Volunteers of the NGO Sahara Jan Sewa try to fish out bodies from a Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant lake in Bathinda on Wednesday

Bathinda, June 19
Continuous nagging, quarrel and heated arguments over trivial issues in a well-to-do family of the city lead to death of three persons, including two sons and a father.

The trio, all into business of real estate for the past long time, jumped into lake number three of the Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant at around 2.15 am today. The younger son and father tried to save the elder son of the family who jumped in a fit of rage into the canal, but they all got drowned in the lake on Goniana Road. All three members of the family did not know swimming.

The police said quarrel ensued after the elder son, Manish Kumar (32), a father of 11-month-old son, came home after midnight. He left the home at around 2 am in a fit of rage and threatened his family to jump into the lake to end his life. Manish ran towards the lake while his younger unmarried brother Ashish (28) and father Sudhakar Jain followed him in a car.

As the car arrived, Manish jumped into the lake. To save Manish, Ashish too jumped into the lake followed by their father. The unusual sounds and splash in the water forced the watchmen and two Punjab Police constables, outside the Peninsula Mall, to inquire into the matter. The Police Control Room was informed as more people reached the place from the homeland searching for the father and his sons.

Thermal SHO Kabal Singh got a phone call from the control room at around 2.45 am and viewing the gravity of situation reached the spot within 15 minutes.

“Senior officers, including DSP Desraj, were informed who too visited the spot,” Kabal said. It seemed that it took a few minutes for all three to drown into the water as there was no movement or ripples to ascertain life inside the deep waters just a few minutes after the incident.

The SHO said the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) was contacted, but it was told that they all had gone to Uttarakhand in a view of the flash floods.

The police said that though volunteers of NGO Sahara Jan Sewa reached within few minutes after the incident, but they failed to make any headway due to darkness and lack of equipments. “Our volunteers tried iron hooks and managed to fish out all three bodies at around 7 am. Though onlookers said that the trio jumped at one place, but their bodies were found at quite a distance from each other,” said Vijay Goyal, president, NGO Sahara Jan Sewa.

The police said inquest proceedings under Section 174, CrPC, has been initiated in this connection and the bodies were handed over to the family members.

Bathinda, June 19
The PWD buildings and Road (B and R) Department today gave the no objection certificate (NOC) to the Bathinda district administration, allowing the traffic to ply on the right side of the road, but with two conditions.

In the conditional certificate given to the district administration, the B and R officials Superintending Engineer (SE) and executive engineer (XEN) have mentioned that the right side of the bridge could be opened as there had been no further damage to the structure after the Saturday incidence.

The department has mentioned that the traffic plying on it should not be allowed to move at a fast pace, which may otherwise pose danger to the traffic. However, the department has not specified any speed limit that has to be followed. It has also stated that the traffic should be completely stopped from passing underneath the railway line in the event of rains, especially incessant ones. Under no circumstances, the traffic should be allowed to ply on it.

Meanwhile, SDM Damanjit Singh Mann said the deputy commissioner had passed orders to the B and R Department directing it to install speed limit notifications at both sides of the bridge so that the vehicles entering from both the sides were made well aware of the controlled speed limit. The B and R Department will also lay speed breakers.

Also, the district police have been asked to stop traffic running under the railway line as soon as it starts raining. “The policemen on duty will be told to install barricades immediately in the event of rains. For this, they do not need to even ask for permission from the district administration,” SDM Mann said.

Meanwhile, the department is still to assess losses incurred in terms of money with the collapsing of side panel of retaining wall constructed at the approach road or bridge. SE Madan Lal said once the traffic is run on the stretch, the department would take up the issue of carrying out repairs.

The traffic was opened at around 7 pm today. SDM Damanjit Singh Mann and DSP Ashish Kumar got the traffic opened allowing the vehicles to pass.

Bathinda, June 19
The Optimum Use of Vacant Government Land (OUVGL) site, under the Bathinda Development Authority on the Power House road, is now being developed for group housing purposes.

A cluster of government quarters existed at the OUVGL site earlier. The BDA had earlier floated an elaborated plan of developing the area into a commercial hub with plenty of parking space for commercial establishments.

