Chandigarh, November 15
Blackmailing tactics by influential workers’ unions by organising a two-day transport strike has pushed the government on the back foot, forcing it to put the ambitious transport policy in ‘cold storage’.

With the policy, intended to give 3,519 permits covering 1,017 routes to private bus operators across the state being put on a hold for three months, the commuters would be at the receiving end owing to inadequate bus services.

This is not the first time that the Hooda Government has been blackmailed by the unions into delaying the transport policy. It was in September last year that the Haryana Cabinet approved the policy which was notified in October last year.

However, the Hooda Government continued to sit over its implementation, giving enough time for repeated protests against the policy which the employees alleged was the first step towards privatisation of transport in the state.

Under the new policy, rural districts were to be major beneficiaries. While Hisar district was to be allotted 328 bus permits under the new policy, Jind was to get 242, followed by Sirsa (238), Ambala (198), Bhiwani (220), Fatehabad (188), Jhajjar (160), Kaithal (224), Karnal (182), Kurukshetra (134), Mahendragarh(102), Palwal (112), Panipat(218), Rewari (160), Rohtak (173), Sonepat (194) and Yamunanagar (136), Mewat (90), Faridabad (62), Panchkula (68) and Gurgaon (90).

Officials said the routes having originating and terminating points in the state and not connecting two district headquarters had been included in the scheme with a view to providing a viable transport in the remote areas.

And to take care of certain “unviable routes”, any bus with 20 or more seats was allowed to ply under the scheme. Besides, private operators were obliged to carry students and other concessional/free pass holders on the pattern of Haryana Roadways.

With a group of ministers now going into the whole gamut of employees’ demands, including the new transport policy, apprehension is that it would not see the light of the day.

Meanwhile, allaying apprehensions, a senior functionary said there was hardly any possibility of the replication of the Punjab model, where influential politicians call the shots in the lucrative transport system, in Haryana. No society, firm, company or family shall be granted more than one permit under the scheme, he clarified.

Chappar (Yamunanagar), November 15
Five persons were killed while several others were injured as a truck overloaded with pilgrims en route to Kapal Mochan from Bhucho Mandi in Bathinda district of Punjab overturned near here late this evening.

The truck, which left Bhucho Mandi at around 8.30 am, was carrying around 65 pilgrims to Kapal Mochan and Adi Badri mela in the Bilaspur segment of the district when the accident took place.

While two on board the truck died on the spot, around 50 persons sustained injures in the accident, which occurred as the driver of the truck lost control over the vehicle while trying to avoid a collision with a car on the National Highway No.73.

Soon after the matter was reported to the police, rescue operations were initiated and the injured were pulled out from the wreckage and taken to the Chappar hospital from where several persons were referred to the trauma care centre at the Civil Hospital at the district headquarters.

SHO, Chappar, Rajinder Kumar said that some of the injured had even been referred to PGI Chandigarh. He said that identities of the deceased and the injured were yet to be ascertained.

Jhajjar, November 15
At least six persons, including a couple, were killed and three others injured in three road mishaps in the district during the past 24 hours. The injured have been admitted to the PGIMS in Rohtak.

Vikas (24) of Bodiya village died on the spot when his Alto car rammed into a ruck near Jahangirpur village on Badli road here last night. Truck driver Gautam of Mangolpuri (Delhi) and cleaner Horinder of Bulandsahar (UP), who were replacing a tyre of the truck, were crushed to death by another vehicle. Vikas was returning to the village after attending a marriage function in Delhi.

The police sent the bodies to the civil hospital for a postmortem examination. The bodies were handed over to their kin today.

Harish Mittal of Nangloi (Delhi) was going to Talav village from Delhi in his Santro car along with his family members. As they reached near Jhajjar bypass, the car was hit by a truck. Harish and his wife, Sonia, died on the spot while their two-year-old daughter, Shreya, and two other car occupants- Geeta and Abhishek- sustained serious injuries. They were referred to the PGIMS in Rohtak due to their critical condition.

Jagmal Singh, a 24-year-old farmer of Jahangirpur village, sustained serious injuries when he lost control over his tractor while coming back to his house after watering fields. Jagmal was immediately taken to a nearby hospital where he succumbed to his injuries after some time.

Kaithal, November 15
Jats demanding reservation in jobs from the Union Government have come on one platform. Representatives of 61 khaps assembled and participated in the Sarv Khap Jat Yuva Maha Sammelan here today and served an ultimatum to the government to accept their demands or face an agitation.

