Amritsar, February 2
The Municipal Corporation is gearing up to recover house tax dues from the defaulters that also include government institutions. The MC has submitted a recovery target of Rs 5.80 crore till March 31 to the Local Bodies Department.

The deadline given to the various government departments to clear their house tax dues has already lapsed, but the dues are still pending. Except for a few, a number of government departments, including the Improvement Trust, which owes Rs 31 lakh as house tax, have sought more time to clear the dues.

The local body is to collect a total of around Rs 16 crore on account of house tax. There are several big houses, hotels, government offices, marriage palaces and commercial units running under the Improvement Trust besides private schools which are on the hit list of the MC on account of house tax dues. There are many defaulters whose cheques got dishonoured. They had submitted the cheques to get immunity from their property getting sealed, but the latter gave ‘stop payment’ instructions to their banks.

However, several private units, including a school on the Albert Road, have to pay around Rs 6.5 lakh. A hotel has to pay approximately Rs 26 lakh and a marriage palace on Batala Road has to pay Rs 16.91 lakh. A renowned cloth showroom on the Lawrence Road owes Rs 4.3 lakh as house tax dues.

Superintendent, House Tax, Shushant Bhatia said the MC Commissioner has already written to the Improvement Trust Chairman that several commercial units in Dharam Singh market have house tax dues which have to be cleared. The MC chief got an assurance from the chairman that the dues would be cleared as soon as possible.

Similarly, the office of the Agriculture Department had has cleared an amount of Rs 2 lakh yet around Rs 1.5 lakh is still unpaid, said the officials.

The Punjab Sewerage Board office at the Hide Market and the Pollution Board office at the Focal Point have sought grace period of a day or two.

The officials said that various offices of the BSNL running at the Ranjit Avenue, Albert Roard, Bhagtanwala and Chamrang road have to pay Rs 24.32 lakh as dues.

The office of the Women and Child Development has a due of Rs 4 lakh, the Forest Department Rs 5.45 lakh, the Agriculture Department Rs 3.5 lakh and the Industry Department around Rs 5 lakh.

Amritsar, February 2
The mortuary room at the postmortem facility of the Jallianwala Bagh Martyrs Memorial Hospital has been lying defunct for the last two weeks as the freezer has developed a snag.

As a result, the hospital authorities are finding it difficult to keep the bodies in the mortuary.

The work of conducting postmortem was transferred to the Civil Hospital last year. The mortuary of the Government Medical College on Majitha Road was earlier responsible for conducting the postmortem examination.

The Civil Hospital which is already facing a shortage of space due to the coming up of various new facilities is finding it difficult to carry out the work. Even though the authorities are not complaining, a doctor said the GMC postmortem station had a much larger building and premises.

In comparison, the Civil Hospital has only a small block for the same work. The work was transferred to the Civil Hospital on the ground that the faculty at the GMC also had to attend to the education of the students besides conducting the postmortems.

Sources said that around three to five bodies arrive for postmortem on a daily basis. In some cases, it is not possible for the doctors to conduct the postmortem the same day.

“In such a case, the bodies have to be kept there. Since it is winter, the doctors concerned are managing it somehow,” said an employee.

Meanwhile, Senior Medical Officer Dr Hardeep Singh Ghai said the freezer had developed a technical snag which is being looked into by a mechanic and would start working soon. 

Amritsar, February 2
After the autorickshaw drivers, it was the turn of private mini-bus operators who are up in arms against the running of the city bus service in Amritsar, recently introduced under the JNNURM scheme.

They claimed that the bus service has been scheduled on routes which were allotted to them under the policy when there was no public transport. The activists of Mini-Bus Operators/Workers’ Union, Amritsar, also held a protest against the “ill-conceived” route plan of the city bus service.

Baldev Singh Babbu, district secretary of the union, said the city bus service is being run beyond the permissible limits as has been chalked out in the plan.

“We have no objections if the city bus limits its operation within the city limits, as has been scheduled under the three routes. But defying the norms, these buses are running beyond the bypass area. Today, we spotted three buses running in Khasa. Earlier, there were the autorickshaws which were being operated illegally beyond the bypass routes, and now it is the city bus service which is afecting our work,” he said.

The operators argued that it would affect as many as 600 mini buses and several families or individuals who have been associated with the mini-bus service.

“Around 20 persons are associated with a mini bus. They all are being affected with the illegal plying of the city bus service on routes that have been allotted to us, despite the fact that we have been paying Rs 50,000 per annum as bus operation tax, besides furnishing other requisite formalities. We have no objection if the city bus service is driven within the municipal limits as per the original plan,” said Balwinder Singh Malhi, another mini-bus operator.

