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MC to present Rs
300-cr budget today
Boy, sister drown in pit
Illegal colonies bane of holy city
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Bhangra gives western contemporary music run for its money
Amritsar-based rock band which performs in major cities like Mumbai and
Pune, as it doesn't have a proper platform in the city. Photo Sameer Sehgal
Biodiversity conservation camp organised at GNDU
23 samples declared unsafe for human consumption
‘Canadian wood offers business bet in India’
Tax on tobacco products set to be raised by 50 pc
Resentment against hike in permit charges
TB awareness campaign begins
5 booked for assaulting woman, son
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MC to present Rs
300-cr budget today
Amritsar, March 19 The MC's financial condition is in dire straits and the local body has been finding it difficult to pay salaries to its employees. Congress leaders, led by councillor Raj Kanwal Preet Pal Singh Lucky, today stated that the MC had been burdening the residents by imposing taxes to save its depleting financial position. The Opposition viewed that even after making such a heavy amount budget, a negligible amount would be spared for carrying out any development works. Giving a break-up of the 300-crore budget, Lucky said Rs 1.80 crore would be used for the employees’ salaries per annum; Rs 11.20 lakh for the annual maintenance of vehicles and Rs 39.85 crore for committed expenses. This would amount to Rs 231.05 crore. “Now you can imagine the negligible amount of Rs 70 crore, which would only be left for carrying out either contingency expenses or development works,” he said. Even as the MC’s budget is primarily banking on property tax and set to accumulate to the tune of over Rs 45 crore, whereas the government itself is double minded on implementing the property tax. “Even Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal had told the MC authorities to review the implementation of the property tax. On what basis the MC authorities are anticipating to collect Rs 45 crore? It’s a white lie and we would oppose the imposition of the property tax at the house meeting,” he said. Congress leaders stated that due to the lack of integrity and policy matters, big commercial establishments had been enjoying immunity from paying taxes in connivance with the House Tax Department officials. “We would raise this issue in the tomorrow’s Budget session and ask the authorities to be stern against the defaulters. We are ready with their details and expose the black sheep in the House Tax Department,” he said. About the depleting fiscal health of the MC, Lucky said the MC did not possess funds to pay the salaries of their employees. “It is a pity that a majority of its employees have not received their salaries for the past month, whereas the multi-crore arrears, against the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations, are lying pending. The MC has the liability to pay over Rs 10 crore to the water supply contractors and around Rs 5 crore to the streetlight maintenance contractors. Similarly, the Excise and Taxation Department provides Rs 13 crore per annum to the MC, whereas till date, the MC has received just Rs 8 crore. There are also contingency expenditures like paying electricity bill, procuring petrol, diesel and stationary,” he said. The Opposition argued that not a single development project was on the agenda of the MC and the residents were crying for having proper basic facilities like safe drinking water, efficient sewerage and road network. Taking a dig at the garbage collection and disposal system of the city which is on the verge of collapse, the Opposition leaders said the MC had been shelling out Rs 17.68 lakh per month to 46 private tractor-trolley operators, whereas the city had been littered with garbage heaps everywhere. With no proper system of garbage lifting, residents were compelled to live under unhygienic circumstances. There was enough money to raise its own garbage-lifting infrastructure, but this has also raised a question mark over the integrity of the MC officials who, in connivance with certain ruling leaders, had been looting the public money with impunity, said various leaders. The Opposition also criticised the failure to start the city bus service, whereas the Centre funds for the purpose of around Rs 18 crore were still lying unutilised due to faulty policy matters. “It is astonishing that many a time, meetings have been conducted for the introduction of the City Bus service and the MC has been bearing Rs 3,000 for a single visit of a company secretary, but the project is still no where in sight,” leaders said.
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Boy, sister drown in pit
Amritsar, March 19 Their parents are daily-wage workers engaged in construction job. Ruling out any foul play, the police said a case under Section 174 had been registered in this regard. The bodies were handed over to the parents after the post-mortem examination According to information, the two were playing near the pit, dug up a few days ago by a JCB near a construction site, when they lost balance and fell into the gorge. The victims' father Gurdial Singh said the exact sequence of events could not be ascertained, as no one was witness to the incident. A group of persons intimated my wife Raaj about the incident at about 5 pm yesterday. SHO of Ajnala police station Arwinder Singh said the bodies were handed over to the parents this morning after conducting the postmortem examination, which had testified their death due to
drowning. “After inspecting the spot, it appeared that the place around the pit was quite slippery, as wet mud was scattered near the pit. The children were playing over there, oblivious of the lurking danger. Those present on the spot said they had noticed them playing but could know about the incident only after hearing the girl shouting for help. The boy fell into the pit followed by the girl, who apparently must have lost balance in a bid to save him. But before they could reach them, both had fallen into the pit. They even jumped into the pit to save them, but in vain,” said the
SHO.
