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Engineering seats go abegging
SP’s son sent to police custody
Moga Akali Leader’s Murder |
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Monsoon eases power situation
Shrine
Demolition
Capt concentrates on Lubana votes
UPA’s fiscal policy has left nation poorer: CM
Cong asks its legislators to donate Rs 1 lakh each
Leopard sighted, villagers terrified
Punjab adds just 500-MW capacity in last 10 years
Jalandhar dist admn gears up for rains
State plans special courts for graft cases
Ambulance 108 to provide police assistance soon
Gatka contests to be organised
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Engineering seats go abegging
If you thought engineering was the most sought after career, think again. Barring a few top engineering institutes in Punjab, the seats in a majority of the total 108 Punjab Technical University (PTU) colleges are going abegging.
Here’s a reality check: Two PTU colleges have not even been able to fill up even a single seat. Against 32,789 seats available, only 10,146 have been filled in the first round. And many of the colleges have a cut-off all-India rank of 10 lakh. The last year’s seat allotment tally was 12,162 after the first round. In 2010, it was 14,000-plus, again clearly indicating an annual fall-off in takers to engineering courses in the state.
The admission graph of PTU’s engineering colleges, too, seems to be falling with each passing year: the AIEEE top ranker this time in a PTU college is one with a 13,389 all-India rank, nearly 3,000 down than the last year. “The colleges sustaining themselves through donations all these years may as well see it as the end of the road,” says an engineering college principal. Top engineering colleges in the state insist there is no downward trend. Dr BR Ambedkar National Institute of Technology Jalandhar, for example, has managed to fill up 780 of the total 786 seats on the campus. The top ranker to enter the college stood at 3,176 level while the admission after the second round closed at 29,035 rank, said Dr R. Mehra, National Institute of Technology. Jasmaninder Singh Grewal, head of production engineering stream at GNDEC, blames the overgrowth of private colleges for the seats lying vacant after the first round of counseling. “Reputed colleges do not face any problem, but the newly opened ones are facing a tough time,” he said.
Even GNDEC faces shortage Placement problem Mushrooming of the private engineering colleges and placement problems faced by the engineering pass-outs are the main factors leading to the vacant seats after the first round of counselling. This is borne out by the fact that 69 percent of engineering seats in Punjab remained vacant after the first round of the joint online counselling conducted by the PTU. Dr M.S. Saini, director of Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, said the Centre should put a tab on the mushrooming of engineering colleges. “It has announced that next year there will be a cap on the number of such institutes, which is a welcome step. Delivery of quality education and placement records of any college are the main parameters for a student to select a college. These need to be strengthened”. In
Amritsar, well below capacity A sizeable number of seats in various private engineering colleges are lying vacant owing to various reasons, resulting in many local institutes being unable to fill up even half of their seats after the first counselling session. Take a look at some of the institutes: The Global Institutes: It managed to fill half of its 80 seats in the B.Tech Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) in the first counseling while 40 more are reserved under the management quota. Similarly, only 21 seats out of 80 in B.Tech Mechanical Engineering (ME) were filled. Prof BD Sharma of Global Institutes says the institute aims at quality. “Of late, however, students from the region prefer to move to Chandigarh and other big towns. It’s a new trend which cannot be stopped immediately”. MK Group of Institutes: A new entrant in the engineering stream, it is offering 40 seats each under counseling for graduation in computer science and engineering, electronics and communication engineering, mechanical and civil engineering streams. For these, it has managed to gain only one student. Khalsa College of Engineering and Technology: Seats on offer: 80 each under counseling for bachelor programmes in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), and Mechanical Engineering (ME) and 40 seats under the Civil Engineering (CE) streams. It has managed to fill 44, 37 and 26 seats, respectively, in the first counseling. Satyam College of Engineering and Sai College of Engineering: No details were available. But