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MID-DAY MEAL
Women & Children Hospital to be merged with Civil Hospital
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ATM HEIST
CBSE Class XII exams
Anti-tobacco pledge planned
Revised quota notification for gram panchayats
Safai sewaks call off stir, to start work from today
FAKE DSP CASE
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MID-DAY MEAL
Bathinda, May 28 Speaking to Bathinda Tribune, the Director General of School Education (DGSE), Kahan Singh Pannu, said, “I would like to call it rationalisation of existing resources. During the process of rationalisation, we realised that there were several teachers in the schools who did not have too many responsibilities and we thought that they may be given some additional work.” Meanwhile, resentment is prevailing among the district managers. Bathinda district manager Daljit Singh Joshi said, “We are being told that teachers will be made to do the work that we are doing.” He pointed out that the DGSE was contradicting his own words through his actions. “In a letter dated September 21, 2012, the DGSE had directed all the school heads against engaging teachers in any non-teaching work. In another letter, the DGSE had asked the school heads that the teachers shall not be burdened with any kind of Block Level Office (BLO) work during school hours. How can the DGSE now ask the teachers to work as district managers as well?” he asked. Responding to the query, the DGSE said, “By non-teaching work, we meant work outside the purview of the Education Department. Till the time a teacher is shouldering an added responsibility within the department and the additional work is not hampering his regular work, it is fine with us.” He explained that the department had proposed the idea to give the Mid-day Meal a fillip. “Right now, we do not have people overseeing the scheme at the block level. We aim at overseeing the scheme at both the block and district levels to make sure the scheme runs properly,” he said. The DGSE added that just the way those working with the Education Department were given additional responsibility of being the district resourcepersons for various components under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan (SSA), “internal arrangement” would be made for the Mid-day Meal scheme. It may be mentioned that the Education Department had hired retired persons for the posts of district managers in the year 2009. They are responsible for distributing the grants received under the scheme among the schools in their respective districts, reviewing the quality of foodgrains being procured by schools for preparing the meal and examining the quality of food being served to students. The district managers are hired on contractual basis and their contracts are reviewed every year. |
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Women & Children Hospital to be merged with Civil Hospital
Bathinda, May 28 The Health Department has merged the facilities into one unit, a 200-bed district hospital. While there are already 100 beds at the Civil Hospital and 50 at the Women and Children Hospital, another 50 beds are being added to the latter. The merger has been done under the Health Department's initiative of strengthening 100 health institutes across the state. "It is a win-win situation for the staff as well as the patients. The government is in the process of making new recruitments of medicos. Once the doctors and nurses are recruited, the next step would be rationalisation," said Civil Surgeon Dr Ajay Sahni. He added that the department had already begun the procedure regrouping the staff. One of the senior doctors at the Civil Hospital said if the government wants the merger to be successful, it would have to ensure that the rationalisation of specialists and super specialists was done without any prejudice. "Nepotism while recruiting doctors would spell doom for this huge organisation, which is the backbone of health services in Bathinda," he cautioned. Sources said while there were no plan to cut down on the front of medical staff, the administrative and clerical staff would certainly be downsized. For instance, one clerk can be asked to look after more than one component. The two posts of Senior Medical Officers (SMOs) are likely to remain intact. While the drawing and disbursal powers would be given to one of them, the other would be given powers to run the hospital. The government had notified the merger around two months ago. However, the further work is progressing at a snail's pace. Meanwhile, during a meeting with the district administration, it was decided that the Health Department will run the four urban health centres in the city. These centres are located at Dhobiana, Ganesha Basti, Paras Ram Nagar and Lal Singh Basti. The district administration and the local health authorities have been toying with the idea of running these centres on public-private partnership (PPP) mode, but now they have decided to run them on their own. These centres are 10-bed hospitals laying special emphasis on maternal and child care. |
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ATM HEIST
