Chandigarh, August 11
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda appears to have neutralised his latest detractor in Panipat (Urban) MLA Balbir Pal Shah. Shaw. He had submitted his resignation to Speaker Kuldip Sharma on August 4, charging Hooda with ignoring his constituency in terms of development. Shah has now taken a U-turn and spurned invites from Hooda's bête noires to join them. Shaw who till recently was adamant on his resignation, had now announced that he had been assured that his grievances would be addressed.

The week-long attempts to cajole Shaw are expected to end in a patch-up with Hooda visiting Shah's residence within two or three days. The resignation and subsequent developments have yet again highlighted Hooda's acumen as a master of political strokes. From a bitter critic, Shah has now stated that "Hooda is his younger brother" and he will not harm his interests.

Rajya Sabha MP Birender Singh is believed to have instigated Shah to resign as the two had met at the latter's residence on August 4, shortly before Shah decided to abstain from the Chief Minister?s Iftar party and head for Karnal to hand over his resignation to the Speaker. In less than a week, Shah has come out with a statement that he would not join Birender Singh's or Kumari Selja's camp.

Without naming anyone, Shah has said that people in rival camps are struggling to attain power — someone wants to be in the Union Cabinet while others aspire to be Chief Ministers. "I have no such aspirations; my struggle is purely to seek developmental funds for my constituency". He indicated that he has been assured that projects on Drain No 1 and the issue of 500 dying units would be resolved soon.

It is pertinent to mention that Jagdish Nehra, a former minister and Selja's confidant, had recently approached Shah and asked him to join the Selja camp. Nehra has repeatedly accused the Hooda government of a regional bias. But Shah is believed to have told Selja's emissary that he had no inclination to join any camp. Selja then called Shah and asked him to visit but he politely declined.

The Hooda-Shah truce would now see clearance of development works worth Rs 4.5 crore that have already been got done by Shah without inviting tenders. The BJP had sought a vigilance probe into the issue. Attempts are being made to get the contractors paid without inviting trouble.

It appears the Haryana Congress camps are getting fragmented rather than getting consolidated. Gurgaon MP and another Hooda detractor Rao Inderjit Singh today came up with a remark at a workers' meeting that Birender Singh and Hooda (both cousins) were hand in glove and were taking the people for a ride by acting as if they were at loggerheads.

The Birender camp has, however, rubbished Rao Inderjit's suggestion and come up with a statement on IAS Officer Ashok Khemka's report on Robert Vadra. They say this was the Hooda camp's last-ditch effort to create a controversy that would foil Birender Singh's effort to bring Congress President Sonia Gandi to his Jind rally on August 20. 

Singhwa Khas (Hisar), August 11
This village, which has been home to the Rs 25-lakh worth Lakshmi, has turned out to be the treasure trove of "black gold" with over 4,000 murrahs, mostly with a price tag of around Rs 2 lakh. On an average, almost each one of the 1,500 families here owns over two buffaloes.

Cattle-rearing is the main occupation and source of income of people here. So much so, that they revere the black bovine with curly horns and put up their pictures along with those of family members and other deities in their houses.

“A buffalo is no less than a goddess for us. These are real money-spinners for us. Lakshmi has proved to be the goddess of wealth for me as it fetched me ten times more price than what I had bought it for,” said Kapoor Singh, who bought the buffalo for Rs 2.5 lakh two years ago.

A buffalo is more precious than land for these villagers as an acre of land here is priced below Rs 20 lakh.

Village sarpanch Manoj Bhar claimed the village had around 100 buffaloes with a price tag of Rs 5 lakh or above. “Hoshiyar Singh, who owns a murrah named Dhanno, got an offer of Rs 20 lakh but he declined,” he said. He said people mostly earned by way of selling issues of their murrahs.

The village has 10 buffaloes yielding 19-25 litres of milk and 80 others giving 13-19 litres a day. Some prominent murrah-rearing farmers are Hoshiyar Singh, Ashok Kumar, Dulichand, Krishan Kumar, Kashmir Singh, Ramesh Kumar and Ajit Singh.

Villagers here say they’re offended by idioms such as ‘kala akshar bhains barabar’, ‘jiski lathi uski bhains’ and ‘bhains ke aage been bajana’. “The idioms have negative connotations which show buffaloes in poor light. Our improved living standards and lifestyle is all due to buffaloes. It is a simple animal with a good level of understanding. We untie our cattle at home and they go to the village pond directly and return home without being herded,” said the sarpanch.