The agitating mini-bus operators said that a state-wide meeting has been called for on February 5 at the Inter-State Bus Terminus here to decide the next course of action.

“If we are not heard by the authorities, we may intensify our agitation at the state-level as the illegal plying of city buses has been hitting our livelihood,” said his colleague Lakha Singh Chogawan. 

Amritsar, February 2
A teachers’ delegation today met Cabinet Minister Anil Joshi to express their resentment against the recent orders of the government regarding the shifting of male teachers from Government Girl Senior Secondary Schools in the district.

The move came about after instances of some male teachers in schools at Moga, Ludhiana and Gurdaspur were allegedly involved in outraging the modesty of students came to light. It prompted the state government to instruct the Education Department to conduct in-house assessment of replacing male teachers. However, the move has irked various teacher organizations, who are up in arms against the government. Some of these organisations are the Government School Lecturers Union, Government Teachers’ Union, Democratic Teachers’ Front and Government School Teachers’ Union.

They argued that the decision would not only disturb the academic set- up in schools, but would also bring a bad name to the entire male teaching community.

Following instructions from the state government, the Education Department has prepared a report that 48 male teachers could be shifted from various government girls senior secondary schools in the district.

There are about 1,500 government schools in the district, including 419 secondary schools. Of these 419, 385 schools are co-ed, 22 girl schools and 12 for boys in the district.

Notably, the move has also been flayed by many female teachers who are expected to be shifted to other schools. One such female teacher, on the condition of anonymity, said it was an unexpected reaction from the state government. “Instead of taking action against the accused and granting exemplary punishment to them, the government is hell bent on upseting the entire set-up,” she said.

The delegation reasoned that female teachers can not stay longer in the evening on the school premises to carry out maintenance and other works in the buildings. Even in case of educational tours, male teachers come handy to communicate with persons from outside.

“In the current scenario, it is necessary to educate the students, especially, girls on conducting themselves in a mixed environment to be successful in professional life. Upbringing of students in alienation may infuse a hesitation towards the other sex which would remain in the rest of their lives,” said a teacher Vipan Kumar, who was part of the delegation.

Amritsar, February 2
As many as nine unemployed persons, including women, were duped by a local resident on the pretext of providing them jobs in the police at Chandigarh.

The swindler has been identified as Sukhdev Singh of Rajinder Nagar. Sukhdev posed as a CBI inspector and claimed to have connections with some senior police officials. The police have also booked his wife Sarabjit Kaur for conniving with him.

Earlier, an inquiry was conducted by the Economic Offences Wing in this regard which found the charges to be true and recommended that the Chheharta police register a case. The case was registered after taking the opinion of the DA legal.

Major Singh, one of the victims, had lodged a complaint with the Chheharta police while alleging that the accused presented himself as a CBI inspector and took more than Rs 5 lakh from him for providing the police job. Similarly, the accused defrauded Jaswant Singh, Sharanjit Kaur, Sarwan Singh, Jarnail Singh, Gurpreet Singh, Ajay Singh, Gurmel Singh and Saranjit Kaur.

According to the police authorities, the couple duped the victims to the tune of Rs 44.50 lakh.

Anil Kumar, the investigating officer, said a case under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 120-B of the IPC has been registered in the case. No arrests have been made so far.

Amritsar, February 2
Parents seem to be feeling assured about the safety of their wards after the state government enacted a provision ensuring the involvement of principals, District Education Office and others in the administration of school transport.

As per the latest instructions, each school, whether affiliated to the CBSE, the ICSE or the PSEB, has to form a transport committee comprising a school principal, a senior teacher, a person from the school managing committee or the local managing committee besides the head of the local police station.

A parent, Simranjit Kaur, said the overcrowding in school vehicles was a common problem. She welcomed the move to make heads of schools answerable for school transport. “In the absence of any law, school principals used to take cover in case of any accident that the transport was outsourced and hence, they were not directly involved.”

The move came after the school education and transport departments with police assistance introduced a “safe school vehicle” scheme to check roads accidents involving schools buses.

School transport, in the form of buses, vans, autorickshaws, are prominently used to ferry students in private public schools. School transport is negligible in government schools as a majority of the students come from the same area. District Education Officer (Senior secondary) Satinderbir Singh said that so far, 35 committees have been formed out of nearly 110 private schools in the district.

As a majority of vehicles used for transportation are in a poor condition, the head of the school will be made responsible for the transportation. The DEO will be the nodal officer to supervise the safety and condition of these buses with the help of the district police and the transport department.

