Jalandhar, August 10
A day after Alamgir village boy Prince’s death from rabies got reported widely, the authorities of the Community Health Centre (CHC), Kala Bakra, today did a U-turn on the issue.

The CHC authorities had yesterday sent the family off to a local chemist to get the injections administered.

While the CHC wasn’t even bearing the cost of the injections earlier, it was only owing to pressure by some NGOs that the MS of the CHC gave Rs 2,000 to Kulwinder, father of Prince, to buy injections.

The MS had yesterday told The Tribune that the family would have to bear the cost of the injections itself (since the CHC did not have any vaccine), the MS today said the hospital was willing to bear the entire cost of the rest of the vaccinations that the family needed to be administered.

When asked why the family had been sent off to a chemist yesterday, the MS, CHC, Kala Bakra, Dr Kinder Pal, said, “I had given the money to the family members to buy the injections, but they themselves got the injections administered from the chemist shop.”

When asked where would the hospital arrange the injections from now, the MS said, “We have a special fund for such cases as a rabies death. The cost of the further treatment of the family will be borne from that. A year ago, too, a woman died due to rabies and similar measures were taken. Prince’s family members need four more anti-rabies shots each and the CHC will pay for it.”

Talking to The Tribune, Prince’s father Kulwinder Singh said, “I had also talked to the CHC doctors on the issue yesterday and they had told me neither this centre, nor any other in the vicinity had any anti-rabies injections, so we needed to get the shots from a private hospital. But today they told me they will be bearing the cost for all the further vaccines needed by our family.”

When Prince had been bitten by a dog two months ago, her mother had rubbed red chillies on his wounds instead of taking him to a doctor. While there seem to be plenty of superstitions and lack of awareness regarding the disease among villagers, the Health Department has clearly not done the needful in spreading information on rabies among villagers.

The MS, CHC, Kala Bakra, said, “The Health Department educates villagers about issues like dig bites, snake bites, among other things, but it has been observed that villagers have a tendency to stick to age-old myths, despite the best of our efforts. Even some educated village folk support such dangerous beliefs.”

Jalandhar, August 10
Superstition and ignorance led the unsuspecting parents of a 12-year-old to lose their child to rabies.

A life is lost, but what is shocking is that the Health Department seems to be hardly prepared for any such eventualities in the future.

Of the 10 community health centres (CHCs) and three civil hospitals (Jalandhar, Nakodar and Phillaur) in the district, anti-rabies vaccinations are not available at even one of them currently.

A demand of a total of 5,000 vaccine dozes is made for civil hospitals and CHCs across the district. These vaccines (the 2011 lot) were distributed by July, 2011, across the district and since August, 2011, no fresh demand has been made for more anti-rabies vaccines.

The Jalandhar Civil Hospital ran out of anti-rabies vaccines in February this year.

While a demand of 2,000 anti-rabies vaccines is made for the Civil Hospital, for the past six months the dog-bite patients at the hospital have been surviving on private vaccinations.

The plight of poor patients in a city like Jalandhar can be well imagined.

While at the government hospitals, anti-rabies vaccinations are administered for Rs 100 per shot, from private outlets they cost between Rs 400 and 500, and sometimes more.

Conservative estimates state that at the Civil Hospital, at least three to five new dog bite patients report per day and at least 10 persons are administered anti-rabies shots at the hospital per day.

Inside sources, however, claim that the number of dog-bite patients reporting at the hospital are more than 10 per day.

The state of the CHCs is equally pathetic.

The Kala Bakra CHC, where the rabies death case was reported, too is out of anti-rabies vaccines.

The staff at the CHC said one to two cases were reported per week at the CHC (another overstatement as per sources) and 10 to 12 vaccines are administered here per month.

While the anti-rabies vaccine stock at this CHC ended about two to three months ago, like other centres, here too, a demand is yet to be made.

While the demand from every CHC varies as per the population it caters to, after yesterday’s incident it is clear that the centres are not particular about placing new demands, as soon as their stock expires, to facilitate patients.

The Civil Surgeon of the Jalandhar Civil Hospital formally makes the demand for the anti-rabies vaccines across the district, but since that has clearly not been done since August, 2011, the district patients (especially the poor, like Prince’s parents) are paying a hefty price for it.

Dr RL Bassan, Civil Surgeon, Jalandhar, when contacted, said, “We keep placing demands for anti-rabies vaccinations from time to time. We charge Rs 100 per injection, but in cases of very poor families, the first shots can be provided for free. We will make the new demand for the anti-rabies vaccines tomorrow.”

