Amritsar, October 2
If the recent raid at a hostel canteen of Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) conducted by the Health Department is of any indication, unscrupulous ration depot holders are diverting the wheat stock meant for the Public Distribution System (PDS) to private flour mills.

The Health Department team had found a sack containing flour with a stamp indicating that the wheat supplied in it was meant for ration depot holders. The canteen owner of a girls’ hostel told the officials that he had procured the stock from a flour Mill (Pawan Flour Mill precisely) from Chheharta.

Health and Family Welfare Officer Dr Shivkaran Kahlon said they were surprised to find the bag there and were looking into the matter.

“We are waiting for the reports of the flour sample taken from the hostel canteen and then would take appropriate action in this regard,” said Dr Kahlon.

Earlier too, such instances have come to light wherein the wheat meant for the PDS was reportedly pilfered to private flour mills.

In November 2011, the city police arrested a couple of persons and confiscated around 50 bags of wheat from their possession. The police had arrested Pardeep Singh of Ajmalpur and a ration depot holder when they were going to supply over two dozens of wheat bags procured from ration depot holders at Gurdaspur to a flour mill at Fatehgarh Churian Road.

The accused were intercepted near Bal Kallan village. During investigations, one of the accused had admitted that he was going to sell the wheat to Gaurav of Devi Nagar at Fatehgarh Churian Road.

The police then raided the residence of Gaurav and recovered nine bags of wheat meant for the PDS from him. He had confessed to have diverted thousands of quintals of wheat to various flour mills in the city from a number of ration depots in Gurdaspur. He had named more ration depot holders in the illegal trade.

Talwinder Singh, District Food and Civil Supply Controller, said though there was less possibility of wheat being pilfered in the open market, he would look into the matter.

“Right now, I am busy with procurement. But after the procurement process is over, I will get the matter investigated,” he added.

Past incident of diversion In November 2011, the city police arrested two persons and confiscated around 50 bags of wheat from their possession Pardeep Singh of Ajmalpur and a ration depot holder were arrested when they were going to supply two dozens of wheat bags procured from ration depot holders at Gurdaspur to a flour mill at Fatehgarh Churian Road The police then raided the residence of Gaurav and recovered nine bags of wheat meant for the PDS from him. He confessed to have diverted thousands of quintals of wheat to various flour mills in the city from a number of ration depots in Gurdaspur

Amritsar, October 2
Acting tough against four jail staff members for alleged negligence in the case in which a notorious criminal serving life term managed to escape from the Guru Nanak Dev Hospital yesterday, the Central jail authorities have formed a scrutinising committee to look into the matter.

The Jail Deputy Superintendent said if the negligence on the part of the guards was proved, they would be dismissed from service.

It was during the wee hours of Tuesday when Tarn Taran resident Barjinder Singh, sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 2006, fled from the Guru Nanak Dev Hospital. He dodged the four guards deputed to keep a vigil on him.

The guards have been identified as Head Constable Gurjant Singh, constables Chanchal Singh and Kulwinder Singh and Jassa Singh.

They have been put under suspension with immediate effect.

Reports said Barjinder was admitted to the hospital after he complained of heart problem.

RK Sharma, Deputy Superintendent, Amritsar Central Jail, said a high-level committee has been constituted to probe the matter and a rigorous action would be taken against the guards, if their negligence is proved.

“Even as such instances have occurred earlier also and the guards were put under suspension, there was hardly any rigorous follow-up action as the negligent staff would be reinstated after some time. We will take strict action against the negligent guards this time. This action is being initiated to set a precedent,” said Sharma.

“It is almost certain that the criminals can not escape without the connivance of the on-duty guards in most of the cases. In this case, all the four guards have been absconding after the incident. We have learned through our sources that out of the four, two were beside the criminal when he escaped. It is a pity that the guards were well-equipped with weapons and had shackles to restrain the convict. Despite all this, he escaped. This appears to be sheer negligence or connivance with the convict on their part,” he added.

Amritsar, October 2
Two unidentified armed robbers looted Rs 1.25 lakhs from a construction material trader at Cheema Bath village late last evening here.

Bhupinder Singh, a resident of Rayya village, told the police that two motorcycle-borne youths with covered faces, barged into his shop and asked him to handover whatever the money he had.

