Bathinda, June 17
Prolonged spell of heat in Bathinda has taken eight lives this summer so far. With the maximum temperature touching more than 40 degrees centigrade, it becomes quite difficult for the poor to survive, especially when the humidity is excessive.

Vagabonds, labourers, the elderly, the poor and their children are at the receiving end as they hardly manage to find a space to get rid of the excessive heat accompanied by high humidity.

Volunteers of various NGOs who are active in the city, and are extending a helping hand to the poor said so far, eight people have lost their lives in the city due to the intense heat. Those who have lost their lives belong to poor families and their bodies were found lying at public places where there was no facility of cold water or shelter.

"We got a call for help from the local bus stand today in the evening at around 4 pm. We found a 24-year-old youth lying unconscious near the Chandigarh counter of the bus stand," said Vijay Goyal, president of the NGO, Sahara Jan Sewa.

Goyal said the youth was suffering from fever and his body was burning due to the heat. The doctors tried to save the boy by putting a piece of cloth soaked in water on his forehead but he could not survive. The deceased has been identified as Rahul, son of Parkash Chand. He was a ragpicker and had been residing on Ajit road.

Goyal said that those died earlier were in the age-group of 25 to 75 years.

The overexposure of the human body to the intense heat dehydrates the body and has lead to the death of poor people in the city, Goyal added.

He pointed out that due to slow evaporation, the body fails to maintain normal temperature and many of the poor who live under the open skies, lose their lives due to lack of care. "Most of the victims were picked up from the highly congested areas like bus stand and railway stations where they were overexposed to heat and suffered from acute fever due to pollution and poor quality of air," said Goyal. All the eight deceased are men. This is mostly because men dehydrate faster than women, he added.

Bathinda, June 17
The biology textbook of the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) for Plus Two classes, according to which exam papers for various competitions are set in the country, is full of glaring mistakes.

"In circulation since 2006, the book has 15 mistakes that can cost dear to the medical students at a time when even an error of 0.1 marks makes a huge difference in the merit list," pointed out a local biology lecturer, Rajesh Kumar Singla.

Earlier, in 2005 too, Singla had pointed out mistakes in the NCERT book to the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) , which was rectified on the intervention of the then President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. He again plans to write to the MHRD requesting for fresh corrections and clarifications.

Singla points that the details mentioned in the book are so confusing that they would harm a student instead of helping him. "This is a basic book that lakhs of children follow throughout the country. Moreover, the book is not self-explanatory and students cannot understand its proposition on their own," he said.

In the absence of clarity of concepts in the NCERT, the private publishers are minting money. Shockingly enough, the Punjab State Education Board (PSEB) has not even recommended the NCERT book in its syllabus section and rather mention the books of private publishers not only for biology but for physics and chemistry as well.

Singla pointed out that since private publishers do not have the services of reputed researchers, wrong information in the test-books can prove lethal for those appearing in competitive exams.

Bathinda, June 17
A teenaged boy and girl were among three people seriously hurt in a cylinder blast on Haji Rattan road today in the evening.

The injured have been identified as 20-year-old Rupinder Kaur, their neighbour who was of similar age, Romi and a mason working in the house, Sukhvir Singh.

The LPG cylinder burst at around 7 pm. Local residents and volunteers of the NGO, Sahara Jan Sewa, reached the place and helped in shifting the injured to the Civil Hospital. The volunteers said the girl and the mason are quite serious and have been referred to a private hospital on Barnala road.

Volunteers of Sahara said preliminary reports suggest that the girl was cooking something and when she noticed the LPG cylinder leaking. She ten went to switch off the refrigerator when the LPG cylinder exploded. Residents said they had witnessed such a blast for the first time in their area. Police too reached the place and enquired into the incident.

The walls of the kitchen and a portion of the house collapsed immediately after the blast. It took a while for people to enter the house and trace the people trapped inside.

Bathinda, June 17
The Municipal Corporation Bathinda's (MCB) finance and contract committee (F&CC) would be meeting on June 19 to discuss ten economic issues related with various works in the city.

