Bathinda, September 21
In protest against the yesterday's incident wherein a student of Government Rajindra College was beaten up by a private transporter's staff, students blocked the road traffic in front of the DAV College for around 45 minutes today.

The protesting students demanded arrest of the ticket checker, Beera of Jalal Bus Service, Bathinda, and three unidentified persons who were booked at the Cantonment police station under various sections of the IPC for inflicting injuries on Gurpreet Singh, a student of Government Rajindra College.

Sandeep Singh, a member of Punjab Students Union (Shaheed Randhawa), claimed that their union along with others would stage another protest in front of the office of the SSP if the arrests were not made soon.

Meanwhile, private transporters too demanded registration of a case against the students who entered into a scuffle with the bus conductor and the ticket checker.

"The injured boy provoked the girls travelling in the bus not to buy tickets. He entered the bus and boasted that he would soon stop the sale of tickets. The girls were earlier paying half of the fare," said Baltej Singh, a member of Malwa Private Bus Operators Union. He demanded that a similar case should be registered against the students who misbehaved and entered into a quarrel with the bus staff and travelled without ticket.

"Members of the transport union have unanimously decided to launch an agitation by staging protest and holding 'chakka jam' against the registration of alleged false case against the private transporter's staff," said Pirthi Jalal, the owner of Jalal Bus Service. He said the real fight was between the state government or the PRTC and the students while private bus operators were unreasonably caught in between.

Pirthi said the government should formulate a system to facilitate school and college goers' travel in buses. "There are many ways to get rid of the problem but for want of political will and vested interests, the situation continues to remain grim. The government ought to give a serious thought to the situation lest it should turn ugly," Pirthi added.

Bathinda, September 21
Farmers continued their protests amidst heavy deployment of police force in Bathinda. However, they were not allowed to block road or rail traffic as they had announced earlier.

Members of the BKU (Ekta-Ugraha) reached Lehra Dhoorkut and Maisarkhana villages in large numbers and staged dharnas against the SAD-BJP Government seeking release of arrested farmers.

Members of the union had held a dharna in Amritsar a few days ago against the shifting of power meters outside the houses and many of the protesters were arrested. The union had announced a statewide protest in protest against the arrests made and sought immediate release of the union leaders.

The block president of the union, Amreek Singh Sivia, told TNS that the police did not allow the protesters, including women and children, to leave Lehra Dhoorkut and Maisarkhana villages. "In view of their detention, farmers continue to stage a peaceful sit-in in the villages. It is decided that the dharnas would continue in this manner till the government initiates steps for the release of the arrested farmers," Sivia said. He pointed out that yesterday, some government servants had approached them seeking withdrawal of dharnas but nobody turned up today.

Mithu Singh, cashier of the union in Lehra Dhoorkut village, said deployment of police in the village had created panic and the regular movement of vehicles forced people to remain indoors. He said labourers and farmers were jointly protesting against the state government for their respective demands.

Meanwhile the residents of Lehra Dhoorkut village rued that the movement of vehicles that had been raising dust throughout the day, sloganeering and use of loudspeakers were nuisance to the villagers. Lakhwinder Singh, a software engineer in the village, said earlier, when teachers climbed atop the water tank in the village too had made the villagers' lives miserable and similar situation prevailed today. He said the village has become the epicentre of such protests.

Bathinda, September 21
With the Punjab governor promulgating the Property Tax ordinance, residents of the Bathinda city will have to shell out more in the form of property tax.

Simplifying the property tax collection system, the city has been divided into eight zones and the work to digitise the data of all eight zones on the Geographical Information System (GIS) is underway. The work on computerising data of first five zones is near completion while the digitisation of data of the remaining three zones will be completed by October 15.

Municipal Commissioner Uma Shankar Gupta said the company outsourced the GIS work would submit the report of the first five zones on October 5 while the report of the remaining zones will be submitted on October 15.

The digitised data has been physically verified too. Teams of the Municipal Corporation, Bathinda (MCB), randomly visited the properties mentioned in the GIS data to verify the veracity of the data fed. The teams found the data satisfactory.

"As soon as the digitisation of records is completed, the properties will be assigned unique identification numbers that will be linked with the water supply, sewerage and other civic services. It means we will have a consolidated data of all the properties in the city, which will also be helpful for the revenue department and banks," the Municipal Commissioner added.

The property tax will be applicable to the owners of land, rented accommodations and plots besides the dwellers of 'kachcha' houses. The tax will be applicable from April 2013 onwards. Those who have paid house tax on commercial properties by September this year, need not pay it.

While the ordinance mentions that those who pay property tax before September 30 will get 10 per cent rebate, the Municipal Commissioner said the deadline might be extended to November.

