Does the govt itself promote encroachments?
Megha Mann
Tribune News Service

Bathinda, July 4
The Bathinda Municipal Corporation seems to be in a hurry to clear the encroachments that occupy prime land in the city. First to face the music was the slum hamlet at the rear of Pukhraj cinema and the second target has been the hutments near the Alankar cinema on GT Road.

Both the vacated areas fall under government schemes as road patches, but surrounding them are prime properties that are otherwise worthless due to the presence of slum area.

“The area around Alankar cinema costs anywhere between `50,000 to `60,000 per square yard as it is prime commercial property,” said property dealer and Congress leader, Kewal Krishan Aggarwal.

Curiously enough, in both the cases, private people have provided alternate land to those uprooted in Kheta Singh Basti area. Municipal commissioner-cum-chief administrator of Bathinda Development Authority (BDA), Uma Shankar Gupta, had categorically said the corporation had not provided any alternate land, and that the land had been arranged for the slum dwellers by some private people.

“It is a rather interesting situation where one man is paying for another man’s home in times when you don’t even say hello without any reason,” pointed out municipal councillor, Jagrup Singh Gill.

Not only have private people provided land, even the corporation has been “kind enough” to arrange tractor-trolleys to ferry the belongings of the slum dwellers to new areas.

“The entire scheme works in tandem with the government machinery. Most traders and property dealers, who own properties in these areas, belong to the ruling political parties. Taking advantage of it, they are moving people out and acting as good samaritans by providing them alternate land,” pointed out a resident of the Tagore Nagar area.

A few months ago, the Improvement Trust had got the area vacated after winning court cases, but did not provide any alternate land to the slum dwellers who were displaced.

Gill said in order to ensure its vote bank, the government as well as the local bodies, act as mute spectators when colonies are set up and later earmark hefty funds for evicting the poor.

In a way, the government is itself promoting encroachments, which leads to setting up of unauthorised colonies. In the recent list of unauthorised colonies released by BDA, all the 67 colonies of Bathinda city have the facilties of sewage, drinking water, pucca roads, power and streetlights.

“The local body has provided people with all these civic amenities that are extended to people living in authorised colonies. So, what is the difference,” asked Aggarwal.

Bathinda, July 4
If some of the stalwarts from the world of journalism are your ideals and you wish to follow in their footsteps, the first thing you need to do is study journalism or mass communication.

Surprisingly, the biggest impediment that one would face in the area is the absence of educational institutes offering under-graduate or post-graduate courses in the subject. And as a result, the aspirants have to go to other cities to pursue the same.

Institutes in the area attribute the unavailability of the course in the area to little or no demand.

Baba Farid Group of Institutions, which used to offer one year post-graduate diploma course in mass communication till two years back, decided to end the course since there were no takers. “Till two years back, we were running the course, but last year, we decided to close the course since there was no demand for it,” said a source at BFGI.

Dr JS Anand, principal of the DAV College, said, “Availability of courses in an area depends on the demand. In this region, clientele for mass communication is very low. The first condition for such a job-oriented course is employment avenues and the region is still in its nascent stages when it comes to the otherwise mushrooming media industry. Students prefer to go to cities like Chandigarh, Patiala, Jalandhar or even Delhi to take up the course so that they can have easy employment options.”

Vivekanand Institute of Management and Technology is the only institute in the city right now that offers courses in mass communication and journalism. Interestingly, the institute earlier offered one year post-graduate diploma course in journalism as a part of distance education programme of Guru Nanak Dev University in the academic years 2004-05 and 2005-06.

“The university stopped offering the course in Bathinda after the two academic sessions. Starting the academic session 2012-13, VIMS will start offering graduation and post-graduation course in mass communication, advertisement and journalism as part of the distance education programme of PTU,” says Raj Gupta, principal of the institute.

Although the admission process is at its peak across the nation, Punjab Technical University (PTU) is yet to send prospectus for this course to the institute.

“We have been told that the prospectus will be sent within a week or so. Till now, we’ve received only 8-10 queries about the course,” adds the principal.

Bathinda, July 4
As many as 12 safai sewaks, working under the private company which has been given the work of collecting garbage in the city, have fallen ill due to the heat wave.

