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On hunger strike, special trainers rushed to hospital
Health dept dreads taxing times
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Ban on Registry of land deals hits revenue
Water samples of four schools fail quality test
Armed Forces Flag Day observed
pending demands
Victims regain consciousness
School holds its annual function
Crime
scene
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On hunger strike, special trainers rushed to hospital
Bathinda, December 7 A team of the policemen and officials from the health department, led by ADC Rajiv Prashar and DSP Gurmit Singh Kingra, picked up the two special trainers who had been on hunger strike for the last ten and five days respectively, and admitted them to the Civil Hospital after their condition deteriorated. Other members of the team of officials included SHO Gurdev Bhalla, SHO Ucee Chawla and SHO Jaspal Singh. The members of Special Trainers Teachers' Union said another teacher, Balwinder Singh from Mansa, will now observe hunger strike till the government accepts their demands. Irked with the state government for not fulfilling their demands, the special trainer teachers have been agitating for the last 43 days. They had been camping outside the Mini-secretariat. The agitating teachers said the government is not implementing their demands, which it had agreed to in principle. On December 5, the Education Minister had held a meeting with the members of the union and asserted that all the ousted special trainer teachers will be taken back. However, of the 900 shown the door, only 500 have been re-employed, while no notification has been issued for the remaining 494 teachers. The members of the union demanded that the remaining 494 teachers should also be made to re-join. They threatened to create disturbance during the visit of the Prime Minister to Ludhiana on December 8. Tomorrow, a delegation of the union is expected to meet the officials of the district administration.
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Health dept dreads taxing times
Bathinda, December 7 Of the 60,000 small-time vendors in the district, only 2,100 have registered with the health department so far. Of the 4,000 big traders, having an annual income of more than Rs 12 lakh per annum, only 400 have sought licences so far. The health department has been making repeated appeals to the traders to get registered, but the response has been tepid. Earlier, the state government had fixed August 3 as the last date for registration, which was extended by six months to February 3. If anyone, dealing in any kind of eatables, is found without the required registration or licence, he could be penalized. However, the government is yet to fix the penalty slabs. The health department fears that the people would start thronging their office as the deadline approaches. "Usually, people wake up from slumber when the last date approaches. The earlier they come to us, the more speedily their work would be done. The last minute applicants usually end up creating trouble for all of us," said an employee of the health department. The department has already faced this situation in August, when a sudden rush was witnessed. The health department officials lamented that extending the deadline actually acted as a dampener in getting the work done speedily. The employees added that as per the rules, traders with an income of more than Rs 12 lakh per annum were supposed to get the licences made. "But not all traders falling in the category are opting for licences. Many of them have applied as small-scale unit traders. "Since we have no means to verify the income of the applicant, we are taking their disclosures of annual income at face value," added another employee. Under the Food Safety and Standards Act of India, all food traders like gole gappe walas, groundnut seller, rehriwalas, green grocers, dhaba owners, dairy owners, owners of restaurants and hotels and big traders would have to get themselves registered. Fact file
Earlier, people were governed by the Food Safety Act (FSA), which was very stringent. Under FSA, people had to deal with long legal battles when their food samples were sent for laboratory tests. However, the new Act has different provisions for penalty and punishments. If a food product has been declared not injurious to human health or not life threatening, or has been mislabeled or wrongly branded, the case would be forwarded to the court of the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development) who has been designated as the adjudicator under the Act. "At the adjudicator's court, the matter would be solved in less than a year thereby saving the businessmen from long legal hassles," said District Health Officer Dr RS Randhawa, the designated officer in-charge under the Act. |
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Manholes jut out of roads, pose threat to commuters
Bathinda, December 7 It becomes quite difficult for vehicles to cross over the protruding manholes. Many four-wheelers get damaged when their bonnet or chassis bumps into such manholes. Such uneven manholes can be found on Bibiwala road, Power House road, GT road, Amreek Singh Road and other areas in the city. "Besides creating problems for the commuters and pedestrians, the manholes are also a health hazard as filth can be seen gushing out of them during the rainy season," said Surat Singh, a resident of Dhobiana road. Another city resident, Darshan Chahal, said polluted water is released on the city roads which get damaged. The water also enters the residential colonies situated in low-lying areas. Many manholes were damaged and despite noticing the problem, nothing was done by the authorities concerned, said the residents. Shyam Sharma, a resident of Paras Ram Nagar, said his new car was badly damaged after it rammed into a recently constructed manhole. He said most manholes are constructed in such a way that they protrude from the road and the wheels of the vehicles and the bumper bump into the protruding part of the manhole and get damaged. The cyclists, rickshaw-pullers, three-wheelers and two-wheelers also try to avoid passing over these manholes as they lose balance. "The two-wheelers or three-wheelers always try to avoid passing over these manholes and swerve their vehicles away from the manhole. As a result, bigger vehicles coming behind them bump into the manhole," said Chunni Lal Mittal, a resident of Aggarwal Colony. Ravinder Mann, a resident of Power House road, said he noticed many accidents taking place due to the protruding manholes. "There are three recently constructed manholes covered with bushes as the cement applied on them is still fresh. People can be seen banging their vehicles into these recently laid manholes," Mann said.