For the past two years, the BDA has been showing a plan for the commercial hub in its website.

Sources in the BDA said that instead of developing it into the most sought area after the commercial pocket, the BDA was now toying with an idea of replacing it with a group housing multi-storey society that will be accorded to the people at affordable rates.

“The basic intention for developing the commercial hub here was to de-congest the narrow markets in the old city and give swank new complexes to the traders here. The narrow alleys of the old city are facing parking problems, which affects the business as well as clogs traffic in the city,” said a BDA official wishing anonymity.

Already many businessmen, traders and doctors in the old city area have expressed a keen interest in this scheme and have shifted their ventures creating a consolidated place for the commerce and trade to flourish. People had expected this area to be developed on the basis of sector 17 commercial hub in Chandigarh that has plenty of parking lots as well as entertainment for the people.

However, the district town planner Bathinda has now been asked to redraw the plan considering it for group housing project. The original plan, approved in the year 2011, is likely to be replaced with the new one having residential area.

The 2011 plan mentions that the Power House road has to be widened from existing 61 feet to 100 feet. Two cafeterias have been proposed, including one in the neighbourhood of income tax commissioner’s residence and another on the 100 feet road somewhere opposite the Punjab and Sindh Bank on 100-feet road. About 26 shops-cum-offices (SCOs) and 16 booths were proposed on the Power House road. Similarly, 36 SCOs had been proposed on the 100-feet road. The parking area of 24,257 sq metres has been provided.

Meanwhile, the chief administrator, BDA APS Virk, said the plan was floated in 2011 and was not a confirmed one. “Additions are being made to the existing commercial plan, but there is no final draft as such,” he said, refusing to comment further.

Bathinda, June 19
The Director General of School Education (DGSE) has terminated the services of three teachers of government schools in Bathinda district for remaining absent from duty for a long period of time.

In all, as many as 29 teachers have been dismissed across Punjab. While the maximum number of 13 teachers was suspended in Ludhiana district, four suspended teachers belong to Moga while three of the teachers belong to Bathinda, Sangrur and Gurdaspur. One teacher each from Patiala, Amritsar and SAS Nagar were also dismissed.

Varinderpal Kaur, Punjabi teacher at Government Senior Secondary Schoon in Behman Diwana, Gurbinder Kaur, a Punjabi teacher at Government Senior Secondary School in Talwandi Sabo and Balwinder Kaur, a Punjabi teacher at Government Senior Secondary School in Killi Nihal Singh Wala, were also dismissed from service.

While Varinderpal Kaur has been absent from duty since November 18 2011, Gurinder Kaur has been absent from duty since January 24 2013. Balwinder Kaur has been absent from duty since February 16, 2012.

Emphasising that the long absence of teachers from duty has been costing the students dear, the DGSE dismissed the teachers who had 'abandoned' their posts by taking long unauthorised leaves.

Earlier, through a public notification, the teachers were given a time-frame of one week to send clarifications regarding their long absence from duty. In cases where the teachers failed to send their replies to the DGSE within the stipulated time period or their replies were found to be dissatisfactory, the DGSE passed orders for their dismissal.

Earlier too, the Director General School Education has dismissed six teachers of Bathinda district from duty in March. At that time, a list of 148 teachers, found to be absent from duty, was issued and the teachers were served show-cause notices.

Bathinda, June 19
The Punjab State District (DC office) Employees Union held a pen-down strike today suspending work to protest against the government policies. The employees wore a black badge as a mark of protest.

President of the union Harbans Lal Khichi said the agitation had been launched before the Independence Day so that the employees get freedom from the additional work they are burdened with. He said the employees had duly informed the state government about the strike. "We had asked the government to issue a notification on June 17 accepting our demands or else, we will go on strike. Since the government has refused to budge from its stance, we will go on complete pen- down strike from June 17 to June 19," he added.

The further course of agitation will be decided at the state-level convention of the association to be held on June 23 at Sangrur. The employees demanded that the post of grade II superintendent in the offices of the SDMs should be upgraded.

