Jalandhar, February 6
The Municipal Corporation (MC), which is running against time to get the work orders for road-paving works cleared in time ahead of the implementation of the election Code of Conduct for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, is stuck up once again in the tendering process.

While tenders for works worth Rs 60 crore had been put up, the MC officials failed to get any response for 54 works worth Rs 17 crore. Even bigger is the problem that the contractors did not respond to the call for tenders for the more important roads in the city. The contractors, it is learnt, are against the three-year maintenance clause imposed by the MC on the premix works for which there has been a poor response.

Mayor Sunil Jyoti said fresh tenders would be called again in a day or two and opened next week. “We hope to get a good response then and will get all works cleared ahead of the announcement of the election schedule,” he said.

The roads for which there have been no tenders include those from PAP Chowk to BSF Chowk with estimate for Rs 78.93 lakh, from BMC Chowk to Urban Estate Phase-II for Rs 78.93 lakh, Jyoti Chowk to Ambedkar Chowk for Rs 112.22 lakh, Basti Guzan to Dilbag Nagar road for Rs 81.42 lakh, Namdev Chowk to Guru Nanak Mission Chowk for Rs 55.76 lakh, surgical complex to the Wariana octroi post for Rs 60.97 lakh, Jail Chowk to Mahavir Marg for Rs 18.40 lakh, Police Lines road till Sadar Police Station for Rs 46.24 lakh and Company Bagh to Skylark Hotel for Rs 24 lakh.

There are also internal roads of various colonies for which there has been no response. These include those in Green Model Town, Garden Colony, Khurla Kingra, New Avtar Nagar, Garha, Saidan Gate, Aman Nagar, Birring, Gandhi Camp, Banda Bahadur Nagar, Model House Block A, Jallowal Abadi and Mathura Nagar.

The president of the MC Contractors Association, Avtar Singh, said they had submitted tenders for all concrete pavings and stone-paving works, leaving those that involved the use of the premix. 

Jalandhar, February 5
Congress leader and social activist Anil Vashisht has written to the Municipal Corporation (MC) authorities to conduct a survey of the entire sewer system in the city.

Vashisht has already brought to the fore the issue of the presence of multiple, faulty and unconnected sewage system on Railway Road through the Right to Information (RTI) Act and site inspection with the MC authorities. He has suggested that like an ongoing property survey, the authorities should conduct a survey of the existing sewer lines on all roads and streets of Jalandhar city through some capable agency which should be asked to provide the required maps and data after conducting the survey. He said during the RTI inspection of some existing sewer lines, he had has observed that there existed two to three complex sewer lines on many roads. He said he had also found on Railway Road that some of these sewer pipes were lying unconnected and the investment made on laying such systems had gone waste.

During a joint inspection with officials of the O&M Department, MC Commissioner and even Mayor about a month ago, Vashisht had pointed out that some sewer pipes, which were operational, were full of sludge. Some pipes are broken in-between. He had also pointed to several engineering defects such as difference in the level of pipes and manholes causing hindrance in the smooth flow of sewer water. The revelations pointed by him had been appreciated by District Planning Committee Chairman Gurcharan Singh Channi.

Channi had observed, “There is an acute problem of the choking of sewerage in the city throughout the year. Most parts of the city remain flooded for hours and days after the stoppage of rain. At present, there is no data or maps available to show the existing sewer lines, manholes, its levels, connections and directions. So there is a casual approach of the MC officials to maintain and lay the sewer lines, as MC engineers do not have the knowledge of the condition of the existing sewer lines. So a survey for maps and data is required for the proper maintenance and stopping wastage of public funds.”

Mayor Sunil Jyoti, too, agrees that even officials are not clear about the multiplicity of the sewage system laid in the city. He, however, said that he had not received any representation by Vashisht. The activist has sent a copy to the Minister of Local Bodies, Punjab, and the Minister for Urban Development, GOI.

Jalandhar, February 6
Congress councillor of ward No. 40, Dr Pardeep Rai, has lodged a complaint with the police and the MC officials that a road in Shaheed Babu Labh Singh Nagar had been illegally broken to lay a sewer pipe for an illegal colony in his ward.

