The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Traders, residents against civic body’s new taxes Arteev Sharma Tribune News Service Jammu, January 17 Resentment is brewing among trade organisations and the city residents here against the Jammu Municipal Corporation’s (JMC) decision to impose new taxes on all shops, houses and business complexes located within its limits. The trade organisations and the local residents have flayed the civic body for taking a unilateral decision vis-à-vis imposition of new taxes and described its approach as arbitrary, alleging all stakeholders were not taken into confidence prior to any such move. Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) president YV Sharma opposed the government decision in strong words saying the imposition of municipal tax on shops and houses was highly objectionable. “The proposed tax is not justified as the public is already heavily burdened with the existing taxes and unemployment,” Sharma said. He appealed to the government to review the decision saying the issue needed to be discussed with trade bodies, social organisations, nominated citizens and members of the legislative Assembly. Official sources said the JMC had decided to impose Rs 600 as municipal tax on all shops and small houses in old city, while the owners of big bungalows and business houses in posh localities will have to shell out Rs 1,200 for new tax on a yearly basis. The new tax will be in addition to Rs 600 as sanitation charges which are being charged from small and big houses, respectively, in Jammu city. “We fail to understand the rationale behind the imposition of new taxes. The civic body has miserably failed on its deliverance level and imposition of fresh taxes has definitely created anguish among residents and traders. People generally don’t hesitate to pay, but the municipal corporation should also take some corrective measures to improve its delivery system,” said Raj Kumar, a grocery shop owner at the New Plot area. He regretted that the government was already grappling with the problem of unemployment and instead of announcing “pro-unemployed” youth measures it was bent upon rendering self-employed youth jobless. “Civic body officials are resorted to pressurising tactics. They have said that the corporation would not renew their licences if the shopkeepers didn’t pay the new taxes,” he alleged. Neelam Sharma, a housewife of the Panjtirthi area in the old city, said: “The Municipal Corporation has adopted a different approach for harassing the residents. They are charging from the residents for a service which they never delivered on ground. So far, the civic body has been charging Rs 50 per month as sanitation charges under which a safai karamchari will collect house-to-house garbage twice in a day but this scheme, too, remained on paper till date”.
	Mobile blood bank van remains ‘underutilised’ Sonika Raina Tribune News Service Jammu, January 17 Services of the specialised mobile blood bank van provided by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) to Government Medical College and Hospital, Jammu, are not being utilised to its full potential. The Blood Transfusion Department claims that the geography and terrain of the Jammu division does not allow them to take the van everywhere, especially to the far-flung areas. The Rs 1.5-crore blood mobile van has space for four beds for blood donors, examiner, microwave oven, fridge and four freezers with a capacity to store 300 blood bottles that makes it useful for blood donation even in the remotest areas. Sources told The Tribune that almost one year has passed since the NACO donated the van to the hospital, but it has not been utilised properly. The GMCH’s Blood Transfusion Department takes the van to areas mostly within the city and its outskirts. Head of the Department of Blood Transfusion at GMCH Dr Raman Kapoor said: “It is not that the van is not being used at all. We do use the van but we cannot take it everywhere because the van is too big. After I took over charge, we took it to Bahu Plaza for blood donation, Katra and other places”. She added, “The van needs a special driver and a level terrain. Ideally, there should be no sharp curves on the road and the roads should be wide. The main impediment is that the geography of our state does not allow us to take the van to places we wish to. So we have to use it in plain areas,” she added. However, a senior doctor at GMCH, said, “The mobile van is an asset for a vast region like Jammu. If used properly, the blood transfusion department can attract more and more blood donors. The department is not serious about it, so the mobile van worth Rs 1.5 crore remains underutilised”. Jammu, like the rest of India, faces the shortage of blood. At the national level, blood shortage is to the tune of 2 million units a year. In this light, NACO encourages 'mobile blood banks' to organise impromptu blood donation camps. The van is capable of collecting 300 bags of blood (each bag contains 450 ml) a day which is carried back to its parent blood bank.