The property holders will not be issued notices. They will have to make a self-assessment of their properties for the tax purpose as per the rates given and deposit the applicable tax to the urban local body (ULB) concerned.

Bathinda, September 21
The Paramedical and Health Employees Association and the NRHM Employees Union today condemned the police lathi-charge on nurses on September 20 when nurses working on contract basis under the NRHM in Punjab had converged in the city to protest in favour of their demands.

In a meeting held today, members of the unions said they would expose the wrongdoings of the Punjab Government, which would prove detrimental to it during the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. Union leader Gagandeep Singh said the police had registered false cases against the nurses.

Intensifying their agitation against the state government, nurses boycotted work for two hours from 9 am to 11 am today in all the hospitals and dispensaries.

Meanwhile, the 91 agitating nurses and two of their relatives, who were arrested yesterday, were released at around 1:15 am today. Duty magistrate naib tehsildar Subhash Mittal granted them bail and ordered their release.

Members of the NRHM Punjab Staff Nurses Employees Union said they would now pursue cancellation of the cases registered against the agitating nurses. On Sunday, district-level meetings would be held across the state wherein the future course of agitation would be decided, they added.

NRHM Bathinda district president Parminderpal Brar said the workers were gearing up for the state-level rally to be held at Mohali on September 24.

Bathinda, September 21
The police today claimed to have arrested two persons for stealing vehicles and selling them to prospective buyers by changing their registration number.

A case under Sections 379, 411, 420, 465, 467, 471 and 468 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against Parwinder Singh Kala of Dabwali, Mahinderpal Singh of Bhairupa and Jaskaran Singh Soni of Bhairupa village. The police managed to arrest Parwinder Singh and Jaskaran Singh in the case.

Sub-inspector Gurinder Singh of the CIA staff said following a tip-off the accused were arrested from near Mann Petrol Pump near Tinkoni.

The accused were brought to the CIA for interrogation wherein they accused confessed to having stolen vehicles and selling them using forged documents.

The police said further investigation was on and more arrests and recovery of vehicles could not be ruled out.

Bathinda, September 21
On the concluding day of the NDRF Inter-Battalion Swimming Competition, 9 Battalion NDRF Patna secured the first position with 52 marks and 14 medals. 7 Battalion NDRF Bathinda stood second with 22 marks and 10 medals. The third position was grabbed by 10 Battalion NDRF Vijaywada with 16 marks and four medals.

In the 1500-metre free-style marathon event, Ashish Mali of 9 Battalion Patna grabbed the first position, while Birju Singh of 7 Battalion and Satyendra Yadav of 9 Battalion grabbed the second and third positions, respectively.

In the 200-metre individual medley event, Mahender Nishad of 10 Battalion, Negender of 9 Battalion and Rajkamal of 8 Battalion, secured the first, second and third positions, respectively.

Rajbhan Singh of 9 Battalion secured the first position in the 50-metre free style event. R Muthiswaran of 7 Battalion and M Satish Kumar of 2 Battalion were placed second and third, respectively. In the 100-metre breast stroke event, PC Yadav of 9 Battalion bagged the first place. While PK Mishra of 9 Battalion came in second and Jamir of 5 Battalion got the third. In the 100-metre back stroke event, Nagender of 9 Battalion grabbed the first place, the second and third places went to DK Singh of 5 Battalion and Prabhakar Kumar of 7 Battalion, respectively.

In the 4x100 metre relay, 9 Battalion, 8 Battalion and 7 Battalion secured the first three places, respectively. In the 50-metre breast stroke event, PC Yadav got the first place while the second place went to Jamil. Dhrub Kumar of 7 Battalion secured the third place. Nagender Singh, K Lokesh of 7 Battalion and PC Yadav bagged the first three positions in the 50-metre back stroke event. In the 50-metre butterfly event, the first three positions went to Mahender Nishad of 10 Battalion, Suran Singh of 8 Battalion and Phagu Ram of 7 Battalion.

Abhijeet Mandal of 7 Battalion, Satyendra of 9 Battalion and Anish PK of 7 Battalion bagged the top three positions in the 200-metre free style event.

In the 100-metre butterfly event, Mahender Nishad, Jaidev Kundu of 8 Battalion and Sukanta Roy of 9 Battalion grabbed the first three places, respectively. 9 Battalion came first in the 4x100 metre free style relay, while the second and the third positions were grabbed by 7 Battalion and 10 Battalion, respectively.

Bathinda, September 21
To put women at ease while travelling in the city, cabs driven by women have been introduced in the city. The private service was launched today with the help of a Canada-based NRI. It was flagged off by the chairman of Zila Parishad, Gurpreet Maluka.

The cabs have been purchased with NRI Baljeet Singh Gill's help. Appreciating the NRI's efforts in helping raise the financial status of the poor in the city, Maluka said every possible help would be extended to make the service a success.

