Amritsar, August 3
Now, residents and tourists will find the streets on the way to the Golden Temple spic-and-span. All courtesy goes to the Municipal Corporation (MC) authorities, which introduced a unique "night sanitation" drive for the first time in the city today. This also qualifies Amritsar to be the first city in the state to start this novel concept.

The drive was kicked off by Cabinet minister Bikram Singh Majithia late this evening. This drive will be a constant affair between 10 pm and 3 am.

Amritsar is on the global map and is visited by over 1 lakh tourists just because of the presence of the Golden Temple here, yet the main criticism it has to face is the lack of hygiene and cleanliness on the streets.

Taking this into consideration, the MC took initiative to start night sanitation so that the pilgrims as well as residents should start their day in clean and hygienic environment.

Mayor Bakshi Ram Arora, who was the brain behind this drive, said the idea was to create positive awareness among the residents about sustainable and healthy living and projecting this "Guru ki nagri" as a model city. All roads leading to the Golden Temple would be covered in the first phase, he said.

Health Officer, MC, Dr Yogesh Arora said a Chandigarh-based sanitation company had been hired for the job. Around 40 workers with four garbage-lifting trolleys would be deployed for the job of cleaning the streets and sprinkling water thereafter.

In the first phase, all the roads leading to the Golden Temple would be covered. The first route would be from the Hall Gate to the Golden Temple, which would cover the Hathi Chowk, Fuwarah (fountain) Chowk, Jallianwala Bagh streets, etc. The second route would include Ghanta Ghar Chowk to Mai Sewa Bazaar, which covers the whole Galliara. The third route would be Ghanta Ghar Chowk to the Sakandari Gate and the fourth route would be Gurdwara Baba Atal Sahib.

Commissioner, MC, DPS Kharbanda said the roads leading to religious places would be on the priority list. After the Golden Temple routes, the service may be extended to the Durgiana Mandir routes.

Meanwhile, others present on the occasion included Chief Parliamentary Secretary Inderbir Bolaria, BJP district president Kamal Sharma, other senior BJP leaders like Balram ji Das Tandon, Rajinder Mohan Chhina, Senior Deputy Mayor Avtar Singh Trukkanwale and SAD district president Upkar Singh Sandhu.

Amritsar, August 3
The food served by big names in the food industry in the city has failed quality tests, reveals the test reports received by the district Health Department recently.

The Health Department had collected 61 samples of food items from various shops in the city in June and of these 21 have failed teast on quality parameters, stated the report received from the food testing laboratory, Chandigarh.

What is more astonishing is the fact that samples taken from shops as Moti Mahal, Bakes ‘n’ Beans, Cafe Oz and Kwality Ice-Cream, too, have failed test. The concept of eating out does not seems a good idea even if the residents are ready to spend more.

District Health Officer Dr Shivkaran Singh Kahlon said, “When it comes to quality the expensive and popular food joints are no better. In the past too samples from various renowned hotels in the city had failed test.”

He said the food joints whose samples had failed would be given the option to get their samples collected earlier re-examined as per law. Strict action would be initiated as soon as the formalities were finished, he said.

Meanwhile, city residents expressed shock over the test reports wondering what place to choose when it comes to dining out. Baltej Singh, a student, said, “A few of these shops, whose samples have failed test, are hot spots for youngsters."

Even the samples collected by the Health Department in April from well-known eateries like Novelty, Metro 42, Hotel Mohan, Angreji Dhaba and Pizza Hut had failed the tests.

City residents said at least the known names in the food industry should not compromise on quality as they already were charging much more than the others. They said the department should take strict action against these shops so that the sale of substandard food items in the city could be curbed.

Amritsar, August 3
The choked sewerage system in Jagdambay Colony, Tandon Nagar and Jawahar Nagar has been causing problems for the area residents for the past two weeks.

The area residents complained that even as they had been making complaints to Municipal Corporation (MC) officials for the past 15 days, the problem was not solved.

BR Preenja, general secretary of the Consumer Rights Protection Society, said, "The inefficiency and inaccessibility of the MC employees have proved to be a big hurdle in getting the problem rectified." He said they had talked to various senior officials of the civic body about the problem, but none had been able to send workers to get the problem solved. He added that the problem had come up in many streets of the area as sewerage pipes had got choked.