Various khap leaders urged the Union Government to grant them OBC status by December 23 and threatened that if the government failed to act, they would march towards Delhi as part of their agitation and gherao the capital. They said after a long struggle they got reservation in jobs in Haryana, but the Union Government had taken no steps in this direction.

Nafe Singh Nain, Sube Singh Samain and convener of today’s meeting Krishan Sheokand, Tek Chand Kandela, Rajinder Dhull Pai, Dr Santosh Dahiya, Sandeep Dhanda, Rajesh Chausala, Jatinder Karora, Ram Kishan Dhanda, Master Rai Singh and Dalbir Chahal were among those who spoke on this occasion.

Sheokand said as many as 61 khaps had extended support to their demand and more support was continuing to pour in and lakhs would participate in the proposed march and force the government to accept their demand.

Representatives of Binain, Samain, Kandela, Satrola, Meham Chaubasi, Chahal, Khera, Dhanda, Dhull, Narwana, Ujhana, Bhura Punia Saatbas, Jatu-84 and other khaps attended the meeting.

Sirsa, November 15
The health department has sent rapid response teams to Budhabhana village after a 45-year-old woman suffering from malaria died in a private hospital in Sirsa.

Blood samples of the victim had confirmed the presence of plasmodium falciparum - a protozoan parasite responsible for the most dangerous form of malaria among humans.

The woman tested positive for malaria in General Hospital; her kin had taken her to a reputed private hospital of the town owing to lack of adequate facilities in the government hospital.

Deputy Civil Surgeon Dr Viresh Bhushan said the patient’s kin had got her discharged against medical advice.

He said though the woman had tested positive for malaria, it is yet to be ascertained whether she died of this disease, because the doctor who attended to her has mentioned the cause of death as multiple-organ failure.

He said preventive action had been taken and blood samples of four persons who remained near her and 134 from her village had been taken for tests. He said none of these blood slides had shown presence of malarial parasite in the blood smears.

Meanwhile, despite the advent of cold weather, vector-borne diseases have been spreading their tentacles in Sirsa. The total number of cases of malaria in Sirsa has reached 1,585 in the current year, while 68 cases of dengue, another deadly vector-borne disease, have also been found.

Out of the 1,585 cases of malaria, two tested positive for plasmodium falciparum, while others had been infected with plasmodium vivax.

Of the 68 cases of dengue found this year, more than 60 have been detected in the past one month alone.

Sirsa, November 15
Speaker Kuldeep Sharma and the BJP in Haryana are embroiled in a controversy over former’s remarks calling the saffron party “a rubber shoe that fits in every foot”.

The BJP today held demonstrations and burnt Kuldeep Sharma’s effigies at Sirsa and some other places in Haryana after the Haryana Assembly Speaker made these comments while addressing mediapersons during a wedding function at Dabwali in Sirsa on Thursday.

Seeking Sharma’s resignation, BJP leaders have alleged that he had denigrated the post of Speaker by participating in politics.

Haryana BJP president Ram Bilas Sharma has sought Sharma’s apology for his remark, BJP’s leader of the legislative party Anil Vij has said that his party is the "crown" of the head and not a rubber shoe while HJC supremo Kuldeep Bishnoi has alleged that Sharma has been denting the prestige of Speaker’s post time and again.

Sharma, however, said that he stood by his remarks.

“The BJP has a long history of stabbing its electoral partners in the back. In Haryana, the BJP backstabbed Devi Lal twice, it ditched Bansi Lal in 1998, Chautala on more than one occasion and even left Bishnoi in the lurch on a previous occasion,” said Sharma while speaking to The Tribune on telephone.

He said at the national level, too, the BJP has left the company of its alliance partners on several occasions.

“What is wrong if I said that the BJP is like a rubber shoe that can fit in every foot?” Sharma asked.

He said if the BJP leaders had any problem with my calling their party a shoe, he was ready to amend himself and call the saffron party a universal sock that fits into every foot.

“If you speak in a particular language, you should be prepared to listen to the answer in the same language,” Sharma said, referring to BJP prime ministerial candidate Narender Modi’s “khooni panja” remarks about the Congress.

Reacting to the BJP leaders’ allegations of accusing him of denigrating the office of Speaker by practising politics, Sharma said he was occupying the post because of politics alone.

AMBALA: The state unit of the BJP on Friday burnt an effigy of the Haryana Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Sharma in protest against his comments. Sharma, who was speaking about the alliances formed by the BJP at the state and national levels, invited the displeasure of the state BJP unit which took out a protest march from various parts of Ambala and then burnt his effigy in Sadar Bazar.

