The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Budding docs live with fear of water ailments
Balwant Garg
Tribune News Service

Faridkot, May 11
Amidst reports of high level of uranium and other dangerous heavy metals found in water samples taken from the region, instead of making the people aware about the danger of using the toxic water and make them understand the risk factors, over 300 medical students of Guru Gobind Singh Medical College (GGSMC) here are themselves living with the fear of falling victim to the contaminated water.

The GGSMC is one of the three state-run medical colleges in Punjab.

The only source of water in the GGSMC hostel for graduate and post-graduate medical students is the groundwater, which is being used for cleaning, cooking, maintaining personal hygiene and even drinking.

While studies conducted by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre confirmed high uranium content and heavy metals in the groundwater in the area, the occupancy rate in the GGSMC hostel is poor for the last three years as students prefer to stay outside. Thanks to the poor quality of drinking water, over 200 students out of total 300 are not staying in the hostel. They are staying as paying guests in private lodges in the town.

Only 80 students stay in the medical college hostel, confirms Kanwaljit Singh, the hostel warden.

Even the students living in the hostel use bottled water for drinking purpose. The shabby condition of the hostel kitchen is a telling commentary about its ‘health’. Most of the hostellers rely on the tiffin supplied by some private kitchens and dhabawalas in Faridkot, said the students.

Four years ago, the Water Supply and Sewerage Board used to supply treated canal water to the hostel but due to some technical problem, the supply was stopped. Later, several borewells were dug to supply water to the hostel. But the water was not treated before it was provided to the students for drinking purpose.

“Funds were a problem. But we are doing our best in providing the maximum and the best we can with the available funds,” said the hostel warden.

“The last two years saw many renovation works in the hostel. We are hopeful of more improvement in the coming days,” said the GGSMC principal, GC Ahir.

Contaminated water

n Over 300 students of Guru Gobind Singh Medical College residing in hostel are scared of falling victim to the contaminated water.

n The only source of water in the hostel for graduate and post-graduate medical students is the groundwater, which is being used for cleaning, cooking, maintaining personal hygiene and even drinking.

n As a result, over 200 students out of a total of 300 are not staying in the hostel. They are putting up as paying guests at private lodges in the town.

n Even the students living in the hostel use bottled water for drinking purpose. Most of the hostellers rely on the tiffin supplied by some private kitchens and dhabawalas in Faridkot.

Bt cotton turning Malwa into Vidarbha
Megha Mann
Tribune News Service

Subhash Sharma of the Vidarbha region in Maharashtra interacts with mediapersons at the Teachers’ Home in Bathinda on Friday. Sharma is the first organic farmer in the country to award bonus to his labourers. Tribune photo: Pawan Sharma

Bathinda, May 11
The cotton-growing Malwa belt of Punjab is headed towards becoming another hotbed of farmer suicides after Vidarbha, in the next few years if farmers continue farming Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton and did not adopt natural farming.

Like Maharashtra, the Punjab Government should also rise from its slumber. Instead of endorsing the Bt, the government should exhort its farmers to shift to organic farming, said Subhash Sharma, an organic farmer from Yavatmal, the cotton city of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

Sharma, who is in the city to attend the three-day Vatavaran Utsav, is the first organic farmer in the country to give bonus and annual travelling allowance to his labourers.

Talking about exploitation of farmers at the hands of multi-national companies, he said, “The cotton consuming firms control cotton markets in India. They identify a pocket, devise genetically modified (GM) seed and pesticide manufacturing to concentrate on a particular pocket, sap it and leave it to die. Earlier, it was Vidarbha and now, it is Punjab’s Malwa region.”

He added that since Malwa’s earth was more fertile than that of Vidarbha, the former had chances of revival if farmers there start loving the five elements they were currently at war with. “Soil, water, seeds, crop rotation and crop cycle are the five disturbed factors. Sadly, MNCs control the first three factors,” said Sharma, a commerce graduate who turned to organic farming in 1994 when Vidarbha farmers were committing suicide.

It was the story of a Japan-based farmer and another organic farmer Bhaskar Save that motivated Sharma to do away with chemicals and opt for the natural farming system. Today, he gets three crops from his 30 acres while farmers around reap one crop only.

A few years ago, he had realised that the success was not one man’s crown. “Without dedicated labourers, organic farming was impossible. It was then I made the labourers my partners,” says the man who has 20 labourers working under him. The labourers go on annual trips to religious places together while Sharma bears the expenses. He reasoned that when farmers demand bonus from the government, it should reach farm labourers’ hands too.

Coloniser leaves colony residents in lurch
Main approach road to Faridkot colony built on land owned by Rajasthan govt
Balwant Garg
Tribune News Service

The approach road to the colony, which has been raised on the land owned by the Rajasthan government. A Tribune photograph

Faridkot, May 11
Over three years after they sold their assets and added their life-time earned money to purchase houses in a government-approved colony in Faridkot, about one hundred of these residents now feel cheated and disappointed.

