Jalandhar, April 13
The Supreme Court's ruling on the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, has left a majority of private schools in the district fuming as they say 25 per cent reservation is too much.

In its historic order on Thursday, the SC upheld the constitution validity of the RTE Act, ruling that all schools covered under the RTE Act will now have to compulsorily reserve at least 25 per cent seats of the total class strength of Class I (or nursery at entry level) for children of the weaker sections and disadvantaged groups. Only unaided private minority schools have been exempted.

The government schools are already providing free education to students.

There are 162 (unaided, affiliated) schools under the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) in the district. The government aided schools are 53. There are 57 private schools under the CBSE and ICSE boards.

Principals Speak

Harbhajan Kaur, principal of Swami Sant Dass School, said: "We support the SC ruling. We have already been providing free education to a little percentage of our students. Now, we will just have to expand it to 25 per cent. The admissions for the upcoming session are over. But we plan to comply with the order from the next session."

Sarvesh Deol, principal of Dhilwan International Public School, said, "We support the decision. Our admission process is almost over. We will only be accepting students till April 15. If people from poor families approach us in the next couple of days, we will gladly give them admission."

Satwant Gakhal, principal of MGN Public School, said: It's a tricky situation. We have already been providing free education to some students. Our admission process has always been open to children of yellow card holders. We have also adopted students from a local orphanage. This year's admissions are done. But we shall be complying with the ruling from the next session on."

Sapna Bakshi, principal, Eklavya School, said: "We are upbeat about the ruling and I believe we will not have much trouble complying with it either because about 20 per cent of our students at the entry level are already from the underprivileged sections. Right now, we are charging nominal fee of Rs 100 to 200 from these students. We will now expand the percentage to 25 per cent and stop charging 
the little fee, too, to comply with the ruling."

Autonomy challenged

Though managements shied away from openly criticising the ruling, some principals have viewed the ruling as an infringement on their autonomy.

Fee hike on the cards

Some schools are already mulling the possibility of a fee hike. They say: "When 25 per cent are supposed to be provided free education, their burden will automatically fall on the rest of 75 per cent. If we have to provide high-end facilities like latest technology and quality amenities, we will have to generate the funds from elsewhere. So either we will have to hike the fee or deprive the 75 fee-paying students from quality education."

Poor don't come

Some principals said they had tried this in the past, but it did not work. "Most of the parents send children to our school because of the status tag. We might like it or not, but they do not like their children mingling with the poor. Attempts by us to accommodate more poor children in the school have been met with fierce opposition time and again. Not just finically, but socially, too, implementation of the act is going to be a very challenging task."

Criteria

Some schools also asked questions about the criteria of admission. They said yellow card holders would be provided admissions but how do they decide among the rest whether who is poor. How do they verify facts regarding the poor financial situation of an applying student without a yellow card?

Implementation

Some supportive schools also said they would implement the Act, but which body would make sure that the 25 per cent reservation is being applied strictly in all the private schools? Who would make sure that the ruling doesn't meet the same fate as government education has in Punjab?

Jalandhar, April 13
Even as the Municipal Corporation authorities and the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited are playing the blame game, families of the girls who were electrocuted at Bharat Nagar a couple of days ago have an option to move consumer forum to seek compensation.

Deepika and Madhu were electrocuted while playing badminton on the terrace on April 10 night.

In a similar incident in Visakhapatnam, the district forum had awarded a compensation of Rs 5 lakh and Rs 25,000 for the mental agony to the family of a 15-year-old boy, who was electrocuted in 2002.

In another incident, the Madras High Court Bench in an order passed in September 2011 had upheld the orders of a single judge directing the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board to pay Rs 7.75 lakh to a widow and two children of a farmer who was electrocuted when a live overhead cable snapped and fell into a water body while he was bathing his bull.

Former member of the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum Surinder Mittal handed over copies of the judgment of both the cases claiming that the parents of the two girls were liable of drawing compensation.

The incident of the death of the Visakhapatnam boy was similar to that of two girls here. The boy, who passed his Class X examinations in first class, went to his aunt's house in RR Venkatapuram of Vepagunta panchayat in 2002 during his summer vacations. In the night, he went to the open terrace to relax. He leaned on the parapet wall and came in contact with a high-tension wire running close to the building. He suffered serious burns and succumbed to the injuries in King George Hospital. The boy's mother, Nagam Jagadamba, residing in Prahladapuram, lodged a complaint with the forum against the electricity authorities.

The electricity authority argued that the wires were laid much before the house was built and therefore it was not liable to pay any damages. "People constructed houses in violation of building rules and failed to leave vacant space, mostly encroached the road margins and projected balconies and terrace. It had no control over these unruly activities and the house owners were responsible for such untoward incidents for constructing the house without maintaining sufficient distance from the electrical lines," the authorities had countered the claim.

The forum, however, disagreed: "The bill collectors and officials for checking meters generally visit now and then all the houses having service connection. Even otherwise, while passing through streets, one can see connections going from poles resembling spider's web and high-tension wires without any shell hanging over. The power authorities cannot disown the responsibility in case of negligence in the process of supply. When there is a danger 
to life and property of people, they cannot venture to delay measures to prevent the risk. High-tension wires running overhead in close proximity without shell 
is an imminent danger," it observed, while holding it as a case of deficiency in service. 

