Jalandhar, July 21
While a criminally high amount of insecticide found in the mid-day meal samples in Bihar has made it clear that the feeding of chemical toxins to the hapless children had been the cause of their death, back home, the insecticide-situation is so dismal, it is almost unbelievable.

From the agriculture department to the health and education departments to NGOs, no one has ever bothered to check the level of toxins that might be regularly consumed by school children through their mid-day meal grains or conduct general checks.

Leave alone mid-day meals or ration, the last time any kind of food samples were checked for the level of pesticides in them was when the controversy regarding pesticides in cold drinks erupted.

As for grains or grocery items, the health department sources confirmed there has "never" been any sampling of grains in Jalandhar to determine the amount of pesticide or insecticide residues present in them.

There is no food lab in the district and there are only four labs competent to conduct pesticide/insecticide content tests in the state - at the PAU, Ludhiana, Kharar, Phase 4 forensic lab Mohali and Chandigarh.

At the local civil hospital, there are only two doctors competent to handle forensics, but their area of work doesn't involve food checks.

Meanwhile, from the fields to godowns and on to schools, there are no checks or monitoring committees to review or ascertain the amount of pesticides/insecticides students might have been consuming at any level.

Queries with district agricultural officer Swatantar Kumar, Food and Civil Supplies Controller TS Chopra, area manager FCI Devinder Singh as well as DM, PUNSUP Jasbir Singh revealed that there had never been any pesticide/insecticide checks at any level.

While all departments passed the buck on to each other, one of the officials went as far as to say, "There has never been any problem on this front in Jalandhar. Checks would only be conducted if any problem is reported." Other sources blamed the health department.

Mid-day meal officials also confirmed that there had never been any random checks to ascertain the amount of chemicals/insecticides/pesticides in the mid-day meal ration.

Civil Surgeon RL Bassan confirmed that the health department had never conducted any checks to ascertain pesticide/insecticide contents in the mid-day meals. All the said departments also said that they had never received any directions from the government to do the same either.

The grain route

Mid-day meal grains are stored in the FCI godowns and from there, the PUNSUP authorities distribute these to schools. However, many schools buy grains from their local grocery stores.

Notably, while Punjab has already gained enough notoriety for cancer prevalence, it is no more a secret that high pesticide use is one of the major factors responsible for the high incidence of the disease in the state, as has also been found in the high uranium and arsenic content in groundwater.

In grains, the risk is posed by many factors. Pesticides are sprayed on crops. During storage in godowns, many toxic insecticides and rodenticides are used to prevent rotting.

While the mid-day meal staff say they have not been directed to instruct staff to use any kind of chemical insecticides for stored grains, reports indicate the frequent use of celphos (alluminium phosphide).

At the store level too, aluminium and zinc phosphides are reportedly used on a regular basis, but there are no monitoring panels at any level to ensure that fungicides, insecticides or rodenticides are used in a controlled manner. 

Jalandhar, July 21
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has imposed a cost of Rs 7,500 each on the Municipal Corporation Jalandhar and Ludhiana for not aptly replying to its queries in a case related to rampant unauthorised constructions. The court has also asked Principal Secretary, Local Bodies, to personally appear for the assistance of the court during the next hearing on August 21.

The matter is being heard in the court of Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Augustine George Masih. A civil writ petition has been filed by an RTI activist Parbodh Chander Bali over the issues of pending challans in the MCs. The court had, on July 30 last year, asked the MCs of Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana to file replies on four aspects - cases detected of illegal construction, notices issued and not complied with, why such buildings were permitted to be completed and how much compounding fee yet remains to be recovered. The orders were repeated on January 21 this year.

The court, during orders passed on July 17, found, “As far as the Municipal Corporation, Ludhiana, is concerned, no affidavit has been filed, but a status report is sought to be placed on record in court. Municipal Corporation Jalandhar has filed a short reply which has been taken on record. The contents of the same do not answer the queries posed by this court. We, thus, impose costs on the Municipal Corporation Ludhiana and Municipal Corporation Jalandhar for the non-compliance of the directions of this court quantified at Rs 7,500 each, to be deposited with the Mediation Centre.

