Amritsar, August 29
Kamal Passi, member of the Indian team, which won the Under-19 Cricket World Cup, received a warm welcome on his return to his home city today.

His parents Kewal Krishan and Sunita, friends and officials of the AGA Club received him at Sri Guru Ramdas Jee International Airport as he arrived from a Jet Airways Mumbai-Amritsar flight, which landed an hour late from its scheduled time.

Indian colts had thrashed Australia in the final of the junior world championship. Kamal took 10 wickets in the tournament and was part of the playing eleven in the final of the World Cup.

“Injury forced me to skip the Asia Cup at Malaysia in June. After which this prestigious international tournament offered me a golden opportunity to prove my mettle,” he remarked.

A right-hand batsman and right-arm medium-pacer, Kamal, has been a member of Punjab’s U-19 team for the past three years. Earlier, he had been playing for the under-15 and 16 age group teams for two years. An admirer of Zaheer khan, Kamal aims to one day bowl with him.

“I’ve received Rs 20 lakh from the BCCI and has not yet thought of where to invest it, except a fraction of it on house repair,” he said. About Australia tour, he said earlier too he had played there and these tours made him aware of the conditions of grounds there. He said conditions there assisted pace bowling and required equally swift response from batsmen.

Relatives and friends thronged his house and congratulated Kamal and it was a function-like scene at his house.

Kamal said he was grateful to his grandfather Mangal Das Passi, a groundsman at the Gandhi Cricket Ground, for initiating him into the game. His best of 24 blitzed off five balls and a career best of 6 for 23 had put India on course for the quarterfinals of the Under-19 Cricket World Cup. He found a place in the India Under-19 team after progressing through age-group cricket in the state.

At the U-19 level he has performed at the state level for two years and his first U-19 game for the country was during the Quadrangular Series, involving India, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Australia in Visakhapatnam in September, 2011. He had claimed five wickets in three matches and made six runs with two not outs in the lower order.

Kamal is the youngest in the family after three sisters and was the first to play cricket in the family. He was brought up at the Gandhi Cricket Ground and playing cricket came naturally to him.

Amritsar, August 29
The district monitoring committee for implementation of Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) has received complaints against six hospitals for exercising fraudulent means to claim insurance money.

The health department committee had removed two of the hospitals from the panel of private hospitals authorised to provide medical care to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families.

The decision regarding the remaining four hospitals would be taken on the committee’s meeting on September 5. As per information, these hospitals were found guilty of supplying wrong information regarding the medical problems of the patients.

Under the RSBY scheme, the BPL families are entitled for medical insurance of upto Rs 30,000 by paying a single time premium of Rs 30 only. The patients can avail the medical services either from the government hospitals or from the private hospitals empanelled on the list. “Sometimes the hospitals magnify the medical problem of the patient in order to earn few extra bucks. However, in actuality the patient need not require any surgeries or treatment. Medical insurance is claimed for the medications not even performed,” said a source of the department.

Even as the RSBY scheme is a boon for the poor patients, the frauds committed by the hospitals have shown how these private players have turned it to their advantage.

District Family Welfare Officer Dr Ranjit Singh Buttar said, “We have removed two hospitals; Life Line Hospital and Waryam Singh Hospital from the panel.”

He said the district monitoring committee has recommended a warning for Sareen Hospital and Ranjit Hospital and the matter to put them back on the panel would be considered.

He said the charges against Ohri Hospital and Sandhu Life Care hospital would be considered in the upcoming meeting.

Amritsar, August 29
The Employees State Insurance (ESI) Hospital management in the city may brag about possessing a state-of-the-art infrastructure, surrounded by sprawling lawns, but the ground realities speak otherwise.

Due to faulty planning, water gets stagnant around the hospital building and ceiling has seepage, which may lead to a short circuit. There is a wild growth of weeds and burning to trash on the premises goes unchecked. All these problems could not be prescribed as healthy for more than 32,000 employees of various institutions, who visit the hospital as beneficiaries.

In the absence of proper outlet for water, the hospital at Majitha Road seems to be located in a pool of filthy stagnant water surrounded by wild weeds. The hospital has made a makeshift “kutcha” channel to create an outlet for the waste water generated at the hospital.

But in the absence of a permanent solution, the water often overflows and enters the open spaces alongside the building. Congress grass, a common weed, is growing in the open space around the hospital.

Entering the premises revealed some other issues, which need immediate attention. Around the gynaecology ward, in the absence of underground water outlet provision, the discarded water flows out on the open ground. The sewage water poses a threat to the patients in the hospital. The spot had become a breeding ground for mosquitoes and an active scourge of diseases.

