Bathinda, October 30
Come March 31, 2013 and the government will refund the subsidy on the first six LPG cylinders directly to your bank account.

After the introduction of the cap on the LPG cylinders, the Union Ministry of Petroleum has introduced forms seeking information about the LPG consumers.

The last date for submitting these forms was October 31 but it would now be extended till mid November as gas agencies have not succeeded in covering all their consumers.

The forms, available with all gas agencies, have created confusion and panic among the genuine consumers.

"The forms aim at detecting double connections in every household. Since the holders of double connections know they would face the music, they are creating unnecessary confusion and panic," revealed the owner of an LPG gas agency.

A consumer will have to provide personal information, identity proof, residential proof and banks account details in these forms. The bank account details have been sought as the government plans to deposit the subsidy on every gas cylinder directly into the account of the consumer.

"This means that after March 31, even subsidised cylinder would be available for Rs 947. But the subsidy will later be refunded into the account of the consumer 72 hours after the delivery," clarified Paramveer Singh, a gas agency owner.

Once the exercise of filling up the forms is completed, the gas agencies will undertake the exercise of conducting the physical verification of each connection. Physical verification is aimed at weeding out the illegal and fake connections.

As per the market sources, every gas agency has around 14,000 double connections. With nine gas agencies operating in the city, there are around 1.26 lakh double connections in Bathinda city. Interestingly, with the announcement of the cap on LPG, the number of applicants for double connections has increased at the gas agencies in the city. While the tenants are showing connections on the first, second or third floor of houses, others have found a novel way of mentioning multiple kitchens in a single household.

"Such people claim at the time of physical verification that it would "create" an additional kitchen in their household," added another gas agency owner.

Bathinda, October 30
The doctors at the Adesh Institute of Medical Science and Research (AIMSR) claimed to have successfully removed a rare cyst from the neck of a 45-year-old female patient.

Dr Grace Budhiraja said the patient came with a huge swelling in the neck. "She has been suffering from swelling for the last one and a half years but there was no other symptom. Neither did the swelling cause pain nor uneasiness to the patient," said Dr Grace.

She added that in most of the cases, swelling in the neck is diagnosed as a problem elated to the thyroid gland. But the patient Jaswinder Kaur was suffering from a rare cyst located on the lower side of her neck.

"Usually, people have cyst in the upper side of the neck. Chances of cysts in the lower side of the neck are just 3 per cent and this was one of those rare cases," she said.

During the investigations, it was found that the cyst had grown to the cervical area and it had stretched the nerves and other blood vessels.

A team of doctors including Dr Grace Budhiraja, Dr Gurpreet Singh Gill, Dr SL Thukral and Dr MT Zia conducted the surgery and removed the cyst.

Dr Grace said the cause of such cysts is largely unknown.

Bathinda, October 30
The members of the Unemployed Linemen Union today blocked the Bathinda-Mansa road causing traffic jam that extended up to many kilometers.

After raising slogans outside the District Administrative Complex (DAC) along with their family members, the members of the union reached near the flyover on the Bathinda-Mansa road in large numbers.

Traffic remained blocked on the road for over an hour and many of the protesters squatted beside the flyover waiting to block the road again in case the assurance of the government officials proved to be false.

The members of the union demanded that 16 activists of the union lodged in Bathinda Central Jail for raising slogans and demanding jobs during a function attended by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on September 27, be released immediately.

Heavy police force arrived at the site of the dharna to lift the blockade. After long consultations, the dharna was lifted on the condition that the 16 youths lodged in jail, most of them on hunger strike, be released immediately.

One of the leaders of the union, Jagtar Mahinangal, said instead of pacifying the members of the union, including 4,000 unemployed youth, the government was trying to suppress their voice. "The more they try to suppress us, the more we would intensify our protest. We will not relent until we are given the jobs in the Powercom as per the promise made by the state government," said Jagtar. He alleged that the political leaders woo them while seeking votes but do not fulfill their promise once they come to power.

Heavy police force was deployed around the agitating linemen.

Some of the agitating linemen were called by the senior government officials for talks in the evening.

The agitating linemen said that they had adequate educational qualification and the experience to become linemen in the Powercom but the government chose to ignore their claim. The members of the union said many of those on dharna in the jail have been without food and water for the last six days.

They said various government officials and ministers have held meetings with them and assured of giving them appointment letters but nothing has been done in this regard so far.

The family members of the linemen who are lodged in jail said their kin were in prison for a genuine cause and they would support them so that could get the jobs. 

Bathinda, October 30
Mobile phones are the biggest threat to book culture in Punjab, said a leading publisher of the state, Harish Jain from Lok Geet Prakashan.

Jain presided over the seminar held to discuss the problem of declining readership and its solution held on the sidelines of the book fair organized by National Book Trust (NBT) at the Punjabi University Regional Centre.