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Road caves in as water pipe bursts
Bathinda, December 7 Cops at the Police Lines informed the public works department (PWD) about the problem. Using JCB machine, the portion of the land was dug up and the pipes were replaced. In the meantime, traffic bound for the railway overbridge on Mansa road was diverted from the Civil Hospital side using a single lane. PWD officials said the pipe was carrying water from the Bhagu road water works to the Civil Hospital. The pipes had been laid many years ago and were deep seated. "The pipes were probably getting damaged over the years and suddenly burst open today. The possibility of damage due to heavy vehicles is less as the pipes were deep seated (around 5.5 feet to 6 feet) and the road has been carpeted many a time ever since they were laid," said the PWD officials. The bursting of the pipe led to a portion of the road caving in. Cops at the Police Lines said had the incident taken place at night, the caving in of the road could have caused a major accident.
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Ban on Registry of land deals hits revenue
Bathinda, December 7 The information collected reveals that this year, till October 31, Rs 50.49 crore was collected through stamp duty and registry fees, whereas for the corresponding period last year, the figure was Rs 59.07 crore. Instead of registering an increase, the income has come down by Rs 9 crore. The Bathinda Development Authority (BDA) had identified 67 illegal and unauthorised colonies. The list includes even old areas that have existed for the many decades, even before the PUDA Act, 1995, came into being. On the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the government ordered a ban on the registry of land in these controversial areas from October 1 onwards, till the further orders of the court. Already battling a slump, those in real estate business faced a severe setback. Now, only the loan borrowers are getting the registries executed instead of the investors. The real estate agents have been raising a hue and cry repeatedly, but the appeals have fallen on deaf ears. As per the reports, in October this year, the department earned Rs 5.46 crore from stamp duty and registry fees, whereas it was Rs 5.88 crore last year during the corresponding month. In October 2011, 2,464 registries were done but the income was more. This year, 2,708 registries were done but the income is less. This year, 23,039 registries have been recorded, whereas it was 25,128 last year. An analysis of the record shows that the number of registries has seen a constant decline since the ban imposed on October 1. In May, 800 sales were registered followed by 706 registries in June, 650 registries in July, 559 registries in August, 481 in October and a mere 384 in November. The record for September was not available. Most of the illegal colonies have water supply and sewer connections, approved building plans, power connections and streetlights. These areas inlcude Paras Ram Nagar, Jujhar Singh Nagar, Jivi Nagar, Pratap Nagar, Hans Nagar, Mati Dass Nagar, Hazura Kapura, Baba Farid Nagar, Hans Nagar, Adarsh Nagar, National Colony, Bank Colony, Balla Ram Nagar and others.
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Water samples of four schools fail quality test
Bathinda, December 7 The senior medical officers of Nathana and Rampura collected the samples from four government schools on October 4. These schools were Government Elementary School (Mari) at Nathana, Government Senior Secondary School at Bhucho Kalan, Government Elementary School at Mandi Khurd gurdwara and Government Senior Secondary School (Boys) at Rampura. The samples were sent for testing to the state public health laboratory at Chandigarh. The reports revealed that samples of water collected were unfit for human consumption. The District Education Officer (Secondary) has directed the principals and the in-charges of these schools to ensure that water was chlorinated before it was given to children. The authorities of these schools have also been directed to ensure that the quality of water was improved and the DEO office should be informed about it within the next 15 days so that water samples could be collected again for testing. If the DEO office was not informed about the alternate arrangement or steps taken to improve the quality of water within the next 21 days, the DEO office employees would collect the samples themselves. Fact file
The samples were collected from Government Elementary School (Mari) at Nathana, Government Senior Secondary School at Bhucho Kalan, Government Elementary School at Mandi Khurd gurdwara and Government Senior Secondary School (Boys) at Rampura. |
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Armed Forces Flag Day observed
Bathinda, December 7 On the occasion, Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishore Yadav paid rich tributes to the martyrs who laid down their lives while defending the sovereignty and integrity of their motherland. He said, "The serving defence personnel are doing a yeoman service in guarding our land, sea and air frontiers round-the-clock and under extreme difficult conditions. They are maintaining a constant vigil on our adversaries. It is our duty to look after them in their hour of need." Meanwhile, a special news bulletin and a compendium of welfare schemes were released for circulation among the ex-servicemen fraternity. The District Defence Services Welfare Officer, Bathinda, Commander (retd) Baljinder Virk, urged the fellow countrymen to honour the valiant martyrs. He said the nation could express their solidarity by donating generously for the Armed Forces Flag Day Fund. These funds are utilised for resettlement of ex-servicemen, rehabilitation of battle casualties and welfare of ex-servicemen, serving personnel and their families. The vice-president of the Zila Sainik Board Colonel (retd) Kuldip Singh and Lt-Colonel (retd) S Mann were also present on the occasion.