The Corporation has mooted the proposal of cancelling the contract awarded to Shubham Creators for advertising on plates installed on the grills of the divider at the Mall Road. The agency has not paid yearly advertisement tax (Rs 2,070,000) despite repeated reminders.

The agency was awarded contract to use 920 plates for advertisement purposes and 460 plates for writing slogans given by the MCB. The agency was given contract on July 15 last year. It was served reminders to submit the entertainment tax. The company refused to pay tax at the rate of Rs 450 per plate and stated that it would pay a mere Rs 22 to Rs 50 per plate.

The agency has also been served show-cause notice more than ten days ago but the MCB is still waiting for its response. Legal proceedings would be initiated against it to recover the tax amount.

Taking advantage of the lackadaisical attitude of the corporation, even agencies involved in laying roads have started taking a lenient view of the show-causes notices served to it. Besides Shubham Creators, even the Krishna Construction Company (entrusted with the work of laying carpet premix on the roads and streets in ward number 20) chose not to reply to the show-cause notice served to it.

The agency had laid premix carpet in August last year. The Corporation wrote

to it on February 22 stating that repairs be done on the potholed roads. The agency replied stating that it would be done after the foggy season is over. However, the agency did not carry out any work, nor did it reply to the show-cause notice served on April 12.

The Corporation has also proposed to forfeit the security of Rs 75, 960 of the aforesaid agency. The corporation has decided to outsource the de-silting of sewer at Thandi Sarak despite giving Rs 1.8 crore to the Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board annually. For the de-silting at Thandi Sarak, using super sucker machines, tenders were invited on May 14 and bids from three companies would be discussed and decided upon.

Bathinda, June 17
Four people were injured in a collision between two cars on the Bathinda-Rampura road. The injured have been identified as Deepak Kumar, Kewal Krishan, Kuldeep Singh, Vikram Sharma and CBS Shastri. Volunteers of Sahara Jan Sewa rushed the injured to the Civil Hospital.

The volunteers said one of the cars were coming towards Bathinda and the other towards Barnala. Two of the passengers received injuries and were referred to other hospitals in view of their serious condition.

In another incident, a resident of Guru Arjan Dev Nagar was injured in an accident on Dabwali road. The injured, Kewal Singh was taken to the Civil Hospital. He car suffered a fractured in the leg. — TNS

Bathinda, June 17
Police have booked a resident of Ganganagar for cheating a person in Bathinda on the pretext of helping his son get a job in the Railways at Jammu.

The accused Raj Kumar has been booked by the Kotwali police under section 420 of the IPC on the complaint of Kuldip Singh, a resident of Mini-secretariat Road, Bathinda.

The officials of the economic offences wing (EOW) said many cases, where parents eager to get their sons government jobs are cheated, come to light.

Policemen investigating such cases said many a time, the accused return the money only after the registration of cases. "There are many who return the money once they are threatened with police action. Others return the money after the registration of cases under various sections of the IPC for cheating,” said the EOW officials. There are many who return the money when they came to know that they would soon be arrested by the police and will have to go to jail.

Police said the members of these gangs become active whenever government jobs are advertised in newspapers. This time, the victim was caught in the web of the accused when a large number of posts were advertised by the Railway Board in Jammu. These fraudsters remain in touch with the middlemen and the victims through mobile phones and the Internet, the police cautioned.

Bathinda Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishore Yadav (third from left) during the concluding day of the two-day refresher course for the district revenue officials in Bathinda on Sunday. A Tribune Photograph

Fact file

• Resource person Vinod Kumar Bansal talked about methods pertaining to division of agricultural land, important instructions for filing application for the same, documents to be prepared by the field staff, ways of filing objections and others.
• Resource person HC Bansal talked about ways to redress revenue cases, ways of summoning parties in new cases, way to file appeals, pay fees, review and revenue.

Bathinda, June 17
Three inmates lodged in the Bathinda Central Jail have been booked for possessing smack and other intoxicating material under various Sections of the NDPS Act at the Civil Lines police station.

A case was registered against the inmates afterthe jail superintendent lodged a complaint with the police. The accused have been identified as Satvir Singh, Ajaib Singh, both residents of Mansa and Gurtej Singh of Kotra Kaurian Wali village.