Jammu, June 21
Illegal construction near Circular Road, Gujjar Nagar and Old City area on the banks of the Tawi could lead to a major catastrophe as houses built on hillocks have weak foundation and they could spell disaster if earthquake or heavy rain strikes the city.

Thousands of people live in the area are unconcerned about the consequences of natural disasters and vulnerable to their effects. However, the government is a mute spectator as shifting lakhs of people who are living here for centuries is a Herculean task for it in the absence of a proper disaster-control mechanism.

People have reportedly constructed 2-3 storey buildings without considering building codes and construction norms in disregard to the condition of hills which are constantly being eroded due to deforestation.

Further, the congested localities like Jain Bazar, Peer Mitha, Lakhdata Bazar are major areas of concern if the earthquake strikes the city.

In 2011, major rainfall had damaged the Circular Road as landslides had destroyed a portion of the road. At that time, the administration had announced that it will take preventive steps in the area. It had decided to come down heavily on unauthorised and illegal colonies but not much has been done in this regard.

Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) Joint Commissioner Kapil Sharma said, “We are strict about construction of a buliding or house but nothing can be done about old structures. They have been made decades ago. It is near impossible to shift the entire population.”

He said the Soil Conservation Department, Public Works Department (PWD) have been constantly dealing with the issues related to condition of hills and road close to the Tawi so that people are saved from any major natural calamity.

Besides the Old City, several low-lying areas along the Tawi and Chenab are the flood-prone areas. A number of colonies has been constructed unauthorisedly and illegally, some of them even in ‘khuds’ and nullahs or on their banks, and these colonies suffer extensive damage as flood water enters into houses of the people.

Jammu, June 21
Non-gazetted employees, including Class IV and casual workers, of the University of Jammu (JU) today suspended their 40-day-old agitation after the authorities concerned decided to regularise 33 per cent of casual workers within 15 days.

“We have suspended our stir after reaching an agreement with the negotiating committee, constituted by JU Vice-Chancellor Professor Mohan Paul Singh Ishar, last evening. The authorities have agreed to fill 70 out of a total 94 posts by regularising the casual workers. They will not advertise for these posts,” said Krishan Chand, president of Non-Gazetted Employees Union (NGEU).

He said the authorities had also assured that the remaining 24 posts would be filled after getting consent from the state government which, according to him, was in process of drafting a policy for regularisation of all casual workers on the campus.

He, however, made it clear that they had suspended their agitation for 15 days and if the regularisation process was not started by then, they would again start their agitation.

Over 700 non-gazetted employees of the university were demanding regularisation of casual workers, removal of pay anomalies and reduction in the period of conducting test for promotion of the Class-IV employees from five years to three years.

The employees had even continued their chain hunger strike for ten consecutive days.

Jammu, June 21
Vendors have encroached upon pavements from Jewel Chowk to Canal Road. The vendors jostle for space in the area, throwing vehicular and pedestrian movement out of gear.

Obstructed pavements and crumbling side-lanes pose a sorry picture for the tourists visiting the city of the temples. Even after the commissioning of the third Tawi Bridge, the encroachments on the road have been posing serious problems, traffic jams and causing accidents.

The vendors have spread out stools on roads, using parking space that could otherwise accommodate two or three cars. Not only the street vendors, but big businessmen too have occupied footpaths though they have adequate space on their premises to construct structures. “Where do we walk?” is often a question asked by pedestrians who are now being forced to walk off the footpath right in the middle of the road.

Suraj Kumar, who runs a juice stall, said, “The officials used to conduct inspection once in a while. When they come for the inspection, we pack our goods, leave and return to the same place.”

Sunaina Sambyal said, “These encroachments need to be removed but the JMC should keep in mind that those who occupy these places are people from the lower strata of society and their livelihood should not be disturbed in any case. Locations should be earmarked for them.” The JMC is callous to the situation and passes the buck to the other arms of the government. When contacted, Municipal Commissioner Kuldeep Lal Khajuria was not available for comment.

Jammu, June 21
All Jammu Hotels and Lodges Association has expressed concern over the “divergent and contradictory” statements being made by different authorities in the Central and the state governments about the threat perception from militants to Amarnath Yatra this year.