Working without caps or other means to keep heat at bay, the garbage collectors are unable to brave the heat. As per the norms of JITF Ecopolis company, which will run solid waste treatment plant in city, the garbage collection begins at 8 pm and winds up by 2 pm.

“The sun grows quite warm by 8 am. Most of us start the collection by 7 am but we are unable to work when it grows very hot. Around ten of us have been taken ill. With no replacements, the garbage collection in the city has been hit,” confided one of the garbage collectors.

“Doing the filthy work of collecting the city’s garbage, we are anyway vulnerable to a wide range of diseases and little protection from the harsh sun is adding to our woes,” pointed out another safai sewak.

Bathinda, July 4
As many as 50 per cent posts in the district employment generation and training office here have been lying vacant, adversely affecting its functioning.

There are reportedly 20 sanctioned posts in the office, of which 10 have been lying vacant. The vacant posts include two posts of employment officer that have been lying vacant for more than five years.

Besides, five posts of clerk (out of six) are also lying vacant. Likewise, two posts of peon and a post of the chowkidar have also been lying vacant.

The post of the deputy director (employment generation and training) also remained vacant from January 2011 to March 2012 and the district employment officer, Mansa, who was given additional charge, performed duties of the district officer during this period.

The post of the deputy director was filled on April 1 this year.

Sources told this reporter that three posts of the clerk had been lying vacant for the last three years while two posts of the clerk fell vacant in the last one year. At present, the office has only one lady clerk, who is handicapped, to handle its clerical affairs.

She attends to public inquiry, carries out registration and renewal work, vocational guidance and record maintenance etc.

Sources also said that due to shortage of staff, works had been adversely affected.

Due to the shortage of staff, 'Rojgar Melas' were not being organised by the office on a regular basis. Self-employment camps for unemployed youths were also not being held.

In the 'rojgar melas', the office invited companies to offer jobs to the unemployed youths while at the self-employment camps, the office guided the youths to start their own ventures.

It is also learnt that after January 2011, 'rojgar melas' or 'self-employment camps' could not be organised.

It can be stated that in these circumstances, the district employment generation and training office is virtually unable to perform its duties in a proper manner, for which it has been established.

Bathinda, July 4
Two persons have lost their lives due to excessive heat. Some passersby informed the NGO, Sahara Jan Sewa, about a man lying unconscious near platform number 6 of the Bathinda railway station at around 8 pm. 

The volunteers of the NGO rushed the man to the local Civil Hospital where he was declared dead. The volunteers said they tried to save the man by applying a piece of cloth soaked in cold water on the body of the victim for over two hours but failed. The workers informed the GRP officials about the death of the unidentified persons and brought the bodies to the mortuary of the Civil Hospital. GRP officials said the deceased appeared to be a vagabond but they were trying to ascertain his identity. 

Inquest proceedings under section 174 of the CrPc have been initiated in this connection. In another similar incident, a 65-year-old unidentified person was lying unconscious near the Municipal Corporation office. His condition was deteriorating and he was shifted to the local Civil Hospital by volunteers of the NGO, Sahara Jan Sewa.

Body recovered from water channel

The body of a woman was fished out from a water channel near Kuttiwal village.The identity of the woman could not be ascertained. The matter was brought to the notice of the police and the body was brought to the Talwandi Sabo Civil Hospital for postmortem. The identity of the woman could not be ascertained. Inquest proceedings under section 174 of the CrPc were initiated in this regard.

Cop donates Rs 5,000 for NGO

Gurjeet Singh Romana, deployed as SHO, Sadar police station, has donated Rs 5,000 to the NGO, Sahara Jan Sewa, to arrange ice for the chabeel. NGO's president Vijay Goyal thanked the policeman for his benevolent gesture.

Youth assaulted

An injured youth who suffered a leg fracture after being assaulted by some unidentified persons at the Dabwali road was rushed to the hospital by volunteers of Sahara Jan Sewa.

The injured has been identified as Aman, a resident of Barnala road. Another injured, Mahesh Chander, was hit by a speeding car and was admitted to the hospital by the Sahara volunteers.

Bathinda, July 4
Despite making splendid progress in various fields, man has weakened from the inside which is manifest in the increasing violence, intolerance and disrespect in society.