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Teachers go on hunger strike in protest against SAD-BJP govt
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, December 7 The president of the PCCTU Bathinda unit, Satish Vohra, said the government was not acceding to "just and genuine" demands of the teaching as well as non-teaching employees. The demands were implementation of pension and gratuity scheme, payment of arrears of the revised pay-scales, security to service for unaided staff working in colleges, lifting of ban on the recruitment procedure and enhancement of the retirement age of teachers to 65 years as per the latest guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC). Along with Vohra, PCCTU members PK Verma, Varesh Gupta, Beant Kaur, Parveen Kumar, Dr HS Arora and Satish Grover too sat on hunger strike. The local unit president Rajeev Jain and secretary Ravinder Singla raised anti-government slogans criticising the alleged adamant attitude of the Punjab Government. The members of the Non-teaching Employees Union, Sat Pal Sharma and Jawahar Bansal, also addressed the gathering.
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Bathinda, December 7 Rambahadur along with his family members was to catch a train to reach their home in Uttar Pradesh but were offered water laced with drugs, which left them unconscious. The miscreants ransacked their belongings and took away Rs 15,000. Rambahadur remembered that the two persons, around 30 to 35 years old, had offered them water in disposable glasses. The family members said they had no idea what happened after they drank water and found themselves in a hospital on regaining consciousness. The Sahara Jan Sewa president, Vijay Goyal, said the NGO would arrange for the return journey of the victims. — TNS
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School holds its annual function
Bathinda, December 7 Vice-chairman of the institute Chhinderpal Singh and director of the institute Prof Daljit Singh were the special guests. Principal Meenu Sharma proposed the vote of thanks. — TNS
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Crime
scene
Bathinda, December 7 In a complaint to the police, the assistant registrar of the Cooperative Societies, Bathinda, Dilip Singh, said the accused, Baljinder Singh, usurped nearly Rs 4.20 lakh, which he had collected and was supposed to deposit in the bank account of the society at Buladewala village. A case under Section 408 of the IPC has been registered against the accused at the Sadar police station. Five booked by cops for demanding dowry
The police has registered a case against five persons for demanding dowry. In a complaint to the police, Pooja, a resident of Rama Mandi, said the accused, Dikshit Bansal, Vijay Kumar, Shashi Bansal, Kunal Kumar and Kanika Bansal of Ekta Colony, Dabwali, harassed and tortured her so that she could bring them more dowry. The booked the accused under Sections 498-A, 406 and 109 of the IPC at the Women Police Station. No arrests have been made so far. Three booked for cheating
Three persons have been booked by the police for cheating a resident of Kotfatta in connection with the sale of a piece of plot. The complainant, Bharat Bhushan, said that the accused, Pawan Kumar of Kamla Nehru Colony, Chhinder Kaur MC of Chandsar Basti and Karnail Singh of Kothe Lal Singhwale cheated him. The officials at the Economic Offences' Wing (EOW) conducted an enquiry in this connection and the case was registered under Sections 420, 465, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC at the Civil Lines police station. Man booked for raping daughter-in-law
The police has registered a case against a man for raping his daughter-in-law. In a complaint to the police, a woman from Ganesha Basti complained that her father-in-law, who worked as a tailor at a shop situated beneath their house, raped her. The accused, Balwinder Singh of Adarsh Nagar, has been booked under Section 376 of the IPC at the Civil Lines police station. Three booked for murdering youth
The police has booked three persons for murdering a youth from Puhla village. In a complaint to the police, Devinder Singh of Puhla village said his nephew Gurinderjit used to reside in his village and was taken somewhere by the accused, Sukhpreet, Amandeep and Napinder of Bangi Kalan. The complainant said the accused offered his nephew some poisonous substance, which killed him. Later, the accused disposed of the body. The police has registered a case under Sections 304 and 201 of the IPC at the Diyalpura police station. |
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Special trainer Jasbir Kaur and Paramjit Singh, who are on fast-unto-death, were taken to the Civil Hospital today in the evening.
The slow pace of work regarding the registration and issuing of licences under the Food Safety and Standards Act of India (FSSAI) may give sleepless nights to the officials of the health department.