Gill, while talking to TNS, said that earlier he had opened a school in Gopal Nagar a year ago to educate the illiterate women of the area.

Gill pointed out that since he could not open a factory or any other business venture, he decided to help them by offering cabs with an initial investment ranging between Rs 3 lakhs to Rs 6 lakhs.

"At present, we have introduced only one cab but more women are being trained for the purpose. It is not only driving on the road but other aspects also for which training is needed," Gill said. He added that at present, the cab would ferry passengers starting from Parasram Nagar, railway station, bus stand and Civil Hospital. The NRI said two of the women have got the driving licence while two others are yet to get it. The service, at present, will be run on no profit, no loss basis.

Bathinda, September 21
After successfully hosting the 59th School Sports competitions, the district is all set to host Punjab State Women’s Sports Tournament from October 3 to 5. A meeting of the conveners of the tournament will be held on September 23 in the city.

The competitions will be held in athletics, basketball, badminton, hockey, kabaddi, kho-kho, handball, gymnastics, volleyball, table-tennis, swimming and lawn tennis. The tournaments will be organised in different government schools of the district.

The schools which have been chosen by the Punjab Sports Department to host the competitions include those in Burj Mehma, Mehta, Kararwala, Bir Talab Basti, Multania, Goniana Mandi, Parasram Nagar, Lehra Mohabbat, Bhai Bakhtur, Rampura Mandi, Behman Diwana and Kotshamir among several others.

District Sports Officer Karam Singh Sidhu said, “This is the first time the tournament is being organised in Bathinda. This is the Under-25 women’s tournament. District Sports Officers from across the state will bring their respective teams to Bathinda to participate in the 12 events.”

Talking about the arrangements pertaining to the tournament, he said, “Deputy Commissioner of Bathinda Kamal Kishore Yadav, will soon held a meeting and all the requisite arrangements will be pondered upon. We have already finalised a couple of venues for hosting the games. Hockey matches will be held at the Rajindra College hockey ground. Other nuances will also be finalised soon.”

He also added that grounds at some of venues where the sport events will be organised are being prepared. “For some of the events, we are yet to finalise the venues,” Sidhu said.

Assistant District Education Officer Pavittar Kaur said, “We will wait for the orders from the sports department and will work accordingly. If the school venues are required, we will make all the necessary arrangements.”

Bathinda, September 21
Punjab Technical University Inter-College Basketball Tournament (North-West zone) concluded here today. As many as 15 teams from various engineering colleges of the university participated in the tournament.

Four teams have qualified for participation in the inter-zonal tournament. The teams will now participate in the tournament to be held at RIMT, Mandi Gobindgarh, on September 23 and 24.

President (sports) and chief coordinator of the tournament Bhupinder Pal Singh Dhot thanked the organisers for the successful conduct of the tournament. Campus director Dr Jasbir Singh Hundal expressed his satisfaction over the completion of the tournament and congratulated the winning teams. Registrar GS Bath, coordinators Dilbag Singh and Gurneet Singh, were also present.

On the concluding day of the ongoing basketball tournament, hosts Giani Zail Singh Punjab Technical University Campus Bathinda beat KCET Amritsar by 38-27. Global College Amritsar beat LLRIM Moga with a score of 56-47. ACET Amritsar beat CTIT Jalandhar by 48-20 and CTIEMT Jalandhar beat DAVIET Jalandhar by 34-26.

Bathinda, September 21
Even if a person, who confesses to eat just to stay alive, was to walk past Bhagwan Chat Corner, located near the railway station, the aroma wafting from the delicacies being prepared can whip up a raging appetite inside him.

Agar Bathinda ki chat nahi khai toh kya khaya? Well said, we agree. And the chat corner lures the customers to do just that - savoir a plate of hot, tangy, spicy and crunchy tikki. Those trying to beat the heat can dig into a plate of bhala-papdi chat.

“The delight that a lavish spread of Indian street food can offer is unmatched. And this is what has been working for us for the past almost 40 years. My father Bhagwandas opened the shop close to four decades back and we are still a name to reckon with,” said Joginderpal Singh, who now manages the shop along with his brother Vijay.

A swarm of passengers walks out of the railway station and he gets back to work, deftly working his way around with fixing a plate of papdi-chaat for one customer and deep frying tikkis for another.

“Before my father took this shop on rent, he used to go around selling the stuff on a ‘rehri’. Even abroad, India is known for its variety of cuisines and feeding the people what they love is something that gives us both livelihood and satisfaction,” he added. Joginderpal, his brother and workers open the shop at around 7 am and by 11 am they are all set to serve the customers. Till around 10 pm, they continuously serve tikkis and chats.