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Bid by YC activists to gherao CM’s house foiled
Hansi-Butana canal: Haryana creating hurdles, says Punjab minister Rakhra
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Advocate-General’s office, launching pad for VIPs’ kin
Clearing backlog a priority, says CJ
Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and his family members at the Golden Temple on Wednesday. Photo: Vishal Kumar
Coal shortage at plants gets acute, govt holds talks with PENAM
Mann appears for court hearing
Hospitals’ upgrade on mind, govt transfers 523 doctors
Six-laning of Jalandhar-Amritsar road
Scarcity of raw material may delay work on Ropar bypass
A view of the four-laned Ropar bypass on which work has been stalled. Photo by writer
Dal Khalsa holds march, wants list of those killed during Operation
Bluestar
Rules changed, govt houses lying vacant
Power cuts despite govt claims: Cong
CM okays Rs 1,434 crore for six border districts
Power trading corp opposed
Protesting jobless linemen lathicharged in Patiala
Jobless linemen on fast outside the PSPCL headquarters in Patiala on Wednesday. Tribune photo: Rajesh Sachar
HP imposes entry tax on road to Sikh shrine
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Hansi-Butana canal: Haryana creating hurdles, says Punjab minister Rakhra
Samana (Patiala), June 5 The concrete wall raised by Haryana and a 98 per cent monsoon prediction has added to their apprehensions. Meanwhile, the Hansi-Butana issue has been raked up again after Punjab minister Surjit Singh Rakhra today accused Haryana of deliberately trying to create hindrances in ensuring clear and safe flow of water from Punjab. The canal falls in the territory of Haryana and has been a bone of contention between the two states. Villagers living along the stretch inside Punjab, where the Haryana irrigation department has raised a concrete wall to save its villages from Ghaggar floods, are living in fear and have now left it to fate rather than the Punjab government to save them from flood fury. “I have been a witness to four floods that have caused devastation and now with this toe wall, there can only be more damage,” said septuagenarian Ghaan Singh. “We have seen promises over the past decade, but nothing has been done,” he said. Meanwhile, the Hansi-Butana issue was raked up again after Punjab minister Surjit Singh Rakhra today accused Haryana of deliberately trying to create hindrances in the way of ensuring clear and safe flow of water from Punjab. Blaming Haryana for the mess in Punjab villages, Punjab Rural Development and Panchayats Minister Surjit Singh Rakhra said that every state is duty-bound to save the interests of its residents, but Haryana, in order to save its residents, had raised a structure that is a death trap for Punjab. “However, we will surely work on a solution to save our residents from Ghaggar floods at any cost,” he added. Patiala DC GK Singh told The Tribune that the administration is sure to complete all work pertaining to Ghaggar before June 30 and ample funds have been made available. “We will make sure that Ghaggar is clear at our end so that even if the concrete wall obstructs water spread, the loss is not much,” he stated after his visit to the area today. Sources said there is not much Punjab can do to save its villages in Ghaggar is in spate as the concrete structure would not allow sheet spread of water. “We are spending crores of rupees to clear river Ghaggar to ensure its smooth flow, but the concrete wall put up by Haryana will surely obstruct the sheet spread in case of flood, thereby causing floods in our part of Punjab. As the matter is already subjudice, there is nothing much we can do,” claimed Chief Engineer (Canals) Amarjeet Singh Dullat. “We can only clean the Ghaggar at our end and make sure the water flows freely, but if the flow is beyond control, some damage is unavoidable,” he stated.