This faulty water outlet planning has resulted in dirty water remaining stagnant adjoining the building permanently, while making the place a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes and flies.

Due to the faulty construction panel on the roof of the waiting hall, the water being disposed from the toilets of upper floors constantly seep into the ceilings. The situation has become more risky because the water leakage has now entered the electric wires.

“The management should take immediate notice of this shortcoming, because anytime this situation can lead to a short circuit,” said patients waiting in the hall.

“The water stagnates here. An underground disposal system should be put in place here. A continuous foul smell emanates from here,” complained another patient.

official speak
Since it involves a financial matter, we have to approach the authorities at the Centre level and we have already done that after taking note of all these problems through our Hospital Development Committee. The problem has compounded ever since the level of the road surrounding the hospital has been raised. In the absence of any water disposal system, the rainwater flows back. A bypass route has been proposed to get the water flow out in the main sewerage, passing along Guru Nanak Dev Hospital. The seepage is mainly caused because some miscreants stole water taps on the upper floors, with the result the water keep on flowing. We have plugged them now and intensified the security. Similarly, the serious issue of garbage burning on the hospital premises would be addressed.

— Dr SPS Dhillon, Medical Superintendent, ESI

Amritsar, August 29
Twelve hours after a special police team raided the Amritsar Central Jail premises on Tuesday, two more mobile phones, three SIM cards and a memory chip were recovered by the jail staff from the possession of four undertrials, who have been booked under the Prisoners Act today.

The fresh recovery has raised a question mark on the way the “surprise check” was conducted yesterday by a high-profile local police team, which could recover just four mobile phones that too without SIM cards only.

It took the raiding party almost half an hour to furnish the jail formalities to get in and it was ample time for the information about the raid to get leaked and let inmates conceal the undesired material.

Ironically, the police party, which comprised ADCP, five ACPs, 15 SHOs and around 250 other police personnel, conducted a search operation yesterday, but could recover just four mobile phones, that, too, lying abandoned with no SIM cards in them.

Equally interesting was to learn that such a high-profile police party did not find even a single intoxicant during the operation.

It is hard to believe that either all the jail inmates have reformed or the police party’s raid was just an “eyewash”.

On January 9, 2011, the local police had conducted a surprise check and had then recovered as many as 12 mobile phones, 100 gm of poppy husk powder, syringes, needles and tinfoil papers to inhale smack.

Such a huge recovery of mobile phones and intoxicants speak volumes of the lawlessness prevailing on the jail premises.

Baljeet Singh Randhawa, ADCP, who led the yesterday’s search operation, admitted that the procedure of the raid had to be revamped.

“There could be no denial that the information tends to leak and it gives opportune time to the inmates’ sources to get them alert. The procedure is obsolete and needs a thorough review. Reaching at the main gate, the jail verifying process is so tedious and time consuming that it took us over half an hour to finally get in and start our operation. I cannot deny that within this period the news of the raid could have travelled to the inmates and gave them time to conceal the objectionable material lying with them,” he said.

The offenders
y On the complaint submitted by Jail Superintendent BS Gill, four undertrials lodged in the jail were today booked under Section 420 of the IPC and Section 42 of the Prisoners Act at the Cantonment area police station for possessing mobile phones and SIM cards. The undertrials who have been booked are Nirmal Singh, resident of Khanowal, from whom the jail staff recovered one mobile phone with a SIM card, Harchand Singh, resident of Tarn Taran, from whom a SIM card and a bag consisting some objectionable documents were recovered, Sukhwinder Singh, alias Ghona, resident of Loharka Kalan, and Ravinder Singh, alias Jinder, from whom one mobile phone with SIM and memory chip were recovered.

Amritsar, August 29
The Health Department has challaned 50 persons for violating the ban on smoking at public places. District Health Officer Dr Shivcharan Singh Kahlon said health teams raided various places, including parks, bus stand and railway station to challan the violators.

He said a raid was also conducted on a bar to check if hookahs were being used. Only a few months ago the department had conducted a raid on the bar and found it serving hookahs to customers. Dr Kahlon said a smoke-free status had been accorded to the city so people must not indulge in smoking at public places. He warned cigarette vendors against selling cigarettes to minors. “We would check more of these places in coming days to see if the norms are being followed properly or not. No violator would be spared,” he said.

Amritsar, August 29
On the lines of Chandigarh’s leisure valley concept, a nature’s trail-cum-awareness park is coming up in the holy city soon.

The park, tentatively known as Environment Park, is 150-yard wide and has been conceptualised on the vacant stretches of land, alongside the Upper Bari Doab Canal (UBDC) canal between Taranwala Pul and Sultanwind.