Bathinda, May 28 While the police claimed that it would nab the culprit soon, it is still clueless as to who did it. When contacted, officials at the Civil Lines police station said the case was handed over to the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) and DSP (D) Ranjeet Singh was supervising the case. Ranjeet Singh said the police tried to crack the case during the initial days of the daylight robbery but later, the investigation got delayed due to some reasons. “We are searching for the culprits and they would be nabbed soon," the DSP said. The robbery had come to light on February 22. A footage of the CCTV camera installed in the ATM revealed that a person wearing a monkey cap and black goggles entered the ATM and immediately sat down. He cracked the code of the machine and left with Rs 6.80 lakh. The robber took barely seven minutes to execute his plan. The accused took advantage of the fact that no security guard was deployed at the ATM and there was no CCTV camera installed to capture the images outside the ATM. Bank officials said the accused left behind Rs 17 lakh in the machine as he could not open the other trays of the ATM. The bank manager, Tarsem Bansal, said so far, they did not receive any communique from the police or any investigating agency. “Though the senior bank officials are yet to deploy a security guard outside the ATM, we have taken own security measures by intensifying vigil at the bank," Tarsem Bansal said. Fact file
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CSS teachers produced in court
Bathinda, May 28 The teachers had protested against the government for not accepting their demands and 70 of them were arrested by the police. They raised slogans and protested against the government today while they were being produced in the court. Teachers alleged that the government failed to give them salaries for over 13 months and when they demanded their right, they were sent to the jail. |
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CBSE Class XII exams
Bathinda, May 28 Palak Sadotra of Army Public School did her school and parents proud by scoring 92.2 per cent marks in arts stream. She scored 100 marks in economics, 98 in geography and 95 in English. Jaspreet Singh Brar of the Police Public School topped the non-medical stream with 90 per cent while Ripandeep Kaur is the medical stream topper with 86 per cent marks. Snimardeep Kaur and Akshkpreet Singh topped in commerce and humanities with 90 and 89.3 per cent marks, respectively.
— TNS |
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Anti-tobacco pledge planned
Bathinda, May 28 Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishore Yadav has issued letters to the heads of district education department-- secondary and elementary, Government Rajindra College, DAV College, Punjabi University Regional Centre, Government Polytechnic College, Regional Polytechnic College, Malwa College of Physical Education, Baba Farid Group of Institutions, Adesh Medical College and Giani Zail Singh Engineering College. The heads have been directed to ensure that all the students take this pledge at 8:20 am. Students will take the oath of never using tobacco or its products. They will also vow to make people (who are already consuming tobacco in one form or the other) aware of the ill-effects of tobacco consumption. District Health Officer Dr Raghubir Singh Randhawa said on May 31, a district level function will be held at Baba Farid Group of Institutions, Deon, where the civil surgeon, Dr Ajay Sahni, will administer the oath to the students. Though a fair number of school students are expected to take the oath, not all college students will be present. It is examination time in most colleges and only those students will be administered the oath who will be present for taking the exams. The health department and the nodal officers appointed to follow the guidelines of COTPA Act 2003 - Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 - are working round-the-clock to ensure that all the sections of COTPA are adhered to. Already, a team of the Public School of Health, PGIMER, Chandigarh, has visited the city to check the adherence to COTPA Act and pointed out the lacunae in the system to
the district administration as well as the health authorities. The exercise is yielding results as the lacunae highlighted are being rectified. Fact file
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Revised quota notification for gram panchayats
Bathinda, May 28 Now, there are 298 remaining gram panchayats of which 99 have been declared reserved for members of the Scheduled Castes (SCs). The ten new nagar panchayats include Balianwali, Mandi Kalan, Rampura, Chauke, Kotha Guru, Maluka, Lehra Mohabbat, Kotshamir, Bhai Rupa and Mehraj. The changes have been made keeping in view the reservation policy of the government. The reservation will be done on the basis of the number of people from the general category and the SCs. If a village has 90 per cent or more population as general, it will be declared a general category village and if a village has 90 per cent or more people belonging to the SCs, it would be declared a reserved village. As per the revised notification, Bathinda block has 65 gram panchayats of which 24 are reserved for scheduled castes (including eight for SC women). Of the 34 gram panchayats in block Nathana, 12 have been declared reserved (including four for SC women), of the 41 gram panchayats in Sangat block, 14 have been declared reserved (including five for SC women), of the 30 gram panchayats in Rampura block, nine are reserved (including three for SC women) and in Phul block, of the 20 gram panchayats, six have been reserved (including three for women SC candidates). In Bhagta block, of the 25 gram panchayats, nine are reserved (including three for SC women). In Maur block, of the 34 gram panchayats, 10 have been reserved (including five for SC women) and in Talwandi Sabo, of the 49 gram panchayats, 15 have been declared reserved (including five for SC women). Yadav said a copy of the revised notification is also available at bathinda.nic.in as well as at block development and panchayat office, district development and panchayat office and at the offices of Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development) and the sub-divisinal magistrates