The members of the association, in a meeting held here today under the chairmanship of its president Indeerjeet Khajuria, contended that there should be a coordinated assessment of the security situation and threat perception to the Yatra.

“The statements about the Yatra being on terrorists’ radar this year, made by the GOC-in-C Northern Command and later endorsed by the Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and at the same contradicted by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, is only creating confusion among the pilgrims as well as the stakeholders in the Yatra in general,” they observed.

They said the security arrangements should be further upgraded if there were authentic inputs with the intelligence and security agencies about added threat to the pilgrimage.

“While the authorities should take no chance and put in force a multi-tier security for the Yatra, airing the same publically only creates scare and panic among the pilgrims and is not in the interest of the pilgrimage,” they said.

The association members also flayed the separatist outfits, both headed by Ali Shah Geelani and Maulvi Umar Farooq, who termed the threat perception to the Yatra as “a conspiracy to malign there anti-national movement”.

It also condemned the demand made by Geelani that the Yatra period should be curtailed to 15 days and the number of pilgrims performing the Yatra be restricted.

They, however, appreciated the decision by the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) to set up three on-the- spot registration centres for Amarnath pilgrims in Jammu city and deciding that no current registration would be made at Baltal or Nunwan.

Prominent among those who attended the meeting included Ajay Gupta, senior vice-president of association, HS Manhas, vice-president, Pawan Gupta, general secretary, Baldev Raj, treasurer, Vikram Singh, secretary and Sunil Suri, secretary.

Jammu, June 21
The state government employees today held protests at various places of the region to pressurise the government for immediate implementation of the agreement signed between representatives of employees and state government on July 8 last year.

The protest call was given by the Jammu and Kashmir Employees’ Joint Consultative Committee. Various factions of the Employees Joint Action Committee, headed by Mohammed Gafoor Dar, Abdul Qayoom Wani, Muntzir Mohu-Din and Kulwant Singh, held demonstrations at various district headquarters and submitted a memorandum to the state government through respective District Development Commissioners.

They also announced that they would observe state-wide strike tomorrow to pressurise the government to settle their issues and warned it against testing the patience of the employees who were allegedly suffering due to the “anti-working class policies” of the state government.

The employees had been demanding enhancement of retirement age from 58 to 60 years, regularisation policy for all daily-rated workers, casual labourers, need-based workers and ITI-trained workers who had been engaged after 1994, removal of pay anomalies of clerical cadre and budgetary support for all public sector corporations to release their salaries and other pending arrears.

Addressing the protesting employees outside the Divisional Commissioner’s Office, Jammu, Mohammad Gafoor Dar condemned the delaying policy of the government, which had miserably failed to fulfill the agreed demands till date.

He stressed upon the state government not to delay the implementation of agreement as it could compel them to launch “decisive agitation” to get the demands fulfilled.

Dar appealed to the employees and workers to observe complete pen-down strike tomorrow. He warned that if the government failed to announce the implementation of the agreement by tomorrow, the state government employees, workers, teachers and daily-rated workers would be forced to intensify the agitation.

Jammu, June 21
Around 24,000 candidates are expected to appear in two-day Jammu and Kashmir Common Entrance Test (JKCET)-2013, to be conducted at 35 examination centres, including 20 in Kashmir valley and 15 in Jammu, from tomorrow.

The test is to be conducted by Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examination (JKBOPEE) for various medical, veterinary, engineering and other allied professional courses run by the government and private institutes in the state.

On the first day, two papers, physics and chemistry, will be conducted tomorrow, while the papers of biology and mathematics will be held on June 23.

“Around 24,000 candidates from the state are appearing in CET-2013 commencing tomorrow. We have put in place all the necessary arrangements to ensure smooth conduct of the examination,” JKBOPEE chairman, RD Sharma told The Tribune.

He said various departments and agencies were coordinating to ensure transparent and fair conduct of the examination.

But if sources are to be believed, there is no arrangement of Close Circuit Televisions (CCTVs) in examination centres. The crime branch officials had been authorised to conduct video recording of all examination centres to ensure transparency and to deal with the menace of impersonation.

Katra, June 21
The flagship programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has had great impact on generation of jobs in rural areas and creation of necessary community infrastructure in villages.

