908 had mild malnutrition, 3,776 and 16 had moderate and severe malnutrition, respectively.

CR Rana, Mission Director, NRHM, explained that 22 lakh children would be covered under the survey, which was just around the halfway mark. Handling the project, Dr Deepika Gupta said after the initial round of screening by teams of teachers and doctors who fanned out in various schools to categorise the degree of malnutrition.

According to the first survey of this kind in 2010-11, 30.55 lakh children in the 0-18 year age group were covered in three phases. Of these 1.07 lakh children were found to be malnourished of which the maximum number belonged to the 6-12 year age group.

As many as 44,842 of the 10 lakh children examined were malnourished in this category while 3,726 children were underweight in the 0-6 years age group and 25,212 were malnourished in the 12-18 year age group. 

Chandigarh, January 12
Approval in principle has been accorded for setting up a human rights commission in Haryana, and the procedural details are being worked out, the Punjab and Haryana High Court was a informed today.

The assertion came in the form of a status report submitted before the Bench of Justice MM Kumar and Justice AK Mittal this afternoon. The report has been submitted on a petition filed by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties. It is seeking the setting up of a human rights commission in Haryana.

As the matter came up for hearing, the Bench was told by the state counsel that the meeting of a committee, headed by Justice IP Vashistha, is now fixed for January 31.

On the basis of its recommendations, the issue of setting up the committee would proceed further. The case would now come up on February 6.

The development is significant as the Haryana Government, in January 2007, had told the court that it did not feel the need to set up a state human rights commission.

Coming down heavily on the State of Haryana for submitting that it had an adequate mechanism to deal with the complaints and grievances related to human rights violations and does not require a state human rights commission, the high court had then directed the state to file a detailed affidavit explaining its “adequate mechanism”.

The Bench had ruled: Although it is the domain of the state to say that for certain reasons at a particular stage, it is not in a position to have a state human rights commission, but to say that there is adequate mechanism available to deal with the grievances of people under the existing administrative hierarchy is against the spirit of international treaties… which stress on the protection of human rights.

Kurukshetra, January 12
The Haryana Federation of University and College Teachers Organisations (HFUCTO) has given a fresh ultimatum to the government to accept their pending demands by January-end, failing which it would be “forced to resume the agitation”.

The state executive of HFUCTO, which met here to discuss the implementation of the revised UGC pay scales to university and college teachers, expressed resentment over the “delaying tactics” being adopted by the government and said that even three years after the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) notified the UGC scales and other recommendations, the Haryana Government selectively implemented the revised scales with gross deviations to the disadvantage of the teachers.

The executive committee meeting, presided over by the HFUCTO president, Dr Pradeep Chauhan, discussed all pending issues in detail and urged the government to resolve the issues amicably like incentives for higher qualifications, creation of posts of Professors in colleges, time-bound promotions of teachers of all categories and implementation of the API scheme from 2012-13 without further delay.

The executive committee further demanded that all anomalies and deviations in implementation of the revised UGC scales be rectified . 

Jhajjar, January 12
Irate residents of Khanpur Kalan village lifted the road blockade after over 30 hours this afternoon when the district authorities accepted their demand for a government job on a regular basis to a kin of Surender (25). Surender was electrocuted to death two days ago when power supply was restored to the electricity pole he was working on for rectifying a fault in a transformer. The district authorities also announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to a kin of the deceased. Surender was working as a lineman with the Power Department on the DC rates.

The protesters had decided to continue the blockade till their demand was conceded.

Interestingly, the villagers served eatables and tea to commuters whose vehicles were stuck in the blockade in the night. The commuters were seen sitting around a bonfire lit by the protesters to keep warm. The authorities deputed a large number of policemen on the spot.

Jhajjar ADC Atul Kumar and other officials reached the spot this afternoon and announced a government job to a kin of the deceased at the local DRDA office, besides a compensation of Rs 5 lakh. Thereafter the villagers lifted the blockade.