(SDMs). Fact file
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Safai sewaks call off stir, to start work from today
Bathinda, May 28 The agitating employees marched to the office of JITF on Power House Road where they met the in-charge of Bathinda cluster, Sunil Singh. President of Balmiki Samaj Union, Sanjay Kumar, said the company has given undertakings in writing promising to fulfill their demands. Sanjay Kumar said collectors will now take garbage from only 200 houses. They will work eight hours a day and will be paid a salary at the rate fixed by the deputy commissioner (DC). Instead of being paid Rs 4,500, which these garbage collectors are presently getting, these employees will now be paid Rs 5,500. The JITF officials have also assured the employees of facilities like provident fund (PF) and medical allowance. "We have been told that a delegation of employees will accompany the JITF officials to the banks to see the details of our PF and the medical allowances deposited in our accounts," he said. With the deadlock ending, the safai sewaks will be back to work tomorrow. Sanjay Kumar said the entire staff will start collecting garbage in the city from tomorrow. |
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FAKE DSP CASE
Bathinda, May 28 Police arrested Harjinder Singh, a resident of street number 23, Ajit Road, and Tarsem Singh of Mehta village of Sangat. A case under sections 417 and 420 of the IPC was registered against them at Cantonment police station on the complaint of Navjot Kaur. While Tarsem got bail today, Harjinder is still in Bathinda Central Jail. Navjot, a resident of Chautala road in Dabwali, said she was deployed in Empire India Company, that has its office in Bharat Nagar, Bathinda. Apart from three other employees, Tarsem too was working in her office. She said the main accused Harjinder had been visiting her office since May 1 and Tarsem allowed him to sit in the office. Harjinder claimed to be the chairman of Punjab Pradesh Human Rights Committee and tried to allure young girls by offering them the jobs of sub-inspectors and asked for Rs 2,300 per girl. Harjinder also claimed to be a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) with the Punjab Police. The complainant said the accused also took Rs 2,300 from her. It is alleged that Harjinder took Rs 2,300 from every girl and asked her to first become a member of the Punjab Pradesh Human Rights Committee to watch their performance after which they could become eligible for the post of sub-inspector. Station House Officer (SHO), Cantonment police station, Paramjit Doad said there was no clinching evidence against Tarsem as he only allowed the main accused to sit in his office. "We have got signed papers and other documents of Harjinder Singh," Doad said. In his bail application sent under section 437 of the CrPc, Tarsem's counsel Sukhdarshan Sharma pleaded that Tarsem had been falsely implicated in the case due to rivalry. Sharma said the main accused in the case had gone to Tarsem's office for some work and sat near his seat on his own. Sharma also pleaded that nothing has been recovered from the accused and the applicant. Tarsem was granted bail by the court after he furnished a bail bond of Rs 30,000. |
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Taekwondo champ wants to become super cop
Bathinda, May 28 So far, Neeru has won 31 medals in do-karate and taekwondo in various national and international competitions. The tally comprises 16 gold medals, 13 silver medals and two bronze medals. Last year, she won a gold at the karate championship held at Thimpu in Bhutan. This month, Neeru participated in a national-level taekwondo and fighting championship held in Mumbai and earned a gold medal in taekwondo, silver in fighting and a trophy in training seminar. Speaking to Bathinda Tribune, she gave the credit for her success to her family. "When I was five years old, my father encouraged me to train in taekwondo and karate. My family has been very supportive of me. They also happily bear a large part of the expenses incurred on my trips to various places where I go to participate in championships," she said. Although she has her eyes set on becoming a police officer, she also wants to pursue the sport further. "I also teach children who are younger to me. I have earned a black belt in the first level. I still have eight more levels to go. I want to learn more and earn all the nine black belts in taekwondo," she said. When she is not training and not travelling for competitions, she tries to make up for studies that she misses out on. "I tend to miss classes because I have to travel to various places to participate in competitions. But I make sure that I spend my spare time covering up for the classes I miss out on," she said. Neeru was felicitated by her school on Tuesday. Apart from presenting her with a cheque of Rs 5,000, SSD Sabha president, Parmod Mittal and the president of the school, OD Sharma, announced that while the school will now bear the expenses incurred on Neeru’s trips as well. |
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Bathinda, May 28