the trend indicates low student occupancy. Amritsar College of Engineering and Technology director Dr RS Bawa, who is also former registrar Guru Nanak Dev University, said over 500 seats have been filled for various graduate and postgraduate engineering courses. He said keeping in view the response of students. his College has raised the total number of seats from 600 to 780 this year. “In the end, however, only quality institutes would survive,” he said. Thapar University claims better show Being popular among students, Thapar University continues to witness considerable competition for admission to its college. Sources in Thapar University say there are times when a couple of seats lie vacant in a few streams due to the high fee structure. “To make up for that, the university has started conducting another test in December to fill all vacant seats”. The Jasdev Singh Sandhu College of Engineering offers four engineering streams: Computers, Electronics, IT and Mechanical. The seats for Computers and Mechanical are 90 each and IT and Mechanical are 60 each. Admitting that there were times that the seats were vacant, In Patiala Institute of Engineering and Technology for Women, Nandpur Kesho village, also there were few vacant seats last year but he did not divulge the exact number. This college offers three streams —Computer science, Electronic communication and IT. Colleges learn
new lessons ‘Bring five new students and get Rs 25,000 as prize money.’ This is the incentive that some engineering colleges offer to their teachers. ‘Failing, you can lose your job’. Sensing a downward trend among students, engineering colleges have worked out strategies to attract students. One such step is involving their undergraduate students and teachers as coordinators to motivate the school students to join the engineering courses. The undergraduate students and teachers get incentives for keeping up school students’ interest in engineering. These incentives range from waiving of the tuition fee for students and an increment or hard cash prizes for teachers. Taking a lesson from last year when a large number of seats remained vacant, these engineering colleges have even employed public relations officials. After collecting telephone numbers and addresses of students from their schools, these PROs call up parents to sell them the idea of their wards joining engineering colleges. A month back, when the Punjab Medical Entrance Test was conducted in Faridkot, the town witnessed a large number of PROs of some private engineering colleges trying to impress upon the parents of the students, offering them seats with many ‘advantages’. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has now decided not to approve new engineering colleges from the academic year 2013-14, said KP Isaac, AICTE member secretary.
(Inputs by Deepkamal Kaur in Jalandhar, Manav Mander ni Ludhiana, Neeraj Bagga in Amritsar, Gagan K. Teja in Patiala and Balwant Garg in Faridkot)
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SP’s son sent to police custody
Jalandhar, July 8 Hailing from Burundi in Africa, Yannick Nizhanga, a student of Lovely Professional University (LPU) in Jalandhar, is in a coma after being brutally attacked by a group of youths under the influence of liquor on April 21. Other accused in the case, including Aman Deep, continue to evade arrest. Yannick’s father Nestor Ntibateganya has also complained against LPU for its alleged negligence when his son was attacked. He alleged that the university authorities did not pay any heed despite his repeated requests for financial help and for bringing the guilty to book. Ntibateganya has complained verbally to Patiala (Yannick is admitted to a city hospital) Deputy Commissioner GK Singh. Singh confirmed to have received a complaint of “irresponsible behaviour by LPU” and said he would report it to the Chief Minister’s Office and the Secretary, Higher Education. He claimed LPU had even kept Patiala administration in the dark about Yannick when he was admitted to a hospital in the city. LPU director Aman Mittal, however, claimed the university played a pro-active role and provided every possible help to Yannick, a first-year student of BSc (Computers). He said the university deputed a person to look after him until his father arrived on April 29. Besides, the university would also provide financial help of Rs 2 lakh to the victim, he said. Mittal claimed that he had informed Burundi Ambassador to India Rubuka Aloys about the incident on April 22 and that an official from the Burundi Embassy had even visited Jalandhar to enquire about Yannick’s health. Asked why the Patiala administration was not informed, he said it was the duty of the police as a criminal case had already been registered.