Speaking on the occasion, leader of the BJP’s legislative party Anil Vij said Kuldeep Shrama was holding a non-political post in the state Assembly and he should desist from issuing political statements in the media as it reflected poorly on his part.

Demanding an unconditional apology from Sharma, the BJP said that Sharma should resign from the post of Assembly Speaker for having failed to maintain the status of the chair.

Chandigarh, November 15
The centralization of powers by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda coupled with an ‘inefficient’ Haryana Cabinet has taken its toll on the administration leading to ?policy paralysis? in the state, the Smast Bhartiya Party(SBP) has alleged.

Taking potshots at Hooda’s style of functioning which lacks transparency, party president Sudesh Aggarwal alleged today that the Chief Minister had kept 28 departments, including those like Home and Town and Country Planning, which led to maladministration.

While the Irrigation Department, which should have been with the Agriculture Minister, had been given to the Finance Minister. There was a separate minister for Excise and Taxation. Excise and taxation should have been with the Finance Minister, he asserted.

Aggarwal alleged that governance was the first casualty of indecisiveness of the current government. The worsening law and order situation was one of the challenges facing the state.

Gurgaon, November 15
The Haryana Roadways today launched A/C buses in Gurgaon to enhance intra-city connectivity as well as to Dwarka in the national capital.

There were pilot run of buses on two routes:Udyog Vihar (Gurgaon) to Dwarka-Sector 21 Metro Station, and Moulsari Avenue to Udyog Vihar (both these centres located in Gurgaon).

Yashwender Singh, a Haryana Roadways official, said regular services on the two routes would commence on November 18. The frequency of the buses would be about 15 minutes.

In the first phase, a fleet of about 20 buses would be pressed into service. The number will be increased with the passage of time.

Singh further said the motive behind launching services of A/C buses was to decongest the city roads by offering an alternative means in high-quality public tansport system to those travelling by cars.

Non A/C buses were launched in the city a few months ago. Their number has swollen to about 250.

Yamunanagar, November 15
Around 100 members of a particular community in Mandebar village in Jagadhri tehsil, who are insistent on converting a house in one of the narrow lanes of the village into their place of worship, today threatened to migrate from the village even as all efforts put in by other village communities and the district administration to convince them from not doing so failed.

Around 12 families of a religious community, which had settled in the village many years ago after coming from adjoining Uttar Pradesh, had around four years ago bought a two-room structure in the village, which was constructed under the Indira Awas Yojna. The families converted it into their place of worship. However, this did not go down well with the other religious communities in the village, who requested the families to shift their place of worship to near the local gurdwara and temple which was only 250 feet from the two-room structure.

Following reports of violence in 2011, the district administration stepped in and locked the rooms to maintain communal harmony in the village. However, the 12 families went to the high court which directed the
then Deputy Commissioner to get the matter resolved. As no solution could be found to the problem, the structure continued to remain under lock and key.

Deputy Commissioner MS Brar said no family had so far moved out of the village and efforts were on to convince them to resolve the issue. He said as far as the community as a whole was concerned, it was almost a non-issue, as senior members of the same community had been repeatedly requesting these families to let go of their adamant attitude and construct a new shrine to worship in.

Chandigarh, November 15
Just over a month after a challenge was thrown to Haryana's action of exempting almshouses from property tax but imposing it on dharamshalas and imambaras, the government has withdrawn the notification. It has been replaced by a fresh notification, which exempts dharamshalas from property tax.

As a petition filed by Seth Nanak Chand Tuleram Jhunthra Trust came up for hearing, a Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Augustine George Masih observed: "Earlier notification issued by the respondents stands withdrawn and replaced by a fresh one and in terms thereof dharamshalas have been exempted from the purview of the property tax. Thus, the grievance of the petitioner stands redressed. Petition accordingly disposed of as satisfied".

Appearing for the petitioner, counsel Sukhvinder Singh Nara earlier asserted that the trust started a dharamshala for 'welfare of general public and for charitable purposes' in 1940 in Sirsa city.

The dharamshala was exempted from taxes under the Income Tax and Wealth Tax Acts. In fact, the Haryana Government had issued certain notifications whereby not only the dharamshalas, but also others institutions such as mosques, temples, churches, gurdwaras, charitable hospitals, dispensaries, orphanages, almshouses, drinking water fountains, municipal buildings and lands, Muslim graveyards, Hindu cremation grounds, Christian cemeteries, imambaras, government schools and offices were exempted from the payment of property tax.

