Bathinda, September 3
People vented their spleen during the Deputy Commissioner's grievances redressal meeting - sangat darshan - held to address problems pertaining to the civic bodies.

From clogged drains to scarcity of drinking water to encroachments, people raised all kind of problems and even levelled allegations against certain government officials that they were not performing their duties properly.

Villagers from Kanakwal village gave a memorandum demanding their displacement out of the fear of pollution that the Guru Gobind Singh Refinery was emitting. They claimed that the panchayat of Kot Bakhtu village was ready to spare some land while the administration had identified land on Talwandi Sabo road.

Officials of Maur Mandi area accused a Forest Department employee of not letting them lay a pipe in the 100 feet area connecting the main sewer to the sewage treatment plant (STP).

Yadav called up the Divisional Forest Office asking them to get the issue resolved and allow the officials to lay the pipeline. Maur residents complained about the construction of the veterinary hospital, which is in limbo for the past six months.

Residents of Model Town Phase III complained of non-functional street lights. Residents of Model Town Phase II demanded that a boundary wall be raised to separate the area from the nearby slum, Dhobiana Basti. They also raised objections about nuisance that swine create in the area.

Residents of Sanjay Nagar complained of sewer water stagnating in streets. They alleged that the MC-run slaughterhouse was releasing waste water, which gets mixed with the drinking water supplied through pipes. Municipal Commissioner Uma Shankar Gupta promised to visit the spot.

Residents of Mata Jivi Nagar on the Barnala road demanded that the portion owned by the Airport Authority of India (AAI) between Rose Garden and Mata Jivi Nagar, which was lying unused, should be developed. In the absence of proper barbed wires and maintenance, the stretch has been ruined. They also demanded a stoppage for the city bus service either near Hazura Kapura or Mata Jivi Nagar.

The DC also reviewed the projects of new bus stand being constructed in Raman Mandi and others.

One Krishna Rani of Lal Singh Basti street number 9 was in tears over the issue of an alleged land scam. She accused a man of taking Rs 1 lakh as earnest money for a 100 sq yard plot in Lal Singh Basti area but did not give any documents pertaining of the land.

SDM Damanjit Singh Maan, SDM Harjit Singh Sandhu, SDM Shruti, SP (D) Amarjit Singh, DEO (Secondary) Harkanwaljit Kaur, DEO (Elementary) Dr Amarjit Kaur and others were also present.

Getting strict with the officers concerned, Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishore Yadav had asked XEN, public works, Talwandi Sabo, Jasjit Singh to attend the meeting armed with the information expected from him. Similarly, he was displeased with the general manager, PRTC, Bathinda, for not attending the meeting and instead sending a representative.

Bathinda, September 3
With only a day to go for the Teacher’s Day celebrations, the teachers who had applied for the state-level teachers' awards are yet to receive a reply from the Education Department.

According to sources in the Education Department, the state-level function, which is held every year on September 5, may not be held this year as Education Minister Sikander Singh Maluka is out of the country and will be back only later this month.

Interestingly, while no teacher from any of the elementary schools of the district applied for the award, names of only five teachers were forwarded by the office of the District Education Officer (DEO) to the department.

Speaking to Bathinda Tribune, DEO (Secondary education) Harkanwaljeet Kaur said, "After the teachers applied for the state-level awards, we forwarded the cases of 'worthy' teachers to the Education Department. A team from the DPI office inspected the schools of these teachers and submitted their reports. Neither did we receive the reports nor have we been intimated about the award ceremony and the names of the awardees."

Equally clueless about the ceremony are the teachers.

Sukhdev Mittal, a mathematics teacher at Government Senior Secondary School, Deon, said, "Teachers, who do commendable work in their respective fields, are awarded by the state government every year. But this year, we are yet to be informed about the ceremony." Mittal is among the teachers who have applied for the state award.

Rajesh Monga, another teacher who had applied for the award, said, "I had applied for the award but have not received any response from the Education Department." Monga teaches mathematics at Government High School, Bhagu.

Other teachers who applied for the award are Sukhvir Singh, the principal of Government Senior Secondary School, Bhokra, Parminder Kaur, a teacher at Government Senior Secondary School, Pathrala, and Surjit Singh, the principal of a school at Kotshamir.

Bathinda, September 3
Members of the Punjab Students Union today staged a protest outside the office of the general manager, PRTC, at Bathinda bus stand. The union brought to fore the problems faced by students of Bhucho Mandi and Bhucho Kenchiya in travelling to and from educational institutions in Bathinda.

Students traveling hanging precariously out of the doorsteps of buses, fights with bus conductors of private buses were some of the issues that were raised by the students’ union with the PRTC officials today.

The union members stated that for the past one month and a half, around 200 students hailing from these two places and the nearby villages were not being catered to by the PRTC buses.

They also demanded to increase the number of buses. “Despite the fact that a large number of students from these areas travel to Bathinda to study, the PRTC buses don’t stop at the bus stands and the few which stop are already filled to capacity.

The students have to either risk their lives by travelling standing on the doorsteps of these buses or shell out money for travelling in private buses which don’t accept student passes,” said Sumit, head of the union. “Only after we sat on a dharna outside the GM’s office, did the depot in-charge Gurjant Singh came to meet us and listened to our demands. After speaking to the traffic manager Jaswinder Singh Chahal, he announced that the frequency of the buses to Bhuch Mandi and Bhucho Kenchiya would be increased. He also promised us that in order to cater to the students, more buses will ply on these routes between 8 am and 8.30 am and 2 pm and 2.30 pm,” Sumit added.