The uniqueness of this park would be the present natural contours and the green ingredients of the spot, which would be preserved as it is.

In addition to this, a new series of ornamental saplings and the landscaping would be there to beautify the stretch.

One may get a perfect view of white and golden-silver oaks, jacarandas, lagerstormias, mahoganys, amaltas, gulmohars and bauhinias (kachnar) with a green cover of majestic trees like pilkhan and Arjun.

After an initiation of Chief Parliamentary Secretary (CPS) Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu, the Punjab Forests Minister, Surjit Kumar Jyani has approved the project which would come up at a cost of Rs 2.5 crore, out of which Rs 1.5 crore has to be borne by the custodian forests department and rest of the amount to be arranged from MPLAD funds and CPS discretionary funds.

Dr Sidhu said this magnificent 4-km layout plan and the arboriculture of the site would be a gift to the successive generations and would be there within a span of one year.

“It would be an interesting ‘jungle walk’ because this stretch already has a thick green cover. We decided to convert it into a place where people should spend their time leisurely. No tree or the bushes would be chopped off, except for pruning. Besides this, we would be supplementing it with ornamental and rare saplings,” she said.

District forest officer NS Randhawa said a revised plan was sent for approval which got through. “Earlier plan had more of a civil part. But now, we have planned to fence the original contours like earth filling and pruning of existing trees. Besides, rare saplings would be planted where signboard for species to educate the visitors about the properties of particular plants. Proper walking paths would be laid in the park so that people come and enjoy the beauty of nature in clean and fresh environment,” said Randhawa.

Amritsar, August 29
Guru Nanak Dev University will conduct a written test for the appointment of Clerk-cum-Junior Data Entry Operator on September 16 in the University Campus.

Registrar Dr Inderjit Singh said Prof MS Hundal and Prof RK Mahajan had been appointed as the coordinators for this test.

“The admit cards to all the eligible candidates will be sent individually. The list of eligible candidates will appear shortly on the University website www.gndu.ac.in.. Those candidates who do not receive their admit cards till September 11 can collect them personally from the Deputy Registrar (Establishment) during the working hours (on September 12 and 13,” he said.

He also advised the eligible candidates to bring two passport size attested photographs (as used in the application form) along with required documents to get a duplicate admit card.

Amritsar, August 29
Creativity enthrals, entertains and also breaks records. Well, for city-based paper artist Gurpreet Singh, it definitely does. The master creator, who has a whooping 13 international and 10 national records to his credit for creating art from varied items, is at it again.

Celebrating National Sports Day and paying homage to hockey legend Dhyan Chand on his birthday, the artist has created a portrait of the sport star using 5,740 iron nails. “It took me 40 non-stop working hours to complete my portrait. It’s a tribute to the hockey star and also to the sport that has lost its former glory,” says the artist.

The portrait is just one of his many creations.

Amritsar, August 29
Bhai Dharam Singh Satellite Hospital at Ranjit Avenue is amongst the most popular hospitals in the city, yet it suffers acute shortage in terms of machinery, medicines and staff.

The hospital offers far better facilities than the other satellite hospitals and is the only one where middle and upper-middle class patients can be seen, even more than the government hospitals.

Medical Officer Dr Hardeep Kaur said, “We conduct 50 normal deliveries on an average per month. The daily OPD list is around 60 to 70. Despite, the hospital has one safai sewak for ensuring cleanliness. The hospital had also employed a female attendant under the National Rural Health Mission to assist in theatres as well as ensuring cleanliness during the nights.

The hospital does have a dental surgeon, the post for which was lying vacant at the Fatehpur hospital. However, the chair used by the dental surgeons requires an immediate replacement.

“The machine is partially operative,” said an employee.

Dr Hardeep Kaur said, “The clinical testing facility at the hospital is the best thing. The poor people can get the tests done at subsidised rates.”

She said the shortage of testing kits was managed by procuring kits from charitable institutions. The hospital employees had complained about the incidents of snatching that had occurred in the hospital.

“Recently, an employee’s purse was snatched. The area lacks security. Something should be done to ensure safety of the employees especially, during the nights,” said ophthalmologist Sanjeev Anand.

Amritsar, August 29
Students of Ryan International School yesterday celebrated Founder’s Day, the birthday of founder Chairman of the school Dr Augustine Francis Pinto, with full zest and zeal.

A sense of purpose and fulfilment was felt by associating the day with charity, neighbourhood celebration, community learning and many other activities like playing, orchestra competition, card making and street plays. — TNS