Sirsa, June 30
In perhaps, the biggest loss of cotton due to fire in north India so far, goods worth over Rs 24 crore were destroyed in the godown of Agro India Limited, a leading company of the country for commodity trading in agro-products, here in the old industrial area.

The godown caught fire last evening and it could not be extinguished till the filing of this report despite the fact that over 20 fire tenders have been working round-the-clock since the fire started. The fire was so strong that it blasted away the entire ceiling and some walls of the 225-feet long and 115-wide godown within hours of its beginning.

Sirsa Deputy Commissioner J Ganesan, SP Devender Singh Yadav and other senior officers of the district remained near the fire site till midnight. “As many as 13,680 bales of cotton valued at Rs 24 to Rs 25 crore have been destroyed in the fire,” alleged Harish Chander Dadheech, Procurement Manager of the company for Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan. He said the cause of the fire was not known yet.

Dadheech ruled out the possibility of an electric short circuit, as there was no power connection in the godown and added that the chances of mischief were also bleak as the godown was completely sealed from all sides. “The inferno was so strong that the flames went as high as 100 metres in the sky. Sitting in my cotton factory some 2 km from the fire site, I could see the flames that appeared so close to me,” said Gurpreet Singh Nagpal of Royal Cotgin, Sirsa, who is secretary of the Sirsa Cotton Industries Association.

Nagpal said mercifully, due to the company’s purchase policy, all the bales were tied with metal strips. “Had these been tied with plastic strips, as many cotton ginners do, the fire could have proved devastating for people living in the radius of 5 km, as the tightly packed cotton erupts like bombs when the pressure of strips is released due to their melting,” Nagpal said. Senior officers of the United India Insurance Company had arrived in Sirsa for survey of the loss.

Rohtak, June 30
Numerous loopholes have been reported in the public distribution system (PDS) for ration card holders in the district. Besides the supply of substandard items, a majority of the card holders have one complaint or the other. There are over 2.51 lakh ration card holders and around 274 ration depots in the district .

Several irregularities have been highlighted in a survey conducted by the district unit of the Akhil Bhartiya Janwadi Mahila Samiti here recently. The samiti said the average quantity of wheat given to a BPL card holder was between 30 and 32 kgs against the allotted 35 kg per month.

Beneficiaries get sugar only three to four times in a year against their per month quota was also of poor quality. Many card holders prefer to purchase this item from the open market. The samiti visited six residential colonies, including Kabir Colony, Sugar mill Colony, Sher Vihar, New Janata Colony, Gaddi Kheri Road and Hari Singh colony in the town. Kerosene was also given after two or three months. The survey reveals that a majority of the depots remain open only for two or three days in a month

''The harassment of consumers, especially women, at the hands of depot holders is routine but they avoid lodging a complaint with the officials concerned in this regard'', claimed Mukesh Malik, a spokesman of the samiti. She claimed the quality of food items supplied was generally poor and sometimes unfit for consumption.

Of the 251619 card holders, over 40,000 belong to the BPL category and about 1.99 lakh to above poverty line category. Around 5,998 benefeciaries are covered under the Antoyodya Yojna.

Sirsa, June 30
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Haryana, and the health authorities in Sirsa have initiated two parallel inquiries into the allegations of refusal of blood for a poor accident victim, Sikander (32), who eventually died due to excessive loss of blood.

A team comprising Senior Drug Control Officer Adarsh Goyal and two Drug Control Officers Nripen Goyal and Vijaya Raje arrived in Sirsa today for this purpose while a panel of three doctors, the Deputy Civil Surgeon, Dr Viresh Bhushan, Dr Rohtash and Dr Viresh Bhushan, constituted by the Civil Surgeon, Dr Daya Nand, has already recorded statements of different parties.

The two inquiry teams will probe the role of a blood bank in the General Hospital, which did not have the stock of A+ blood needed for the patient, as also of the Shiv Shakti Blood Bank that allegedly refused to provide it without money.

Shiv Shakti Blood Bank, incidentally, is a charitable society and it accepts donations, which are exempted from income tax and collects nearly 10,000 units in blood donation camps in a year.

Girdhari Lal Singal, State Drug Controller-cum-Joint Commissioner of the FDA, Haryana, who is also the licensing authority for blood banks in the state, said he would initiate action against whichever of the two blood banks was found guilty of the lapse. 

Gurgaon, June 30
A tyre warehouse was gutted in a major fire today. No one was injured in the incident, an official said.

The warehouse built on 2.5 acres of land is situated in Bilaspur town on the NH-8, some 32 km from here. It was shared by firms that supplied tyres to Maruti, Honda and Hero Moto Corp. The fire broke out at 3 am.

Twenty fire tenders were pressed into service. Due to an accident at 5 am, the national highway lane from Delhi to Jaipur near Manesar was blocked. The fire fighters were then sent to the spot through the Pataudi road. "It took about half an hour to reach the spot as the vehicles had to cover 15 km extra," said fire officer Ishwar Singh Kashyap.

Kashyap said the NOC from the Fire Department was not obtained by owner of the warehouse. The roof sheds of the warehouse in about one acre collapsed, making it difficult to bring the fire under control. The firemen had to work hard to protect an Indian Oil petrol pump near the warehouse.