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Moga Akali Leader’s Murder
Moga, July 8 Gurjant Singh, the main suspect in the case, was a confidant of the deceased before he was arrested by the Moga police with 80 kg of poppy husk five years ago. Gurmail Singh Khai, member of the Zila Parishad and the District Planning Board and vice-president of SAD’s Moga unit, and his brother Karamjit Singh were shot dead at their house. Besides Gurjant Singh, Malkiat Singh and Dharamjit Singh Dharma of Khai village, Mara Singh of Madheke village and an unidentified person have been booked in the double murder case. On Saturday morning, the bullet-riddled body of Dharamjit Singh was found in a Scorpio jeep used in the crime. It was found abandoned on the village outskirts. Gurmail Singh was once the right-hand man of the deceased Gurjant Singh and had helped him in several disputed property cases. Sources said Gurjant Singh was arrested in August 2007 for possessing poppy husk. He believed that the Akali brothers had implicated him in the case. Gurjant Singh was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment in October 2010. He obtained a month’s parole in August 2011 on approval of the Moga police and then again in April 2012, this time without the police approval. Gurjant was to report back to jail on May 13, but did not do so and was declared a fugitive. “The police are conducting raids to nab him,” said Surjit Singh Grewal, Moga SSP.
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Monsoon eases power situation
Patiala, July 8 The demand, which till Thursday had been varying between 2,200 Lakh Unit (LU) and 2,300 LU, has come down by almost 400 lakh units, much to the relief of power authorities. Speaking to The Tribune, PSPCL Director (Distribution) Arun Verma said power cuts being imposed on various categories of consumers had now been relaxed. Notably, because of unprecedented increase of almost 22 per cent in the demand for power this summer season, the PSPCL had to impose several regulatory measures, including a two-day weekly off on the industry and scheduled/unscheduled cuts in the domestic sector. Much to the relief of everyone, the crisis seems to be over with various parts of the state receiving heavy rain in the last two days. Power corporation officials are of the view that in the days to come, more rains are expected and the power scenario will improve further. A fresh circular issued by the PSPCL states that the power regulatory measures, except peak load hour restrictions on industrial consumers, have been relaxed till July 9. Similarly, regulatory measures on arc/induction furnaces, rolling mills and continuous process industry have been relaxed till July 8. “The relaxation is based on the daily availability of power. If more power is available, the relaxation will be extended on a day-to-day basis," a PSPCL official said. Verma said as of now power cuts in the domestic sector had been discontinued. "We expect that the state will receive normal rainfall during the monsoon season. We also hope that there will be no power shortage in the near future. The PSPCL had made adequate power purchase arrangements, but a sudden spurt in the demand had led to a crisis," he said. Meanwhile, a ban on the use of ACs in PSPCL offices across the state has also been lifted.
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Shrine
Demolition
Amritsar, July 8 The Jathedar demanded that the state government should order a high-level probe into the entire incident and act tough against its perpetrators. Giani Gurbachan Singhclaimed the land illegally encroached by the dera involved in the incident was government land and the village panchayat had no right to sell or donate. He praised Sikh organisations for staging a peaceful protest over the issue. The Jathedar has also taken serious note of a matchstick company printing “khanda” on matchboxes, which, he said, was a sacrilege of Sikh symbols.
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Capt concentrates on Lubana votes
Gilzian (Dasuya), July 8 Describing Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal as “liars”, Amarinder said when the SAD-BJP alliance was voted to power in 2007, Sukhbir had promised to make Punjab a power surplus by 2009. “However, I can only see darkness all around. The industry is reluctant to come to the state because of the grim power situation. Farmers are not being supplied eight hours of uninterrupted power as was promised by the Akalis. Paddy transplantation has been affected too,” Amarinder said. On the Bluestar Memorial, he said: “How can Badal forget that during the days of terrorism, 35,000 people lost their lives?” The PPCC chief appealed to the voters to “give Congress candidate Arun Dogra a chance to serve you.”Congress Legislature Party Leader Sunil Jakhar also spoke. Among those present were Hoshiarpur MP Santosh Chaudhary, sitting MLAs Kewal Dhillon, Rana Gurjit Singh and Sangat Singh Gilzian and former legislators Rana KP and Luv Kumar Goldy.