Karnal, August 11
Two youths allegedly assaulted a 15-year-old girl in Kheri Man Singh village at Indri in Karnal while she and her mother were sleeping in the courtyard of their house.
The father of the girl, who was sleeping on the roof, said he rushed downstairs on hearing the cries of her daughter but the accused, Satbir and Dharambir, fled the spot. 

"The accused trespassed into my house and sexually assaulted my daughter. Both my daughter and wife were so upset and ashamed that they consumed poison," he said.

“I brought them to a hospital at Karnal where the doctors declared my daughter dead while the condition of my wife, who has been admitted to a private hospital, is stated to be critical," he said. A case of sexual assault and other offences has been registered against the accused. 

Sirsa: The police has rounded up two minor youths after they allegedly attempted to rape a four-year-old girl at Nehrana village of Sirsa. The juvenile offenders, aged 15 and 16, allegedly took away the victim to a nearby school when she was playing outside and tried to rape her.

The girl’s parents rushed to the school when they heard their daughter's cries and the youths, who were attempting to assault the child sexually, ran away on seeing her parents.

Sonepat, August 11
On a complaint of three women employees of a company here in the old industrial area, a case of sexual harassment was registered in a local city police station late last evening against the unit owner and two other women supervisors.

The employees alleged that they were being sexually harassed by Pavel Garg in connivance with two supervisors, Sunita and Vinita.

Citing an incident of August 5 in the complaint, a victim, alleged that she was beaten up by a supervisor and was forcibly sent to the owner's room. In the office, she was forced to remove her clothes by him. However, she managed to escape from his office, she added.

She further alleged that when she came out of the office, she was threatened with dire consequences by the supervisors.

A complaint was lodged with the police on August 6.

Talking to mediapersons here yesterday, the employees alleged that they were being sent to the owner's room by the supervisors. After entering in the room, the owner used to harass them.

DSP Satish Kumar confirmed that a case of sexual harassment had been registered against the owner and the supervisors in the city police station. The SHO of thecity police station had been asked to supervise the investigation.

Karnal, August 11
The Aam Aadmi Party and various social organisations have reacted sharply to the Central government’s move to keep political parties out of purview of the RTI Act and expressed their anguish over the manner in which the parties have joined hands to stall a move which could go a long way in bringing transparency in the political system.

Activists of these organisations were disappointed over the manner in which different political parties, which fail to reach consensus on vital issues like security, Naxalism and economy, have come together to thwart the move of the Central Information Commission to bring the political parties under the purview of RTI Act.

AAP and social organiations activists said the move had exposed the double standards of the parties that proved that any attempt to cleanse the political system would be “resisted and opposed” by them.

“It is unfortunate that the political parties are collecting crores of rupees from people, corporate and business houses in the name of donations for elections, but are not ready to disclose the source and details of income and expenditure,” they said.

Gurgaon, August 11
The Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) has decided to launch a drive to augment and strengthen the power transmission system and make optimum use of the excess capacity of the system available, which is presently surplus and likely to increase further during this month. A special attention will be given to Gurgaon and Faridabad areas under the plan.

This was disclosed by Devender Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, DHBVN and UHBVN, at a meeting of senior officials of the DHBVN here . The meeting was attended by DHBVN director VK Chaudhary, all chief general managers and general managers.

The CMD said efforts would be made to generate load where the substations were under-loaded and additional substations would be created or capacity of the existing substations would be augmented where the substations were overloaded. So it would be done in case of the distribution transformers.

He asked the officers concerned to ensure that no substation or distribution transformer has a load of more than 70 per cent. As and when a substation or a transformer attains load 70 per cent of the capacity, a plan to augment capacity would be sent for approval. Simultaneously, the work of releasing new connections would also be accelerated.

Devender Singh maintained that each senior officer would adopt two poorly performing operation sub-divisions to improve the overall working and to make the working more consumer-friendly.

The officers would pay special attention to improve revenue collection efficiency, defaulting amount collection, reduction in AT&C losses, strengthening of the distribution system, improving consumer grievance redress system and other services.

He asked the officers to focus on the big defaulting consumers for recovery of arrears of bills as nearly 7,000 top defaulters owe arrears of over Rs 322 crore.

Under the defaulting amount settlement scheme launched by the Haryana discoms recently, the rural domestic consumers have been given an attractive offer to get their defaulting amount settled and get power supply in their villages for 20 to 24 hours a day, depending on the extent of participation.

Under this scheme, a consumer having a load of 1 kilowatt will have to pay only Rs 1,440 per year depending up on the period of default as the tariff to be applied would be that prevailing at the time of default.