He further added that the union was assured that the PRTC bus drivers would also be told to stop at the bus stands.

Bathinda, September 3
The next date of hearing in the Lal Singh Basti sewer case has been fixed for October 29 when the petitioners are expected to submit evidence in the court of the additional civil judge, Jasbir Kaur.

Demanding permanent directions from the court to the civic body authorities responsible for managing the sewerage system in the Lal Singh Basti area, the local residents had moved to the court in August last year.

In today's hearing, the petitioners were supposed to submit their evidence by way of an affidavit in the court. In the affidavit, residents of the area, Rajneesh K Rana and Guriqbal Singh Chahal, held the officials of the Municipal Corporation Bathinda (MCB), sewerage board and the health department, responsible for not discharging their duties, causing problems for the people.

The petitioners stated that the Lal Singh Basti road, which was earlier the only link between Bathinda city and Badal village, was neglected with the laying of ring road phase II.

During the last assembly elections, the MCB formulated a scheme to augment the existing sewerage system in the Lal Singh Basti area at a cost of Rs 50 crore. Under the scheme, sewerage pipes with a diameter of two-and-a-half feet were to be laid at a depth of 17 to 20 feet replacing the existing sewerage pipes which were laid at a depth of 6-7 feet.

Keeping in view the assembly elections, the project was started in a haphazard and irresponsible way and the technical and logistic requirements were allegedly ignored.

No decision was taken on connecting the sewer line with the main disposal. Consequently, work has been abandoned at the T-point connecting Lal Singh Basti Road with the Police Colony and there is no outlet for disposing the muck collected in the sewer line.

While the sewer line is not connected with any disposal work, a large number of houses from Aggarwal Peerkhana to Gurudwara Sahib on Lal Singh Basti Road have been given new sewerage connections and connected with this sewer line.

Earlier, the garbage of Police Colony was being discharged through a direct sewer line at a point near Dhillon's turn, a short distance away from Sanguana Basti railway crossing. But now, this sewer line has been disconnected and the entire garbage of Police Colony is being dumped into the newly laid sewer line, which has no connection with any disposal work.

Previously, this sewer line was connected with a disposal work through a pipe of 8 inch diameter, laid at a depth of 6 to 7 feet. The new sewer line has been laid at a depth of 17 to 20 feet and has less diameter making it technically impossible to connect both these lines. A new sewer line was required to be extended to the disposal works but the work was abandoned mid-way.

Technically, the work on laying a new sewer line replacing the existing one should have been started from the side of disposal work so as to cause minimum dislocation and inconvenience.

It is alleged that due to the negligence shown by the MCB in its technical supervision, two accidents occurred. In the first accident, two labourers were killed and in the second case, some labourers were buried as earth caved in when a road dug for constructing the sewer line was being filled.

Bathinda, September 3
A woman committed suicide by hanging herself at her house in Parasram Nagar.

The deceased has been identified as Sakshi. Her relatives, who were at the Civil Hospital, said she had married Vinod Kumar of Parasram Nagar around five years ago.

The policemen investigating the matter said the woman's relatives had accused her in-laws of harassing her for dowry.

They accused the in-laws of beating her up and forcing her to bring more dowry.

The Canal Colony police has registered a case under Section 304-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the husband, his parents and two younger brothers.

Bathinda, September 3
The Post-graduate Department of English of DAV College, Bathinda, organised a seminar on ‘Shakespearean Tragedy and His Tragic Heroes’. Prof Bimalanshu Shekhar Mallik, former professor from Ranchi University, delivered the keynote address. Prof Mallik, who was at his oratorical best, impressed the post-graduate and under-graduate students of English literature with his keen insight into Shakespearean tragedy.

“All Shakespearean tragic heroes suffered from loneliness and that is the reason behind several soliloquies in Shakespearean tragedy,” he said. In his scholarly address, he also referred to other tragic figures of Renaissance like Marlowe’s Dr Faustus, who wanted to turn into “a drop of water” in his last soliloquy just preceding his death.

In the beginning, Dr JS Anand, principal of the college and the faculty members of the Department of English welcomed the distinguished guest.

Dr HS Arora, head of the Department of English proposed the vote of thanks while Prof Satish Grover conducted the stage. Others present on the occasion were Prof PK Verma, vice-principal, Prof Varesh Gupta, Prof Karampal Kaur and Prof MS Anand.

Bathinda, September 3
Bathinda added three more points to its tally after defeating Ropar in the Punjab State Inter-District Championship for Katoch Shield (senior group) of pool-B. The cricket match was played at the Police Public School ground in Bathinda. The hosts were declared winner on the basis of first innings lead over Ropar. Bhatinda won the toss and elected to bat first. The team compiled 247 runs in its first innings. While Bhanu Partap made 57 runs off 157 balls, Arjun scored 46 runs in 45 balls, Gurjant Singh scored 38 runs in 27 balls and Manish made 35 runs off 46 balls.

Ropar’s bowlers, Harpreet Brar and Talwinder Singh, proved to be quite expensive for the Bathinda team. While Harpreet took five wickets in 30 overs conceding 88 runs, Talwinder took three wickets and conceded 51 runs in 13 overs. Ropar’s batting order fell like nine pins in front of the bowling attack by Bathinda. With 72 runs on the board, the team had already lost five wickets.

Kuldeep and Deepansh tried to bring the team back into the competition but in vain. Despite Kulbir’s knock of 58 runs off 93 balls and Deepansh’s 33 runs in 37 balls, the team could only manage to score 225 runs. Bathinda was declared winner on the basis of first innings lead and earned three points from the match.