Sirsa, January 21
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today took on his rivals within the Congress and outside it, who have been accusing him of “lopsided” development in Haryana and said only those whose “own individual development” he could not ensure, were making these allegations.

Speaking to mediapersons here today, Hooda said an all- inclusive development had been witnessed in Haryana during the past six years of his regime and it was there for everyone to see.

While the opposition has often been accusing Hooda of “regional bias” in the matter of development, recently two ruling party leaders - the Gurgaon MP Rao Inderjit Singh and former minister Jagdish Nehra - had also levelled similar allegations against the Haryana Government.

Answering a specific question on Nehra’s allegations of preferring one particular area in the matter of development, Hooda said he could not talk of an individual nor was he answerable to any one individual for what his government did.

Hooda said the Planning Commission report had revealed that only three states of the country - Haryana, Gujarat and Karnataka - had witnessed more than 11 per cent growth rate and Haryana with a growth rate of 11.6 per cent was at number one in the country.

“When my government took over from Om Prakash Chautala in 2005, Haryana was at number 14 in per capita income and per capita investment. Now, Haryana is number one in per capita investment and is second only to Goa - a small state with income from tourism - in the matter of per capita income,” the Chief Minister said.

Earlier, addressing members of the District Bar Association in the local court complex, Hooda said the INLD leaders had been making false propaganda against his government.

Hooda said even in Chautala’s home district Sirsa, he had spent Rs 2472.94 crore in his six-year regime against Rs 789.33 crore spent by the former Chief Minister during his six-year rule.

Hooda took a dig at Chautalas for their call for Dabwali Bandh during his visit to Sirsa yesterday and said the base of the INLD was shrinking with his every visit to Sirsa.

Answering a question on the failure of Special Economic Zones in Haryana, Hooda said though several of them had succeeded, the failure of some others could largely be attributed to the global slowdown.

He said talks were on with Reliance for the return of 1384.68 acres of land that was given to them by the HSIDC in lieu of 10 per cent sweat equity.

To a question, he denied that the land would be returned to its owners and said it belonged to the Industries Department and it was acquired much before he came to power.

Haryana minister Gopal Kanda, parliamentary secretary Prahlad Singh Gillankhera and Congress leaders Gobind Kanda, Malkiat Singh Khosa and Bhupesh Mehta accompanied Hooda during his programmes.

Panipat, January 21
Close on the heels of a grisly accident in Ambala, another school bus overturned on the Asandh road here today, injuring 45 students out of whom the condition of 12 was reported to be serious.

The accident took place near Nara village when the driver’s son, while trying to adjust his seat, lost control of the vehicle and it jumped off the road’s brim to fall into a ditch along the road and overturned. The school bus belonged to BRSK International School, Safidon, and was ferrying students of Classes V to VIII from the nearby villages to the school this morning.

To the surprise of many, Kuldeep Singh, the driver, got down from the bus, handing it over to his son, Sudhir, to steer. Joyti, one of the students who was on board the bus at the time of the accident, told this correspondent that as Sudhir drove the bus, he tried to adjust his seat due to which he lost control of the vehicle and it went off the road and fell into the ditch.

It was learnt that all students on board the bus sustained injuries in the mishap but the condition of 12 students was such that they had to be taken to various hospitals at the district headquarters. The rest were allowed to go home after first aid was administered to them. A number of villagers from the nearby areas rushed to rescue the schoolchildren who had got trapped in the bus.

Soon after the matter was reported to the police, a team of officials under DSP traffic Pradeep Sheokand reached the spot. He said the police had registered a case under Sections 279 and 337 of the IPC against Kuldeep, his son, Sudhir, and owner of the school, Suresh Gupta.

Interestingly, it was only yesterday that the district police had issued detailed instructions to all schools in the district to observe certain norms to ensure safety of the schoolchildren. The police had also undertaken a drive recently to challan school buses violating traffic rules during which a large number challans were also issued. 

Rohtak, January 21
There is hardly any school in the district, which has not been violating the safety norms when it comes to the transportation of students to schools and back. While the drive against the violation of traffic norms has been intensified, the police has asked the schools to let their drivers undergo a special refresher course at Maruti Driving School here.

The police during a checking of school vans and buses found that there was hardly any bus or vehicle, which had been totally fit in terms of safety as majority of the vehicles are lacking on the required norms or points and none of the drivers had undergone the refresher course to update their knowledge regarding the driving and road safety.

The police has arranged a refresher course at the Maruti Driving School here and all schools have been asked to send their drivers for the course, said a police official.

