Jalandhar, December 5
The renowned furniture market in Kartarpur is set to be partly razed soon as nearly 50 shops on the Jalandhar-Amritsar highway are to be acquired for the six-laning project of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

An amount of Rs 27.75 crore has been deposited by the highways authorities with the Land Acquisition Officer-cum-SDM-II for the purpose of giving compensation to the land owners getting displaced.

Confirming the same, the SDM concerned said that while an amount of Rs 6 lakh per marla had been decided to be doled out to the owners of commercial establishments, an amount of Rs 4 lakh per marla was to be given to the owners of residential properties and Rs 2 lakh per marla to the agricultural land holders.

The SDM said with the process of acquisition set to take off, he expected that the NHAI would be in a position to start the construction of the project by mid-January. The acquisition is being done for the 20-km stretch from Bidhipur to Dhilwan along the Jalandhar-Amritsar highway. The project had been withheld for the past nearly eight months ever since the then Commissioner Jalandhar Division SR Ladhar had earlier suspended the award for the acquisition of nearly 1.755 hectares, which now stands revoked.

The stretch was earlier proposed as a four-lane BOT project instead of a six-lane one being executed now at an estimated cost of Rs 406.91 crore. As per the new plan, there will be five new bridges constructed in place of the existing ones, widening of four major bridges, two vehicular underpasses at the ITBP camp and at Hamira village, seven bus bays at Bidhipur, Kartarpur, Dyalpur, Hamila, Subhanpur and Ramidhi villages and Army Public School. There also is a proposal of 7-metre service road on either side and 1.5 metre wide footpath in built-up areas.

The furniture market of Kartarpur is famous for big export business owing to intricate carving being done here. The shopkeepers here have also been getting big orders from all across the length and breadth of the country. While most of them are much disheartened at their displacement, owners of a few shops, who have rented out the premises and drawing just a minimal rent, however, are a happier lot.

Jalandhar, December 5
A security guard at Lyallpur Khalsa College here, Sarabjit Singh, who was driving a motorcycle, was crushed to death underneath a speeding private bus here this morning. The man accompanying him was seriously injured and was admitted to a hospital.

Policemen take out the bike from under the bus near Khalsa College in Jalandhar on Thursday. Photo Sarabjit Singh

The accident took place around 11:15 am when the guard was on his way to the campus on his bike PB-08-BT-7953. While he was coming from underneath the railway overbridge at the site, the bus PB-09 L-9602 was coming down the bridge.

Eyewitnesses said as both vehicles met at a point down the bridge, they barged into each other’s lane, leading to the accident. “The bus dragged the bikers with their bike for about 50 m," they said.

As this happened, some college students, who too were on their way to the campus, pitched in to the aid of the accident victims. As the driver of the Kapurthala-Adampur bus fled from the spot, the youths pushed the bus backwards to take out the victims.

“We saw that Sarabjit had died on the spot. We then carefully took out Avtar Singh, who was profusely bleeding. We tried stopping a 108 ambulance passing by, but it did not. Cops from the nearby Nawi Baradari police station were also not swift, so we got an autorickshaw stopped and rushed him to an adjoining private hospital,” said Gurpreet, Paramvir Singh, Prithpal and Udit Aggarwal, all class XII students at the Lyallpur Khalsa Collegiate School.

As this happened, the cops got wary of any likely backlash from the hundreds of youths from the college, who came out of the campus.

ADCP-1 Naresh Dogra, ACP Central Jasvir Rai, SHO Nawi Baradari Subhash Chander and SHO Division Number 4 Surinder Pal also reached the spot along with police force to check any untoward incident.

The police got the traffic cleared from the bus stand side which had got halted for nearly 20 minutes. The students were sent back inside the campus. A case was registered against the driver at the Nawi Baradari police station. 

Jalandhar, December 5
Thousands of commuters, shuttling daily between Jalandhar and its satellite town Kapurthala, are likely to face inconvenience for more than six months, as the existing route has been closed at the Wadala crossing. The railways department is soon set to build the span portion of the under-construction railway overbridge at the site.

The traffic from the Kapurthala side has been diverted from yesterday, with commuters on the Jalandhar road directed towards Dhuankhe village-Wadala Kalan-Wadala Khurd villages finally meeting on the same road near Pushpa Gujral Science City.

Similarly, the commuters going from the Jalandhar side will be taking a turn towards Dhapai village and again coming on the same road at Urban Estate in Kapurthala. While those going from the Jalandhar side will have to take a 1.5 km detour, those coming from the Kapurthala side will have to travel 2.5 km more compared to the previous route.

