Fatehabad, February 12
Teams of medical experts from the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS), Rohtak, have reached here for a door-to-door survey for Hepatitis-C beginning in Ratia block of the district from tomorrow.

The survey, ordered on the personal intervention of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, will continue for two weeks.

Dr RB Jain, a Professor of community medicine, Dr RP Verma, a Professor of general medicine, Dr PS Gill, an Associate Professor in the Microbiology Department and Dr Ramesh Verma, an Associate Professor in the Medicine Department of the PGIMS, Rohtak, arrived here today with their team of doctors.

The 27-member team includes four senior residents, eight junior residents and 11 interns.

As many as 20 laboratory technicians from Fatehabad and surrounding districts, who have received special training in the PGIMS for this purpose, will accompany the medical experts during the survey.

“The teams will conduct door-to-door survey of the entire Ratia block to detect cases of Hepatitis-C and during the survey, the laboratory technicians will take blood samples of suspected cases,” said the Civil Surgeon, Dr Suraj Bhan Kamboj.

“The teams will conduct Rapid Test on over 10,000 people between the age of 18 to 60 years during their mopping and screening operations on a population of about 2.25 lakh people,” he added.

In cases where any member of the household was found infected from Hepatitis-C, all members of the house irrespective of their age would be tested for the disease, he said.

Nearly 270 cases of Hepatitis-C have been detected in Ratia and surrounding areas, according to the health authorities.

The health authorities admit that the number might be much higher, but it, they said, would be clear only after the mopping and screening drive.

Local residents allege that several deaths have also occurred due to the disease during the past three years.

Residents, who have been alleging a slack attitude on behalf of the health authorities in this regard, had brought the matter to the notice of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, when he visited Ratia in connection with the November 30 bypoll last year. 

Sirsa, February 12
In a case of an educational institution siphoning off scholarship money of a girl student belonging to the Scheduled Caste after her death, the DSP (Detective), Puran Chand Panwar, has recommended registration of an FIR against its managers.

The case pertains to a polytechnic college run by Shaheed Bhagat Singh Social Welfare Trust that has admitted to the withdrawal of money, but maintained that the institution had since refunded the money and deposited it back in the bank.

Facts of the case tell that Shimla Rani, daughter of Sahib Ram of Odhan village, had died of illness on February 7, 2011. She was a student of first year of electrical trade in the polytechnic.

The institution received two instalments of Rs 12,050 each against her scholarship, which were deposited in the Kalanwali branch of a nationalised bank in an account opened in her name on February 28, three weeks after her death.

While opening the account, someone faked the dead girl’s signatures in the bank.

The first cheque for Rs 12,050 was deposited in this account on March 7 and an amount of Rs 11,950 was withdrawn from the account on March 15 by faking Shimla’s signature.

Another cheque of Rs 12,050 was deposited in the account on June 28 and an amount of Rs 12,000 was withdrawn from the account against fake signatures on the same day.

A former employee of the institute exposed the fraud after he left the job.

The bank manager has maintained that the verification of the student’s signatures by the institute was required at the time of withdrawal of money and the polytechnic authorities duly did that.

The bank manager also confirmed that the money had since been deposited back into the account.

The girl’s father, Sahib Ram, who runs a public distribution ration depot, said he tried to provide technical education to his daughter so that she could stand on her own two feet, but destiny had something other in store for her.

He said he was shocked to learn that the polytechnic authorities stooped so low that they siphoned off the scholarship money of his deceased daughter.

Ashok Singla, Director of the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Social Welfare Trust, maintained that a former accountant of the polytechnic was responsible for the withdrawal of funds. The DSP, Puran Chand Panwar, who conducted an inquiry after the complaints, however, maintained that it was a clear case of fraud and he had recommended the registration of an FIR.

Sirsa, February 12
Continuing their ongoing offensive against medical intoxicants, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials today sealed one drug store at Dabwali and checked stocks of some others in Sirsa and Dabwali.

Adarsh Goyal, Senior Drug Control Officer, Hisar, said today’s raids were based on the revelations made during their interrogation of the two chemists arrested by the police for stocking narcotics in their unauthorised godowns at Dabwali.

Accompanied by a police party and the two accused, who are in three-day police custody, the Drug Control Officer, Sirsa, Vijay Raje, today sealed SS Pharma on the Colony road, when the owner did not turn up despite being asked to open the shop.

The team also checked another firm, where they recovered oxytocin injections kept without following the norms about storage conditions.

Later, the team checked three pharma distributors in Sirsa town and recovered cough syrups and other pharmaceutical products used for a kick by youths.

“I have asked the dealers to furnish the sale and purchase record of these products to find out whether there are any irregularities,” Vijay Raje said.

