Jalandhar, September 27
Adopting a proactive approach following the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s intervention in the matter, the Jalandhar Development Authority (JDA) has started a massive exercise to check the violations by the 62 marriage palaces falling in its purview.

A meeting of officials from all departments concerned, including District Town Planner, Forest Department, Fire Department, Punjab Pollution Control Board, PWD and Powercomm, was held in the office of Chief Administrator-cum-Deputy Commissioner Priyank Bharti today.

All departments were told to make checklists of various documents and NOCs that are to be sought from them by the palace owners. Officials of the departments concerned from Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur had attended the meeting.

The exercise was in the wake of a public notice already issued to the palace owners to get their original documents verified and appear in a personal hearing in the office of the JDA on October 3. The owners of palaces in Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala have been asked to appear on October 5 and 8, respectively.

In response to the public notice of the JDA which also mentioned that the copies of the mandatory permissions that they had sought from various departments by the palace owners be submitted in the office of the District Town Planner by September 25, only three palaces of Jalandhar have responded, that, too, based in Mehatpur, Tajpur and Khurdpur.

There, however, has been a good response from Hoshiapur from where 29 out of 73 palaces have reported and Kapurthala where 11 out of 53 palaces have sent their correspondence.

PUDA ACA Sarojini Gautam said, “Through the exercise, we aim to give a chance to the owners to regularise their palaces by seeking pending documents like CLU, approval of building plans and NOCs. In case, they would not consider it to be a viable option to make payments which could be quite high, they would be told to shut down. For major violations like deviations from approved plans or not leaving requisite parking space, they would have to abide by given the bylaws.”

Jalandhar, September 27
In the light of the fire incident at the neonatal intensive care unit at a private hospital in Ludhiana on Tuesday, The Tribune took a peek at the state of fire extinguishing equipment in various hospitals (government and private) in the city yesterday.

While most of the private hospitals in the city appeared prepared for such an eventuality, sources said many hospitals were careless about the regular upgrade of fire extinguishing equipment.

Fire extinguishing cylinders at Vardaan Medical Centre, one of the premier maternal care centres in the city, bore 2009 as their manufacturing date and the authorities said the cylinders had been refilled recently.

Since the centre is not a big building and much of the premises houses rooms close to each other, the centre was found to be well equipped with sprinklers, fire extinguishing cylinders, etc.

Dr Varish Kumar, managing director of the centre, said: “Keeping in mind the amount of equipment we have and the fact that the wards are housed in the basement, we take a lot of care of our fire extinguishing equipment. They are regularly upgraded. We also got our fire extinguishing cylinders refilled recently.”

Equipment at Mangat Hospital were also found up to the mark. Dr SK Mangat from the hospital said equipment had been recently checked and they were in perfect working order.

However, some doctors said upgrades were not that regular at city hospitals.

Dr Kamal Gupta from Kamal Hospital said: “Incidents like the one that happened in Ludhiana are rare. Hospitals usually opt for an upgrade only when someone points a laxity. Hospitals have all requisite fire extinguishing equipment, but sometimes upgrades do get delayed.”

Sources said there were many city hospitals which did not opt for regular checks or upgrades of their fire extinguishing equipment.

It was also noted that some of the well-equipped hospitals, which shifted their newborn babies to nurseries outside their hospitals (or situated in other hospitals), did not make sure that the nurseries where the newborn babies were shifted had all requisite equipment.

The paediatric ward and nursery at the Civil Hospital were without fire-fighting equipment.

While the fire extinguishing equipment at the Civil Hospital itself is obsolete, neither the paediatric ward, nor the nursery accompanying it had any fire extinguishing equipment installed in them.

Notably, there are five phototherapy units and seven radiant heat warmers at the nursery of the Civil Hospital.

Civil Surgeon RL Bassan said: “We will shortly get the equipment at the hospital checked.”

Jalandhar, September 27
Four persons, including two students, were injured in two separate road accidents involving a truck, a motorcycle, a jeep and a car in the city today. Two school-going boys were seriously injured when a motorcycle they were riding collided with a truck at Babri Chowk this morning.

The victims, Harjit Singh, a resident of Aadarsh Nagar, and his friend Sahil, were riding a motorcycle when a truck knocked down their vehicle leaving them seriously injured. The injured were rushed to the local Civil Hospital where their condition is said to be stable.

The police had nabbed the driver of the truck and a case of rash and negligent driving was registered against him at the Police Station Division No 5.

In a bizarre collision between a jeep and a car, two women occupants of the car were injured on the Jalandhar-Kapurthala Road at Adda village near Wariana.

After hitting the car, the jeep also rammed into an electricity pole along the road. The collision was so forceful that even the concrete pole came crashing down on the road.

The occupants of the car, other road users and passers-by had a miraculous escape as live power cables came down along the pole.

The police said the driver of the jeep, Gurjit Singh, a resident of Sangal Sohal village, lost control over the steering wheel and rammed his vehicle into a car approaching from the opposite direction.