But in June last year,Haryana issued the impugned notification on tax on building and land within the Municipal Corporation limits.

The notification made it mandatory for dharamshalas and other institutions to pay tax while granting exemption to almshouses.

Nara had added: "If almshouses under the new notification are sought to be exempted from the purview of property tax, there is no reason as to why the dharamshalas and immambaras on parity ought not to be exempted as the nature of their work is the similar''.

Chandigarh, November 15
The government has approved policy parameters for regularisation of plots in the municipal areas that lack civic amenities and infrastructure.

A spokesman of the Urban Local Bodies Department said here today that all Divisional Commissioners, Commissioners of Municipal Corporations, Deputy Commissioners, Executive Officers of Municipal Councils and all Secretaries of Municipal Committees have been asked to follow the parameters.

He said as per the approved parameters, the extent and boundary of the declared area under the Act would be demarcated on the ground and correspondingly on the shazra plan. Only such plots or buildings falling within the declared area would be eligible for regularization. The vacant plots falling in the internal area of the declared areas would be considered as eligible for regularisation.

Parts of the declared area situated within the restricted belt along the national highways, state highways or scheduled roads would not be eligible for regularisation.

A regularisation fee for residential plots at the rate of Rs 250, Rs 200 and Rs 150 per square metre for areas falling within the limits of Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils and Municipal Committees, respectively, would be payable within six months of the notification. For plots already constructed, water supply, electricity and sewerage connections would be released only after payment of the regularisation fee, development charges and any other fee or tax, as applicable.

Rewari, November 15
The mortal remains of Hoshiar Singh (42), a havildar of 83 BSF Battalion, were cremated with full honours at his native Jatusana village, about 18 km from here, last evening.

Havildar Hoshiar Singh lost his life in a blast triggered by Naxalites in the Sukma area of Chhattisgarh on Monday (November 11).

Two other BSF jawans also lost their lives when they were carrying EVMs in an army truck.

While a BSF contingent fired in the air and gave a salute to the martyred havildar, Janki Prasad, Block Development and Panchayat Officer, Jatusana, placed a wreath on the pyre on behalf of the district administration.

Hoshiar Singh is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.

New Delhi, November 15
The Haryana government has put its best leg forward at the 33rd India International Trade Fair (IITF) to promote its progressive and high-tech image.

One could find the cutouts of the “Sky girl of Haryana” Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian-American astronaut and the first Indian woman on space from Karnal and Ashish Yadav (19 years) of Narnaul town of Haryana who is one among the three students selected from India for a three-year astronaut training programme by NASA at the entrance of Haryana pavilion drawing visitors, including the Haryana Governor Jagannath Pahadia who took a round of the pavilion this evening.

Among other things that caught his attention was the portrait of Kautilya Pandit, popularly known as the “Google Boy”.

During his visit, the governor appreciated the newly-renovated and thematic display in tune with this edition of the IITF’s theme “inclusive growth” at the pavilion besides, applauding the innovations of young talents from Manav Rachna College of Engineering (MRCE) and Faculty of Engineering and Technology (FET), Manav Rachna International University (MRIU).

Hisar, November 15
Even as the Haryana Government has not yet decided whether or not to challenge the acquittal of four persons in the Dabra gang rape case, the minor Dalit victim has approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court, challenging the grounds on which the trial court has acquitted four of the accused.

The counsel for the victim had filed an appeal in the high court in the last week of July against the judgement of the Additional Sessions Judge (Special Court for Heinous Crimes Against Women) Madhu Khanna Lalli, which was passed on May 3.

The court acquitted Dharmender, alias Mahender, Anil, alias Laala, Kuldeep, alias Musa, and Sunil of rape charge. These four, along with Suresh and Rajesh, were acquitted of the charge under Section 3(1) of the SC/ST Act. Vikas, Baljit, Raj Kumar and Pawan were convicted and given a life term.

The trial court had stated that the presence of the remaining accused on the spot had not been established beyond doubt. In view of the statement of the victim that some of the accused had come subsequently on a motorcycle and some repeatedly committed the crime, the court observed that it was possible that the persons

named in the complaint repeated the crime and the victim got the impression of being raped by other persons.

Stating that the acquittal of the accused was unjust, unfair and illegal, the counsel for the appellant, Lal Bahadur Khowal, Vikram Mittal and PK Chugh, argued that the trial court judgement was liable to be set aside. The counsel took exception to the acquittal on the grounds that the trial court put much emphasis on the FIR, in which those acquitted had not been named.