In a massive drive against medical intoxicants, five teams of the FDA officials had sealed six shops and recovered a huge cache of drugs from six shops and two godowns at Dabwali on Friday.

The police has arrested two chemists, Rajesh and Sajan, on the complaint filed by the FDA and a local court had sent them to three-day police custody yesterday. 

Gurgaon, February 12
Haryana Minister for Excise, Taxation and Public Health Engineering Kiran Chaudhary has exhorted the people to teach a lesson to those political leaders who were hand in gloves with the land-grabbing mafia and involved in illegally occupying government land.

The minister was in the city yesterday to participate in the annual function of Lotus Valley International School in Sector 50 of Gurgaon

Responding to a question asked by a journalist about the encroachment on Public Health Engineering Department’s land at Sohna, she maintained that when the matter was brought to her notice by some residents of Sohna, she wrote to the Chief Minister and the Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner, requesting them to get the encroachment removed.

Though the minister did not name any politician in particular, she has earlier questioned the role of Sohna MLA and Chief Parliamentary Secretary Dharambir Singh in the entire episode.

On being asked about the callous attitude of the officers and employees of her department, the minister asserted that if any official of her department was found involved in this case, strict action would be taken.

The minister reiterated that the land belonged to the Public Health Engineering Department and the Municipal Committee of Sohna had no right to move any proposal concerning this land.

"The land is worth crores of rupees, and nobody will be allowed to grab it," she affirmed.

Chaudhary also appealed to the managements of all schools to launch awareness campaigns for conservation of environment.

Hisar, February 12
4The DHBVN has decided to install overhead fault passage indication system to locate fault in electricity supply lines instantaneously and restore supply in the case of tripping or a breakdown.

A DHBVN spokesman said 2,010 fault passage indicators (FPIs) would be installed on 134 high-revenue feeders, 70 in Gurgaon operation circle and the rest in Faridabad operation circle, at a cost of Rs 3.52 crore.

Tenders had been floated for installation of the FPIs. He said 15 devices would be installed on 11-KV overhead lines of each feeder. Each feeder would be provided the FPIs at five locations. Each location would have three FPIs, one FPI per phase.

This device would help officials locate the fault expeditiously, thus reducing the time needed to restore supply. In turn
this would help save revenue, which would otherwise be lost in the case of long outage. — TNS

Kaithal, February 12
Following directions of the Deputy Commissioner, A Mona Sreeniwas, a special anti-encroachment and a cleanliness drive was launched in the town here yesterday. A team of officials comprising SDM Hawa Singh, DSP Nripjit Singh, Rajbir Dhiman, Tehsildar, Rohtash Bishnoi, Executive

Officer, local municipal council, the police force and municipal staff was pressed into service as also a JCB machine to remove unauthorised temporary structures. Heaps of garbage accumulated at certain places were also lifted. The goods kept by shopkeepers under the railway over bridge on both sides of Chatrawas road, Chandana gate, Kabootar Chowk, the Gyarah Rudri road and the New Karnal road, which were obstructing the normal traffic and caused inconvenience to road

users, were removed. The SDM said the drive would continue and videography of places where the shopkeepers encroached on public roads would be done and the administration would take stringent legal action against such elements. The CCTV cameras at all important places would also be installed to keep a constant watch over the situation.

A number of town residents appreciated the cleanliness drive and the action taken by the administration against encroachers. They demanded that such drives should be a regular feature so that there was fear in the mind of all those who mocked at the law. 

Rewari, February 12
Following a directive issued by a local court on a petition filed by Anuradha, an arbitrarily “abandoned” wife of Kuldeep, the Khol police of the district, has registered a case of remarriage without any dissolution of his first marriage with his living wife Anuradha and subjecting her to cruel treatment for dowry against her husband Kuldeep, father-in-law Ram Kishan and mother-in-law Savitri Devi, all residents of Gadaipur village under Pataudi police station of Gurgaon district.

Police sources said that Anuradha, daughter of Vishnu Dutt of the nearby Siha village, who got married to Kuldeep on November 27, 2009, was allegedly harassed persistently for more dowry by her in-laws. Further, recently, when her husband Kuldeep reportedly contracted a second marriage with his colleague Manisha, who was a teacher in the same school in which Kuldeep was working as a teacher, Anuradha, who got unnerved, filed a petition in a local court seeking relief and justice for herself.

The court has now directed the police to take cognizance of the alleged criminal activities of her husband.

A senior police officer said the matter was now under investigation.

Chandigarh, February 12
While Haryana faces a shortage of around 15 lakh housing units, the Haryana Government seems to be in no hurry to finalise its housing policy, which has been hanging fire for several months now.