The problem that most commuters faced today pertained to the choking of traffic in these villages owing to the less width of thte diverted routes.

Traffic cops were deployed by the Kapurthala police at all diversion points. SP Kulwant Singh and DSP Balwinder Singh were at the spot to ensure proper compliance.

The PWD is getting the bridge constructed at a cost of nearly Rs 25 crore. 

wadala crossing closed

* Route closed at Wadala crossing as rlys to build span portion of the under-construction railway overbridge.

* The traffic from the Kapurthala side has been diverted from Wednesday, with commuters on the Jalandhar road directed towards Dhuankhe village-Wadala Kalan-Wadala Khurd villages finally meeting on the same road near Pushpa Gujral Science City.

Jalandhar, December 5
The parents of students studying in Government Primary School, Talwandi Bharo, today held a protest outside the office of District Education Officer (DEO) against the shortage of teaching staff there.

The protesters, including members of the panchayat where the primary school is located, said the school did not have any teaching staff for the past few months.

They alleged inaction by the DEO office in this regard and demanded that five teachers be posted in the school immediately. The school, with a sanctioned strength of five teachers, presently has only one teacher on deputation.

With the strength of about 100 students, the lone teacher remains at the school for 15 days in a month.

Sukhchain Singh, a panchayat member, said, “About three months ago, the school had three teachers. All of them were suddenly transferred. The school headmaster also retired in November and the students have been left with no staff at all. Students are exposed to traffic hazards in the absence of staff to look after them as the school is on the roadside.”

“The school building, which has been declared unsafe, also has not received any construction grant so far and students are languishing in rooms which are on the verge of collapse,” he added.

“We have been writing to politicians and the DEO but the problem has not been addressed so far. We have regularly been calling the DEO’s office but got no response from there either. We could not meet the DEO today as well,” he said.

The angry residents had locked up the school gates on Tuesday. Following this, the DEO office transferred an ETT teacher from Uggi to Talwandi Bharo school on deputation.

“We have come to know that the said teacher has also refused to join. All this has left us with no other option but to launch a formal protest,” Sukhchain Singh said.

The lack of a permanent teacher is also causing problems in fund flow for mid day meal at the school.

Kuldeep Sharma, DEO (Elementary), said, “The school is far from the city. No one wants to go there. The bus route ends at Rasoolpur and people from the city do not want to go any further. Though I am aware of the problem and one teacher has been deputed at the school, another teacher from Rasoolpur has also been shifted there on deputation. We also issued another letter shifting an Uggi teacher to the school. And if residents insist, another teacher will also be provided.”

On how three teachers were transferred from the school all of a sudden, he said, “Only two were transferred. They were working there since 2008 and wanted to shift elsewhere.”

“In the upcoming school plan, grants for new rooms will be allocated to all schools with unsafe buildings,” he said. 

Jalandhar, December 5
While the rates of almost all essential commodities have already sky-rocketed, the prices of pulses may further rise in Punjab.

This is thanks to the decision of the Parkash Singh Badal-led SAD-BJP government, which has imposed a 4 per cent new tax, including 2 per cent market fees and as much rural development fund (RDF), on all pulses which will be supplied to Punjab from other states.

A major portion of all pulses is being supplied to Punjab from different states of the country. With this, the rates of pulses will further go out of the reach of the common man.

The rate of pulses in retail market is currently from Rs 60 (chana dal) to Rs 110 (rajmah). It will be further increased from Rs 3 to Rs 5 after adding 4 per cent tax to the current rate, said Anup Jindal, state president of the Punjab Dal Merchant and Manufacturers Association.

Up in arms against the Badal government for imposing new taxes, Dal merchants from various parts of the state urged it to withdraw the new taxes levied on them. The Dal merchants, under the aegis of the association, held a meeting in Jalandhar in which they threatened to launch an agitation if the new taxes were not withdrawn by December 15.

Talking to The Tribune, Jindal said, “The Badal government had already issued a notification in this regard a few weeks ago and we want that it should be withdrawn with immediate effect.”

Later, representatives of the Dal merchants, led by Anup Jindal, also met the newly appointed chairman of Punjab Traders Board Narottam Dev Ratti at his Kapurthala residence. Ratti assured them that he would raise their issue at the highest level and justice would be done to them.