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Illegal colonies bane of holy city
Amritsar, March 19 Impact of HT wires
A majority of the high-tension (HT) wires passing dangerously close to houses at several places in the city are found to be in unapproved colonies. The installation of the HT wires preceded the setting up of human colonies is an open fact, but its negative fallout is being borne by unsuspecting people, especially children. Many of them were maimed. The negligence of the authorities to prevent the
setting up of these houses has cost dear to all, while the settlers are equally to be blamed, a real estate agent Harpinder Singh Walia said. Two students were injured after coming in contact with HT wires passing over the rooftop of a school last month. A three-year-old girl Diya lost her hand after coming in contact with high-tension wires on the terrace some years ago at a locality on the Majitha road. Diya was rendered handicapped for life. Sewerage
Since these unapproved colonies do not have a regular sewerage system, families resort to setting up septic tanks in front of their houses to discharge waste. These residents got dug up 20 to 25 feet deep pits in front of their houses for the purpose. In order to dispose of the accumulated waste, they hire tractor-trolleys to suck it out and then take it away to empty it in an open nullah or open ground. A septic tank is a small-scale sewerage system common in areas which have no connection to main sewerage pipes. The construction of underground septic tanks outside each house leads to the narrowing of roads and even uneven road surface. Lids of these tanks are usually kept above the road level, posing trouble to commuters. The overflow from the tank raises the fear of some epidemic. People from these areas often complain of various diseases. Microbiologist Dr Pushpa Attri said the proper disposal of human waste was important. If not done in a proper way, it can contaminate water supplies and soil, which can further lead to bacterial and parasitic diseases, she added. Infrastructure blues
Roads in these colonies are normally narrow. Adding to the trouble, residential and commercial areas are not earmarked. Hence, the opening of shops at will will lead to further congestion, resulting in frequent traffic jams. As per the latest trend, government agencies like PUDA and improvement trusts do not set up colonies on less than 30-foot wide road. For these have to keep kutcha portion of the land on either side of the road to lay sewerage and water lines. It ensures that any future repair would not require the digging up of the metalled road which would waste a large amount of public money. Missing green cover
Less than 2 per cent of
the area is under green cover. Experts believe that the setting up of a high number of unplanned localities has made a major part of the city bereft of green cover. A majority of these colonies came up on once agricultural and orchard land. About 54 per cent area of the city is residential and the green cover in the Industrial Area is about 5 per cent. As per the established norms, to set up approved colonies, 45 per cent of the total area is to be kept open-to-sky, in which parks, roads and green belts are to be established and the rest 55 per cent area can be sold to raise concrete structures. There are as many as 375 parks spread over about 385 acres in 65 wards of the city. Most of these parks are in posh colonies, while the illegal colonies have a small number of these. Official speak
The Department of Housing is formulating a new housing policy following the approval of the Cabinet about two months ago. The component of unapproved colonies would also be taken up
positively. — Sandeep Rishi, ADA Chief Administrator
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Bhangra gives western contemporary music run for its money
Amritsar, March 19 Playing fusion music for past four years now, Sahil and his band has performed some gigs at music and youth festivals across the country but their work is limited to performances at private parties. “We play at Café Oz and sometimes at some parties held at prominent hotels in the city. But apart from that one doesn’t get the audience and the stage for the kind of music we are into,” says Sahil. Rock, jazz, blues, R&B, reggae don’t exist in the city’s playlist, where bhangra pop and bollywood rules. The reason most bands have either dismembered or shifted base from Amritsar. “We don’t have an open music culture in Amritsar. Rock and alternative forms of music have become a part of Indians but not here,” shares Siddharth Arora, a musician, who was once a part of group Baap Of Bands in the city. They had performed gigs at Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, done rap, Punjabi, Sufi and rock, participated in various music festivals. But in Amritsar, he stands alone. “We are used to the Punjabi and bhangra style music. People like anything traditional, but not our kind of music,” he says. Similar views are shared by Vishal Khosla, a musician, who used to perform in the city, but now pursues music direction in Mumbai. “Apart from several independent musicians, we don’t have any music bands since the culture is missing. Even the solo musicians are reluctant to come up with a group.” And audience, mind it, is not the problem here. “People are interested in trying out good music but the motivation is missing. Once they listen to the music they will fall in love with it, sing along. But not ready to work on it,” Siddharth says. Sahil, though is sure to break this chain with 3BMonks. Other members of his band, including his brothers Partha and Shubham, try to balance popular and alternative music together. “We perform fusion of rock and bollywood music. We also try to experiment with instruments as one of our member Latik can play African drum, table and electronic drums simultaneously in a performance. We also have two rappers in our group,” he says. Grown up with inspirations like Bruno Mars, Bryan Adams, Coldplay and AR Rahman, Yo Yo Honey Singh and Gippy Grewal sounds hard to settle for. “Though, performances in Amritsar can work out for the time being, one has to move out if thinking of a professional career in alternative music. The city will take a long time to take a liking for rock and contemporary,” Sahil explains.
