Sirsa, June 7
Farmers who produced certified seeds of guar for the Haryana Seed Development Corporation (HSDC), a state government undertaking, feel cheated as the agency has earned a huge profit by selling their crop at five times of the purchase rate while they got much less than the market rate of the crop.

The HSDC’s website claims that it has been set up with the objective of organising production and distribution of seeds to Haryana’s farmers at a reasonable price.

Now, have a look how the corporation served farmers by producing its seed on their lands and then selling the produced seed back to them for a huge premium.

The HSDC produced 1,300 quintals of guar seed on farmers’ fields, paid them a little over Rs 8,500 per quintal, and then sold it to farmers for Rs 40,000 per quintal, thus spinning profits of Rs 4 crore.

Out of the 1,300 quintals of seed produced in Haryana, nearly 750 quintals was produced in Sirsa alone.

Looking into the spiralling prices and the consequential increase in demand, the HSDC has set a target of producing 2,500 quintals of guar seed in the current kharif season.

“This is not done. While other farmers of my village were getting Rs 35,000 per quintal for their crop by selling it in the open market, I received one fourth of this. When the corporation is getting Rs 40,000 per quintal, the agency ought to pass on the profit earned due to market trends to the farmers too,” lamented a farmer from a Sirsa village.

Om Pal Singh Panwar, manager of the HSDC at Sirsa, however, said that earning profits was never the motto of the corporation, which aims at organising production and distribution of seeds to farmers.

The HSDC sources said the price to be paid to the farmers was decided by giving 30 per cent hike on the rates of the crop prevalent between December 15 and December 31, 2011, which was Rs 6,500 per quintal this time.

However, the price of guar spiralled after December and the crop that fetched Rs 2,200 to Rs 3,000 per quintal last year shot up to Rs 35,000 per quintal this year.

Panwar said the price for the sale of seeds was fixed by taking market rates of the crop, which went up to Rs 35,000 per quintal this year, into mind as selling seeds below this rate would lead to its black marketing.

Karnal, June 7
Two villagers received gunfire injuries as two groups clashed with each other after the district revenue officials redistributed 400 acres of disputed land in Lalupur village here today.

The two injured were identified as Naresh and Darshan of Lalupur village. They alleged that they had been injured as the police opened fired at them but district police chief Sushank Anand denied the allegations.

The SP said the Revenue Department had sought security from the department as 400 acres of land had to be redistributed among the rightful owners of the land as per the court orders. He said those from whom the possession was taken and those who got the possession of the said land, clashed with each other after the revenue officials and the police teams returned from the village and this was when the two sustained injuries.

According to district revenue official Dalel Singh, the 100 acres of land was a part of 3,000 acres of disputed land located across four villages, including Lalupur, Amritpur Kurg, Amritpur Karwali and Amritpur Kalan. He said many people claimed to be the owners of this land but after the matter pertaining to 2,000 acres was settled in the court, this land was handed over to the rightful owners in 2000 by the district authorities.

However, the remaining 1,000 acres continued to be under possession of individuals, some of whom managed to get stay orders from the SC.

He said that there was no stay order on the land and the court had recently directed the authorities to restore this piece of land to its rightful owners.

Panipat, June 7
Kanak Tayagi, 18, committed suicide by jumping into a canal here today as he was reportedly disappointed with his Class XII examination.

Kanak, a student of Haryana Model School in Samalkha, went missing after the Haryana School Education Board (HSBE) declared Class XII results on Tuesday. His family told the police that Kanak had failed in one of the exams and was upset with his performance. He had taken his bike and left home and did not return.

The police after searching for him on Wednesday recovered his body from the canal at Khubru village. The body was shifted to the mortuary of the Civil Hospital from where it was handed over to his family members.

The deceased was the grandson of Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) leader NL Tayagi.

Sirsa/Fatehabad, June 7
Despite assurances of the authorities, the menace of stray dogs continues unabated in Sirsa and Fatehabad.

In fresh canine attacks in the area, two black bucks have been mauled to death in Badopal village of Sirsa while another was injured in an attack by dogs in a Sirsa village in the past two days.

A pack of dogs chased a black buck on the outskirts of Badopal on Tuesday and they were feasting on its flesh when members of the Bishnoi community shooed them away.

Another animal was injured in the canine attack on Wednesday.

It succumbed to its injuries later.

Similarly, stray dogs injured a black buck in a Sirsa village on the World Environment Day on Tuesday.

The Bishnoi Sabha brought the injured animal in a function organised on this occasion and showed it to the chief judicial magistrate, Harish Gupta, who was presiding over the function and sought his intervention in ending the stray-dog menace.

“Over 70 black bucks have lost their lives in dog attacks in Bishnoi- dominated villages of Hisar, Fatehabad and Sirsa during the past six months,” said Rameshwar Dass, state president of the Akhil Bhartiya Jeev Raksha Samiti, Haryana.

He said the members of the samiti at Adampur on the occasion of the first death anniversary of former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal on May 3 and all expressed concern over the unabated poaching of black bucks by hunters and their killings by stray dogs.

“We have decided to give a memorandum signed by one lakh Bishnois to the President of India to seek her intervention,” he said.

Black buck is a protected animal under the Wildlife Protection Act and its poaching invites imprisonment.

Though the authorities, both in Fatehabad and Sirsa, had announced to take steps to eliminate stray dogs after a girl was mauled to death in canine attacks at Bahiya in Sirsa and some others, including a woman, were injured in the two districts, but nothing has happened on the ground so far.