Darshan Lal, another area resident said, "The problem is such that even the water from the washrooms and toilets does not flow out as the sewerage pipes are choked. People are forced to compromise with the situation as nobody has come to their rescue." He said water had started getting collected in their homes as there was no outflow.

The foul-smelling sewerage water overflowing on the streets is a common sight in the area. The residents feared that the dirty water might cause some illness among the area residents.

A resident, Ashish Pal, said, "People cannot walk in these streets. The situation is very worrisome, but the officials concerned seem indifferent to the problem." He said the senior district officials must take notice of the situation in public interest.

Amritsar, August 3
A person managed to get the registration number which originally belonged to another vehicle for his Mahindra Scorpio by allegedly using influence.

The person in question reportedly got the number released from the local court. Reports said the vehicle was impounded by the city traffic police in March from Varundeep Singh, a resident of Preet Vihar. Varundeep had claimed to be the personal assistant of Congress MP Raj Babbar.

This has come to light through information collected from District Transport Office (DTO), Mohali, and the Amritsar city police under the RTI Act by Gurmeet Singh, a resident of Court Road.

The RTI reply given by the District Transport Officer, Mohali, the copy of which is with Amritsar Tribune, mentioned that the Scorpio vehicle was impounded by the city traffic police and had a license plate (PB-65-K-9159) which actually was issued to a Maruti Swift CDI car owned by Avtar Singh, a resident of Chuharpur Wale in Dera Bassi of Mohali district.

The information provided by the ACP traffic under the RTI Act revealed that the Scorpio was impounded under Section 207 of the Motor Vehicle Act by the police during a checking near Gate Khazana.

Varundeep, who was driving the vehicle, could not produce the requisite documents. The ACP said the vehicle was released following the orders of Judicial Magistrate on May 6.

Interestingly, Buta Singh of Mohali had lodged a complaint in November last year with the SAS Nagar police that the documents of the Scorpio vehicle (PB-65-K-9159) had gone missing.

"Based on this false complaint, Varundeep got the vehicle released by misleading the court after furnishing wrong facts," said Gurmeet Singh.

The police should have registered a fraud case against the offender after he failed to furnish the documents and later finding that the number originally belonged to a Swift car. But it took unusual time in investigations and did not take appropriate action.

Ketan Patil, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic), said he would check the records to ascertain the current status of the case. He admitted that the vehicle was released following the court's order. 

Amritsar, August 3
The Consortium of Indian Farmers Association (CIFA) has alleged that the SAD-BJP government was deliberately favouring certain officials of the Revenue Department by not recovering crores of rupees lying with the department.

Association member Baldev Singh Sirsa, in a press release issued here, today alleged that an RTI query revealed that over Rs 3.36 crore were lying with different officials of the department. About another query regarding recovery of this amount, the department said the efforts were on to recover the amount.

Amritsar, August 3
Extending a helping hand to the victims of Uttarakhand disaster, Chief Khalsa Diwan and its affiliated institutes have donated Rs 10 lakh in favour of the Chief Minister Relief Fund.

The cheque was presented to Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal by CKD president Charanjit Singh Chadha.

Chadha appreciated the Punjab government’s decision to give scholarship to Class XI and Class XII students from rural areas who have secured more than 80 per cent marks.

“We would be glad if we are entrusted with the responsibility of imparting quality education to the deserving children. We are committed to CKD’s motto of bringing the children from the deprived section of the society to the mainstream,” said Chadha.

Others present on the occasion were Nirmal Singh, Santokh Singh Sethi and Narinder Singh Khurana. 

Amritsar, August 3
They say friendship is a bond too strong to follow any customs or rules. And youngsters these days are surely following the advice.

With Friendship Day round the corner, the mood among the city youth is upbeat this time.

For Sukrant Bhatia and Shivani Raghuvanshi, two self-confessed cronies, friendship is much more than age and gender.

“It’s an age of coming out in the open about things we believe in. So we are not bound by rules when it comes to choosing friends. Shivani is my support system and I can discuss all my emotional stuff with her,” says Sukrant.

Even as the two know each other for only one year, their friendship has grown into a strong bond. “We hang out together all the time,” says Sukrant.

