Gurgaon, June 24
The death of four-year-old Maahi, who fell into an open borewell in front of her house at a village near Manesar, has underlined the gross violation of orders of the Supreme Court, the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) prohibiting digging of borewells in the district.

Investigations made by The Tribune reveal that Gurgaon was almost completely dependent on groundwater until 1995, before the Gurgaon Water Supply Canal, a 69-km channel to bring water from the Western Yamuna Canal, was constructed.

As the water supplied by the canal was much less than the massive demand, a bigger canal, the NCR Water Canal, with a capacity of 800 cusecs, was constructed at a cost of Rs 322 crore.

More than a year after its completion, "technical glitches" continue to dog the canal and it is yet to be commissioned. That perhaps explains overexploitation of groundwater in Gurgaon, where the demand has shot up sharply with the district's emergence as a hub of automobile, garment, IT, ITES, and BPO sectors.

With this, a large number of residents of Gurgaon city as well as its surrounding villages have found a lucrative livelihood: rental income. To make the most of it, many residents have built haphazard multi-storey buildings with a number of rooms. These rooms are rented out to migrant workers employed here.

Each such room has multiple occupants, which increases the requirement of water.

As the piped water supply is grossly inadequate, especially in the rural areas, the building-owners have opted for borewells.

This has continued even after a ban on borewell digging by the apex court, high court and the CGWA.

And, as most of the villagers/residents are enjoying the handsome and steady rental income, nobody complains to the authorities concerned. Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner PC Meena says the district administration had dismantled and sealed as many as 538 illegal borewells in the past year.

Terming the Maahi episode "unfortunate", Meena said an FIR had been lodged against the landowner, Rohtash Tayal of Delhi, as well as the drilling agency, for illegally digging the borewell.

"Several teams have been formed to arrest the persons responsible for the tragedy. Strict legal action would be taken against them," he said, adding a magisterial probe has already been ordered.

Chandigarh, June 24
The Haryana Education Department seems to be sitting on an inquiry report of alleged misappropriation and siphoning off of funds meant for various schemes of the department.

While the inquiry report pegs the embezzlement at over Rs 61.54 lakh, the amount could go up further as no record of vouchers or bank cheques was made available to the committee.

Sources said the entire scam was carried out by two clerks posted in the office of the District Elementary Education Officer, Narnaul, by way of transferring money and diverting it to their personal accounts, overdrawing and not depositing the unutilised balance.

The inquiry report prepared by four officials of the department states while no records of vouchers and cheques were made available to them during the investigations conducted in February and March, they have based their findings on bank statements, main cash-book and the bank passbook.

The two clerks, alleged involved in the entire scam, neither appeared before the committee nor provided the various cash books, which recorded the expenditure made under various heads since 2006 and no record register of cheques issued, sometimes under the signature of a senior official, was maintained.

Besides, while no bank reconciliations were carried out, the department, too, carried out no internal audit, facilitating the two in siphoning off funds. Consequently, the two clerks had a field day, withdrawing money for no reason and getting away scot-free.

In a detailed account of how the money was gradually siphoned off, the committee’s report shows how cheques to the tune of Rs 6.36 lakh were transferred from two bank branches to the account of one of the clerks.

In another instance, Rs 2 lakh was given by the office of the District Elementary Education Officer to the block education Office of Nangal Chaudhry for uniforms of which only Rs 72,000 were utilised. The remaining money was handed over to the clerk in cash of which record is available. He, however, did not re-deposit the amount, leading to a scam of Rs 1.28 lakh.

Then, in an account opened under the head of repair and maintenance and mid-day meal, an amount of Rs 17.90 lakh was withdrawn over a period of six months for which no expenditure record is available, indicating that this, too, was embezzled. Similarly, in a few cases, the amount needed was substantially increased by pre-fixing a digit to the actual amount.

An inquiry committee has suggested that to avoid a repeat of such misappropriation, the district offices should be directed to maintain a register of all cheques issued, conducting bank rationalisations on a monthly basis, annual internal audits and payments only through cheques.

Sources in the Education Department said that they are yet to go through the report though it was submitted in March. 

Sirsa, June 24
Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar has said India and Turkey have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for enhancing cooperation in sports and youth affairs, which would benefit Haryana the most.

He was addressing media persons after distributing sports kits to youth clubs of some villages at Sirsa today.

He said the MoU, signed recently by Union Minister of Sports Ajay Maken and his Turkish counterpart provides the framework for advancement of linkages and cooperation through sports and youth agencies of the respective governments.

The two countries will encourage and support exchanges of programmes, experiences, skills, techniques, information and knowledge in the several areas of cooperation in sports and youth activities.

The exchanges would include training and competition of athletes and teams, training and technical assistance for coaches, visits of sports administrators, professional, technicians and sports support personnel and experts, fostering youth tourism, organizing joint youth camps, friendly sports events, and training, exchange and assistance programmes for sports sciences personnel and development of sports science, the MP said.

He said that Haryana being number one state in India in the fields of sports today would benefit the most from this agreement.