Much to the dismay of the residents of a Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA)-approved colony in Faridkot, the Park Avenue Colony, the main approach road to the colony has been constructed on an encroached portion of land.

The colony promoter has laid a concrete approach road to the colony on the land which is the property of Rajasthan government.

Now, the Canal Department of the Rajasthan government wants the colony promoter to vacate the encroached land and pay `6.21 lakh as annual user charges for an illegal use of the land.

While the colony promoter is in no mood to pay the user charges to the Rajasthan government, more problem awaiting the colony residents is that they have no other alternative approach route to the colony.

The Saraswati Builders Pvt Ltd, the promoter of the colony, was issued a licence by the PUDA on May 27, 2005, to raise a colony in the area of 21.006 acres in Faridkot.

But what left the colony residents in lurch was a notice from the Sub-divisional Officer (SDO) of the Rajasthan Feeder Canal. In the notice (No. 397), the SDO alleged that despite many notices to the colony promoter to vacate a 207-feet long stretch of the Rajasthan government land, the land was not vacated. Rather a concrete road was laid on the land. So, the promoter is bound to pay `6.21 lakh as annual user charges for using the land.

It is not only the Park Avenue Colony that was allegedly encroaching upon the land owned by the Rajasthan government but many marriages palaces and dhabas dotting the Faridkot-Talwandi Bhai bypass road in Faridkot have also encroached the Rajasthan government’s land.

The Rajasthan government is the owner of over 2 lakh acres in the south-west Punjab after it was acquired for the construction of a canal in 1960s.

Traversing through Ferozepur, Faridkot and Muktsar districts, the first 167 km of the canal lies in Punjab. A wide strip of thousands of acres that runs parallel to the canal is lying unused, thus making it vulnerable to encroachment.

About11,000 feet long portion of this land is exposed to the encroachment as it runs parallel to the Faridkot-Talwandi bypass, said Kulwant Singh, a junior engineer of the Rajasthan Canal.

Fazilka-Abohar rail link
Traders, passengers mull rail roko agitation
Praful Chander Nagpal

Fazilka, May 11
After exhausting all the peaceful measurers against the Railways for getting the running of trains on already completed Fazilka-Abohar rail track started, the Northern Railway Passengers Samiti and the Beopar Mandal, Fazilka, have decided to launch a rail roko agitation against the Railways.

There is a great resentment amongst the residents of the area as the track lies useless despite the fact that a hefty sum of `216 crore has already been spent on the project. Hence, the NGOs have decided to fight against the problem till it reaches its logical conclusion. The project was completed in March 2011.

In a memorandum sent to the Railway Minister Mukul Rai, the Chairman Railway Board, and the Divisional Rail Manager, Ferozepur Division, president of the Beopar Mandal Fazilka Ashok Gulbadhar and Dr Amar Lal Baghla, president of the Northern India Railway Passengers Samiti, have warned that if the trains were not run on the track by June 14, the area people would be compelled to resort to agitation.

“During the agitation, the members of NGOs would initiate an indefinite dharna before the railway station and would stop all trains to Fazilka,” said Gulbadhar and Baghla.

They have pleaded that after making the track operational, the border area from Jammu (J&K ) to Jaisalmer would be directly connected through the rail network, which shall ultimately benefit the defence forces also.

Besides, the Railway Minister had in preceding two budgets of 2011-12 and 2012-13 declared to introduce an express train from Ferozepur to Sriganganagar (Rajasthan) and Bathinda to Fazilka via Abohar.

Surprisingly, these trains are shown running on this “completed” rail track in the Railway time table. But due to indifferent and callous attitude of the Railway authorities, the basic infrastructure was yet to be completed for practical purposes, rued the leaders, adding that the department has to bear huge revenue losses every year for non-commencement of the track.

DRM assures of resolving problems faced by passengers
Tribune News Service

Muktsar, May 11
To solve the long-pending problem of railway passengers — waiting in queues to get tickets — the Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Naresh Goyal on Wednesday said within a short period, the passengers would not have to wait in queues, as the official at the ticket counter would get the tickets ready, a few minutes before the departure of the train.

The DRM, who had joined only a few days back, was on his first visit to the railway station. He inspected the railway tracks, platforms, toilets and met locals to know about the problems being faced by them.

“After coming here, I saw a large number of passengers standing in queue to get the tickets. There is only one man behind the ticket counter, so I have asked the officials concerned to get a few tickets ready before the departure of a train so that the tickets could be issued to passengers quickly,” said the DRM, Northern railways, Ferozepur division.

He further said the department was facing huge staff crunch, so it was not possible to appoint one more person at the ticket counter.

About the construction of a railway overbridge (RoB), he said the work would be started once the funds are received.

On a number of issues raised by Sham Lal Goyal, president of the National Consumer Awareness Forum, the DRM said he had noted down all the issues and would try to find out solutions for the same soon. He also asked Sham Lal to visit his office at Ferozepur to discuss the things in detail.

The DRM said that the time-table of a few trains would also be changed, just to connect them with other trains.