Bathinda, July 9
The General House meeting of the Municipal Corporation Bathinda, held today, saw the SAD-BJP alliance celebrating four years of its victory, while the Congress fumed over the celebrations.

Convened at 10 am, the meeting started with the Bathinda MLA, Mayor, senior deputy Mayor, SAD and BJP councilors as well as the municipal officials singing paeans in praise of the Punjab government for ushering in an “era of unmatched development” in Bathinda by forming the MCB.

This, however, did not go down well with the Congress. After hearing the thanksgiving speeches for over one-hour-and-a-half, Congress leader Jagroop Singh Gill, walked out of the House, followed by seven Congress municipal councillors. Gill protested against the proceedings saying if the ruling alliance partners were in a mood to party, they should have called the meeting two hours later and not wasted their precious time.

Amidst the hullabaloo, only 32 agendas on the list could be discussed, of which 11 were kept and rest were passed amidst the debates.

The agendas of licence fees imposed on all kinds of commercial establishments and the user charges for garbage collection of JITF Urban Waste Management have been kept pending.

The agenda to shift the corporation office from its present location to Civil Station was passed amidst protests. Congress objected to the move saying in the happiness of completing four years of its inception, SAD-BJP has given the greatest gift to the city people by selling of its own office to PUDA. Corporation building will now be transferred in the name of PUDA, which will provide an alternate site for MC office at Civil Station.

The House decided in favour of increasing the municipal limits of the city, which Congress alleged was meant to favour certain property dealers in the area. Despite all the protests, the House passed the agenda and work on de-limitation would begin soon.

Raising the issue of residents getting bills without any water supply for the past 15 years, Bathinda MLA, Sarup Chand Singla, advocated that the government should formulate a policy that could bring relief to such households.

Senior Congress leader Jagroop Singh Gill and Senior Deputy Mayor, Tarsem Goyal were in 
their element throughout the meeting and stole the show with their constant arguments.

While Gill contested every work discussed, Tarsem Goyal came down heavily on the government machinery at the Local Bodies Department in Chandigarh that did not issue timely notifications for the passed agendas.

Expressing concern over incidents of sewermen losing lives while on duty, the MC moved an agenda to provide funds to the victims’ family on humanitarian grounds. Gill, however, said all sewer workers should be insured. Goyal added that the sewerage board or contractor concerned should get the sewermen insured.

Councillor Shakuntala Devi objected to penalising public for dumping garbage in vacant plots. She said people should not be made to pay and should only be served a notice.

Raising objection to spending an amount of `47 lakh on removing silt from storage tank number 2 of Water Works at Rose Garden, MCs said the amount was too much. Water Works division informed that silt had reduced the water storage capacity of the tank by less than 40 per cent and it required immediate attention.

Jagroop Singh Gill and Krishan Kumar Garg registered their protest over the hike of rough cost estimates of new buildings saying it would make building houses costlier for the common man.

Commissioner Uma Shankar Gupta argued that it was required as there were no other means to increase sources of income.

Councillors Santosh Mahant, Mandeep Kaur, Darbara Singh, Mithu Ram Gupta, Khem Singh Makar, and Rajwinder Kaur added zing to the House proceedings by throwing in laughable Punjabi similes and idioms during the discussion.

Another House meeting of the Municipal Corporation Bathinda will be convened on Monday during which the pending issues would be discussed.

Bathinda, July 9
Administrative work took precedence over studies on the first day the schools reopened after the summer vacations today. The vacations had been extended in view of the intense heat wave conditions prevailing in the area.

Teachers from various schools of the city agreed that though the weather had relented a bit, the climate was still not congenial for studies. “We cannot delay the classes any more as the students have to prepare for their exams,” said Ravinder Mann, principal of Dashmesh Public School.

Government school teachers said they remained occupied with the pending administrative work and failed to pay attention to the classes.

“We could spare only a little time to have a look at the homework given to the students for the vacations,” said Pushpesh, a teacher at a government school located in a village. He said the teachers may catch up with the studies but they could not delay the administrative work for which they are reprimanded by the seniors.

The teachers said they remained occupied with opening the students’ bank accounts. “It takes more than 15 minutes to open the bank account of a student and there are at least 100 students in every school who have to open their bank accounts to avail of various benefits offered by the government,” said another teacher, Geetanjli.

The teachers said it should be made mandatory for the students to open a bank account at the time of the admissions. Or else, the village panchayat should take the onus of opening the accounts, said the teachers.

The teachers are also required to fill up forms of scholarships for Schedule Cast post-matric students (for class XI and XII), SC girls’ special incentive, pre-matric SC students, pre-matric OBC students and SC children from unclean occupation background. They added that most of the forms were filled under the supervision of the teachers.

Teachers have also been told to prepare children for four different poetry competitions on the orders of the Director General School Education (DGSE) for which students from different classes are to be identified for participation. Students of classes XI and XII are also to be prepared for the slogan-writing competition on the World Population Day to be observed this month.