Bhiwani, June 24
Eight persons, including four women, were killed and another eight, including children, sustained injuries when a pick-up van collided with a dumper near Samaspur village under the Charkhi Dadri subdivision this morning.

The pick-up van hit an electric pole after colliding with the dumper. A labourer was also injured in the accident.

It is learnt that Rekha of Nimli village and her family members were going to Badhwana village to offer their condolences. As their vehicle arrived near Birohad village, one more passenger, identified as Ankush, boarded it. The pick-up van driver lost control over the vehicle near Samaspur village and it collided with a parked dumper. The uncontrolled vehicle rammed into an electric pole after crushing the labourer.

Four persons, including three women, died on the spot, while three men and a woman succumbed to their injuries at a hospital. The deceased have been identified as Kamal, Shanti Devi, Birmati, Rekha, Ram Niwas and Sunita, all residents of Nimli village, Ankush and Ranbir, the labourer of Samaspur village.

Ranbir, Kamal and Ankush reportedly succumbed to their injuries at the Civil Hospital, Charkhi Dadri, while Sunita took her last breath at the PGIMS, Rohtak. Six of the deceased belonged to a single family.

The injured, identified as Ishwar, Sudhir, Lali, Kamlesh, Sahab Kaur, Kavita, Dinesh and three-year-old Nikhil of Nimli village, have been admitted to a hospital in Charkhi Dadri. The driver of the pick-up van is still absconding.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Suresh Hooda arrived on the spot and started investigation.

Haryana Cooperative Minister Satpal Sangwan visited injured at the hospital and told the medical officials to provide every possible medical aid to them. Sangwan said the government would bear the medical charges.

Chandigarh, June 24
The Haryana Government has released more than Rs 104 crore as grant-in-aid during the current financial year for the School Management Committees (SMC) of government schools in the state.

This was stated by Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Education, Rao Dan Singh today. He said this amount would be utilised to provide classrooms, toilets and other necessary facilities in schools. He said all 9,384 primary schools of the state had got a grant of more than Rs 4.69 crore at a rate of Rs 5,000 per school and all 5,395 secondary schools had been given over Rs 3.77 crore at a rate of Rs 7,000 per school. He said similarly all 14,779 schools had got a grant of more than Rs 11.08 crore at a rate of Rs 7,500 per school for their maintenance.

He said over Rs 60.23 crore had been given at a rate of more than Rs 3.20 lakh for those 954 schools where classrooms had been approved and to those 927 schools where rooms of headmaster had been approved.

This amount is 75 per cent of the total construction cost of one room. He said those 1,268 schools where female toilets were approved, had got a total of more than Rs 9.44 crore at a rate of Rs 74,500 per school whereas for the construction of toilets for males in 75 schools a total of more than Rs 87.96 lakh had been given at a rate of over Rs 1.54 lakh per school.

The CPS said for the construction of special toilets in 2,349 schools, Rs 11.96 crore had been given at a rate of Rs 49,800 per school. For construction of ramps in 1,318 schools, a total of over 2.84 crore had been given at a rate of Rs 21,300 and for construction of one secondary school each in Gurgaon and Karnal, a total of Rs 23.40 lakh had been given at a rate of Rs 11.70 lakh per school.

He said these grants had been sent into bank accounts of the SMCs.

Karnal, June 24
Stakeholders in the dairy sector have reason to cheer as the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) has developed six ‘kits’ to detect adulteration in milk and other dairy products. Of these, two kits have been validated by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) while four others ‘kits’ are in the pipeline for commercial use.

These “kits” were demonstrated at a brain-storming interactive session at the NDRI in which leading players from the Union Government, dairy industry, senior officials from the ICAR and leading scientists from the IITs and other research and development organisations took part.

There were many takers for these newly developed kits. The representatives of big names in the dairy sector like Mother Dairy, Nestle, Delhi Milk Scheme, Reliance India Milk Food and Damone India and state cooperatives like Vita - Haryana, Verka - Punjab, Saras - Rajasthan also took part in interactive sessions.

Director NDRI, Dr AK Srivastav said the six kits for detecting urea, bacteria, heavy metal, lysteria, detergent and aflatoxin in milk had been evolved and two of them (Bacteria and detergent) had been transferred. He said two major reasons for contamination in milk in India were that the animals secrete bacteria while milking, which could be the residue of drugs or sourced from environmental in the form of pesticides and insecticides and absence of cold storage chain as bacteria multiply in room temperature and had to be immediately transferred to cold storage at 4 degree celsius.

Panipat, June 24
Disclosure of violation of norms at two shelter homes in the district has prompted the administration to order immediate closure of these and shift the inmates to other government-aided shelter homes in the state.

The orders to shut down Sundpur Children Orphanage and Sushti Children Orphanage at Samalkha came after a special committee of the District Child Welfare Society office tabled a detailed report pointing out various irregularities in the working of these shelter homes.