The lingering issue
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Advocate-General’s office, launching pad for VIPs’ kin
Chandigarh, June 5 Relatives of MLAs and a former chief secretary too have been appointed in the office. Besides this, the Government has recruited as Additional AGs the son and daughter of a former Advocate-General, who was described as a "close confidant and legal trouble-shooter of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal". The association of law officers with VIPs can hardly be considered a disqualification, and the competence of some of them has never been questioned. Yet, their appointments have come under scanner as a section of the Punjab and Haryana High Court advocates launching a campaign against the names recommended by the collegium for elevation as Judges. When they sought the intervention of the President, the Prime Minister and others in the matter of judicial appointments, they also raised a significant question on the appointment of kith and kin of Judges and other VIPs in the Advocate-General’s office of the two States. Describing the trend as harmful “for the independence of the judiciary”, they asked a sitting Judge to “begin a new era in judicial honesty by asking his son to resign from the post of Additional Advocate-General so that other judges may follow him”. The advocates wrote: “Now it has become a routine that as soon as one becomes judge, his son is appointed as Additional Advocates-General by both Punjab or Haryana governments and UT administration takes him on their panel without any experience….” A look at the appointments makes it clear that their apprehensions stem from the fact that at least three retired Judges have their kin in the AG office. Considering the fact that even the Punjab and Haryana High Court observed that the Punjab Government was the biggest litigant, their presence is not in consonance with the age-old saying that “justice should not only be done, but also seen to be done”. Otherwise, their appointments can hardly be questioned on the grounds of “connections”. Appointment of a law officer is the state government’s prerogative; and the entire process is carried out in consultation with the Advocate-General. As of now, a criterion for law officers’ appointment is not in place either in Punjab or Haryana. An Additional AG defends the appointments made by the Government by adding the recruitment is made on contractual basis; and anyone with a licence to practice in court can be hired as a law officer. The AG office as of now has 54 Additional AGs, with a take home salary of approximately Rs 80,000. Besides this, they are free to continue with private practice as long as the cases are not against the State. The Government also has a battery of 13 Additional AGs in Delhi. It has five senior Deputy AGs, 28 Deputy AGs in Chandigarh, two Deputy AGs at Delhi, and 36 Assistant AGs. But, numbers notwithstanding, the functioning of the AG’s office has remained a matter of criticism. In January 2011, the Advocate-General’s office virtually received a rap on its knuckles for the failure of its law officers to appear. Justice LN Mittal asserted the number of law officers was double the strength of judges. Yet, the officers were not appearing. Not only was this a cause of inconvenience to the Court, also precious time was being wasted. Justice Mittal then also asked state Principal Secretary, Home, to intervene. Again, in March, Justice Mittal asserted: “Either the law officer does not appear, or the law officer is not prepared with the case, or the law officer does not have the necessary documents, forcing unnecessary adjournments”. The lawyers, on the other hand, have their own suggestions. In the memorandum, they have recommended: “For assisting the High Court properly, we feel that a candidate should have least five years' experience for appointment as Assistant AG, 10 years’ experience for Deputy AG, and 20 years' experience for appointment as Additional AG. There must be a written test, for appointment on the office of the Advocate-General of Punjab and Haryana, in order to test the candidate’s knowledge of law”.
Reeking of nepotism
‘Appoint on merit’ A candidate should have at least five years' experience for appointment as Assistant AG, 10 years' experience for Deputy AG, and 20 years' experience for appointment as Additional AG. There must be a written test, for appointment on the office of the Advocate-General of Punjab and Haryana —
Advocates
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Clearing backlog a priority, says CJ
Amritsar, June 5 He said there was a need to raise the strength of judges. “There are 41 judges against the sanctioned strength of 68 in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The strength is likely to increase in a couple of months,” he said. The Chief Justice said 150 officials had been recruited at the district level. This would accelerate the pace of settling cases. He hoped that the fast delivery at the district level would ease pressure on the High Court. Justice Kaul said his priority would be to exploit the potential of judges in toto to ensure cent per cent output. He said there would be “zero tolerance” to corruption. The Chief Justice said he favoured the concept of video conferencing between the accused and judges . He said he would interact with judges in district courts though the facility. He was felicitated by the SGPC with a “siropa”, a set of religious books and a model of the Golden Temple.
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Coal shortage at plants gets acute, govt holds talks with PENAM
Bathinda, June 5 Officials say parleys are on with the management of PENAM to sort out certain "issues" at the earliest. Lehra Mohabbat thermal plant is the worst hit as it has coal stock for just 11 days. The PSPCL has shut down its one unit for the want of coal although the official explanation is that there is less demand for power these days. The daily requirement of coal at Ropar plant is 19,550 MT (six rakes), at Lehra 13,500 MT (four rakes) and Bathinda 5,400 MT (one-and-a-half rakes). Against the daily requirement of 11-12 rakes, only five rakes (one Lehra and four Ropar) were received on June 1, five rakes (four Lehra and two Ropar and one Bathinda) on June 2 and no rake was received since then. PENAM has cut coal supply to Lehra plant on "flimsy grounds". Earlier, on the request of the company, the PSPCL had increased its mining capacity from 7 MT to 9 MT for 2013-14 and to 15 MT in subsequent years. Sources said no train had been loaded with coal from Pachwara coal mine in Jharkhand for the last four days. A train takes about four days to reach the state and even if issues are resolved with the coal supplying company, the power supply ahead of the paddy sowing season, which commences on June 10, may be hit. PSPCL officials, wishing anonymity, said PENAM had expressed helplessness over the issue saying it was suffering losses and needed additional benefits. The company officials would meet the PSPCL Board of Directors to sort out the issue. The sources alleged instead of acting against the company, which during the last one year had not supplied coal as per agreement, the power corporation was supporting it. Coal stock at Guru Hargobind Thermal Plant, Lehra Mohabbat, has gone down to 1.48 lakh tonnes, which is sufficient for 11 days. Sources said the state was suffering financial losses as the unit no. 1, which produces 50 lakh units daily, had been shut due to coal shortage and PSPCL has to procure power from other sources at a high cost, thus resulting in loss of lakhs of rupees daily. Fact file
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Mann appears for court hearing
Sangrur, June 5 He lashed out at the Punjab Congress, saying that it has not been playing its role as the main opposition party in the state well. Besides, the Congress cadre is now demoralised as its top leaders, including Captain Amarinder Singh, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and Jagmeet Singh Brar have not been cooperating Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Partap Singh Bajwa, he alleged. Mann also alleged that the elected members of the Assembly and the Parliament of opposition parties had not been exposing the respective governments. He said in such circumstances, democracy always suffered. However, the SAD (A) had been playing its role of opposition as it had been raising its voice against fake encounters and even the killings of policemen, he added. Mann also said Pakistan’s border should be opened for Sikhs on the pattern of Nepal so that Sikhs could go there freely and pay obeisance at the Sikh shrines.