It was observed that most of the accidents involving school buses occur due to unsafe bus body fabrication and failure of the schools to adopt a comprehensive periodical preventive maintenance plan besides poor driving skills of drivers.

It was decided that every school bus should be equipped with a speed governor with a maximum speed limit of 40 km/hr. The driver of the school bus should possess a licence for heavy vehicle and must have a five-year experience. The school bus must also be painted in yellow colour.

The school buses must bear the name and the contact number of the school in bold letters. These buses must carry first-aid boxes. Directions to curb the practice of overloading in buses were also passed.

It was also decided that a person who has been penalised twice would not be hired as a driver for a school bus. Medical check-ups of drivers of the school bus would also be conducted from time to time.

It was decided that the school buses should be equipped with a “stop signal arm” in order to signal other motorists not to overtake the school bus while it stops to load or or make children alight. A retracting step, used for entry into the bus, which can be retracted once the bus starts moving-and storage racks beneath the seats, will also be made mandatory.

The committee would look into the implementation of these rules and ensure that drivers are at least middle school passouts. Randomly, a senior teacher would travel in the bus to see whether pick and drop facility for students was functioning well. Mobile phone numbers of the drivers and principals must be written outside the vehicles.

Amritsar, February 2
Even after the launch of the beat patrolling system in the city, robberies continue to haunt the residents here.

Four robberies in as many days clearly point towards the state of law and order in the city which is a major tourist destination.

Tourists, women and traders are the main target of the robbers. The police has failed to achieve any breakthrough in many of the cases so far.

Last evening, a sales market executive of Samsung company was robbed of Rs 2.32 lakh by an unidentified snatcher. The CCTV footage of the mobile shop where the victim Vishal Dogra had come to receive payments revealed that he was the same guy who had decamped with two expensive mobile phones from a showroom located on Lawrence road in June, 2013. The accused is still at large.

A day before the incident, an Airtel telecommunication distributor was looted by three armed youths. He was carrying around Rs 5 lakhs in his bag. The incident occurred when the victim, identified as Suresh Sharma, a resident of Katra Moti Ram, was returning home. He had just his house when three youths committed the crime and escaped in the dense fog.

Before this incident, a cloth trader was looted by unidentified robbers on the intervening night of January 29-30 when he was returning from Delhi after receiving payments. He was robbed of over Rs 2 lakhs by the accused.

On the same day, a tourist Reshel Whiteside of Scotland, was looted by unknown persons.

Not only this, instances of vehicle lifting and thefts are also being regularly reported from various parts of the city. Residents complained that in a majority of the cases, people prefer not to lodge a complaint of snatching or petty crimes due to attitude of the cops. They fear that they themselves may have to face harassment.

On the other hand, the police officials also dither in registering a case.

Recently, a theft occurred in a shop located in the market, situated just opposite the bus stand. The victim filed a complaint with the police but the case was never registered. On the other hand, the police officials, instead of carrying out investigations, asked the shopkeepers to give the name of suspicious persons, said a shopkeeper preferring not to be named.

While the police blamed the drug abuse as a major reason for the rise in snatching cases, residents pointed out that it is still the duty of the police to curb the crime rate.

“A couple of years ago, two employees of my hospital had fallen victim to snatchers, who were coming to the office. The unidentified accused even hit their scooters due to which they fell on the road and sustained injuries. Recently, similar incident involving another woman employee of the hospital took place and she suffered fractures,” said Dr AL Adlakha, adding that the situation has not changed much till now.

The situation has become so grave that the common people have stopped reporting snatchings and other minor crimes to the police as they feel it would be a wastage of time and effort as the police would try to hush up the complaints, said Dinesh Bhardwaj, a local resident.

Beat patrolling system

The police recently introduced beat system in the city in order to improve the law and order situation and to have complete details of the anti-social elements in a particular area. Besides, the system was aimed at improving the relations with the public, to ensure better policing and surveillance and strengthening of the network. The system, if properly implemented, would ultimately help in reducing the crime rate. The city has been divided into 97 beats falling under 17 police stations in which as many as 94 policemen have been deputed. These policemen would work along with 74 beat officials.

However, till now, it has failed to yield the desired results, if the recent instances are anything to go by.

The CCTV project

Amritsar, February 2
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has instructed a city-based radio taxi service to refund Rs 30 charged from a local resident. The Forum stated that the complainant was also entitled to compensation for harassment which she had suffered due to non- functioning of AC. The Forum asked the company to pay Rs 500 as compensation and an additional Rs 1,000 as litigation expenses.

Earlier, Namita Talwar, a resident of Majith Mandi had filed a complaint against Mega Cabs Ltd alleging that she had hired the services of the opposite party on April 8, 2013, for journey from Tunda Talab to Lawrence Road.