Subsequently, expressing hope on Ratti’s assurance, Jindal said Ratti earlier also played a vital role in reducing the sales tax from 4 to just 1 per cent in 2009. Traders are now again hopeful that he will fulfill his promise of doing justice to Dal merchants.

Jalandhar, December 5
The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of industrialists and shopkeepers will meet Punjab Local Bodies Minister Anil Joshi on Saturday for simplifying and rationalising property tax levied on commercial buildings.

Municipal Commissioner Manpreet Singh Chhatwal has reportedly arranged their proposed meeting with Anil Joshi at the Circuit House here.

JAC members Gursharan Singh and Ravindra Dhir said they along with Chief Parliamentary Secretary for Cooperation Krishan Dev Bhandari would meet Anil Joshi over the issue. The exact time and venue of the meeting would be finalised on Friday, they added.

Earlier in a meeting with Chhatwal at Circuit House on Thursday evening, the traders sought relaxation on the lines of those provided to industrial buildings by the Punjab government.

Representatives of traders, including Gursharan singh, Ravindra Dhir, Gurmeet Singh Bittu, Pritam Singh Arora, Davinder Singh Manchanda, Rakesh Gupta, Indra Dev Kapoor, Amit Seth and Tajinder Singh Pardeshi, said they should also be provided relaxation on the same pattern that had been provided to industrialists.

Shopkeepers demanded that residential premises, vacant plots and senior citizens should be exempted and property tax on commercial buildings should be imposed on the basis of their measurement as square feet or marlas instead of collector rates. The collector rates will keep on increasing at regular intervals and so will property tax, they added.

Jalandhar, December 5
In an effort to educate women, who are more prone to heart attacks than men, a team constituted by the Union Health Ministry in collaboration with Biocon Pharmaceuticals, Bangalore, enacted a play in city based Tagore Hospital and Heart Care Centre, here today.

The play was a part of the awareness programme “Queen of the Heart Programme” launched by the ministry to make women aware of various aspects of the disease for preventing the increasing incidence of heart attacks amongst them across the country.

During the first phase of the programme, the teams have been visiting different hospitals across the country and creating awareness regarding the disease. To organise camps to identify and screen the women who are at high risk of getting heart attack, is the second step of the programme.

Dr Nipun Mahajan, senior cardiologist of the Tagore Hospital and Heart Care Centre revealed that the women usually have their first heart attack about eight to 10 years later than men, most commonly after menopause.

Despite this, delay in onset death rate from heart attack is increasing more rapidly among women than men. Majority of the women than men with heart attack die suddenly due to heart attacks, he said.

More women with diabetes mellitus and high blood pressure get heart attack compared to men, lack of physical exercise and Psycho-social factors like depression are important risk factors in females than men.

In fact, heart disease is the number one killer of women in India, but unfortunately women don’t perceive heart disease as the greatest threat to their life. All women still feel more threatened by cancers especially, breast cancer than they do by heart disease. There is in fact a great need of creating awareness amongst women so that appropriate preventive measures could be taken, claimed Dr Mahajan.

Heart attack in women is also more likely to be misdiagnosed. Men with heart attack mostly present with classical chest pain. The symptoms in women are usually different, he said.

The heart attack in women mostly comes as shoulder or neck pain and Indigestion, nausea, fatigue, depression or breathlessness most likely to be diagnosed as muscle pain or indigestion. This result in late diagnosis of heart attack in women’s resulting in late arrival in the hospital causing more deaths in women having heart attack.

Dr Mahajan added that as far as causes of heart attack in women are concerned diabetes and high blood pressure are the most important cause of heart attack in women. 

Jalandhar, December 5
Two literary personalities, noted Punjabi poet and president of the Punjabi Sahit Academy Prof Gurbhajan Gill and writer Ninder Ghugianvi have been honoured with Kewal Vig Award for the year.

They were given citations, mementos and shawls for their exemplary contribution in their fields during a function being held at the KL Saigal Memorial Hall here.

DC Varun Rujam was the chief guest, whereas former Punjab Assembly speaker Surjit Singh Minhas presided over the function. Bathinda zone IG Paramraj Singh Umranangal and DD Jalandhar deputy director general Dr Om Gauri Dutt Sharma were guest of honours.

The founder of the Kewal Vig Foundation, Jatinder Mohan Vig, said the award was instituted in 1994 in the memory of late Kewal Vig, founder editor of Punjabi magazine, Janta Sansar. As many as 50 distinguished literary personalities had been honoured with Kewal Vig Award so far.