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Biodiversity conservation camp organised at GNDU
Amritsar, March 19 Prof AK
Thukral, director, Research was the chief guest and made judgement of various events on the occasion. Prof Renu Bhardwaj detailed the importance of plant biodiversity which was followed by Dr Adarsh Pal
Vig, head of the department, who emphasised the need of extra-curricular field activities in academic life. The botanical garden, having richness of more than 500 plant species, was divided into different sections for cleaning by the students and the scholars under the supervision of faculty members by Dr AS Soodan (taxonomy expert). He also briefed the audience about the layout of the garden, its biodiversity and stressed upon efforts to conserve and append the current biodiversity. Prof Thukral detailed the importance of manual work and physical labour in the life of young people. At the end of the day, the best cleaned sections of botanical garden was observed by Prof AK Thukral and results were declared for the Shramdaan camp. In the Sharmdaan camp, the first position went to MSc Environment Science semester II and MSc Botany semester IV students, the second rank was shared by the new PhD,
MPhil, BSc, and MSc Environment semester IV students. The third prize was awarded to MSc Botany semester II and old PhD students. The Department has been organising various awareness programs and activities of the Punjab State Council for Science and Technology
(PSCST), Chandigarh, every year under the NEAC grant sponsored by MoEF,
GOI, New Delhi. The event was organised by Dr Indu Sharma, faculty advisor. On this occasion, ecotainment hour was focused to organise various competitions and activities such as seed collection, thought-provoking environmental slogans, painting, potted plants/flowers, cleaning of the botanical garden and plantation campaign that were undertaken by graduate, postgraduate students (90), research scholars (66), faculty (13) and non-teaching and maali staff (25) of the department. On this occasion, potted-plant competition, seed-collection display competition, thought-provoking environmental slogan-writing competition, painting competition, tug-of-war, lemon-spoon race, 100 m race, one-leg and three-legged race were also
organised. Lecture on Sikh concept of Shabad Guru A lecture on "Sikh concept of
Shabad-Guru" was organised by the Department of Guru Nanak Studies of the Guru Nanak Dev University in collaboration with the Principal, Iqbal Singh Memorial Trust,
Patiala. Prof Jodh Singh, editor-in-chief, Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, Punjabi University,
Patiala, was the key speaker ,who analysed the meaning, philosophy and experiential aspects of Sabad in the context of Sidh
Goshti. Defining the varied dimensions of Sabad, he stressed on the contemplation of Sabad by the daily practice of naam
simran. Singh Sahib Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti, in his presidential address, revealed the depths of Shabad Guru and felt the need for organising such seminars in future also. Prof Shashi
Bala, head, Department of Guru Nanak Studies, presented the vote of thanks. She appealed to Singh Sahib to take initiative to introduce the subject of Philosophy and Religious Studies in colleges run by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Amritsar. Prof Balwant Singh
Dhillon, Prof Jaswinder Kaur Dhillon, Prof Jasbir Singh Sabar, Prof Harbhajan Singh
Bhatia, Prof Paramjit Singh Sidhu, Bhai Baldeep Singh, Dr Guljar Singh Kang, Prof Jagdish Singh
Mukerian, faculty members of different departments and research scholars also participated. Lecture on Decian Heritage Endowment Fund
The School of Social Sciences of the Guru Nanak Dev University is organising a lecture on Decian Heritage Endowment Fund in the memory of S Jagtar Singh
Dhesi. Head of the Department Dr SS Sohal said the lecture would be organised on March 22 at the conference hall of the university.
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23 samples declared unsafe for human consumption
Amritsar, March 19 Kahlon said the owners of food joints, from which three unsafe food items were taken, might see imprisonment with a fine. The department has issued notices to all the food joints whose samples had failed to get the notices re-examined. “Usually we collect four packets of a product. While one is immediately sent for testing to Chandigarh, the other three are preserved in case a food joint owner is dissatisfied with the results,” he explained. The department has also written to the Food Commissioner seeking a permission to initiate legal proceedings against the erring food joints. Kahlon said the department, till date, had collected 55 samples of food items from various shops. “The reports are expected by the first week of April,” he said, adding that they had issued clear instructions to their staff to keep an eye on the sale of adulterated and unhygienic food in the city. The failed samples include milk products and sweets. Kahlon said shopkeepers were required to observe all guidelines issued earlier for ensuring cleanliness at the place of preparation and serving. He said the department would soon initiate a campaign to identify food joints which had not got registered or obtained licenses from the department under the Food Safety and Standards Act. In a raid conducted at the Civil Lines area, Majitha road and Lawrence road today, under the provisions of Food Safety and Standards Act, the Health Department had issued challans to 34 persons for violating ban on smoking at public places. The department also collected Rs 5,000 as a fine from the violators.