The CMD appreciated the efforts of the officials made to improve revenue collection. The DHBVN earned all-time-high Rs 820.47-crore monthly revenue during the month of July this year, which was 52 per cent higher than the revenue received during the corresponding month of last year. 

Kaithal, August 11
MLA Abhay Singh Chautala has said several Congress leaders are aware that they may have to go behind bars after the next elections as they are "involved in various scams" but as of now, they are free and misusing their power.

Addressing a public meeting in Kalayat today, he said the land deal involving Robert Vadra was an example of "misdeeds" of the Congress. The meeting was organised by Kalayat MLA and former Chief Parliamentary Secretary Ram Pal Majra.

Abhay said the Congress was spreading rumours about a tie-up between the INLD and the BJP. "Actually, we are with the people," he said, adding that his party would take any decision on alliance while keeping in mind the welfare of the masses. He said his party would support any party which contested the Lok Sabha elections to root out the Congress.

He said when senior INLD leaders Ajay Chautala and Om Parkash Chautala had attempted to cleanse the system of corruption, the Congress hatched a conspiracy and got them arrested. He claimed their names had not figured anywhere initially but were added when a chargesheet was filed as they had raised their voice against the land deal involving Robert Vadra.

State INLD president Ashok Arora in his address lambasted the Congress government for putting an "unbearable" burden of inflation on the masses. He said the price of diesel had been raised 16 times and that of petrol eight times in a period of just one-and -a-half month, which was a "cruel joke" on the common man.

Kalayat MLA Ram Pal Majra said some people with vested interests were spreading rumours that he was planning to exit the INLD. "I am a loyalist of the INLD and will remain so," he said.

Chandigarh, August 11
The Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board (HSAMB) will shortly issue co-branded debit cards to protect farmers against exploitation and bring transactions in mandis on a common electronic platform.

Being launched for the first time in the country for farmers, the board took a cue from the Punjab Grains Procurement Corporation (Pungrain) model where credit cards have been issued to commission agents (arhtiyas).

Unlike the Punjab version, the card will have a smart chip embedded with details of all financial transactions among other things. The hi-tech cards will also be issued to commission agents, contractors and employees of the board.

“The idea is to introduce transparency in financial transactions taking place in mandis, expedite financial flow from various procurement agencies to commission agents and farmers and check exploitation in terms of delayed payments. For contractors, it will bring transparency in construction and other works executed by the board while cards to employees will help expedite release of benefits to them,” the MD, HSAMB, TVSM Prasad, explained.

Twenty banks have come forward to issue these cards at no cost. As many as 10 lakh cards are likely to be issued to farmers over the next two seasons while 20,000 cards will be given to commission agents.

The cards will be issued by the banks with financial transactions managed by the National Payment Corporation of India (RuPay in stead of Visa or MasterCard).

“Each card will carry a bank logo and the logo of the board and carry a specific code so that at the headquarters, we will be able to identify the mandi and the farmer. The farmers’ cards will carry a picture of Partap Singh Kairon, Chief Minister of joint Punjab, as desired by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda," Prasad added.

“We will install card readers in all mandis which will serve as a protector for farmers since it will record the entire produce they bring in, sales and payments. The cards willo reduce the payment time from a fortnight to less than 48 hours,” the officer said, adding that cards are slated to be issued from October.

Ambala, August 11
Demanding the reallocation of power to northern states from the central sector projects, the All-India Power Engineers’ Federation (AIPEF) has alleged that undue benefit of Rs 45 billion has been given to private Discoms supplying power to Delhi.

The federation, in a letter to the Prime Minister, has sought his intervention towards urgent requirement of reallocation of the central sector power to northern states, stating that most states were shelling out huge amount of money and penalty towards unscheduled interchange charges, while private Delhi Discoms were minting money through these charges by way of surrendering allocated power every month for the last six years.

The federation has also urged the Chief Ministers of Haryana and Punjab to take up the matter with the Union Ministry of Power immediately for reallocation of power to northern states on an urgent basis so that “undue favour bestowed on Delhi Discoms” is withdrawn and justice is done to all northern states.

Due to a shortage of electricity, most northern states were being forced to overdraw from the Northern grid to meet their requirements and depending upon the grid frequency they have to pay heavy charges for unscheduled interchange(UI). On the contrary, private Discoms of Delhi are surrendering central allocated power every month and minting money on this account, while they do not spend anything for generating this central allocated power.

VK Gupta, spokesperson of the federation, said Haryana and Punjab had paid heavy unscheduled interchange charges during the same period due to less allocation of power from the central sector as compared to their requirements. Haryana has paid Rs 5,230 crore and Punjab Rs 2,511 crore on account of UI charges from 2006 to 2013. 