The councillor has said that the road had been broken by private labourers without taking due permission from the MC officials and paying the requisite amount for the same.

Basti Bawa Khel SHO Gurpreet Singh said he had received the complaint. “There has been no formal complaint from the MC officials. We will look into the matter and proceed accordingly."

Jalandhar, February 6
Even though the Municipal Corporation (MC) is going through a rough weather on financial issues with regard to several pending development works, Mayor Sunil Jyoti and SE (B&R) Kulwinder Singh have, in a smart move, got cleared a proposal of getting new Innova vehicles for themselves at a recent MC House meeting.

While the meeting was held on January 24, most councillors got to know about the clearing of the resolution yesterday when they got copies of the proceedings of the meeting. The proposal had been smartly moved as part of the additional agenda, for which no copies had been distributed to the councillors.

Since there was the participation of only four councillors from the Opposition, the agenda had not been read and the additional items had been cleared in a huff without having been read at the meeting.

The councillors, not just of the Opposition but also of the BJP, including Minta Kochhar, have been crying foul, claiming that the MC was not providing him carts for garbage collection in his ward, while the Mayor had been going ahead to purchase a 
new vehicle for his personal use.

BJP councillor Ram Gopal Gupta said had he been a Mayor, he would have preferred moving around in the city on a scooter rather than getting luxury cars for himself. “Public interest should be the focus rather than drawing personal benefits,” he said.

The agenda item number 83 reads that there will be an expenditure of Rs 15,93,477 for the purchase of car from ANR Motors, which is an authorised dealer of Castle Toyota in Jalandhar. The note further reads that the existing Innova vehicle was already six years old and was often requiring repair. It also reads that a proposal for the purchase of the new vehicle had been mooted on February 2, 2008, too.

The other Innova vehicle of the same value has been proposed for SE (B&R) Kulwinder Singh, for which another agenda number 101 had been passed. This note reads that the SE was using a 17-year-old Ambassador car. It carries another point from the State Transport Commission, which says that a car which has run for more than eight years or run on road for more than 1.6 lakh km could be changed. It has been added that the car runs on petrol, for which the cost of fuel for transportation is higher.

Mayor Sunil Jyoti said it was an old proposal which had been simply mooted all over again. The cars are in a bad state and we need to replace them, he added. 

Jalandhar, February 6
The last two years have been bad for the Jalandhar Development Authority (JDA), which has not been able to sell any of its commercial property.

Almost all auctions scheduled by the office have failed to get any response from buyers or property dealers.

Officials have been inserting advertisements, pegging tents, arranging furniture and eventually winding up the arrangements after finding no takers for the properties. This happened on January 6 and today as well. As many as 50 shops and SCOs were put up for sale at various locations, but the JDA officials failed to sell even a single property.

The various locations included shops in front of Gandhi Vanita Ashram on Kapurthala Road, pockets in front of the bus stand, Old Roadways Workshop site at Patel Chowk, shops in the new upcoming complex at the Old DC office, shops on the Ladowali road in front of government school and Red Cross Market.

Auction Estate Officer JDA Gurvinder Singh said there were three bidders for a property on Gandhi Vanita Ashram, but they were not giving proper response. “So we withdrew the auction and sent report to the government through our Chief Administrator,” he said.

Several people have been reportedly coming to the JDA officials, raising objections on the reserve prices complaining that these were well above the prevailing market rates in the area.

Jalandhar, February 6
Many canteens have been found to be running illegally on the premises of various government schools in the city.

In the absence of any check by the school authorities and the Health Department as well, most of them were found to be selling junk and stale food to the children. Though there is no provision of canteens in the government schools, many of them have allowed these canteens to run on the school premises, posing a serious threat to the health of thousands of children studying there. As the canteens do not exist in the official records of the Education Department, they are dodging the checks by the Health Department as well.