The programme, being implemented by the Rural Development Department, has had its significant mark on uplift of rural population by way of ensuring 100 days job for each rural family.

Rohit Sharma, District Panchyat Officer, said the department had issued over 50,325 job cards to the rural labour families during the last four years, creating about 22 lakh days of work for them for the year 2012-13 in Reasi district.

“Rs 48.42 crore has been incurred under MGNREGA last year in the rural areas of Reasi district. This has given considerable fillip to the economic welfare of poor rural families and helped to create public infrastructure in various important sectors”, he added.

Works like water conservation, water harvesting, drought-proofing, forestation, small and micro irrigation, development of ponds, construction of bandhs, land development works, renovation of water bodies, de-silting of tanks, flood control protection works, drainage, repairs of channels, rural connectivity, construction of Bharat Nirman Resource Centres, construction of Gram Panchayat Bhawans etc were being done under the scheme, he said.

Jammu, June 21
The J&K Contractors’ Coordination Committee (JKCCC) today decided to organise a day-long dharna outside the Lok Nirman Bhawan on June 22 in protest against the failure of the state government to clear the contractors’ liability worth Rs 700 crore.

A meeting of contractors was held today to discuss the issue of non-clearance of the dues, which had now reached upto Rs 700 crores and the problems being faced by them with the introduction of the new civil accounting system.

The participants included Vinod Kohli and Balvinder Singh, general secretaries, J&K Contractors’ Coordination Committee, Yogeshwar Singh, Sham Singh and Ravinder Nath Sharma, all vice-chairmen, J&K Contractors’ Coordination Committee, were of the view to stop all the ongoing works and not to allow the department to invite tenders for new works, but they have postponed the final decision for the contractors to decide from all the districts of Jammu province and some members of J&K Contractors’ Coordination Committee from the Valley, including its Chairman Ghulam Jeelani Purja.

Jammu, June 21
The early start of southwest monsoon this year has given hope for better cultivation of paddy crop to the farmers in Jammu.

The southwest monsoon came 15 days early than its scheduled time and has made the paddy farmers hopeful of a better crop this year.

“The Jammu region has received 72.6 mm rain till now, which was expected to be 24mm and it is in excess by more than 200 per cent,” said Sonam Lotus, Director, Metrological Centre, Srinagar.

The 75% of farmers of the Jammu region, who are dependent on the monsoons, are happy with the early monsoon and have started the preliminary works for paddy cultivation.

Gardhari Sharma, a farmer from Bishnah, said, “The plantation of the crop is early by 10 days and I think the quantity and quality of production will go up to the mark this year.”

“Due to deficit rains last year, we faced loss of more than 40 per cent, but this year we are expecting a good amount of crop,” he added.

The RS Pura sector of Jammu is the largest grower of the world-class basmati rice in the state. This year, farmers are expecting record production from here.

Lal Chand, a paddy farmer, who has 62 kanals of irrigation land, has planted paddy crop in 50 kanals till now.

“We were expecting a good spell of rain this year. The early monsoon came with an advantage for the farmers,” said Chand.

“The early monsoon will increase production by 20 per cent this year. The situation can be much better if the region receives rain within next one week,” he added.

There are more than two lakh families in RS Pura, Bishnah and Marh areas who are cultivating only basmati.

Monsoon rains are crucial for agriculture sector, which contributes about 15 per cent to the country's GDP, as only 40 per cent of the total cultivable area is under irrigation.

Batote, June 21
A three-day Inter-School Volleyball Competition was organised by the Rashtriya Rifles (RR) under the Operation Sadbhavana, under the aegis of Counter Insurgency Force (D) in Kishtwar yesterday.

Five teams from the government schools of Durbil, Mugal Maidan, Sigdi, Tagud and Degree College, Chhatru, participated in the tournament, which was won by Higher Secondary School, Tagud.

Trophies to the winner and the runners-up teams and cash prizes, besides volleyballs, were given to all participating teams as an incentive.

An Army spokesman said it had been organising such sports events in the far flung and backward areas to inculcate sportsman spirit and leadership qualities among the youth, besides motivating them to participate in constructive activities, thereby weaning them away from terrorism and antisocial activities.