	Police, Army come to rescue of pregnant women M Aamir Khan Srinagar, January 17 After developing labour pain, Hafiza Begum got stuck at her village Khrew in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district due to heavy snowfall in the area. However, she managed to deliver a baby after a police vehicle dropped her at a nearby sub-district hospital. Like Hafiza, the police and the Army came to the rescue of many other women after heavy snowfall over the past three days threw normal life out of gear in Kashmir Valley. Without the help of the security forces, they may not have given birth to their babies. The police also came to the rescue of another expectant woman, Rahila, wife of Arshid Khatana, resident of Gujjar Basti Batakote in Pahalgam. As her family was unable to shift her to a hospital because of heavy snowfall in the area, she was shifted by the police to the sub-district hospital, Anantnag. In Kupwara district, the police came to the rescue of two expectant women of Tekipora and Dorusa villages. Just like the police, the Army also rescued an expectant woman Yasmeen Begum of remote village Walkul in north Kupwara district. With heavy snow rendering interior roads without any vehicle plying over, the family members contacted the Army. The troops of 28 Rashitriya Rifles then not only took Yasmeen to the block hospital, Sogam, but also ensured that two ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers were successfully sent to the hospital to save the life of the mother and the baby. Besides helping the expectant women, the Army also facilitated evacuation of severely ill patients to civil hospitals in Kupwara by providing non-skid chains to civil ambulances. Meanwhile, the police also came to the rescue of a widow in the Sopore area of Baramulla district. Due to heavy snowfall, her house collapsed and she along with her small family was left to fend for herself in the freezing cold. Later, the Sopore police came to her help with building material and repaired the house.
	Jammu varsity postpones folk festival Tribune News Service Jammu, January 17 Keeping in view the B.Ed. counselling from January 10 to January 25, the Department of Students Welfare, University of Jammu, has postponed the two-day folk festival, which was scheduled to commence on January 19. Despite postponement, the entries for the same were being entertained by the department, according to an official handout issued here today. The festival included folk dances and folk songs of the state. Apart from the “Display Your Talent”, an annual feature of the university, this was an exclusive opportunity for the students enrolled to peruse B.Ed. course in private-affiliated colleges to display their creative pursuits. Besides, the festival was also an endeavour to showcase the state’s rich cultural heritage, read the handout.
	Here villagers, livestock drink water from the same pond Ashutosh Sharma Tribune News Service Samba, January 17 Contrary to the claims regarding the all-round rural development by the state government, there are villages like Deon, 7 km from the historic and religiously important place, Purmandal in Samba district, where humans and cattle drink water from the same pond. The lack of basic amenities has brought the villagers together and they have organised themselves. They have demanded from the government that the village in the rain-deficit area of the district should be officially classified as backward and must receive priorities under various welfare schemes. Though the Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department has made provisions for the piped water, the supply remains elusive. Resultantly, the villagers use water for all purposes from the only pond in the village from which the cattle drink. “We get water only once in a fortnight. The water is lifted from Surinsar Lake and supplied without any treatment. The quality of water is worse than the pond water,” a group of women told The Tribune. “In our area, there is no other water body. So there is no alternative,” they added. “A majority of the villagers are daily wage labourers. Earlier, the villagers, who worked under the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) in the village, were either paid comparatively lesser remunerations in delayed instalments or not paid at all. Now, they go in towns and cities for earning their livelihood,” the villagers, including Sagar Singh, Puran Chand and Bishan Dass, said. The Rs 7.13-crore road project under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sardak Yojana that aimed at connecting Deon with the main bazaar of Purmandal, which reportedly started in 2008, has been abandoned halfway after the earth work. The dirt track, according to the villagers, turns marshy during the rainy season. The village does not have any transportation facility. It was electrified nearly seven years ago, but the power supply also remains dismal. The village has a middle school and the students reading in higher classes trek 14 km to attend their school daily. The village dispensary has three nursing assistants, but if someone is taken seriously ill, he or she has to be ferried on a cot to Purmandal. “The government has announced that middle school and the dispensary would be upgraded in the months to come,” they said and added, “We have given separate memorandums to the deputy commissioner and chairperson of the State Commission for Backward Classes seeking backward village status for our area,” said convener of the village committee constituted for the cause, Havildar (retd) Chatur Singh. Mubarak Singh, Deputy Commissioner, Samba, said: “Their demand is being examined and the report will be sent to the commission for its consideration. If the demand fulfils certain specifications, only then it can be declared as backward”. “As far as the issue of villagers and livestock drinking water from the same pond is concerned, I will get it verified from the PHE Department,” he added.