“The mid-day meal provision is only for the students from primary to class VIII. Above that, the children who do not bring meals from home are solely dependent on the canteens running in the school. As teachers also have snacks sometimes from the canteen, we never thought of calling the Health Department for checking the quality of food being served here,” said Raj Kumari Saroa, Principal, Government Model Co-ed Senior Secondary School.

On a visit to various schools, it was found that most of the canteens were selling stale and adulterated food to the children. The canteen at the Government Senior Model School near Alaska Chowk was selling adulterated sweets with synthetic colours along with stale burgers and cream rolls to the students, which were lying in the open.

The canteen of Government Model SS School was found to be selling readymade pizzas and burgers to the students. Above all, the famous Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Nehru Garden, has even confessed to having called street vendors inside the school as the canteen running inside the school premises only serves tea and some snacks.

The school authorities have also confessed to charge monthly rent from these illegal occupants inside the government premises. While some of them are paying up to Rs 800 per month, others are even paying up to Rs 200 per day.

“It all depends upon the number of students in the school and the kind of stuff that the school allows to sell inside the school premises. The principal sometimes comes and checks our stuff but we have never been checked by the Health Department so far,” revealed Kewal Krishan, a canteen operator inside Government Model SS School near Alaska Chowk.

The Education Department showed its ignorance and confessed that they were aware only of small tea stalls running inside the school premises. “We were not aware about full-fledged canteens being run inside various schools. Since the issue has been brought to our notice, we would definitely initiate action against these schools,” said Harinder Pal Singh, Deputy District Education Officer, Jalandhar.

Jalandhar, February 6
A bunch of do-gooders are moving from pillar to post to ensure proper treatment for a little girl.

Kehkashan Bano, a sixth standard student, was diagnosed with bone cancer in the middle of January and since then, her labourer father has been trying his best to arrange money for her treatment. While a number of do-gooders have chipped in to organise resources for Bano’s help, a dismal response from the Health authorities is one of the prime snags in arranging finances for the treatment of the girl.

Her father Mohammed Afzal Ansari, a resident of Mitthapur, who pursues painting jobs at homes, earns a mere Rs 7,000 per month with which he sustains his family of four — Kehkashan (12), her brother who is in the third standard, his wife Bilkis Bano and himself.

Kehkashan complained of pain in her armpits about three months ago following which she was unable to raise her arm. After some preliminary treatment from a local doctor, Afzal took her to his native place in Saharanpur. “While the doctors there said they couldn’t treat her because she had either cancer or TB, I finally took her to a few empanelled hospitals after queries from several places. Reports on January 15 confirmed she had bone cancer. Since then, we have spent about Rs 25,000 on her preliminary tests and treatment, most of which has come through help. But now, I am running out of options.”

Notably, Mandeep Kaur, a government schoolteacher, who is the family’s neighbour, has been instrumental in arranging help for the family. Government employees, Lupin Kumar and Ajmer Singh, are also trying to arrange resources for the girl.

While ideally, the family should get help for Kehkashan under the School Health Programme or the CM’s Punjab Cancer Relief Fund, sadly, the family claims, attempt to get a CM Punjab Cancer Relief Fund form cleared at the Civil Hospital has not yielded results so far.

“We met the doctor responsible for the School Health Programme at the Civil Hospital but were told they couldn’t do anything as it did not come under them. We also met the doctor responsible for cancer patients but so far, we have not received any response,” said Mandeep.

Meanwhile, Civil Surgeon, Dr RL Bassan, said he will look into the case if the patient’s family meets him. “The said case hasn’t come to my notice so far. I’ll look into their case when they will come.”

Meanwhile, the family needs Rs 85,000 for three chemotherapy sessions and expenses might be in lakhs as per the tests and medicines prescribed for Kehkashan’s future treatment at the empanelled hospital, where she is receiving treatment.

Those willing to help the family can contact Mandeep Kaur can be contacted at the phone number 95929-25592.

Jalandhar, February 6
To gain mileage ahead of the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal is scheduled to lay foundation stones of two mega projects in the city on February 10. These projects include those of a 1.25 km elevated road on Kapurthala Road being executed by the Jalandhar Improvement Trust and that of Chandan Nagar Railway Under Bridge (RUB) being undertaken by the PWD.