The Municipal Corporation of Amritsar, however, had filed affidavits. It reads, “There is a great paucity of staff/ inspectors to detect the deviations/violations. It is submitted that there are only four inspectors deployed with the corporations. This is against sanctioned posts of 20. There are 16 vacancies. It is stated that there are no junior engineers in this department, as the said posts are in the Engineering Department. The additional affidavit, filed on September 24 last year, itself paints a dismal picture as even challans have remained unattended of the year 2008-2009.”

The Special Secretary, Local Government, Punjab, too, had filed an affidavit on January 21, 2013. The affidavit mentions, “There are 46 sanctioned posts of building inspector (technical) for eight corporations and 20 new posts are stated to have been created. Against 66 total posts, it is admitted that there are only two building inspectors working and 64 posts are vacant. (These two are in Amritsar and there is no such inspector in other corporations). The affidavit goes on to state that action for direct recruitment is under consideration and approval has been given.”

It also read that instructions had been issued on December 7, 2011, to the commissioners of all the municipal corporations that additional charge of building inspector (technical) be given to the junior engineers, if needed. The court observed, “In our view, other than admitting absence of adequate number of inspectors and posts not being filled in, the affidavit is as vague as it can be.

It mentions that the existing 66 posts, which are inadequate, have remained almost completely unfilled, since only two inspectors are working. The affidavit only talks in generalisation about steps being taken without laying any time schedule within which these posts would be filled. Even though we are informed that junior engineers in the department do not exist, a direction appears to have been issued to engage their services in the meantime. This is complete non-application of mind.”

The court has thus called upon the municipal corporations to file affidavits setting out the time schedule within which the work of compounding would be completed. This may, however, only assist in the scheduling of the challans made, but the larger problem of non-detection would remain till such time there are adequate number of building inspectors in position in the different corporations, it has been observed.

The court has called upon the Principal Secretary, Local Government, to inform it by filing an affidavit as to ideally how many inspectors are required for each of the municipal corporations and as to within how much period of time would the process of recruitment be completed.

The court has ordered that affidavits be filed within a maximum period of four weeks from today, failing which the commissioners of the corporations would remain personally present in the court. “The corporations should depute their senior officers to assist their counsels. As far as the state government is concerned, given the ground realities, we would like to have the assistance of the Principal Secretary, Local Government, who should remain personally present in court,” it has concluded.

Kapurthala, July 21
As if the big goof-up on the part of the Kapurthala police in letting three criminals escape from its lock-up was not enough, the district has witnessed as many as three murders in the past one week. Even worse is that none of the accused in the three cases has been arrested by the police.

The Dhilwan Police last evening booked two youth for killing their father with iron rods and sharp-edged weapons at Butala village over some property dispute. The case has been lodged on the complaint of Ramandeep Kaur, daughter of the deceased Sarwan Singh, against her brothers Kulwinder Singh and Salinder Pal Singh, who had come from Dubai.

Ramandeep has reported that after a marital discord, she was putting up with her parents since the past 10 years. She alleged that she was sitting with her parents when her brothers came armed with rods and sickles and injured her, her mother and father. She said she became unconscious after being attacked and when she woke up, she found her father lying dead and mother badly wounded. A case has been registered under Sections 302, 325, 323 and 34 of the IPC against Kulwinder Singh and Salinder Pal Singh, both of whom have been absconding ever since.

On July 16, a case under Sections 302 and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the IPC had been lodged against some unidentified persons for the alleged honour killing of an 18-year old girl at Talwandi Chaudharian police station. The deceased Rupinder Kaur had reportedly eloped with a resident of Dhunda village, with whom she wanted to get married against the wishes of her family.

An ASI, who is a complainant in the case, has reported that he got the information on phone and immediately rushed to the cremation site, where the body had been taken. He said he gave a call for stopping the cremation, but someone threw kerosene oil on the pyre and lit it, destroying all evidence. The family, however, claims it to be a death due to electrocution.

On July 12, Dyal Singh, 55, was killed by his nephew Balbir Singh and his wife Binder Kaur, as the trio entered into scuffle while cultivating land in adjacent fields at Badyal village, near Kala Sanghian. The victim reportedly died on the spot.