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Hospitals’ upgrade on mind, govt transfers 523 doctors
Chandigarh, June 5 The Director, Health and Family Welfare, Dr Ashok Nayyar, said: “There will be more transfers in the near future as part of a comprehensive plan towards integrating services at specific centres and for uniform deployment of workforce. The existing set-up had allowed over-concentration in cities and towns. This resulted in services in several hospitals being crippled.” For example, the Bathinda Civil Hospital had two posts of medical specialist but four specialists were posted there. The hospital had three gynaecologists against the sanctioned strength of two, two ENT specialists against a single post and three orthopaedists against two sanctioned posts, he said. Department sources said the situation was similar in hospitals in Ludhiana, Amritsar and Jalandhar districts. Meanwhile, doctors are unhappy with the transfers. They say the government has not bothered to take care that couples are posted at one place. Also, doctors nearing retirement have been uprooted. Dr MS Randhawa, patron, PCMS Association, said the government move would cripple the state’s health services and feed the private sector. “The move will render at least 50 health services in rural areas defunct on account of staff shortage,” he claimed. The Director, Health Services, accepted that “certain unwanted postings had to be made” to rationalise the services. Of the total 100 hospitals identified for upgradation, 22 are district-level hospitals and 41 subdivisional hospitals. Thirtyseven community health centres, mostly in urban areas, are also to be upgraded. Experts have welcomed the government move, saying hospitals in Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana had become overcrowded. Dr Pyare Lal Garg, Executive Director, State Health Systems Resource Centre, and a former general secretary of the PCMS Association, said: “The government decision is timely. It is aimed at moving a large number of doctors out of their comfort zones and taking care of public
needs. The government now must create special pay packets for specialists.”
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Six-laning of
Jalandhar-Amritsar road
Jalandhar, June 5 The arbitrator, SR Ladhar says the NHAI has to pay fee of the Arbitral Tribunal or he would revoke his orders following which the NHAI would have to accept awards given by the land acquisition collector. The NHAI is not ready to pay the fee terming it his ex-officio duty. A dispute over a chunk of 1.755 hectares land along the GT Road in Kartarpur has become a bone of contention thus delaying the entire project. The NHAI required 174.905 hectares in
Kartarpur. It has already acquired 173.15 hectares while there is a dispute regarding the remaining 1.755 hectares, NHAI sources said. To settle the dispute between the NHAI and the land-owners, the land acquisition collector (Sub-Divisional Magistrate) announced awards of Rs 22.92 crore in April 2010. Since the awards were reportedly given on commercial rates by the collector, the NHAI challanged these before the Arbitral Tribunal, who subsequently passed orders in favour of the NHAI in January 2011. It later suspended the orders as the NHAI failed to pay the arbitration fee of Rs 6,000, the sources said. The NHAI maintained it could not give the arbitration fee Rs 6,000 to the arbitrator-cum-divisional commissioner due to his ex-officio duties. When contacted, SR Ladhar claimed the NHAI had approached the land collector and was not ready to pay compensation to the land owners. The NHAI had to pay the fee or follow the orders passed by the land collector, he claimed.
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Scarcity of raw material may delay work on Ropar bypass
Ropar, June 5 Work on the bypass was supposed to be completed by June 30. Work on the 5.620-km-long bypass, to be constructed at a cost of Rs 16.62 crore, started on August 17, 2011. Though the work was to be completed within nine months, on June 16, 2012, the contractor, ARSS Infrastructure, left the project incomplete and the authorities seized its bank guarantee of Rs 85 lakh in July 2012. The company agreed to resume work in October with renewed bank guarantee of the same amount. The bypass, after emerging near the Police Lines on Chandigarh-Ropar Road passing through the site for the IIT building, will lead towards Asron. After the completion of the bypass road, traffic headed towards Jalandhar will not require to enter the town. Ropar XEN Inderjit Singh said the contractor had cited shortage of raw material including earth, sand and gravel due to the ban on mining in the region. "We have already served a notice on the contractor and in case the company fails to meet the deadline for completion of the work, the department, after seizing its bank guarantee, will start the process to blacklist it," said the
XEN.