	Road-clearing works during snowfall Centre’s permission sought to engage MNREGA cardholders Dinesh Manhotra Tribune News Service Jammu, January 17 As the authorities find it difficult to achieve the target of generating maximum number of work for the labourers engaged under the MNREGA scheme in the hilly areas, the state government has written to the Centre to allow it to engage MNREGA job cardholders in road-clearing works at the time of snowfall in the remotest areas. Addressing Panchayat Mahasabha, which was held in Jammu last week, in which panchayat members from all over the state were present, Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Ali Mohammad Sagar said working season in many parts of the state was not for more than six months, so the state government had been contemplating to engage the MNREGA job cardholders in other activities so as to give them employment throughout the year. He said many parts of the state usually remained cut off from the rest of the state due to heavy snowfall in those areas. “We have written to the Centre to allow the state government to engage MNREGA labourers in the job of clearing roads during winter, especially at the time of heavy snowfall,” he said. “After getting clearance from the Centre, we would engage the MNREGA labourers in the job of clearing snow at the time of heavy snowfall to ensure smooth plying of traffic,” he added. Unlike other parts of the state, working season in Jammu and Kashmir working season is not more than six months in many parts of the state. In the six-month working season throughout the year, the authorities find it difficult to achieve the target to generate work for the job card holders of MNREGA. It is all due this reason that authorities are thinking to engage MNREGA labourers in other jobs to make sure that they get jobs throughout the year. Sagar said the state government had sent a proposal to the Government of India for enhancing the daily rate of MNREGA workers from Rs 100 to Rs 125. “We want to raise it to Rs 200 in near future”, he added, and said snow clearance operation was also being brought under the ambit of MNREGA to provide additional days of work to the labourers in winter months. Presenting the summary of the achievements registered in rural development and other sectors during the last three years, Sagar said the funds earmarked for the MNREGA in 2008-09, when the present government took over were just Rs 69 crore which have been raised to Rs 750 crore this year and next year’s allocations would be Rs 1,500 crore. He said wide-ranging development works in large numbers in the form of construction of roads, culverts, small bridges, check dams and protection bunds have been completed across the state besides raising plantations and conducting land development works. Sagar expressed gratitude to the UPA leadership for extending full support to the Omar-led coalition for meeting all challenges and carrying forward the development process with purpose and determination. He said the coalition government was working in tandem to bring about socio-economic change in the state and restore peace. “We would work with same determination and commitment in the next three years under the leadership of Omar Abdullah to achieve the targets,” he added. Minister of State for Rural Development, Ajaz Ahmad Khan said the achievements registered in the rural development and other sectors itself speak of the government’s intension at revolutionising the socio-economic conditions of the people, especially living in the far-flung and backward area. He also talked about the holding of panchayat elections and transferring of powers to the sarpanches and panches while adding that the powerful, effective and viable panchayat system was the aim of the government.
	60 students attend theatre workshop Devinder Thakur Reasi, January 17 Though theatre has picked up considerably, rarely do theatre enthusiasts get to take lessons in the art form. A 14-day production-oriented theatre workshop conducted by a renowned theatre artiste Shadab Khan is on at the Government Degree College here. The workshop will see students getting into the technical and practical aspects of drama from experts in the region. The workshop being held under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, focuses on imparting training to the actors of the region. Talking to The Tribune, Shadab Khan, director of the workshop said, “There is no dearth of amateurs in the region, but students need to get to know the finer nuances of the art to move towards more professional theatre. The workshop will attempt to encourage quality theatre and try to inform students about the tools and techniques which go hand in hand with it.” “60 students are attending the workshop. The students were shortlisted after holding auditions. The workshop would include techniques related to the making of a wholesome production,” he said. The play ‘Ek Tha Gadha’ would be taken on the performing platform that has all ingredients of making of a successful venture from stage setting to costume designing, make-up and music, he said. “We have invited theatre experts from Mumbai, Sharya Veer Sagar and Vishal Kandpal, for technical assistance,” said Khan. Speaking at the inaugural function, Khan said that the aim of the workshop was to get the students acquainted with theatre. Principal of the college, Veena Pandita, who was the chief guest on the occasion, spoke about the need to make upcoming artists aware about the need of serious theatre in the region. Rajesh Ajnabi theatre actor of the state who presided over the workshop gave valuable tips to the participating actors.
	Record potato yield in Kashmir valley Our Correspondent Srinagar, January 17 The Potato Seed Development Farms of the Agriculture Department, Kashmir, have yielded a record production of about 4,000 quintals of potato seed tubers this year. Last year, the total yield was just 556.06 quintals and the previous best yield ever recorded was 3,663 quintals in 2009. This was stated by the director, Agriculture, Kashmir, Dr Farooq A Lone, while reviewing the performance of the Potato Seed Development Farms. It was disclosed that Kalnag farm yielded 1,530 quintals, Bosin 1,280 quintals, Sedaw 447 quintals, Ismarg 367 quintals, Yarikhah 222 quintals, Gulmarg 172 quintals, and Dawar 64 quintals. The Agriculture Department has now set up a target of 6,000 quintals production for the next year. “At least 25 per cent additional area of the farms will be brought under cultivation in the next year with a projected yield target of 6,000 quintals. We must strive not only to meet our requirement of potato seed tubers but aim at exporting the same as it is within the yield potential of our farms,” the director said. “It was also decided that any shortfall in the estimated crop yield without cogent reasons shall be deducted from the salary of the delinquent officers in future,” he added.