SSP Kapurthala Inderbir Singh said: “Investigations are on in all three cases. The persons on run will be nabbed soon. Despite destruction of evidence in suspected honour killing case, we are pursuing it and gathering inputs to bring the wrong doers to the book.” 

Jalandhar, July 21
Rajesh Dutta and Prof Som Nath Sharma have taken over as president and secretary,respectively, of Rotary Club, Jalandhar Central, during an installation ceremony of the new team.

While chief parliamentary secretary for cooperation Krishan Dev Bhandari was the chief guest, district governor elect of Rotary Club Gurjeet Singh Sekhon was the guest of honour and installing officer. Sekhon collared president Rajesh Dutta and pinned secretary Som Nath Sharma. Former president Sanjiv Sharma was the project director and Parvinderjit Singh was the project counsellor on the occasion.

Dutta delivered his presidential acceptance speech and assured the house that he would carry on the good work done in the previous years by his club in form of permanent projects on free orthopaedic camps, free hearing assessment and solution camps, which helped earn the club 11 appreciation awards at the district level last month, under the leadership of Dr JP Singh.

Disclosing his future vision for 2013-14, secretary, Som Nath, said: “Mass marriages of poor girls, education to the needy bright students, 100 additional free hearing aids to elderly is on the club's agenda.”

Thirty hearing aids had already been distributed in first week of their tenure in Gurdaspur district. Two new Rotary community corps ( RCC), namely RCC-Ladowali Road and RCC- Jandiala-Batura, would be launched and made functional to look about the environmental awareness, cleanliness drive and medical camps of the club, he added.

Praising the club, Gurjeet Sekhon said he had high hopes in district leadership plans of the club. He welcomed new members and conferred Paul Harris Fellowship (PHF) on Paramjit Kaur Sandhu, Vijay Sehdev and Miss Ananya Sharma, who donated $ 1,000 each.

Chief Guest KD Bhandari, said: “A permanent project on literacy should be undertaken by the club since it has a number of eminent personalities like Justice NK Sud, industrialists OP Jain, Rajiv Mittal, Ashok Malhotra, Sandeep Sharma, Dinesh Thakur, Jitin Jain and intellectual community in form of Prof SN Sharma, Dr Sanjiv Sharma, Dr BS Johal, Dr Hardayal Ghuman, Dr GP Singh, Dr HJ Singh, Dr Rajesh Saggar, KK Sharma, Inder Pal Singh, Dr Gurpreet Kaur, Sarvdeep Kaur and Prem Sharma.”

Bhandari donated one lakh for the social welfare activities of the club.

Jalandhar, July 21
City may soon get rid of the problem of garbage lifting from various dumps. Thanks to the efforts of Municipal Corporation Jalandhar (MCJ) to widen its main Varyana dump, getting its faulty ditch machine repaired and creating a temporary dump at Khurla Kingra.

Talking to The Tribune, Mayor Sunil Jyoti said: “We are working seriously to solve the problem faced in lifting garbage from various dumps located in different parts of the city. Our main objective is to keep the city clean, provide healthy environment to the citizens and keep away diseases.”

The city was facing problem in garbage lifting because of various reasons, including inadequate holding capacity of its main dump at Varyana and its faulty ditch machine used for properly scattering the garbage at the dump. Due to this heaps of garbage piled at various dumps of localities giving open invitation to diseases in the rainy season.

Elaborating, Sunil said: “In an effort to solve the problem of garbage lifting once and for all, widening of the Varyana dump has been taken up for increasing its capacity. For that, we have decided in principle to either acquire or purchase at least three acres land near Varyana dump, but it may take some time. Till then we have created two temporary dumps at Suchi Pind and Khurla Kingra for dumping garbage lifted from various colony-level dumps.”

“Dumping of garbage has been suspended till further orders at Suchi Pind, whereas the same is being dumped at Khurla Kingra,” he added. The MCJ had withdrawn its decision of dumping garbage at Suchi Pind as the residents were up in arms against the MCJ move.

The Mayor said: “The ditch machine is being repaired on priority. If it is not repaired within a next few days, a ditch machine will be hired from Army or any other institution for properly scattering the garbage at main dumps.”

Sunil said the MCJ would not allow piling up of garbage in any part of the city. The corporation would take every possible step to solve the problem, he added.