The police said their parents had gone to fields and left the two victims, their elder brother Ajay and daughter Manjali (3) at home. When they returned, they found Vinod and Vikram missing. The search in the village yielded no result.

Some villagers noticed their clothes outside the pond and they informed their parents today.  

After hours of searching, the villagers were able to fish out their bodies from the pond. They said due to lack of cleanliness, there was sludge in the pond and when the children entered the pond, their feet perhaps got entangled in it and they could not come out despite efforts.

A seven-year-old child drowned in a pond at Jagmalwali village in Sirsa today. Another child, who also fell into the pond, was rescued. According to a report, Rattan (7) and Khusha (9), sons of Jasbir Singh, were playing near the pond when they suddenly fell into it this afternoon. Villagers took out the children and rushed them to government hospital in Kalawali. Rattan was later referred to the Community Health Centre, Odhan, but doctors could not save him. The condition of Khusha is said to be stable.

Bhiwani, August 11
A delegation of the All-India Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti (AIJASS) called on Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram in New Delhi today to press for its demand to provide quota to Jats in the Central Government jobs and education institutes.

Samiti president Hawa Singh Sangwan said in a statement that the delegation urged the minister to fulfil its long-pending demands to include Jats in the Other Backward Category.

"We apprised him about our deadline of August 16 after which the jats will resume the agitation across Haryana and also march towards Delhi. The minister informed us that the post of chairperson of the National Commission for Backward Classes had been lying vacant since June and the demand of the Jats would be taken up for consideration after the appointment of chairperson", Sangwan stated.

Sangwan said the Jats were geared up to start stir from August 16 and the activists were being specially trained to tackle the Delhi Police. He said people from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi would also participate in the Jat Akrosh Rally scheduled to be organised in Delhi on August 16. 

Rohtak, August 11
One out of every ten surgeries done at the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology (RIO) in the PGIMS here are of patients suffering from cataract. This was disclosed at a CME (Continuing Medical Education) programme organised by the institute today.

Doctors of the institute said they used the latest Phacoemulsification technique for conducting such a surgery and the institute was equipped to carry these operations at "minimum possible" charges. They said they had three such machines to conduct cataract operations.

The CME, organised under the aegis of the Haryana Ophthalmological Society, was inaugurated by Dr SS Sangwan, Vice-Chancellor of the Pt BD Sharma University of Health Sciences.

About 150 delegates from across the state participated in the scientific delebrations. A souvenir of the Haryana Society of Ophthalmology was released at the function. RIO head Dr Ashok Khurana said while the daily influx of OPD patients at the institute was between 250 and 300, the number of cataract surgery patients had been at least 10 per cent.

He said such a treatment was much costlier in the private sector and therefore not affordable for a majority of poor and middle-income patients. He said cataract patients were discharged the same day after the operation.

Dr Chand Singh Dhull, Director, PGIMS, said the RIO was being developed as a centre of excellence. He said there were around 16 such centres functioning in the country. 

Jhajjar, August 11
Reacting over the agitation by guest teachers across the state for getting their services regularised, Haryana Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal said the government had no way to regularise them.

Bhukkal was interacting with mediapersons after listening to public grievances at her residence here today.

“How can the services of guest teachers be regularised? The government has no way to do that. The matter is sub judice while the government has helped them in competing for regular appointments by relaxing the condition of the HTET against the teaching experience of at least four years,” said the minister.

In reply to another question, Bhukkal said as many as 1,075 assistant professors of various subjects would soon be recruited in colleges in order to cope with the shortage of teachers there. The state cabinet had decided to fill all the vacant posts of assistant professor with the minimum qualification of the National Eligibility Test (NET) and the State Level Eligibility Test (SLET), she said.

“Haryana is emerging as a leading state in terms of development in the field of education. In the recent cabinet meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the approval for setting up of Indira Gandhi University in Meerpur has been given. After Defense University and Central University, this university will become a centre of higher education for southern Haryana,” she said.

The minister said the Chief Minister had made the announcement to upgrade Indira Gandhi Post-graduate Regional Centre, Meerpur, to Indira Gandhi University on April 25. She said the institute would directly benefit children belonging to Jhajjar district and adjoining areas. 

Sonepat, August 11
The Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department has cancelled the licences of five real estate companies.

These real estate companies included Parsvnath in Sector 11, Navjyoti in Sector13, Gee City in Sector 17, Jindal Real Cone in Sector 10 and Design Promoter in Sector 17 here. District Town Planner Dilbag Singh said a team was constituted to take over the possession of landed properties of these companies. — OC