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UPA’s fiscal policy has left nation poorer: CM
Dasuya, July 8 The Chief Minister was accompanied by state BJP president Ashwani Sharma, Rajya Sabha MP Avinash Rai Khanna, political secretary Kamal Sharma, Chief Parliamentary Secretary Som Parkash and president of the BJP Youth Wing Rajesh Honey. Turning emotional, Badal said the Congress should not have have let Sukhjit Kaur enter the Vidhan Sabha unopposed. “As a tribute to Amarjit Sahi, the Congress should have agreed to the unanimous election of his widow as MLA from Dasuya,” the Chief Minister said. Former member of the Zila Parishad Sushil Kumar Pinky left the Congress and joined the BJP in the presence of the Chief Minister. Thakur Vasudev, secretary Punjab Pradesh Congress, also left his parent party for the BJP. Talking to mediapersons, Pinky said he would ensure Sukhjit Kaur’s win.
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Vote in favour of change: Manpreet
Dasuya, July 8 The indefatigable Manpreet addressed a dozen meetings today. At each gathering, he emphasised on the need to bring about change. “Change is the essence of growth. Both the Congress and the BJP have done little in the past 65 years. All leaders are pursuing their own political agenda which has brought the nation to its knees.” At one gathering, turning to the village sarpanch, he said: “You voted for the Congress in the 2009. What has the Centre given you in the past three years except inflation ? It is now for you to decide if you want to bring in change.” After refreshing himself at a supporter’s residence at Baadla village, Manpreet addressed a group of women voters. “Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change,” he said. Asked why his party was contesting the byelection when it had no chance of a victory, Manpreet replied: “If you run. you stand the chance of losing the race. But if you do not run, you have already lost the race.” Manpreet delivered his last speech for the day at Versha village.
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Cong asks its legislators to donate Rs 1 lakh each
Dasuya, July 8
Top Congress leaders, pleading anonymity, said there was nothing wrong in seeking contributions from party leaders who could afford it. There have been allegations within the Congress that a sum of Rs 500 crore collected during the assembly elections was never distributed among the contestants. Senior leaders have gone on record asking where the money had gone. With the demand to raise money for the Dasuya byelection, it is again being questioned as to why the party needs such a huge amount. Barring the core group led by Kewal Dhillon, Love Kumar Goldy, Laal Singh and OP Soni, most Congress leaders have been visiting Dasuya for barely an hour or two whereas the entire Punjab Cabinet is camping in Dasuya. There is virtually no election code being followed in the assembly segment with legislators from all parties using official vehicles with red beacons for campaigning. Hundreds of people are being served food at rally sites for which no accounts are maintained. With little development in the area, the voters seem overwhelmed at the presence of politicians in the area. They see a ray of hope in the Chief Minister’s promises.
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Leopard sighted, villagers terrified
Hoshiarpur, July 8 The terrified villagers have formed patrol teams for (thikri pehra) in their respective villages. A team of Wildlife officials patrolling the villages have asked the residents to refrain from bursting crackers or beating the drum in a bid to shoo away wild animals. The Divisional Forest Officer (Wildlife), Hoshiarpur, Satnam Singh, confirmed the presence of a female leopard and her two cubs in the area. He, however, denied that Sadhu Singh had been killed by the beast. He said he had advised the villagers to walk in groups and carry a torch/lamp while moving about during odd hours. The officer said the female leopard had probably descended to the plains because of forest fires and water scarcity. Mohinder Singh, a resident of Motia village, claimed that the beast had attacked his cattle and killed a calf two days ago. Rajinder Singh of Mugewal village said the leopard has been wandering in the area with her cubs, killing sheep and milch cattle.