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‘Canadian wood offers business bet in India’
Amritsar, March 19 For cost of teak, deodar, merandi and other timbers, widely used in India, were gradually heading towards north and would not be affordable proposition in the near future. He said costs of these timber had risen astronomically in the past few years. The intent of the evening presentation was to dispel the myth that softwoods were inferior to hardwoods. Canada is a leading supplier of softwood timber products and a world leader in sustainable forest management. BC is Canada’s westernmost province and manufacturers and exports about 50 per cent of all the wood products manufactured in Canada. For more than a century, the forest sector has been the cornerstone of BC’s economy, manufacturing such products as lumber, panels, speciality products and pulp and paper. British Columbia has a diverse range of commercial tree species and a wide range of timber and manufactured forest products. About 94 per cent of British Columbia’s forests were coniferous or softwood species, he shared. Brian informed the delegates about qualities and features of the seasoned timber and compared with teak, deodar, merandi and other timbers.
Gunbir Singh, chairperson, WWF Punjab, called Brian an ambassador for Canadian wood, who has a 40-year experience in the field. He called upon to share best practises that ensure commercial viability of social forestry and yet manage to keep it |sustainable. Canada has strict regulations for ensuring that the forest cover is not depleted even as they encourage export of timber. The meeting was attended by architects, builders, realtors, interior decorators, actual users and importer.
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Tax on tobacco products set to be raised by 50 pc
Amritsar, March 19 Dr Prahlad Duggal of VoTV said the raise in taxes would help to save thousands of lives in state every year. The VoTV had earlier written letters to the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister, Finance Minister, Health Minister and CPS Health stressing the need to raise the taxes on all the tobacco products, Duggal said, adding that the State Tobacco Control cell had effectively pursued the matter with the government.
Duggal said raising taxes on tobacco products decreases consumption and also prevents new users from taking to tobacco habit. Duggal said with the Finance Minister raising tax on tobacco products tomorrow, Punjab will become second state in country after Rajasthan to raise the VAT on all tobacco products, including bidi by 50 per cent. He said in Punjab, more than 24 lakh persons use tobacco in one form or the other and of these more than 9 lakh would die prematurely because of tobacco-related diseases. Duggal said the Finance Minister also signed the VoTV pledge stating his commitment to the cause and resolve to work against the tobacco menace.
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Resentment against hike in permit charges
Amritsar, March 19 The Amritsar-hotel Resort Association has flayed the hike and said it would lose losing its business to other players in the industry. As per the excise policy, marriage palaces and organisers of the parties serving booze, have to seek a permit and deposit fee to the Excise Department. Owners of marriage palaces have to seek licence under the L-5D after paying the annual fees. Under the L-5D, there are three categories and all of these have been increased considerably. As per the new excise policy, the licence fee of the A-category has been increased from Rs 40,000 to Rs 1 lakh. The fee for the B-category was raised from Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000 and the fee for the C-category from Rs 8,000 to Rs 25,000. Similarly, there are three categories of permit fee for organisers to serve booze to guests. The fee has been increased from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 under the A category. The permit fee under the B category was increased from Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000 and under the C-category from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000.
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TB awareness campaign begins
Amritsar, March 19 Rajiv Choudhary, district coordinator, Axshya, said that during the week, seminars, cultural activities, NGO Meets and candle march would be organised at various places to aware slum dwellers, prisoners, brick labourer, paramedical staff and NGO’s. District tuberculosis officer Dr Naresh Chawla would act as resource person at the programs to sensitise people about the disease. A short play by local theatre artist Gurinder Makhna and his team would also be organised. On March 24, a door-to-door awareness drive would be organised in Maqboolpura area. The Axshya on March 25, would organise a candlelight march under the theme ‘Stop TB in my life time’. The march will be carried with the help of local residents, youth, NGOs and schools. The march will start from the Golden Temple to the Jallianwala Bagh.
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5 booked for assaulting woman, son
Amritsar, March 19 It has been learnt that the complainant’s son Sajan had a clash with the accused over some dispute a day earlier. Investigating officer Manjit Singh said though no arrest had been made so far, a case under Sections 323, 324, 148, 149 of the IPC had been registered against the accused with the A division police station. “The two have been identified as Raja and Goldy, both residents of the Rasulpur Kalar area, while three others have also been clubbed in this complaint,” he said.
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Amritsar, March 19
