Jalandhar, March 21
Proposed over two years ago, shortage of funds has come as a major glitch for the Chandan Nagar railway underbridge (RUB) project.

The project is to be executed by the Public Works Department (PWD). However, the compensation for the land to be acquired for the project is to be given by the Jalandhar Municipal Corporation, which amounts to Rs 17 crore. The fund-starved MC has already stopped almost all ongoing development projects and is not in a position to part with funds for the RUB project. Earlier, the infighting in the BJP and delay in consent from the landowners delayed the project.

Meanwhile, residents of the area have been demanded early construction of the RUB as they claim that their passage remains blocked throughout the day with 120 trains passing on the New Delhi-Amritsar track in 24 hours.

The Rub once constructed would be of immense use for residents on the either side of crossing, including those residing in the Sodal area, Deen Dayal Upadhaya Nagar, Gopal Nagar and Chandan Nagar. The RUB would also make commuting easy for students of SD School, Seth Hukum Chand School and Shiv Jyoti School.

A number of accidents have taken place at the crossing in the recent past, especially during the Sodal mela.

The project had been approved by the MC in August 2010 with an allocation of Rs 8 crore. However, the cost jumped to Rs 20 crore last year after the cost of land acquisition was added. The fresh allocation for the project would again have to be cleared in the budget meeting likely in a week's time. The Railways had given its nod for the construction of the RUB last year.

Jalandhar, March 21
Complaints of child labour in city are mounting by the day. The city-based 1098 Childline has sent two specific complaints to the labour department regarding child labourers working in some stalls and shops of the city. However, both the complaints lie unaddressed.

The letters, addressed to the Assistant Labour Commissioner on February 28 and March 7, talk about three cases of child labour in which the exact locations of the shops or stalls in which children are employed are mentioned. In one case, even the name of the shop has been given.

The letter sent on February 28 says that three children have been employed at a tea stall opposite a famous hotel and some at a scrap dealer's shop in the Kishanpura area. The name of the shop has been mentioned in the letter. The letter shot off on March 7 talks about a child labourer employed at a meat shop in the city. The complaint letters state that children are working in these shops in violation of the Child Labour Act.

Members of the 098 Childline have personally visited the shops and verified the cases, the letters state. The Tribune is in possession of both the letters

The then Assistant Labour Commissioner (ALC) of Jalandhar, Bipin Parmar, has been posted to Amritsar a few days ago. The new ALC, Satnam Singh, holds the additional charge as he is posted at Moga.

When contacted, Satnam Singh said: "I have just joined. So I don't know about the child labour cases."

When quizzed why he did not take action on child labour complaints, former ALC Bipin Parmar said: "The complaints came just a few days before my posting to Amritsar. I had marked the cases to labour inspectors for inquiry. The inspectors had always been on the lookout for such cases during their routine inspections."

Sources say the labour department fails to take action on complaints due to dearth of rehabilitation homes in the district. 

Jalandhar, March 21
Government’s lofty ideals of quality education in big classrooms with adequate furniture fall flat on face as the Government Primary School in Kishanpura suffers from poor infrastructure.

The lack of rooms and furniture has kept the school on a constant crisis. Teachers here spend more time on figuring out where to place the children than teaching them. For 333 students in the primary schools, there are only 50 benches and six rooms.

Teachers said they could have provided better education if the infrastructure was proper.

The school premises houses a high school, a primary school, an Anganwadi centre and a special training centre (STC). The high school has adequate rooms. The STC (25 students) and Anganwadi Centres (23 students) function in two small, cramped classes.

It is the primary school that suffers the most, sources said. Be it winters or summers, the students have to sit on tattered rugs spread on uneven school courtyard or veranda floors. “During rains, students of different classes huddle in one classroom. On those days we cannot take classes,” said a senior teacher.

Last year there were 150 students, now it has doubled which make is more difficult for us, teachers said. Mid-day meal is the prime reason why students are still coming to school. The school needs at least three more rooms and benches for over 100 students, they added.

The headmistress of the school said, “We have sent repeated requests to the education department to give us more rooms and furniture. But nothing constructive happened.”

Two rooms of the school have been declared unsafe by the government so those have been locked up. Now since these two rooms stand on the land of the Wakf Board, the school can’t even ask for grants for reconstruction of that portion, said teachers.

Jalandhar, March 21
This is the time of the year when the Punjab Technical University amasses crores of rupees by levying entrance test and counselling fees from thousands of applicants.