The car occupants, Kamaljit Kaur, a resident of Football Chowk, and Sandeep Kaur of Aadarsh Nagar, were injured in the accident. They were rushed to a nearby private hospital.

Traffic on the busy road was also disrupted for a long time. After receiving the information, police personnel from the Maqsudan police station reached the spot and impounded the vehicles involved in the accident. The police has also initiated action in this regard. — TNS

Nakodar, September 27
The police here booked seven persons for allegedly assaulting four persons of Gillan village last evening.

The accused were identified as Harjinder, Harpreet, Gurdeep, Kulawant, Punmadi, Kala and Gurdev.

A case under Sections 341, 427, 506, 148, 149 of the IPC was registered.

The complainant, Amarjit, had told the police that he, along with Harjit, Manjit and Jasprit, was heading toward his home on a car on Wednesday when the above said person stopped them on the way and attacked them with sharp-edged weapons.

He said the accused had also smashed the windowpanes of their car.

The police had launched a manhunt to nab the booked persons.

Jalandhar, September 27
The Municipal Corporation is in the final stages of allotting a 2,500 sq m land to Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) at Lamma Pind Chowk for setting up the first CNG pump in the city.

The site, which originally was Fodder Market, was given by the Punjab State Agricultural Marketing Board on a 20-year lease period to the Municipal Corporation on May 16, 2008, at Rs 5,000 per acre per year. Since then, the MC had utilised a major chunk of 3.5 acre out of the total area of 4.5 acre for setting up a city bus depot and the remaining was being used as an auto workshop.

Acting as per orders issued by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on three CWPs, the Local Bodies Department has asked the MCs to offer land to GAIL for promoting CNG vehicles instead of diesel for public transport and help in curbing increasing pollution.

The MC during its House meeting on August 28 had taken the consent of the councillors for offering land to the company and also asking for the extension of the lease period from 20 to 25 years in view of the agreement being signed for the purpose with GAIL. The MC has already sought the requisite consent from Jalandhar City Bus Service Ltd.

A continuous monitoring of the project is being done by the High Court through its periodic hearings.

“We are now awaiting the consent of the Mandi Board for the extension of the lease period. We have some surplus land there,” said Commissioner Vinay Bublani.

Jalandhar, September 27
Exhibiting a tough posture from the very beginning, newly elected Mayor Sunil Jyoti reached the office at sharp 9 am and checked as to which employees had not turned up.

He then called a meeting of the heads of all departments and asked them to ensure that their staff was punctual or else they could face the music. He gave a 10-day time to the staff to improve their habit.

In the meeting, his first issue was ensuring cleanliness across the city. He told the officials to keep a track on the consumption of diesel, vis-a-visa the daily movement of vehicles.

Jyoti even asked the staff of all recovery departments, including O&M, House Tax and Building Branch, to furnish a detailed report regarding the daily collection in his office.

He asked them to pull up their socks or else wait for their shifting to some other department. He particularly asked the building branch officials to become more transparent in their working.

Later, he visited the Wariana dump, along with Commissioner Vinay Bublani, and discussed issues, including hiring machinery for the compaction of waste to create more space for land filling.

He later went to the Sodal Temple to check arrangements for the Sodal Mela starting from tomorrow.

Jalandhar, September 27
In the yesterday's incident, in which a woman, along with her two children, reportedly jumped before a train and were killed, the Government Railway Police (GRP) today claimed that the woman did not commit suicide, but the trio accidentally died while crossing the tracks.

Baldev Singh, Station House Officer (SHO), GRP, said the relatives of the woman, in a statement to the police, said the woman, along with her children, was living happily with her husband and they had never seen them fighting at home.

"I have also recorded the statement of the driver of Shaheed Express, Kulwant Singh, who said the woman did not commit suicide. Unaware of the train, she, along with her children, had accidentally come on the tracks," SHO added.

Relatives of the woman further told the police that: "A day before the accident, we had visited Rajni's home at Qazi Mohalla and she had not apprised us of any serious problem or any other tension in the family".

Though Rajni was in a state of depression ever since the death of her five-year-old son, who had consumed mosquito repellent, she could not take such extreme step, they added.

The SHO said their bodies were handed over to the family members after conducting postmortem.

Misery of grief-stricken Manak Singh, who had already lost his first child a few months ago, now multiplied with the death of his wife Rajni, six-year-old daughter Soni and one-year-old Bablu.

"For whom I should live now. I have lost my all family members. The god has done injustice to me," Manak added.

Amritsar, September 27
The Shaheed Bhagat Singh Naujwan Sabha today organised a march to commemorate the birth anniversary of the martyr at Jallianwala Bagh here. The activists, while raising anti-government slogans, said the right to work should be included in the Constitution as a fundamental right.

President of the sabha Pargat Singh said vacant posts in various government departments should be filled to lessen unemployment among the educated youth. He said an unemployment allowance should be paid to all jobless youngsters.

“It should be at least half of the pay a person would draw if he is given a job as per his eligibility and qualification,” Pargat Singh demanded.

The activists also demanded that education up to the higher secondary level should be made free and compulsory.

The activists also demanded interest-free loans for higher education purposes.