Jalandhar, August 10
The recent directions of the Deputy Commissioner (DC) to the revenue officials of taking declaration from the applicants of power of attorney has not gone down well with the city-based property dealers and MC councillors.

While the move is aimed at plugging evasion of stamp duty, the property dealers have been daily making rounds to the office of the DC asking him to withdraw the directions. It had been a practice with most property dealers to simply take power of attorney from property sellers after the deal, not show the transaction on record, not get any registration done, evade stamp duty and keep the property with themselves till they got a good price from a buyer.

The buyer, if taking it for his own use, would then get the registration done or else only the power of attorneys would just keep on changing hands. The revenue officials had found that the number of power of attorneys done on any given day were equivalent to those of land registrations done.

Last week, the DC had issued directions to the SDMs and revenue officials asking them to ensure that a declaration of transactions in the form of a set printed format be filled from all applicants coming for getting the power of attorneys done. The Sub-Registrars had also been directed to register the documents which reflect the transaction, take details of the bank accounts of the buyer and seller, get copies of bank statement, amount paid and received and PAN number of the buyer and seller to verify the mentioned details. The details, thus furnished, would also be passed onto the Income Tax Department for checking further evasion of the income tax, if any.

Gurdeep Singh Nagra, councillor of Ward 39, and Congress leader Major Singh have been protesting over the matter claiming that they would even meet the Chief Minister on the matter.

Deputy Commissioner Priyank Bharti said there was no possibility of any rollback on the issue as it was being done as per the government directions.

Jalandhar, August 10
It is because of some elderly persons like Gurbachan Singh Chawla that the dying hobbies of philately and numismatics are still being somehow kept alive.

The man has immaculately saved lakhs of stamps, miniature sheets, first-day covers, brochures, philately catalogues, currency notes and coins in scores of albums stacked in an almirah of his house at Central Town.

Try touching any of his albums on your own, he will not let you do so. Pat come the instructions, “There is a way that these precious old stamps have to be handled. You have to use this tweezer and softly pull out one stamp at a time, while ensuring that you do not tear any. All these factors affect the resale price of your collection.”

He continues, “Your hands must be clean and dry. I ensure utmost care while even rearranging my albums. I do not do it in rainy, extreme dry or cold season for moisture or any exposure to sun can affect their colours. The season has to be ideal for handling the priceless collection. After all, my each album is worth a few lakhs of rupees,” he claims.

Though just Class IX passed, the septuagenarian has immense knowledge about the world renowned personalities, flora, fauna, sports events, memorable days, including anniversaries of inauguration of government services like civil aviation, ESIC, etc.

President of the Jalandhar Philately Club, Chawla is regular at the meetings of the stamp lovers held every morning on the first Sunday of the month at the General Post Office. “That is where some 40-odd persons like me bring along their rare collection, exchange stamps and coins, discuss old and new stamps and their relevance today,” said the man who earlier owned a stationery and greeting cards shop in the city.

Chawla is regular at various exhibitions held in Jalandhar, adjoining cities, New Delhi and even Lahore. He showed his wide collection of Pakistani and Bangladeshi stamps. “I learnt about some highly priced stamps and the criteria for fixing the sale price for the same during exhibitions and visits here and there,” he tells, showing some much more valued wrongly perforated stamps or those with printing errors.

The man even has the fourth centenary commemoration stamp of the foundation of Guru Granth Sahib, which was released in 2005 and withdrawn the very first day after an objection from the SGPC. “I had especially gone to Amritsar that day for the stamps had arrived there in bulk. A stamp that cost me just Rs 10 can now be sold for an amount not less than Rs 1,000”, the philatelist said, while showing stamps featuring Sai Baba and other religious priests, which he says have a high resale value.

He recalls, “I first started collecting stamps as a school student. My dad, being an arhtiya, used to get a lot of postal communication at his office in Amritsar. I used to tear the stamps and preserve them in a box. I even started pasting them on copies. Gradually I realised that it was not the way. I started purchasing albums and arranging them there.

“Then I realised that rather than the used stamps, it is the mint or the unused stamps which are more valued. So, I started getting the list of annual schedule for release of stamps and try to make it to the post office on the very first day. During one exhibition, I realised the increasing trend of arranging stamps in blocks of four. So I purchased new such albums and buying full sheets from the post office.”

Chawla came out with more interesting aspects to his collection, including fragrance stamps, paired collections and series of collections.

Jalandhar, August 10
It is in an extremely suffocating and untidy atmosphere that the staff of the District Transport Office (DTO) is working in on the first floor of the tehsil complex.

The files and records can just not be found in the scores of almirahs kept in the office, but all across the rooms filled in sacks - on the shelves, under the desks, on the floor piled up along walls till the roofs, in the corridors leaving little space for anyone to walk past them, in front of windows blocking the air from outside and even in front of a side gate blocking the entrance permanently.