The schools have got a letter from the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) for which the students have to be prepared for poster-making competitions. Then, there is a Hindi and Punjabi poetry recitation competition in the last week of July.

Principal Ravinder Mann admitted that it would take a day or two to get the students back to studies. “When we know every year summer vacations are to be announced for the schools, the government should fix dates for these holidays for at least the next 10 years by preparing an education calender,” he said.

He said Haryana had adopted the pattern and it had resulted in a uniformity among all the schools with regard to summer vacations, dates of cultural and sporting events, examinations and other holidays.

Bathinda, July 9
The staff shortage in the agriculture department here hampers the ongoing drive against the use of fake pesticides at exorbitant prices. The department lacks ADOs (Agriculture Development Officers) due to which the process of collecting samples gets delayed.

The officials of the agriculture department, however, claim to have collected 72 samples of pesticides out of the annual target of 420 and 40 samples of fertilisers out of the set target of 200.

The officials of the department said staff crunch makes the functioning of the department quite difficult. "We all are overburdened with extra work due to the acute shortage of staff and the process of collecting samples has become very slow," said a senior official of the agriculture department.

In-charge of the agriculture department's flying squad for collecting samples, Dr KK Singla said the squads have been formed at the district level to collect the samples.

He said despite the shortage of staff, the officials managed to collect 72 samples of pesticides and 40 samples of fertilisers from various shops in the urban and rural areas.

He said they are collecting samples in view of the ongoing paddy sowing season so that farmers do not face problems in purchasing pesticides and fertilisers. He added that the motive behind collecting the samples is to ensure that the farmers purchase pesticides and fertilizers at fair price without any adulteration.

The samples are sent to the pesticide testing laboratories situated in Ludhiana, Amritsar and Bathinda. If the report of the samples is negative, then the shopkeeper concerned is questioned about it and action is initiated against him.

He said the department is concerned over the adulteration and has passed on strict instructions to the shopkeepers to put a display board outside their shops with the price of their products and available stock mentioned on it.

Bathinda, July 9
In a tragic incident, a father and his teenaged daughter, residents of Lakhian village of Ganganagar in Rajasthan, were killed in an accident in the wee hours today.

The deceased have been identified as 43-year-old Tirath Singh and his 20-year-old daughter Anmol.

They were on their way to Patiala in a Maruti Alto car to seek admission for the girl. The car was being driven by the father.

They were accompanied by Tirath Singh's nephew Rupinder Singh and another relative Karanvir. Rupinder and Karanvir received serious injuries and have been admitted to the Civil Hospital, Bathinda.

As per the information provided by the cops from the Balluana police post, the accident took place near Karamgarh Chhatran village at around 5.30 am. The accident occurred when the speeding jeep collided with a tractor-trolley on the road.

The jeep then hit the car in which the family was on its way to Patiala via Bathinda. Because of the collision, the car veered off the road resulting in the accident with fatal consequences. The jeep driver, identified as Ramandeep, escaped with minor injuries and fled from the place of the accident.

He has been booked by the police under various sections of the IPC for driving in a rash and negligent way.

Bathinda, July 9
The Centre for Environment Education, in association with the Petroleum Conservation Research Association, will be organising a painting competition for children at all the halting stations of the Science Express: Biodiversity Special (SEBS).

As per the new schedule, in its Phase 5, the Science Express will start its journey on June 5 from Delhi Safdarjung and move on to cover 52 cities across India.

Some of the major cities that will be covered during the tour are Patna, Dibrugarh, Siliguri, Howrah, Ranchi, Cuttack, Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Kanyakumari, Mumbai, Nagpur, Gaya, Lucknow, Ambala, Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar.

The SEBS will chug into the Bathinda railway station on November 29 and will be stationed here till December 1 before moving on to Delhi Cantonment.

Schools interested in having its students participate in the competition will have to first organise their own competitions and then submit the top three entries by November 30 for the three groups.

The first three winning entries at the SEBS halts and CEE centres will be given a cash prize of Rs 1,000, Rs 800 and Rs 600.

Entries received directly from the schools will be considered for regional awards and the first three prize winning paintings at the halting stations and regions would be forwarded for the national-level awards.

The winner of the national level first prize will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 50,000 along with a laptop. The entry grabbing the second position will receive a cash prize of Rs 35,000 and a laptop while the winning entry for the third position will get Rs 25,000 and a laptop.

Apart from the prizes for the first three positions, there are two consolation prizes, and a cash award of Rs 10,000 as well. These prizes will be given to the first three winners and the consolation award winners in both the categories.

Bathinda, July 9
St. Xavier's High School, Bathinda, organised a felicitation ceremony today to honour the achievers of the AISSCE 2011-12, during the morning assembly.

The meritorious students were felicitated by the principal, Fr. Eulalio Fernandes. While the students thanked their teachers and the school for playing an instrumental role in their success, the principal asked the students to work hard and relentlessly strive for giving their best.