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Punjab adds just 500-MW capacity in last 10 years
To meet the power requirement, Punjab had been purchasing power from the open market annually. The short-term power purchase bill has witnessed a drastic increase from Rs 542 crore in 2005-06 to Rs 2,285 crore in 2007-08. In six years from 2005-06 to 2010-11, the PSPCL had spent Rs 9,261 crore on short-term power purchase alone. Power sector experts and technocrats working with the PSPCL are of the view that due to failure of the successive state governments to plan for capacity addition, the PSPCL has to meet the growing energy requirement of the state by purchase power at exorbitant rates. All-India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) chairman Padamjit Singh said instead of spending thousands of crores on buying power, setting up new thermal plants under the state sector would have been a better option. "The Punjab Power Generation Policy has failed miserably. Most of the thermal plants awarded to private players are in limbo," he said. Notably, the MoU of the Kot Shamir thermal plant has already expired and there has been not much activity pertaining to the Gobindpura Thermal Plants. President of the PSEB Engineers' Association Baldev Singh Sran said the association had last year highlighted the PSPCL's deteriorating fiscal health and the "flawed" policy of awarding thermal plants through the MoU route. "The Punjab Power Generation Policy encourages MoU route for awarding thermal power projects instead of competitive bidding," he said. Association leaders have demanded that power ccapacity addition should be planned and executed in the state sector. They demanded that the proposal to set up a 1,320-MW state thermal station at Mukerian must be taken up on a priority. Senior PSPCL officials refused to comment on the matter.
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Jalandhar dist admn gears up for rains
Jalandhar, July 8 The Army has also been asked to stay prepared in case there was any emergency. A dedicated landline has been set up for civil-military coordination at the Jalandhar Cantonment. Deputy Commissioner Priyank Bharti recently chaired a meeting of all department heads and asked them to gear up for any flood-like situation. Additional Deputy Commissioner (General) Praneet Bhardwaj said the administration had added 130 life-saving jackets, 90 fibre tubes, 35 tents, three search lights and mega phones and two petrol tanks to its existing equipment that can be used during floods, if any. Bhardwaj said the administration had also kept a reserve stock of 15 life-saving jackets, five tents and 10 fibre tubes. The state government had recently sanctioned Rs 35 lakh for the purpose. The Additional Deputy Commissioner said officials of the Drainage Department had been told to monitor water level (increasing and receding) at different sensitive points on the banks of the Sutlej and its tributaries. The sub-divisional magistrates of Shahkot, Nakodar and Phillaur had been told to identify evacuation centres, said
Bhardwaj.
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State plans special courts for graft cases
Chandigarh, July 8 Following approval of the proposal from the state Finance Department and other authorities concerned, a letter in this regard has been written to the Registrar General of the Punjab and Haryana High Court for necessary action. In the letter, Home Affairs and Justice Department has stated that the special courts would be set up at Ludhiana and Faridkot. Earlier, there was a proposal to set up these courts at Jalandhar and Patiala.
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Ambulance 108 to provide police assistance soon Ludhiana, July 8 The service which is likely to start from next month all over the state will be free of cost. Malhotra said: "About 12 police dispatch officers of the Punjab Police are being trained in operating software at the Amritsar-based headquarters of our company, Ziqipza Health Care Ltd". Ambulance 108 service was launched in the state under the National Rural Health Mission project last year and is run by Ziqipza Health Care under a public-private paternership project. "On getting a call for police assistance, the police dispatch officer will immediately inform the police station concerned and ask officials there to reach the spot”. There are as many as 240 ambulances in the state under this service. It has so far attended to 2,52,447 calls, out of which it has provided service to 2,32,563 callers.
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you thought engineering was the most sought after career, think again. Barring a few top engineering institutes in Punjab, the seats in a majority of the total 108 Punjab Technical University (PTU) colleges are going
abegging.
Romi Uppal, son of Nawanshahr SP Dharam Singh Uppal, who was arrested yesterday for assaulting an African student, was today remanded in two-day police custody by Judicial Magistrate Ajit Pal Singh.
Gilzian (Dasuya), July 8
One of the oldest engineering colleges of the state, Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College at Ludhiana, which has emerged as PTU’s most sought after college in almost all streams, has seen a steep decline in its cut-off ranks. After the first round of allotment, the cut-off in electronics and communication engineering last year in the college was 21,212. This time, it has dipped to as low as 56,917. The lowest rank in mechanical engineering in the college last year was 23,601, but it fell to 45,007 this time. In computer science engineering, the last year’s cut-off rank touched 32,254. But it has gone down to 42,514 now. In civil engineering, the cut-off rank was 60,583 in 2011. It fell further at 66,998 for the college. 
— Jasmaninder Singh Grewal, head of production engineering stream, GNDEC
Patiala, July 8