Immediately, after the report was put before Deputy Commissioner Mona Srinivas, she ordered the closure of the two orphanages and asked the officials concerned to complete the modalities to shift the inmates to other government-aided shelter homes at Panchkula, MDM Child Orphanage, Karnal, and Kalyana Ashram Gandhi Memorial at Patti Kalyana in the district.

The two orphanages had come up in the district in 2006 under the provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act. However, these violated the norms by not providing proper facilities to the inmates.

Though, the administration had not confirmed if there had been any other violations, but the DC has ordered medical examination of children to ensure that inmates were not subjected to any physical torture of exploitation as it happened in case of the Rohtak shelter home “Apna Ghar”. 

Fatehabad, June 24
Large-scale impersonation and copying by keeping help books on the desks was detected when SDM Baljit Singh conducted a raid on an examination centre of a deemed university from Rajasthan at Nadhori village in Fatehabad on Friday.

Many examinees and the centre staff members ran away after seeing a government jeep from a distance, while a police party that went to the village after the raid, arrested six persons from the spot. An FIR under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC has been registered against eight persons, including a woman on the complaint of the SDM.

Deputy Commissioner ML Kaushik had directed the SDM to conduct a raid after Kartar Singh, a school lecturer, brought the matter to his notice. The SDM alleged in his complaint that he found kin of the examinees sitting with them and helping them write answers by speaking out loudly from help books at an examination centre set up in a private school. “I found that a roll number was issued in the name of Purvi Bansal, but the person who was actually taking exam in her place was identified as Rajinder Kumar Agarwal,” Baljit Singh told the police. 

Chandigarh, June 24
President of the Akhil Bhartiya Jat Arakshan Samiti Bhagat Singh Dalal has regretted that certain Jat leaders are playing politics over the sensitive issue of reservation for the community under the OBC category.

In a statement issued here, Dalal said when Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had himself taken the initiative and led a delegation of parliamentarians of other states to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to press the demand of the Jats, there was no justification of threatening to launch an agitation on this issue.

Appreciating the initiative taken by Hooda, Dalal alleged that these leaders were collecting donations by playing with the sentiments of the people, who should be cautious of such leaders. He also regretted that certain leaders of other communities were also playing politics on the issue of Jat reservation, which, he said, was the constitutional right of the farming community.

Dalal expressed the hope that Hooda would soon send the report of the Haryana Backward Classes Commission to the Centre and would also grant reservation to the Jats in the state. However, Dalal warned that if the demand of the Jats was not accepted by August 15, a countrywide agitation would be launched. 

Faridabad, June 24
Two Union Ministers, Salman Khurshid and KV Thomas, have urged Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to consider regularisaton of daily wagers of Faridabad Municipal Corporation.

The MC employees’ federation had sent a memorandum to all Lok Sabha MPs, urging them to intervene and request the Haryana Government to take a decision in employees’ favour.

Rattan Lal Rohilla, general secretary of the federation, said the ministers have sent the copies of their letters, which were forwarded to Hooda, to the federation.

The federation is spearheading the employees’ agitation for regularisation of daily wagers. Class III and IV employees of the MCF had resorted to “mass casual leave” on Thursday, completely paralysing the functioning of the municipal body.

The federation has set July 21 as deadline for regularisation of daily wagers, failing which the employees would intensify their struggle.

According to the federation, 1,036 Class III and IV employees had been working in various departments as daily wagers for the past two decades.

Sonepat, June 24
“The BPS Government Girls Medical College and Hospital at Khanpur Kalan will prove a milestone in providing the best possible medical facilities to the needy population of rural areas,” said Rohtak MP Deepender Singh Hooda while addressing a press conference at the college hospital today.

He said it was the second women medical college in the country and the first in the country which had been opened in Haryana.

The state government would leave no stone unturned in equipping the institute with the state-of-the-art medical education and treatment facilities, he said. “Within a short period of less than a year, it was being popularized as a rural medi-city,” he said.

He said after the permission of the Medical Council of India, the first academic session of 100 MBBS students for 2012-13 would commence soon. The BDS and nursing medical courses would also be started, he added.

In order to promote medical education and provide the best possible health care to the people of Haryana, he said, the state government had approved plans for setting up medical colleges in Mewat, Karnal and Faridabad. He appreciated the efforts of the director and the staff of medical college and hospital for achieving the 400-bed capacity within a period of nine months.

Listing the progress and facilities being provided in the institute, director and principal of the institute Dr R.C. Siwach said the daily OPD in the hospital ranged from 1,200 to 1,800 and the bed occupancy was around 96 per cent in the wards. Keeping in view the steady increase in the OPD and future demands, a proposal had been sent to the government for increasing the bed capacity to 800.

Sonepat MP Jitender Singh Malik, CPS Jaiveer Singh, MLA Jagbir Malik, VC Dr (Mrs) Pankaj Mittal and Pro VC, Dr Balbir Kaur of the BPS Mahila Vishwavidyalaya, Khanpur Kalan were also present on the occasion.

Later, Mr Hooda inspected the medical facilities being provided to the patients in hospital.