Sukrant is a third semester student of fashion at Pearl’s Institute in Delhi while Shivani runs her own design studio S Creations in the city. They say it has only made their friendship stronger.

For Gaurav, Divya, Ripudaman, Rohan and Navchetan, students from GNDU campus, friendship keeps one going through hard times.

“For many, the word friendship means just hanging out and having fun together. But for us, it is also about sharing problems we face in life,” one of them says. “Today the world of friendship has turned 360 degrees and there is nothing that a girl and a guy cannot discuss,” says Samarjeet Singh, a city-based businessman.

He adds, “Choosing a friend has nothing to do with age and gender. It comes from the trust and bonding between two people. I will not hesitate crying in front of a girl if it provides me an emotional outlet.”

Ragini Gupta, an engineering student from Amritsar College of Engineering, says, “I found a friend in my 50- year-old neighbour who lives with her husband.”

For Ragini, it started as a student-teacher relation. “She is a constant source of positive energy in my life. We go out for coffee or a movie whenever we get time. And we have endless talks about everything from my latest crush to her cooking recipes.” 

Amritsar, August 3
Khalsa College for Women (KCW) celebrated Teej with fervour as young girl students danced to the tunes of traditional Punjabi music today. The girls recited bolian (verses from folk music) and performed gidda to welcome saavan, with which the festival is associated.

Girls wearing traditional, colourful dresses danced to the tune of the dhol.

"It depicts happiness at the outset of the monsoon in the land of five rivers," said KCW principal Sukhbir Kaur Mahal, who herself performed gidda.

Mahal participated in the dance and song items and rode the peengh (swing). She said the festival reminded one of the happy times in life. The festival was traditionally celebrated in Punjab during the month of rain,she said, adding that traditional festivals like these were losing sheen among the younger generation who "spend most of their times on the internet and watching movies".

"This is the perhaps the only festival which is meant entirely for girls. We are celebrating girls’ power today," Mahal said, adding the girls lay the foundation of any society or culture. "We are happy that the girls with active guidance of their teachers organised such extravaganzas meticulously." 

Amritsar, August 3
The state government has targeted to increase the area under fruit cultivation from the present 6 per cent to 10 per cent, said Finance Commissioner, Development, Suresh Kumar during the state-level Pear Festival organised here today.

At present the state is producing 15 lakh metric tonnes of various fruits from around 74,897 hectares under horticulture. From an area of around 2,787 hectares under pear cultivation around 0.63 metric tonne pear is produced.

Suresh Kumar said around 80 per cent of the pear cultivation was done in Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Jalandhar and Ludhiana. Addressing pear cultivators, Kumar said a pear estate had been set up in Amritsar because the climate and soil here was highly conducive to pear production.

Amritsar, August 3
In the city to promote his latest film Punjab Bolda, singer-turned-actor Sarabjeet Cheema says he is back with "something different to offer".

Even as his on-screen visibility has been limited over the years, Cheema still considers himself a learner in the industry.

"Punjabi films are doing great but not many are experimenting with the scripts. We have a film that is not a slapstick comedy or it is not just about gags but it is about real issues and people of Punjab," he shared.

Taking a cue from films such as Sadda Haq to make issue-based cinema, Sarabjeet hopes that Punjab Bolda will be able to continue the parallel string of cinema in Punjab.

"The film refers to important historical events of Punjab. It touches upon events such as the partition in 1947, 1984 anti-Sikh riots. It also reflects the present situation of Punjab. It talks about human rights, social and political exploitation of the suppressed and the youth. These are the issues that people have always struggled with," he says.

Flanked by his leading lady Anisha Pooja, Cheema visited the Golden Temple before going on a citywide tour to promote his film that releases on August 15.

"It is a good thing that Punjabi films are making good money but cinema should not be restricted to only commercial aspect. Every Friday, we see a Punjabi film which is a comedy. It is time to bring something different," he said.

The film stars an array of actors. Ravinder Peepat is the director of the film while Arif Lohar has given it music.

"It is the story of a family that has to deal with everyday problems like corruption, unemployment, inflation, wasted youth, government apathy etc. I wish people will relate with it and like it," Cheema said.

A former Miss India and a non-Punjabi, Anisha hopes her debut would be appreciated. "I chose a meaningful film as it gave me a chance to play a strong character."