He said instead of television and internet, it was the mobile phone culture that was killing the reading habit in youngsters.

He laid emphasis upon the need to formulate a policy to promote culture, language and literature in the state. Jain went on to add that the government's commitment was needed to promote reading habits in Punjab.

Calling upon the people to set up separate budget for books, he said, "The way we spare money for donation in temples and gurudwaras, we should also set aside money for buying books. Only this can save the reading habit from slipping into oblivion," he said.

The chief guest on the occasion was Dr Surjit Brar. Literary figures like Megh Raj Mittar, Dr Baldev Singh Baddan, Amardeep Gill, satirist KL Garg from Moga, Navsangeet Singh, story writer Bhagwant Rasulpuri, Ravinder Sandhu, Jinder, Labh Singh Sandhu, Khushwant Bargari, Manpreet Tiwana, Satnam Singh Jassal and Surinderpreet Ghaniya were also present on the occasion.

Bathinda, October 30
A two-day training camp of the National Disaster Management Authority, Delhi, began in Bathinda today.

Officials from various departments of Bathinda, Mansa, Muktsar and Faridkot were given training in ways to handle situations of natural calamity, especially earthquake.

Senior specialist Major General VK Dutt and KK Gadnaik told the officials about the ways to save lives of people in time of natural disasters. They gave details of various equipment used during the disasters and said similar training should be imparted to other officials.

Dutt said the rescue operation should be planned in such a way that lives are saved at the earliest. During the meeting, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development) Mohammad Tayyab, district revenue officer HS Dhillon and Naresh Taria from the NDRF, were present along with others.

Bathinda, October 30
Mittar Pal Singh has been elected as the president of the Retail Chemists Association, Bathinda. Other office- bearers of the association were also elected unanimously at a meeting held under the president of the body, Ashok Balianwali.

Suresh Kumar Tayal, Yash Pal Garg, Sandeep Garg, Ajay Kumar, Munish Kumar, Parminder Singh Kohli and Satish Kumar have been elected as the vice-presidents. Manoj Kumar has been elected as the general secretary.

Jiwan Nohria, Prem Kumar Bansal, Pawan Deep Grover, Vijay Goyal, GP Singla, Sanjeev Kumar Jindal and Harmail Singh have been elected as the secretary.

Pritam Singh Virk has been elected as the cashier while advocates Gurwinder Singh Jagaram Tirath and Rakesh Kumar Gupta have been roped in as legal advisors of the association.

Bathinda, October 30
The death anniversary of Sant Fateh Singh was observed at village Badiala today.

Speaking on the occasion, irrigation minister Janmeja Singh Sekhon said Sant Fateh Singh had made a major contribution in awakening the people of Punjab and forming Punjabi society. He added that Sant Fateh Singh will always remain an example for generations to come.

Chief advisor to the Chief Minister, Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal, senior leader of the Shiromani Akali Dal Balwant Singh Ramoowalia and others also addressed the gathering.

SAD Talwandi Sabo in-charge Amarjit Singh Sidhu, Deputy Commissioner KK Yadav and SDM, Rampura, Bhupinder Singh were also present on the occasion.

Bathinda, October 30
The department of computer science of the Punjab Technical University Giani Zail Singh (PTUGZS) campus organised a colourful techno-cultural fest, Compkriti.

Various events including debate, presentation, technical quiz, techie crossword and group dance were held at the function.

The programme was coordinated by Jyoti Rani. She said special care was taken to create a technical panorama and ensure that the events had an engineering or technical expression.

Sapna Sharma and Mehak Sood bagged the first prize in power point presentation, which demonstrated the newly launched Windows 8 that has attracted computer users all over the world.

While Harvinder Kaur, a student, won the debate on the topic "Relevance of social networking", Shavi Pathania and Rahul Jindal bagged the first position in the techie crossword, which required a knack for engineering and technology.

Subhash won in the website making competition. In the event project development, Shavi Pathania secured the first place.

The event is popular in all the engineering departments.

The event, Astitva, that tackled the challenge of extinction of the tiger population, was also held besides competitions in slogan writing and poem recitation. These events were held to create awareness about the challenges of wildlife.

Director, PTUGZS Campus, Dr Jasbir Singh Hundal congratulated the head of the department of computer science and engineering for organizing the programme successfully.

In the evening, the campus organized farewell for the computer engineering students of final year (2009-2013) batch as these students will now proceed for the scheduled six- month training from January 2013 and will not join the academic activities there after.

Professor Dinesh Kumar inspired the students and asked them to work with sincerity and hard work.

Bathinda, October 30
Police have registered a case against Manjit Singh and some unidentified persons for demanding money from some shopkeepers near the Bathinda railway station. In a complaint to the police, Madan Yadav, the owner of a fish shop and others, informed the police that some youths were demanding money from them after threatening them with dire consequences.