He said when he refused to do so, one of the youth took out a country-made pistol and fired in the air while his accomplice armed with sharp-edged weapon grabbed him by his neck. He said he got frightened over this and the accused took Rs 1.25 lakh from the chest and fled away.

Harkrishan Singh, SHO Beas, said a case under Section 382, 34 of the IPC and Section 25 of the Arms Act has been registered in this connection. He said the accused had put up an inverted number plate on their motorcycle due to which the shopkeeper could not read the number. He said investigations were under progress to identify the accused.

In another incident of snatching, two unidentified youths snatched the purse city resident in the Islamabad area.

Renu Abbi, the victim, a resident of Ram Nagar Colony, had gone to the market to buy something. She told the police that as soon as she alighted from her two-wheeler and parked it outside a shop in Chakki Wali Gali, the accused driving a Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle snatched her purse containing an i-Phone, an ATM card, Rs 1,500 cash and some important documents.

The Islamabad police has registered a case under Section 382, 34 of the IPC in this regard.

Amritsar, October 2
Even as the procurement process for paddy officially began yesterday, the government agencies have not started buying the produce from farmers in at least 13 centres (mandis) in the district.

Amritsar district has 31 big and small procurement centres. However, the government agencies have started procurement process at only 18 centers so far.

Sources in Mandi Board said only 14 centres had made purchase yesterday and few more centres began the process today. The farmers who sell their agricultural produce at procurement centres in rural areas where the purchasing has not started yet are waiting for the government agencies to “get active”.

The non-basmati varieties of rice in Punjab are purchased mostly by the government agencies.

There is no problem selling the basmati varieties as these are purchased by private players only.

Officials of the Mandi Board said their concern was to provide basic facilities and arrangements only and the purchase of produce would be made by the District Food and Civil Supplies office.

“We have done our part. In fact, we had made all the arrangements a month back as basmati varieties had ripened earlier,” said a mandi board official.

District Food and Civil Supplies Controller Talwinder Singh Chopra said, “There is no delay in starting the procurement at the mandis. Our employees are keeping a vigil on all the centres.”

“The centres which have not become active yet are those where either no produce has arrived or no arthiyas have set up their cleansing and weighing systems. All the centres would become active in a day or two,” he said.

Amritsar, October 2
Travelling between the Dharam Singh Market and Golden Temple has become a daunting task for the commuters, especially the tourists visiting the holy Sikh shrine.

Given a high number of hand-pulled rickshaws and auto-rickshaws parked on the stretch, pedestrians face a tough time walking over the road here.

Since Jallianwala Bagh and the Golden Temple are situated over the same roadm, a large number of tourists walk on foot.

Steve, a foreign tourist, said as many auto-rickshaw and rickshaw drivers stopped him midway he wondered how they could have parked their vehicles in the middle of the road.

Sanchit Sen, a tourist from Asansol in West Bengal, said many a time rickshaw pullers and auto drivers stood around in groups, which leads to road congestion.

Surinder Singh, a shopkeeper in the area, said the roads were blocked as rickshaw pullers and auto-rickshaw drivers swarmed around to get customers.

He said even as barricades are installed at the Dharam Singh Market intersection, it was hardly a deterrent to them. He said the government must provide a parking place for these.

Amritsar, October 2
A woman committed suicide by hanging herself from the ceiling fan of her house at Kaawe village after she was allegedly fed up of the continuous harassment at the hands of her husband and father-in-law.

The deceased, identified as Radha (25), was married to Balwinder Singh, the accused, seven years ago and had two children from the marriage.

Jagtar Singh, the deceased's father, told the police that Balwinder and his father Karamjit Singh were habitual of drinkers and his daughter used to oppose them. Both the accused used to beat her, he alleged. She had complained about this to her parents a number of times.

He said she hanged herself from the ceiling fan yesterday when she was alone at home and died on the spot. He said the villagers informed him about the incident. The Lopoke police has registered a case against Balwinder and Karamjit who are at large. — TNS

Amritsar, October 2
Many city residents, especially those belonging to the Sikh community who have their relatives in the Lal Kuan area of Uttarakhand, have a reason to cheer. For, the weekly Amritsar-Lal Kuan Express proposed in the budget, would take them to and fro Lal Kuan which is home to a large number of Sikhs.

Lal Kuan, 25 km from the lake district of Nainital, is a nagar panchayat. Among the first batch of passengers, who boarded the inaugural run of the train, were a five-member group from Slovakia.