Admitting that overloading of schoolchildren had been a serious issue, the police had already started issuing challans of such vehicles. While around 50 vehicles have been challaned so far, he said the police resort to further action, including impounding the vehicles in case the drivers do not get disciplined even after the challan in such cases.

An auto-risckshaw, which had a capacity of carrying about eight children at one time was found to be carrying as many as 18 schoolchildren near the Canal Rest House yesterday. Instead of halting at a check point, the driver of the tried to dodge the police and flee away from the spot, the police said.

Chandigarh, January 21
Almost a year after the INLD filed a petition against Haryana’s seven Independent MLAs, seeking their disqualification, and umpteen “unserved” notices later, the hearing in the case will begin on February 1.

The Haryana Vidhan Sabha Speaker, Kuldeep Sharma, has given the MLAs one last chance to file their replies in the disqualification petitions and fixed February 1 as the date of hearing.

Sources said the notices, finally served on the “evasive” Independents, most of whom are a part of the government in the capacity of ministers or chief parliamentary secretaries, also mention that if they fail to meet the deadline, it will be assumed they have nothing to say in the matter and a decision will be taken.

In February last, the INLD had sought the disqualification of the MLAs for “supporting” the Congress government in the state. Deputy leader of the INLD in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha and MLA Sher Singh Barshami had filed a petition before the then acting Speaker, Akram Khan, seeking their disqualification under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.

The petitions were filed against seven MLAs — Om Parkash Jain, Sukhbir Kataria, Gopal Kanda, Sultan Singh, Jaleb Khan, Parlhad Singh Gillankhera and Shiv Charan Sharma. Of these, Jain is no longer a minister after he resigned from the Cabinet following a controversy.

In their petitions, the INLD had contended that all seven MLAs had been elected as Independents in the October 2009 Assembly elections but had extended their support to the Congress which was short of majority with only 40 out of 90 seats in the Assembly.

Thereafter four Independent MLAs were given ministerial berths in the Bhupinder Singh Hooda Cabinet while the rest were made Chief Parliamentary Secretaries.

He alleged that these MLAs had been participating in the Congress meetings and rallies whereas under the 10th Schedule an Independent MLA was to remain so throughout the term of the Vidhan Sabha. In case he joined a party, he was liable to be disqualified.

Interestingly, since the petitions were admitted, the Speaker’s office continued to express it helplessness over the repeated un-served notices to the Independents. It was only recently that they “managed” to serve these though replies of some of them are still awaited.

The office of the Speaker is especially under immense pressure after it was rapped by the high court for delayed proceedings in the case of the defector MLAs. With that case now in the Supreme Court, an “image-makeover”, in the way the petitions are dealt with and proceedings carried out, seems in the offing.

Sources said the idea was to drive home the point that the Speaker meant business, which probably explains why the Speaker will be hearing the petition in the five “defector” Haryana Janhit Congress-turned-Congress MLAs’ case on the same day.

Also, the interim application filed by the Haryana Health Minister and himself a “defector”, Rao Narinder, stating that the petitions against them don’t hold good because HJC supremo Kuldeep Bishnoi is no longer an MLA which is a mandatory condition, will be heard on February 1. 

Chandigarh,January 21
Blame it on the driving habits of the motorists or laxity on the part of the Haryana Police to strictly enforce the traffic rules, the “killers roads” in Haryana claimed 4,595 lives — 13 lives daily — in 2011. If that was not enough, 9,320 persons (26 persons per day) were injured on the state’s roads last year.

Though there was a slight dip in the number of those killed in the road mishaps as compared to 2010 when 4,698 precious lives were lost, yet the intriguingly high number of accidents should certainly ring alarm bells for the state government.

Last year, the state recorded 10,672 accidents — down from 10,804 in 2,010.The number of fatal accidents also came down from 4,200 (2010) to 4,145 (2011). Similarly, the number of persons injured also came down from 9,940 in 2,010 to 9,320 last year.

Gurgaon district in the National Capital Region (NCR) bordering New Delhi had the dubious distinction of having most unsafe roads with 462 deaths. Sonepat with 291 deaths and Jhajjar with 271 deaths were ranked next to Gurgaon. Fatehabad (102), Panchkula (120) and Kaithal (140) districts were the safest in the state.

“Driving behaviour is the major cause of road accidents with 50-60 per cent accidents attributed to human error,” said Prof Harish Bhatia, Chandigarh-based highway expert. Road conditions and design and vehicle defects are reported to be the other major causes of road mishaps, he added.