With the Hooda government taking its own time in finalising the housing policy, around 99 per cent of the homeless in the state, who belong to the poorer sections of society, are at the mercy of private builders to find a roof over their heads.

The Census-2011 has put the rural housing shortage at 8.99 lakh and urban housing shortage at 5.56 lakh. And an overwhelming majority of the homeless in the state have encroached upon the prime government land, creating law and order problems for the district administrations.

The proposed housing policy, which had earlier been discussed even at Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s level, focuses on the need for involving private players by offering major concessions like exemption in the stamp duty, external development charges (EDC), infrastructure augmentation charges and licence fee to augment the efforts of the state government to provide houses to the shelterless.

Incentives like double floor area ratio (FAR) and transferable development rights to undertake housing projects for the economically weaker sections (EWS) and the lower income group (LIG) were also proposed to the private players.

In fact, it is a double whammy for the homeless desiring a dream house in the state. The land cost alone comes to Rs 2,200 to 4,445 per sq ft in hyper, Rs 2,000 to 4,400 per sq ft in high, Rs 900 to 1,800 per sq ft in medium and Rs 700 to 1,400 per sq ft in low potential areas of the state. Further, burgeoning population has pushed up the land prices in the “lal dora” of villages.

While admitting that the housing policy has been delayed, official sources blame the delay on the administrative changes in the state government.

SK Gulati, former Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Housing, went on a deputation with the Delhi Development Authority a few months ago, while MK Mahajan, Chief Administrator, Housing Board, Haryana, retired recently. New officers are taking time in understanding the functioning of their departments, the sources added.

However, a senior government functionary claimed that the proposed housing policy needed to be “fine-tuned” so that the state government continued to act as a facilitator in the acquisition of land by private agencies.

Strict conditions needed to be imposed on builders so that they reserved a minimum percentage of area for the economically weaker sections of society, he said, adding that the state government would finalise the housing policy soon.

Hisar, February 12
Haryana Janhit Congress chief and Member of Parliament from Hisar Kuldeep Bishnoi has claimed that the HJC-BJP alliance would provide a stable and popular government in the state after the next Assembly elections.

Addressing a series of meetings in villages of the Hisar Lok Sabha seat recently, he said the Congress governments at the Centre and in many states, including Haryana, had been rocked by scandals and scams. But the party was sticking to power despite having lost popular support.

He said the Hooda government in the state was no different and it was in office because of defectors from his party. He said the days of the Hooda government were numbered, as defectors were likely to be unseated soon.

The INLD had suffered serious blows in the recent byelections, which showed that it was yet to regain popular support it enjoyed till 2005.

The HJC-BJP nominees’ victory in Hisar Lok Sabha and Adampur Assembly seats proved that the alliance had caught people’s imagination. He said unlike other political alliances, the HJC-BJP alliance was based on certain principles and it would provide a stable and corruption-free government in Haryana.

Sirsa, February 12
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Haryana, has sanctioned the prosecution of 12 hookah bars of Haryana under the Drug and Cosmetic Act after samples of tobacco molasses cake taken from them tested positive for nicotine, a drug causing dependence and even fatal in some cases.

The prosecution is likely to prove a big deterrent for hookah bars that have mushroomed across the state attracting school going children and college students towards addiction. Some more prosecutions are expected in the coming months as the FDA has so far received reports of 60 out of the 100-odd samples taken from hookah bars in Haryana. “This will be the culmination of our efforts of last four to five months towards ending this new menace, which was affecting our youths in large numbers,” said GL Singhal, Joint Commissioner (Drug), FDA, Haryana.

It was a PIL against the hookah bars filed by the Burning Brain Society in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2007, which turned the FDA’s focus on this issue.

The high court, in its orders issued in July 2010, directed the state government to take action.

The Director-General of Health Services, Haryana, handed over the matter to the FDA.

Sonepat, February 12
Several plot holders of tdi Green, Sector 16, on the outskirts of Sonepat town today staged a dharna in front of the company’s main gate in protest against the company and the district administration for not giving possession of their plots booked in 2005. They also handed over a memorandum of their demands to Congress leader and former CPS Anil Thakkar.

Talking to mediapersons at the dharna site, Anil Manchanda, president of the tdi Green Plot holders Association, Sonepat, said the the company had booked 850 plots in 2005, assuring that the company would give possession of the plots within three years.

Manchanda said though the plot holders had already paid 70 per cent of the land cost and the entire development charges, the company had neither given possession of the plots not carried out any development in the area.

Manchanda threatened that if their demands were not accepted, they would be left with no other option than taking possession of their plots and carrying out development activities in the area