The fund collection is bound to be higher this time as the university will also be conducting entrance test and counselling to MBA and MCA seats in five universities of the state in addition to the annual counselling of BTech, MTech, M Pharmacy and other courses.

Last year, the university had collected about Rs 7.5 crore from BTech admissions only. There were nearly 25,000 applicants, all of whom were expected to pay up Rs 3,000 as counselling fee. The university is expecting a jump in the number of applicants this year.

Admision in the MBA course will help the university to earn another Rs 4 crore. “Even if the number of applicants remains the same as last year-10,000 applicants-then the university will get Rs 4 crore. The applicants are to pay Rs 1,000 as entrance test fee and Rs 3,000 as counselling fee,” an insider calculated.

The university has already declared May 27 as the date for entrance test for Management Entrance Test (MET)/Punjab Admissions to MCA-Common Aptitude Test (PAM-CAT). The details of the same are available on the official website www.met2012.com.

The online application process began yesterday and will continue till May 10. Applications with late fee will be accepted till May 17. The results will be declared on June 11 and the counselling will start on June 15.

The five participating universities in the test are PTU, Guru Nanak Dev University, Punjabi University, Punjab Agricultural University and Sri Guru Granth Sahib World University at Fatehgarh Sahib. While the last two universities offer the course only at their main campuses, PTU has 109 affiliated colleges, Punjabi University has 27 colleges and Guru Nanak Dev University has seven campuses.

Jalandhar, March 21
A team training seminar of Rotary Club was held on Tuesday under the chairmanship of District Governor Upkar Singh Sethi. About 150 delegates from Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh attended the event.

Jalandhar, March 21
The fire brigade today had a tough time locating the exact place of fire. After receiving a call on its toll-free number about fire in a scrap shop, a fire tender rushed to the spot, but failing to locate the exact location, it kept on making rounds on Ladowali Road for around 10-15 minutes.

Initially, fire officials thought that somebody had played a prank with them. However, after a struggle of about 15 minutes, the fire-fighting team traced the shop and doused the flames.

Fire officer Kashmir Singh said: “We receive hoax calls many times, but the fire fighters never return before ensuring that there is no fire incident.” 

Jalandhar, March 21
Students of the pre-primary and primary wing of the Apeejay School, Rama Mandi, enjoyed fun filled activities at a spring carnival organised in the school premises. In this carnival, students went for yoga and meditation in the morning where they learnt many asanas and enhanced their concentration power.

They learnt many cooking recipes without the fire in the Khana Khzana section. They learnt to play Casio, harmonium and xylophone. The art and craft section was based on the theme ‘best out of waste.” They prepared wreathes, tables mats and birthday caps with waste paper, wool, balls etc.

Jalandhar, March 21
Aimed to provide education to the visually impaired and the physically challenged people, the local Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya conducted a five-day UGC sponsored workshop on ‘talking books.’ The training concluded here today.

The workshop was organised by the ‘cell for physically challenged’ under the ‘Higher Education for Persons with Special Needs (HEPSN).’ This organisation introduced the production of ‘talking books’ for the print-disabled people like visually challenged, dyslexics, persons with low vision, slow learners and senior citizens.

In this Rs 9 lakh UGC project, as many as 11 professionals and students from the local educational institutes took training on how to record books in CDs through innovative screen reading software.

Resource person of the programme, Deepika Sood, said, “In the year 2001, as a student of National Association for the blind Delhi, I was selected for Digital Accessible Information Systems (DAISY) consortium in Thailand. There I learnt about the talking books. Later, when I joined the NGO Saksham, we took up this project on a large scale.”

She also said she was keen to initiate a regional chapter of the NGO in Jalandhar, which would help scores of special students to pursue their education. “The visually impaired students face a lot of hardships using Braille books as these are quite bulky. It is easy for such students to listen and grasp subjects,” she added.

Dr Prem Sagar, the coordinator of the programme and associate professor in music, said recently they recorded an NCERT political science book of Class X.

“We want to inform such students, their parents and faculty so that they can approach us and get their books recorded,” he added. “Even the software to read and play these CDs is easily available at a cost of Rs 5,000 plus. It is one time input and life long solution for the visually impaired to fulfil their dream of pursuing higher education,” he added. 

Jalandhar, March 21
The CT Institute of Technology organised an AICTE-sponsored seminar on entrepreneurship development titled “Promoting entrepreneurship through incubation” in which issues pertaining to the impact of entrepreneurship and the role of entrepreneurs in the new marketplaces were discussed.