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Dal Khalsa holds march, wants list of those killed during Operation
Bluestar
Amritsar, June 5 The march, that started from the Dal Khalsa office, concluded at Akal
Takht, where ardas was performed at the newly constructed gurdwara in the Golden Temple complex. The gurdwara has been raised in memory of those killed in the 1984 Army
operation. Dal Khalsa chief Harcharanjit Singh Dhami, who led the procession, asked the SAD-led state government to release the list of all those killed during Operation
Bluestar. “If the state government does not have such a list, we want to know whether it has sent any formal communication to the Centre asking for one,” he said.
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Rules changed, govt houses lying vacant
Chandigarh, June 5 Earlier, the government houses were allotted to government officials up to the level of deputy director. After the change in rules, these houses can only be allotted to officials drawing salary in the pay scale of Rs 37,400-Rs 67,000. However, no official in the state up to the level of additional director’s salary is in this pay scale, making them ineligible to apply for these houses. Therefore, several government houses in Chandigarh are lying vacant. “Over 30 houses have been lying vacant for several months while others for several years. These empty houses have not been maintained and are in a state of ruin. Government resources should not be wasted,” said a senior official of the Rural Development Department. Rural Development and Panchayats Minster Surjit Singh Rakhra has requested Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to look into the matter and follow the procedure of allotment that was in place earlier.
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Power cuts despite govt claims: Cong
Jalandhar, June 5 Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee spokesman Sukhpal Singh Khaira said despite the fact that Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal had been claiming of making Punjab a power surplus state, it was reeling under power crisis. "Though Sukhbir reaped rich political dividends in two assembly elections and one Lok Sabha elections by promising to make Punjab power surplus, the state is facing acute power shortage," Khaira said. He said of the six thermal plants in Punjab, showcased by the
SAD-BJP government, three comprising Kot Shamir (1320 MW), Gobindpura (1320 MW) and Gidderbaha (2640 MW), had failed to take off.
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CM okays Rs 1,434 crore for six border districts
Chandigarh, June 5 The government has sanctioned Rs 83.15 crore for Ajnala, Rs 57.35 crore for Chogawan’ Rs 51.67 crore for Attari block in Amritsar district and Rs 214.13 crore for Ferozepur city, Rs 108.82 for Ferozepur Rural and Rs 62.48 crore for Guru Har Sahai in Ferozepur district. The CM also approved Rs 55.11 crore for Kalanaur, Rs 5.19 crore for Gurdaspur block of Dera Baba Nanak assembly segment and Rs 48.98 crore and Rs 36.72 crore for Dinanagar and Dorangla Block respectively of Dina Nagar assembly constituency of Gurdaspur district.
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Power trading corp opposed
Jalandhar, June 5 Engineers say the proposed move is in violation of the tripartite agreement, signed during the time the erstwhile PSEB was unbundled. The state government at the time had categorically stated that the power corporation would not be restructured any further. On May 26, Sukhbir had said the PTC would be an online computerised power trading exchange.
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Protesting jobless linemen lathicharged in Patiala
Patiala, June 5 They alleged that the government was not adhering to their
justified demand for jobs as was promised before elections. Meanwhile, the police claimed that mild force was used when the protesters tried to block the main gate and barge into the PSPCL head office.
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Amritsar, June 5
Not a single consignment of coal has arrived at any of the three thermal plants at Ropar, Bathinda and Lehra Mohabbat from PENAM coal mine in Jharkhand since June 2.
Officials say parleys are on with the management of PENAM to sort out certain
"issues" at the earliest.
Lehra Mohabbat thermal plant is the worst hit as it has coal stock for just 11 days. The PSPCL has shut down its one unit for the want of coal although the official explanation is that there is less demand for power these days.
The daily requirement of coal at Ropar plant is 19,550 MT (six rakes), at Lehra 13,500 MT (four rakes) and Bathinda 5,400 MT (one-and-a-half rakes). Against the daily requirement of 11-12 rakes, only five rakes (one Lehra and four
Ropar) were received on June 1, five rakes (four Lehra and two Ropar and one Bathinda) on June 2 and no rake was received since then.
Ropar, June 5
Patiala, June 5
The number of transfers made in the gynaecology department are (84), surgery (76), medicine (63), anesthesia (60), paediatrics (49), eye (41), orthopaedics (25), skin and venereal diseases (22), tuberculosis and chest (19), pathology (13), microbiology (9), forensic medicine (3) and biochemistry (2).