The finance department had given its nod to upgrade the post of steno-typist to junior scale stenographer, which has been pending since 1989. They also demanded the recruitment of ministerial staff at the DC office of Muktsar, Moga and Nawanshahr as per the nod given in 1995 as well as the need to recruit a litigation or law officer.

Bathinda, June 19
A team from the Population Research Centre, Center for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID), Chandigarh, visited the district hospitals at Bathinda and Goniana for the quality monitoring of programme implementation plan (PIP) of the state government that the Central Government has allocated under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).

Associate professor Dr Rajesh Aggarwal and Prof AK Nanda visited the two health facilities where they studied the documents related to different programmes being run under the NRHM, interacted with the staff and collected data that will be submitted to the Central Government by June 30. The team will be visiting Muktsar tomorrow.

Talking to TNS, Dr Rajesh Aggarwal said the study is conducted every three months so as to ensure that the state government's PIP is being implemented properly as well as to find the bottlenecks prevalent in implementing these programmes.

"We noticed that the NRHM staff members are being poorly paid and do not have enough salaries to keep their hearth burning. Though we cannot do much on this front but we can certainly recommend that an effort should be made to raise the salaries of NRHM employees," Dr Rajesh Aggarwal said.

He said that almost all the health centres under the NRHM face inherent problems like lack of manpower wherein the staff is deployed from the health centres at the bottom of the paradigm of the health facility. "It's a very difficult situation and emphasis needs to be laid on ensuring that there is enough staff to carry out programmes under the NRHM successfully," he added.

He said that the need to make the health officials, including civil surgeons and block medical officers, aware about the components of programmes, grants received, utilization in proper manner, maintenance of data, number of days taken to implement it and others was felt. The team found that though a year has gone by, the medical officers were not aware of many important components.

In its report, the team will propose that a meeting of civil surgeons and medical officers of the state be conducted and they should be made aware of the shortcomings found.

Bathinda, June 19
As many as 30 students of the Guru Ram Dass Institute of Engineering and Technology (GRDIET), Lehra Gaga, and 15 students from the other colleges were selected by various companies during a job fair organised at GRDIET today.

During the inaugural ceremony, the chairman of the institute, Prof Harbhajan Singh said the job fair aimed at providing a common platform to companies and candidates to interact. He also added that such activities help the candidates in understanding the demands of the industry and gauging their capabilities.

Director of the college, Prof Daljit Singh said more than 20 companies from Chandigarh, Noida, Gurgaon and Bangalore took part in the job fair. — TNS

Bathinda, June 19
Police has arrested four persons for stealing costly material inside the electric transformers from the agricultural fields in the vicinity of the city. Investigating Officer (IO) Karamjit Singh said the accused were habitual offenders.

The investigating officer said 22 kg of copper has been recovered from the possession of the accused. The accused have been identified as Jaspreet Singh, Balraj Singh, Kewal and Vineet, all residents of Bathinda. Police said a case under sections 379 and 411 of the IPC has been registered at the Civil Lines police station. — TNS

Bathinda, June 19
Sachin XI beat Malik Club by 20 runs in the fourth and last semi-final of the 1st Drug De-addiction BPL Green City Cup. The match was played at the Police Public School grounds here today.

The cricket match in progress at Police Public School ground in Bathinda on Wednesday. A Tribune photograph

Malik Club won the toss and elected to bowl first. Sachin XI's batsmen looked determined to put up a huge score in 20 overs. The team managed to muster up a commendable score of 160 runs in 20 overs for the loss of eight wickets. Arjun's knock of 68 runs in 51 balls proved to be instrumental in building his team's innings.

Malik Club's top order batsmen had a decent start but the batting line-up fell like nine pins in front of the bowling attack by Sachin XI. The bowlers succeeded in clinching the match and sending the batsmen back to the pavilion in 17.5 overs with only 140 runs on board.

Sourabh of Sachin XI struck at frequent intervals and managed to take five wickets in only 3.5 overs. He was named not only the Man of the Match but was also awarded the Hat-trick of the Match title. The awards for the Catch of Match and Fifty of the Match went to Wazeer and Arjun, respectively.

The semi-final was scheduled for last Wednesday but was delayed as the downpur kept the pitch wet.