With government banning the use of air-conditioners (ACs) , the lives of the employees in the department have become hellish. “There is hardly any ventilation and we sometimes feel choked. We feel like switching the AC on but we do not do it for the fear of action against us,” all of them have a common grouse.

The staff tell that the DTO office has a separate record room on the third floor of the tehsil complex, but that, too, is completely full from floor to the ceiling. “It is so full that it sometimes becomes extremely difficult for us to pull out a sack containing the relevant file. Thank God, we have done the numbering of each sack and maintain an inventory of which sack is lying where, or else we would have turned mad looking for the file required,” the staff fume.

Owing to the blocked entrance from the side iron mesh gate, the entire staff have to use the DTO’s room as a thoroughfare causing him disturbance every now and then.

Much to the relief of the eight-member staff, the office had in October last year hired a Noida-based Smart Chip company, which maintains the entire record digitally for easy access later, limiting the use of paper.

The office is facing yet another challenge of providing a separate room to the second new ADTO, Dhyan Singh, who joined yesterday.

The DTO, RL Jassal, when contacted, said, “I had earlier planned to acquire the old workshop office for record room, which was vacated after the construction of the new administrative block last week. But the office is said to have been transferred to PUDA. Now I have already made request to the DC to provide us more rooms.”

Jalandhar, August 10
The Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) today claimed to have nabbed three drug peddlers and recovered 200 gm of heroin from them. The value of the contraband is said to be in lakhs of rupees in the international market.

The nabbed drug peddlers have been identified as Kunal Sharma, resident of Prithvi Nagar, Rakesh Kumar, alias Ricky, resident of Jaimal Nagar, and Manjinder Singh, alias Bhola, resident of Kapurthala.

Police sources said acting on a tip-off, a raid was conducted on a spot and the drug peddlers were nabbed with the contraband. Kunal and Rakesh were nabbed with 50 gm and Manjinder with 100 gm of heroin.

Two houses burgled

Burglars broke into two houses at Sainik Vihar and Bunga Colony in Rama Mandi last evening and decamped with cash, gold ornaments, electronic equipment and other valuables.

Harjit Singh of Sainik Vihar said yesterday he along with his family was away to Nawanshahr to attend some function and when they returned home in the evening, they found the locks of the main door broken. “When I went inside, I noticed the whole house ransacked. The miscreants took away a laptop, five branded wrist watches, five mobile phones, two gold rings and some other valuables.”

Similarly, burglars also struck at a house in Bunga Colony and decamped with a laptop and Rs 25,000. The house owner, Sonam, said yesterday he was away from home and when he returned in the evening, he found the laptop and cash missing from the almirah. The police has been informed.

Jalandhar, August 10
In an incident in which a teenaged Dalit girl of Rahimpur village, near Kartarpur, was allegedly stripped, thrashed and paraded in the village after painting her face black by certain unscrupulous persons of the same village, finally after two months the Jalandhar (Rural) police swung into action and registered a case against six members of a family.

The girl reportedly had to face the humiliation just because of the fact that her brother Varinder had developed an affair with a girl, who was a close relative of the suspects. The suspects had reportedly also warned Varinder a couple of time also. To teach Varinder a lesson, a maternal uncle of the girl and his family members allegedly committed the crime.

A case under Sections 355, 341, 506 and 149 of the IPC has been registered at Kartarpur police station against Hari Kishan, Ramu and his wife, Prema and his wife and Rani.

However, the victim’s family members expressed dissatisfaction over the police actions alleging that the police had registered a case only under bailable IPC provisions, whereas it was a fit case of house trespassing and the accused should have been booked under Section 452 of the IPC (house trespass after preparation of hurt).

“The police took about two months to register a case, and now it spared the accused from non-bailable IPC provisions,” Banso, mother of the victim girl rued, adding that political influence of some jathedar was the reason behind it.

Jalandhar, August 10
One person was killed, while another sustained serious injuries when a loaded tractor-trailer was hit by a speeding truck from the rear on the Pathankot road here early this morning.

The deceased has been identified as Darshan, son of Inder Rai, resident of Nangar Rayia, who was driving the tractor-trailer. The injured, Jasvir Singh, resident of Dhalla village, was rushed to a nearby private hospital, where his condition is now stated to be stable.

Sources said the tractor-trailer was carrying green fodder and when it reached near Pathankot Chowk, the speeding truck hit it from the rear. The impact of the collision was so huge that the tractor-trailer overturned on the road.

After impounding the truck, its truck driver was arrested, police sources said.