While the Municipal Corporation has already made payment to the Railways for the construction of a portion of the RUB for getting its final clearance, the 33-feet wide elevated road project coming up at a cost of Rs 55 crore too has been approved by a steering committee of the state government on January 10.

The elevated road is to start from near a distributory close to 120-feet road and will end ahead of Sports and Surgical Complex near Mohan Filling Station. Chairman of the Jalandhar Improvement Trust Vinay Bublani said two properties of the Trust were being attached with the project, including one in Partap Bagh and a 4,000 sq yard site at Gujral Nagar. He said the sites would be auctioned and he hoped that these would fetch Rs 60 crore in sale for the execution of the project.

“It has been proposed that the earnest money be cut down to 1 per cent instead of 10 per cent so that there is maximum response to the auction. We already have got technical approvals and hope the financial proposals get cleared at the earliest so that we can move on with the work. The project should be complete in the next two years and will be a big convenience to the commuters moving to surgical complex and Kapurthala on a daily basis from the Jalandhar side,” Bublani added.

Regarding the Chandan Nagar RUB, Municipal Corporation Jalandhar had handed over a cheque for Rs 8.46 crore to the Railways on Friday last. The PWD has already passed estimates for the remaining part of the bridge at Rs 12.76 crore, for which tenders would be called six months later. The project has been a prestige issue for KD Bhandari, CPS, as he had made a promise on the issue to the residents of the area during the last two Assembly polls. — TNS

Jalandhar, February 6
The Pushpa Gujral Science City hosted innovative talks, presentations and debate on Science Communication. Several eminent professionals took part as resource persons there. More than 300 students from the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of different universities and colleges participated in the workshop.

Speaking on the occasion, Meg Raj Mitar, founder, Tarksheel Society Bharat, said society was in the clutch of superstitions. Most people were feeling disturbed due to witchcraft. Some houses were catching fire due to poltergeist phenomena. Some people were spoiling their present lives to find a place in heaven. There is an urgent need to dispel these superstitions by developing scientific temper among the masses. The workshop aims at spreading science communication through vernacular media. It is both timely and the need of the hour.

Addressing the participants, Director, Science City, Dr Rajesh Grover said the Government of India is giving importance to public communication of science and technology. He pointed out that science coverage attributed to mass media has been poor. It needs to be enhanced.

With the efforts of the Science City, media coverage of the scientific events and programmes related to development of scientific temper and sustainable development has been steadily increasing.

“Science communication has become my passion as I feel that the vast population of the country needs to be pulled out of superstitions.,” said Grover.

In his welcome address, he mentioned that science and technology journalism had progressively developed in India, in terms of quality and quantity. Dr Grover laid stress upon the need to train professional journalists, who are able to pick up on innovative achievements in science and translate them into a language suitable for the general public to understand without ambiguity. The production of such simplified and accessible scientific writing can be achieved through close collaboration between scientists and journalists.

Senior journalists Jatinder Pannu, Usha Pawar besides Dr Kamlesh Duggal, HOD, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication GNDU, gave lectures on the occasion. 

Jalandhar, February 6
As per the instructions given by the Chairman of the Punjab State Scheduled Castes Commission Rajesh Bagha, a camp was organised at Kot Ram Das locality yesterday to redress the issues of residents.

Former councillor Gurmeet Chand said Jalandhar Municipal Corporation (JMC) employees visited the area and collected around 180 files and asked the residents to prepare their documents as soon as possible.

The chairman had held a meeting on January 30 with the JMC officials and the residents of the same locality to resolve their problems on a priority basis.

Notably, the people in the locality have been forced to sleep in half-built, roofless houses as they failed to get timely instalments to build their houses. — TNS

Phagwara, February 6
A drug addict allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in Thakraki village yesterday.

The youth was mentally upset for the last few days. The police have registered a case and sent his body for post-mortem examination to the Civil Hospital. Further investigations in the case are on.