Jalandhar, April 13
Commissioner, Jalandhar Division, came as a surprise visitor at the e-fard centre at the tehsil complex last evening. After conducting a video conference with the DCs of the division on the digitization of the land records and updation of the matter on the web portal www.plrs.org.in <http://www.plrs.org.in>, Divisional Commissioner Anurag Verma quietly paid a visit to the fard centre to see its working.

Verma found that manual fards were still being delivered for which records had already been made available online. He directed the staff to put a list of 120 villages that had been made online. He asked them to display a rate of Rs 20 for the visitors' information. Verma directed the staff not to get the form filled for the purpose as was being done earlier, for it did not add any value to the information received by the method. "This will also speed up delivery of service," he added. The administration has plans to put the record of 883 villages of a total of 1,005 in the district on the web in a month's time. The record of 120 villages is already being made available through e-patwaris or the assistant system managers deputed at fard centres in Jalandhar, Nakodar, Shahkot, Adampur, Bhogpur and Kartarpur. — TNS 

Jalandhar, April 13
Four months after it was officially inaugurated, the Bharat Ratna Dr BR Ambedkar Bhawan still wears a deserted look as the office of the social welfare department is yet to be shifted here from the district administrative complex.

Built at an estimated cost of Rs 1.15 crore, the bhawan was constructed considering a dedicated location for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Backward Classes (BC) from the district to receive information of all centrally and state-sponsored flagship programmes for them.

However, ever since it was inaugurated, the bhawan has been lying vacant, thereby depriving the SC and BC community of their right to get information and submit forms of welfare schemes under one roof.

The idea of bhawan was initially conceived about 18 years ago, but it took long for the successive governments to materialise it and allocate funds and start the construction work.

It was also decided that the bhawan was to be used for providing free coaching of various entrance exams to SCs, BCs, financially weaker sections and other bright students for entrance exams to different professional colleges. The bhawan would also house a library and a hall to be used for holding social functions and meetings. The bhawan was inaugurated hurriedly ahead of the Assembly elections on December 18 by the Minister for Welfare of SCs and BCs, Gulzar Singh Ranike. However, the local population learnt about the inauguration only when they saw the foundation stone installed at the entrance of the bhawan bearing the name of the minister.

At least three foundation stones were laid for the bhawan by politicians of the successive governments. The first foundation stone was laid by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in 1999, the second by Ranike in December last year. The third stone was laid by former Congress MLA Mohinder Singh Kaypee in December 2006 during his tenure as the Minister for Welfare of SCs and BCs, but it is nowhere to be seen. 

Jalandhar, April 13
Political leaders and councillors have decided to join a protest to be organised by the Jalandhar Real Estate Dealers and Builders Association tomorrow at Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall against the increase in collector rates.

The District Congress Committee (DCC) and realtors held separate press conferences today to announce the protest rally. They said a dharna would be held on Monday in front of the office of the Deputy Commissioner.

Similar facts were quoted by Bhupinder Singh from the realtors group and Arun Walia, president of the DCC. Walia said the DC office was misguiding by claiming 15 to 40 per cent raise in the collector rates as he had found that certain areas, including Dhaliwal village, had seen 800 per cent hike. “While earlier the agricultural rates were just Rs 20 lakh for an acre, these had been hiked to Rs 1.75 crore an acre,” he claimed.

He quoted the rates of Green Avenue where residential rates of Rs 90,000 a marla and were upped to Rs 3,95,000. All areas had been given the same rate of Rs 3.95 lakh a marla even as those on the farther sides or less developed pockets were priced far low in market, he claimed. — TNS

Jalandhar, April 13
It was water colours and nature that ruled art group Srijan's 7th Annual Painting Exhibition which started at Virsa Vihar here on Thursday. In a three-day exhibition this year, eight artists of the group have explored the joy of water colours. And it wasn't inadvertent.

"The increasingly diminishing use of water colours in art works prompted the group members to take the decision," said artist Ashwini Sharma.

Painting with water, they said, requires an extremely masterful hand, but yet the medium was being sadly ignored by artists. Equally interesting was their theme this year - field trips of Srijan members to the beautiful scenic spots of Mengrowal, Chauhal and Damtal constituted the subject matter of their paintings.

While most of the paintings brought to life the beautiful vales and hamlets at Hoshiarpur, there were some paintings from the artists' personal collection, too.

The participating artists included Ashwini Verma, Bharat Bhushan, Harinder Singh Bhatti, Harish Verma, Sushma, Sudhamani Sood, Neeru Grover and Archana Verma.

Bharat Bhushan's style stood out for its masterful strokes and blurry, fluid trees, resplendent colours and play of contrasts.

Harinder Bhatti's captivating Dal Lake frames were also pretty.

The mood of the empty (but somehow happy) school buildings, teeming with glorious greens and little playful birds got to the onlooker.

Sudhamani, Harish Verma, Neeru Grover, Archana and Sushma also made pleasant brief departures from their previous, albeit loved, styles.