Echoing similar sentiments, Harman Sidhu, brand ambassador of the Haryana Police on Road Safety, said besides driving habits, speeding by vehicles drivers on the national and state highways, passing through the state, and non-observance of traffic rules were the other causes of the high number of road accidents in Haryana.

The use of the state and national highways by motorists, partcularly Haryana Roadways, whose drivers are notorious for rash driving, is one of the highest in Haryana.This coupled with laxity of the police in enforcing the traffic rules is primarily to be blamed for the high road accident rate.

However, a senior police official blamed bad road conditions and faulty road engineering for the road accidents.The fall in the number of accidents, including fatal accidents, as compared to 2010, is testimony to awareness drives about safe driving and strict enforcement of traffic rules by the police, he claimed.

Sonepat, January 21
With an objective to provide speedy justice to the public, 85 newly recruited judges will assume charge at the subdivision and district-level courts by the end of March.

This was stated by Mr Justice SK Mittal of the Punjab and Haryana High Court after laying the foundation stone of a judicial complex at Gohana today. After the judges assume charge, the process would be initiated to enrol as many as 100 judges for different courts in the state, he added.

Justice Mittal said there were 44 judicial complexes in the state and 40 of these had modern facilities. The remaining four complexes at Gohana, Gannaur, Tohana and Bahadurgarh would also be commissioned within two years. Before the enrolment of 100 judges, he said, as many as 130 new government residential accommodations would be available in the judicial complexes of the state.

Praising the state government for providing the necessary infrastructure for judicial complexes, Justice Mittal said Haryana was the leading state in the country in providing all kinds of facilities for the judiciary to mete out speedy justice to the people.

In his presidential address, Justice Mahesh Grover of the high court said this new complex would be completed at an estimated cost of Rs 8.25 crore within one year. He also laid the foundation stone of a judicial complex at Gannaur. 

Palwal, January 21
A person succumbed to his injuries this morning, raising the death toll to seven in yesterday’s collision between a maxi cab and a bus near Sihol village on the Palwal- Chandhut road. The victims were the ones travelling in the cab.

Out of the nine injured, seven were referred to the Safdurjung Hospital in the national capital, where Kishan, of Lakarpur village, Faridabad district, expired.

Two of the injured were discharged from the Civil Hospital last night.

The police has identified the six injured who are still in the Safdurjung Hospital as Pinki, Dinesh and Virender, all locals, Anil from Mathura district in UP and Krishan whose details have not been ascertained yet.

Meanwhile, the police said it arrested the driver of the bus late last night, in Gurgaon.

Rohtak, January 21
More than half of the Public Information Officers (PIO) in Haryana have failed to pay the fine imposed as penalty on them by the State Information Commission for their failure to render information to the applicants within the prescribed time under the RTI Act. This pertains to a period of about 19 months, ending September as the total amount of fine imposed and dues to be recovered come to about Rs 9.50 lakh and Rs 6.02 lakh, respectively.

The revelation comes in the wake of an RTI query sought on the issue recently in which it is stated that as many as 77 officers working as PIOs in various departments did not pay the fine imposed on them by the Chief Information and Information Commissioners of the state between January 1, 2010, and September 30, 2011. The PIOs were liable to pay the fine if they failed to provide the information sought by an applicant within the stipulated period under the provisions of the RTI Act.

The reply states that while a total of 134 officials had been penalised with amounts ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 25,000, more than 50 per cent did not pay the fine. According to a report, 66 cases of fines imposed by the three Information Commissioners during the period have remained unpaid. 

Chandigarh, January 21
In yet another instance of making a mockery of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Hooda government wants to keep the functioning of the current Vidhan Sabha a closely guarded secret. Even as the Haryana Government prepares to add a chapter on the RTI Act in the curricula of schools and colleges, it has virtually denied information about various queries related to the functioning of the current Vidhan Sabha to a local advocate, Arvind Thakur.

While no information had been provided on the six queries raised by Thakur in his application, the query relating to the details of the salaries and allowances of the Chief Minister, ministers, Chief Parliamentary Secretaries and the MLAs has evoked partial response.

The reply to the information sought said the Chief Minister received Rs 40,000 as salary, Rs 20,000 as sumptuary allowance and Rs 2,000 as the office allowance. Similarly, the Cabinet ministers and ministers of state were provided Rs 40,000 as salary, Rs 15,000 as sumptuary allowance and Rs 2,000 as the office allowance.

However, there was not a word about the remaining information sought by the applicant. The applicant wanted information about the total expenditure on the conduct of business in the Vidhan Sabha. Besides, he had asked about the number of boycotts resorted to by the Opposition and individual members. He also wanted to know the number of questions asked by the people’s representatives in the House.