Lubisa, one of the group members, said it would be a good opportunity for those travelers from the city who were keen to explore the picturesque hills of Uttarakhand. She said her group had contacted a travel agent after arriving at Delhi. “That travel agent guided them to utilise the services of new AC train to travel to Nainital from the holy city.”

She said their stay at a hotel in Nainital was already confirmed and the hotel management conveyed them a taxi would come to pick them at the Lal Kuan railway station, which is said to be one of the biggest in Uttarakhand.

A couple Rashpal Singh and Sarbjit Kaur said their relatives reside close to Lal Kuan. Earlier, they used to travel by the Amritsar-Dehradun express train to reach Uttarakhand and from there they used to catch a connecting train or bus to commute the remaining journey.

Amritsar Hotel and Restaurant Association (AHRA) president APS Chatha said apart from meeting the long pending demand of the Sikh community residing in that geographical stretch of Uttarakhand, the train links the holy city with tourists’ circuit of Nainital. He said the city already had air connectivity with tourist circuit of western India by a daily flight to Mumbai and with Jammu and Kashmir by having a flight to Srinagar. Besides, the holy city has road and train links to hilly states of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

Chatha said so far tourists from Amritsar preferred to travel to Mussorie and religious tourist destinations like Hemkunt Sahib, Badrinath and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand. He anticipated this tourist realm to expand now.

Amritsar, October 2
With the government deciding to construct new jail at the Fatahpur village near the city, the Bhai Sahib Singh Satellite Hospital at the site would be demolished to pave the way for the upcoming jail complex.

Area residents and health employees working at the hospital has criticised the move stating that it would not be in the interest of general public. The residents rued that they do not have another government health institution nearby in case the old hospital is demolished.

The basic purpose of satellite hospitals around the city is to provide child birth services at a place near to the expecting mother’s residence. The satellite hospital at Fatahpur caters to the needs of dozens of villages on Jhabal road.

The hospital on average in a month provides help in around 50 delivery cases. The hospital also holds a dental clinic apart from providing child immunisation services. Joginder Singh, a Fatahpur resident, said, “Though the hospital had staff shortage and even the availability of medicines is also scant but still if the institute is moved out we would have nothing.”

The area residents have for long been demanding that C section facility for child birth should be introduced at the hospital. “The government should either give an alternate hospital or should not take away what it had given earlier,” said another resident Makhan Singh.

The city has five satellite hospitals on its periphery to cater to the needs of pregnant women so that they need not be taken to hospitals in city. The traffic rush on city roads, make it difficult for people to transport women in emergency to the Civil Hospital or GNDH.

District Family Welfare officer Dr Ranjit Singh Buttar said, “Though the hospital building is at the site where new jail is to be constructed, no official communication have been received as yet.

“One of the officers at site had told the doctor in charge to vacate the building. But how can we vacate it till we have been told so by some competent authority,” he said.

Amritsar, October 2
Exporters, importers and industrialists from the border region are disappointed with the Pakistan government as its Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, currently in the USA, announced that there was no move to grant Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India at present due to tension along the Line of Control.

Following the operationalisation of the Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Attari Wagah Joint Check Post (JCP) couple of years back they have been waiting for the MFN status from Pakistan to step up bilateral trade through this border.

They are particularly peeved as hardware goods, pharmaceutical goods, engineering goods and textile industry have reached to a stagnation point, while Pak is importing these goods from other countries at much higher prices.

A leading importer and exporter Rajan Bedi said the total trade between India and Pakistan stood at about US $ 2.5 billion. He added that indirect trade was even higher but with the MFN status, this would be channnelised which would help businessmen on both sides.

He said Punjab’s pharmaceutical, engineering goods and agrarian commodities like food grains and perishable items could be exported through the Attari-Wagah Joint Check Post (JCP). While in case of short supply of fresh vegetables like onion at present, these can be imported from Pakistan.

Bedi said, “Presently the bilateral trade between India and Pakistan is being done as per the positive list containing over 1,000 items released by the latter. Once the Pakistan government would grant the MFN status to India, which India had already done, the positive list would be replaced with a negative list.”

“Indians in general and its entrepreneurs in particular need to understand the real impact of the MFN would be ascertained only after learning the contents of the negative list,” he said.