The fire was brought under control by 10 am, but could not be completely doused even after 15 hours of the incident. —IANS, TNS

Rewari, June 30
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh on Dr Usha Sachdeva, director-cum-proprietor of Sachdeva Hospital and Nursing Home here, holding her liable for medical negligence and deficiency in service in a case pertaining to the delivery of an expectant woman, Komal Kathuria, here in February 2010.

Besides, the forum has also directed her to pay Rs 5,500 to the complainant, Kathuria, to cover her litigation expenses.

A certified copy of the judgement, which was delivered here recently by Vinod Jain, president of the forum, was made available yesterday by the complainant’s counsel, Ashwani Tiwari.

According to the facts of the case, when Kathuria, a resident of Mohalla Guria Sarai, complained of labour pains, she was admitted by her family members to the above hospital on February 2, 2010.

Dr Sachdeva, who initially opined that she expected a normal delivery, put them in an acute embarrassment when she, at the eleventhth hour, asked them to shift the woman to some other hospital as it was a caesarean delivery and her own surgeon was not available in the hospital at that odd hour.

Under such circumstances, Kathuria was somehow taken to another hospital where she delivered a baby girl through caesarean operation.

Subsequently, a petition was filed by the aggrieved woman in the above forum to seek relief against the “callous” treatment meted out to them at the above hospital.

Chandigarh, June 30
The Haryana Government has issued transfer orders and gave additional charge to nine IAS officers. They will hold the charges in addition to their present duties.

Rajiv Arora will hold additional charge as Director General, Industries and Commerce and Mines and Geology, Haryana, HS Malik will hold the charge of Special Secretary, Public Health Engineering Department and Managing Director, Haryana Seeds Development Corpn. While DPS Nagal will be Chief Administrator, Haryana Housing Board, in addition to his present duties.

Chander Prakash will also hold the charge of Administrator, HUDA, Hisar, CR Rana will also be Managing Director, Federation of Cooperative Sugar Mills Ltd (Sugarfed), Panchkula, Neelam Pradeep Kasni, awaiting posting, is Special Secretary, General Administration and Special Secretary, Secretariat Establishment and Monitoring and Coordination Departments. Rakesh Gupta will also be Joint Secretary, Health, while Pradeep Kasni will be Director, Consolidation of Holdings, Director, Land Records, Haryana, Special Collector (HQ) and Special LAO, Haryana, and Joint Secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management Department, in addition.

Sonepat, June 30
To avenge the alleged dowry death of their sister, Mukesh, her brothers, Pawan and Naresh of Khanda village in Jind district, shot dead her husband, Sunil of Murlana village, under Sadar police station, Gohana, at his house in the village this morning.

Sunil was reportedly performing ‘pooja’ in a room on the first floor of his house when the alleged accused went inside the room and fired at him from a close range and escaped on a bike after committing the crime.

On the complaint of Sunil’s mother, Vidya Devi, a case of murder has been registered against the alleged accused.

According to the complaint, Sunil’s in-laws had also come to Murlana to mourn her death as well as to take part in a panchayat meeting called for effecting a compromise between the two families.

Mukesh committed suicide on June 26 by consuming some poisonous substance and on the complaint of her father, Balwan, a case under the Dowry Act was registered against Sunil, his brother, Dalip, sister, Sheela, and his sister’s husband, Brij Mohan, of Thaska village.

Mukesh was married to Sunil in 2000 and the couple had two sons, Niket (5) and Pavitra (2). It was her second marriage. Earlier she was reportedly married to a military man and after his death, his property and pension was in her name. The pension and property was reported to be the bone of contention between the two families and resulted in two untimely deaths. 

Panipat, June 30
The district police today arrested six persons in connection with the escape of murder accused, Vikram, who was whisked away by eight persons after they attacked a police team near Hathwala police station in Samalkha segment of the district on Thursday.

The police said six out of the eight persons had been arrested while two others and the murder accused, Vikram, were yet to be traced. Those arrested from Hisar were identified as Suryakant, Vinod, Parveen, Ravi, Sanjay and Pardeep while Pawan and Anil Bhadu were yet to be arrested.

The gang of eight accomplices had followed Vikram all the way from Hisar and attacked the policemen as they were waiting for a bus.

Vikram, a 22-year-old final year BTech student, who belongs to Dhollu village in Fatehabad, was brought here as he had to take his final-year examination at a local engineering college. 

Jhajjar, June 30
The Jhajjar police today booked a criminal case against nine residents of Guda village under Sections 147, 149, 283 and 341 of the IPC for blocking the national highway. Some more villagers are also being identified to include their names in the case.

The district administrative authorities have warned villagers that road blocking was a punishable act hence anyone had some grievance should approach the department concerned for getting it redressed instead of sitting on the road. “Besides other hindrance, commuters have to face lot of difficulty in reaching their destination following the road blockade hence no one found to be involved in road blocking will be spared at any cost,” said the authorities.

Notably, protesting against ‘failure’ of the district administrative authorities in providing adequate supply of power and drinking water to villages despite giving assurance in this regard, a significant number of residents of Guda village here had blocked the vehicular traffic outside the village on the NH-71 for over two hours yesterday .

The protesters agreed to remove the blockade after a joint assurance made by the SDOs of the Power Corporation and the Public Health Department that supply of power and water would immediately be restored as per old schedule. The protesters had stated there was no schedule of electricity and water supply here. “Our daily routine has adversely been affected due to acute scarcity of power and potable water in the village,” said the protesters.