Wildlife authorities in Sirsa captured a few dogs in one village, while the dog shelter set up in Fatehabad is still awaiting its first “guest” as the village panchayats and the municipal committees, who are supposed to capture dogs, have not so far initiated the process.

Sonepat, June 7
A one-and-half-year-old boy died of drowning in the West Yamuna Canal when the car in which he was travelling with his father, mother and sister fell into the canal near village Kailana this evening. However, the timely help of the villagers saved the lives of Rakesh, his wife Kavita and their five-year-old daughter Manshi.

The victims were rushed to the civil hospital by the police where the doctors declared one-and-a-half-year old Dev as brought dead. According to information, Rakesh along with his wife and children was returning to his village from his in-law’s place in Sardhana. Meanwhile, he lost balance of the car following a puncture in its front wheel and as a result it fell into the canal. Seeing this, the villagers reached the spot and rescued them from the car. Luckily, the water in the canal was flowing in half its capacity. The car was taken out from the canal with the help of a JCB machine.

Ambala, June 7
Team Anna core committee member Kiran Bedi today said the documents on corruption charges against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his 14 cabinet ministers, which were submitted to UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, would also be provided to the leaders of the opposition parties soon. She, however, said the final decision in this regard would be taken in the core committee meeting only.

Talking to mediapersons here, Bedi sought an independent special investigation led by some retired Supreme Court judge to probe the charges of corruption against the prime minister and other ministers. She warned that if action was not taken in this regard by July 15, the civil society would launch an indefinite agitation.

When asked why Team Anna did not include Sonia Gandhi’s name in the corruption chargesheet, she said since the charges were mentioned in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), it was not them who actually leveled these charges. She added that Team Anna had not made any investigation against Gandhi in this regard so far.

Bedi could not give a firm reply when asked if Team Anna will prepare a charge sheet against some of the tainted opposition leaders. She said for the time being the team was concentrating on the UPA government.

Gurgaon, June 7
More than a fortnight after the registration of a multi-crore fraud case against former Reebok India MD Subhinder Singh Prem and former COO Vishnu Bhagat and denial of anticipatory bail to them, investigators have failed to make a significant breakthrough in the matter.

Reebok India management had lodged an FIR against its two former top functionaries in May, accusing them of having defrauded the company to the tune of Rs 870 crore. The company had sacked the two in March.

Prem and Bhagat have vehemently refuted the accusations and maintained that they were being targeted by the company as they had blown the whistle on certain large-scale irregularities going on there during their tenure.

Prem even moved the Delhi High Court, challenging his termination and seeking damages and contractual dues from the company management. He also sent a separate defamation notice to Adidas, seeking Rs 15 crore for damages.

While the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs referred the matter to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), the local police authorities constituted a SIT to probe the matter.

New Delhi, June 7
Finally, there is good news for the people of Haryana as the state is set to become 100 per cent defecation-free and achieve complete sanitation in next two years.

While Haryana has resolved to achieve the goal in two years, its neighbouring state Punjab has set five-year time for the same while the remaining states have given themselves 10 years’ time to accomplish complete sanitation. Having achieved 100 per cent liberation from open defecation, Sikkim is the first Nirmal Rajya and this year Kerala and Himachal Pradesh will join the ‘clean group’.

Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said this today while announcing the Cabinet’s nod for higher allocations for construction of individual toilets in the states. The clean-up plan for the country Total Sanitation Campaign now also has a new name Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan. Ramesh said the suggestions given by the chief ministers of both Punjab and Haryana have been suitably incorporated in the amended proposals.

The chief ministers of UP, MP, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Punjab had demanded fair allocation for achieving the sanitation goals. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had agreed to an increase of more than 100 per cent in the allocations for the construction of individual household latrines. Considering the close link between lack of hygiene and malnutrition, the government has also decided to scrap the distinction between BPL and APL families.

The Cabinet has made toilet construction mandatory for availing funds for the Indira Aawas Yojana. For the first time, solid and liquid waste management has been approved for villages on the model of towns and cities under which the gram panchayats will get from Rs 7 lakh to Rs 20 lakh depending upon their population size. In another decision, the Union Cabinet today approved the release of 50 per cent share of the Centre for recapitalisation of the remaining regional rural banks (RRB). The issued capital of the RRBs are shared by the Centre, the concerned state government and the sponsor bank in the proportion of 50 per cent, 15 per cent and 35 per cent respectively.

New Delhi, June 7
Haryana yesterday said that every schoolchild should be given a unique identification number to enable a system of child tracking across the education sector in the country.

Geeta Bhukkal, the Haryana Education Minister, said while participating in the 59th meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education that enrolment figures across the districts were more often than not fudged and there was need to create a child-tracking system.

“Most of the schools show higher than actual enrolment and diversion of funds cannot be prevented. We have outsourced the provision of midday meals to ISKCON in some parts of the state and they tell us how their food gets wasted every day because there are lesser students in school than the school registers show. This is a serious problem which needs attention,” Bhukkal said.

She suggested that every child enrolled in the elementary school system under the Right to Education Act be assigned an ID to enable the administrators to know their exact numbers.

“That will also help us ensure that the entitlements under the RTE go to the eligible child and are not wasted or lost due to loopholes in the system. We can also use this ID to track the progress of scholarships,” she said.

Bhukkal was also nominated yesterday by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal to head the CABE subcommittee set up to review the progress of Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation in schools. She is already heading yet another subcommittee the CABE had earlier set up to see if the RTE Act can be extended to pre primary and Class X. The Act currently covers children aged six to 14 years.