Another industrialist Raman Gupta said that there were about 1.20 lakh registered engineering goods manufacturing units in the state and a large number of them are concentrating in Amritsar and its nearby Batala region, about 35 km from here.

Many of these units were facing closure due to stagnation. These units could not be rejuvenated as Pakistan imported a large number of engineering goods from other countries, he said.

He said it would be a win-win situation for both sides as the Pakistani entrepreneurs would manage to curtail their investment cost by procuring these at considerably low prices.

He cited the instance of Pakistani traders brush with China. Pakistan had limited success in trade with China because of lingual and geographical barriers.

He recalled that in November 2011 the Pakistan government had issued a statement of granting the MFN status to India but later it’s then Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had taken a u-turn on granting of the status. Gilani had stated that his country had not granted the MFN status to India and the cabinet had only directed the Commerce Ministry, which is engaged in trade talks with India, to negotiate with it trade-related issues.

Another industrialist Kamal Dalmia said Amritsar has all the required infrastructure to handle the quantum of business in case the Pakistan grant the MFN status to India. He said Amritsar is the gateway for people coming to India from the Central Asia. Hence, the holy city with its international airport has the potential to become the centre of commercial activities, including surface transfers.

He said from the statements of the leaders of Pakistan it seemed that that its government was utilising the MFN status as a bait to fall India on its line.

He said with his decades old experience in dealing with businessmen from Pakistan he could say with conviction that the bilateral trade agreement was more in favour of Pakistan than India.

Amritsar, October 2
To commemorate the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi in a novel way, Youth Congress workers, led by former district Youth Congress chief Dinesh Bassi today spent time with the mentally challenged children at the Manawala premises of Pingalwara Charitable Society.

Lessons on hygiene were given to special children. The children were gifted new clothes before distributing fruits among them under their ‘shram daan’ campaign.

Bassi said the idea was to observe the principles of Mahatama Gandhi whose only motto was to serve the suffering humanity. “If every citizen observes the principles of this great soul, the society would be free from social vices,” he said. — TNS

Amritsar, October 2
Chief Khalsa Diwan (CKD) has announced the opening of the ‘CKD Centre of Civil Services Studies’, an exclusive centre on the campus of Chief Khalsa Diwan, for IAS, PCS and other competitive examinations.

At a meeting, president of CKD Charanjit Singh Chadha said the decision had been initiated with a motto to help aspirants to compete in various national and state level examinations.

The aspirant employees, students and others can attend evening classes from 5.30 pm to 8.30 pm and the first batch is commencing from October 10. A team of committed teachers and specialists of proven merit have been engaged to lend a professional edge to the centre.

“Its primary motto is to sharpen the skills of students in each and every aspect needed to clear the civil services exams. The competitive environment of the institute will keep up the motivation levels of the students. Taking regular tests will help them to improve their speed and ability to handle different types of questions,” said Charanjit Singh Chadha.

Amritsar, October 2
Yuvinder Singh Matta, Deputy Commissioner, Excise and Taxation Department, alleged that non-compliance of norms while filling the forms for transporting goods through rail made it difficult for the department to nab the VAT evasion.

He said despite repeated intimations, requests and even judicial injunctions the railway here was not implementing the rule. He said this was causing revenue loss to the state.

In a recent instance, he said 66 bales of dry fruit, utensils, plastic goods and others worth over Rs 15 lakh were seized from the Paschim Express on September 30. He said the department could not locate the tax violator as the form was incomplete and neither any specific information regarding consigner and consignee was provided.

He said the railway authorities annually hand over the break vans to transport the goods to individuals who give maximum bid through tenders. These individuals are called lease agents. He said as per the 13.5 clause in the agreement between the railways and lease agents ‘”the leaseholder shall obtain clear and complete address of the consignor and consignee with their sales tax registration number/TIN in case the consignments are meant for sale. The leaseholder shall mention the same on manifesto.”

Also, clause 23.1 of the agreement stated that, “The railway administration shall have the right to terminate the operation of lease contract/agreement for any reason whatsoever after serving one month’s notice to the leaseholder. Railway shall also reserve the right to terminate the contract without giving any notice at any time for whatsoever reason as a punitive measure or breach of agreement by the leaseholder or in case of operational exigencies or it is necessary to do so in public interest.”

He urged the railways to strictly implement the rules to assist in nabbing the tax evasion.