She stated that the cab did not have an AC and comfortable seats and the driver charged him for 12 km, Rs 270 in total. She said on April 9, 2013, she again hired the services of the same company for the same journey and she was charged for 8 km, which amounted to Rs 270.

The city cab service countered the allegation on the reason that on both the days, the car had adopted two different routes and as such, variation in distance was bound to happen. The Forum admitted the fact that the company was not deficient in service regarding the variation in distance covered on both days.

However, the Forum stated that as per the kilometre rate of the car, which was Rs 20 per km, the actual fare on the first day when a distance of 12 km was covered should have been Rs 240 and not Rs 270.

The Consumer Forum also stated that the company had charged Rs 30 more from the customer. The Forum stated that the driver of the car had admitted on the receipt that the AC was not in working order and the seats were not comfortable.

Ludhiana, February 2
A group of eight pilgrims from Amritsar faced a tough time visiting the historical gurdwara at Alamgir. During their visit, some persons allegedly siphoned the petrol from their motorcycles and also stole other accessories.

An official from the gurdwara claimed that he was unaware about the incident.

The matter came to light this morning when Gurpreet Singh Johal from Amritsar along with his friends was heading back home.

“We brought the matter to the notice of the gurdwara authorities. They were very hospitable and immediately arranged for fuel. The gurdwara authorities even offered us compensation, but it was not their fault,” said Gurpreet Singh. There was a time when visitors used to leave their belongings unattended outside the Alamgir Gurdwara and no one used to even touch it. — TNS

Amritsar, February 2
The cricket team of Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) has won the Rohinton Baria Cricket (Men) Trophy for the year 2013-14 by defeating MDU Rohtak cricket team by an Inning.

The All India Inter-University Cricket Championship 2013-2014 was organised at Uttarakhand Technical University, Dehradun, recently. The final match was played between Guru Nanak Dev University and Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak, teams.

GNDU had won this prestigious trophy twice before. The university cricket team won the toss and elected to field first. In a tough match, MDU was bundled out for 411 and in reply, GNDU team amassed 640.

In the second innings, MDU, Rohtak, were 24 for 5 wickets and conceded defeat. Aarush Sabhwarla, Mohit Handa and Ravinder Singh scored 179, 146, and 110 runs, respectively.

Akash with 5 wickets became the highest wicket taker in the tournament.

Prof AS Brar, Vice-Chancellor and Dr HS Randhawa, Deputy Director, Sports, congratulated the cricketers on their resounding victory.

Amritsar, February 2
As the year progresses, the list of young achievers from the city too begins increasing. An example of excellent sports and creative talent, these young kids are an example of hard work, some smart moves and loads of confidence.

Navneet Kaur, a student of Khalsa College for Women, recently showed that girls could play tough by winning a silver medal at the Tri-Nation Karate Championship held in the city. The 22-year-old beat competitors from countries like Nepal, Iran to get second position. "I had been into martial art since school and wanted to excel and represent my nation in international championships. My hard work seems to have paid off,” she said. The girl attributes her success to her coach Sunil Sareen and hours of training. "It’s a sport that needs stamina, agility and quick reflexes. My routine includes hours of training and concentration exercises."

Dreaming big of representing her country in global tournaments, Navneet is determined to excel. "Girls are tough and I want to prove it,” she said.

More sporting stars from the city were from the badminton team of Springdales School. The star players Pratham Arora and Ayush Mahajan in the Under-19 category and Grav Preet Singh in Under-10 category won gold medals in the Open Badminton District Championships. The shuttlers all competed in different categories and have shone. Ask them about their motivation and they all echo the fact that one day they may represent our country at the global level.

Small filmstar

In between the sport stars, here is a small film star in the making as well. Eight-year-old Riyaz Aulakh, a child actor from the city has been a part of the critically acclaimed film ‘Qissa’. The film about partition stars Irrfan Khan and Tisva Chopra in the lead and Riyaz plays Irfan's daughter. The young actor is full of excitement. "I got the role after being auditioned and groomed for over a month. I had fun on the sets as everyone pampered me, including Irfan sir who uses to play with me in his free time," she says. Required to wear old clothes as a part of the period drama, Riyaz disliked looking shabby for the camera. "I didn’t like the make-up and clothes, but the artists used to get me done up by giving me sweets and chocolates," she shares.

Though Riyaz is quite focused on her career, she says her studies come first. "I like doing films, this being my first. But may be when I am a bit older and after giving attention to my education, I my think of it," she affirms.

Confident and talented, didn’t we say!