This was observed by Dr RK Mahajan, patron of Swami Vivekananda Study Circle, Bathinda, at a function organized near the bust of Swami Vivekananda at the Rose Garden today, to commemorate his 'Samadhi Divas'. Swami Vivekananda, the Indian youth idol, had died on this day in 1902 in Kolkata. The speakers said Vivekananda's teachings were relevant even today in steering the youth towards nation building.

Mohinder Singh, Lalit Sachdeva, Dr Amrit Sethi and other members of the Study Circle were present. A booklet on "Thoughts of Swami Vivekananda" was also distributed as “prasad” to those present. — TNS

Bathinda, July 4
The NSS volunteers of the district have got an opportunity for the second time in a month to attend the summer adventure camp at the Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering, Patnitop, a hilltop tourist location in Udhampur district in Jammu and Kashmir.

It may be mentioned here that no NSS volunteer from the district had earlier attended the adventure camp in the past years. Such camps are organised by the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.

This time, ten NSS volunteers (five boys and five girls) from two schools of the district have been selected for the summer adventure camp, which will be held from July 4 to July 13. These volunteers will board a train for Jammu from the local railway station this evening.

The five selected NSS volunteers (boys) from the Government Senior Secondary School, Multania, are Sukhwinder Singh, Natha Singh, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldip Singh and Baljit Singh while the five selected NSS volunteers (girls) from Mata Sundri Girls Senior Secondary School. Dhade, are: Amandeep Kaur, Amanpreet Kaur, Veerpal Kaur, Ramandeep Kaur and Mandeep Kaur. Jaspal Kaur, NSS programme officer, will accompany them as the in-charge.

It may be recalled that the first time, four NSS volunteers and one NSS programme officer from Bathinda district had attended the summer adventure camp at Patnitop from June 14 to June 23 this year. All the four NSS volunteers (girls) were from Mata Sundri Girls Senior Secondary School, Dhade (near Rampura Phul).

Talking to this reporter here today, Assistant Director, Youth Services, Bathinda Dr Kamaljit Singh Sidhu said during the camp, all the 10 volunteers would take part in various adventure activities, including the 18-km-long trekking daily, rock climbing and jungle walk. He said the NSS Department of the Government of India would bear the expenditure of the volunteers.

Dr Sidhu said the NSS programme officer, Rajpal Kaur, who had accompanied the NSS volunteers during the previous adventure camp (June 14 to June 23), had submitted her report.

He said as per the report, the volunteers had learnt a lot during the camp about various adventurous activities but they faced some problems during breakfast, lunch and dinner. On behalf of the volunteers, she had also given some suggestions to improve the quality of breakfast, lunch and dinner so that the volunteers do not face any inconvenience.

Bathinda, July 4
A mobile phone was recovered from an inmate at the Bathinda Central Jail. The inmate, identified as Sukhmeet Singh, is a resident of Amarpura Basti.

He is undergoing trial in a case registered against him at the Sangat police station. Inspecting authorities in the jail found a mobile phone in working condition during the checking of various barracks and prisoners lodged in the jail.

Jail authorities said despite a constant vigil, the prisoners manage to bring mobile phone and drugs inside the jail. Round-the-clock combing operations in various barracks keep unwanted things away from the prison, claimed the jail authorities.

Earlier too, the jail authorities have seized large quantities of drugs. According to the jail authorities, the prisoners, with the help of their accomplices outside or inside the jail, devise various methods to bring in drugs or mobile phones. They said a case under sections 188 of the IPC has been registered against the jail inmate.

One arrested with habit-forming drugs

Police have arrested a resident of Chaoke village with habit-forming drugs. The accused, Karamjit Singh, was arrested on the basis of a tip-ff received by ASI Bhupinder Singh deployed at Balianwali police station. He was arrested from near Mandi Kalan. A case under sections 22, 61, 85 of the NDPS Act has been registered against the accused at the Balianwali police station.

In another similar case registered at the Balianwali police station, police have arrested four persons including a son and his mother for possessing habit-forming drugs without any valid documents. The accused have been identified as Jal Kaur, her son Jagsir Singh, both residents of Khokhar, Lahora Singh and Varinder Singh, residents of Burj Dhillwan village in Mansa district.