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10 trucks with illicit liquor recovered
Youth hacked to death in city
No check on water wastage at washing centre points
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3-day-old murder solved
Better
jalandhar: Suwidha centres
‘Need to create awareness on NOTA button’
Students depict modern themes through colours
NRI's house burgled
Drug peddler arrested
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10 trucks with illicit liquor recovered
Goraya (Jalandhar), March 23 Ten persons were arrested by the police in this connection. They were identified as Dharminder, son of Harichand of Bootapind, Ashwani Kumar, alias Barfi Ram, of Kishanpura, Gurmam Singh of Model House, Kulwinder of Shaheed Babu Labh Singh Nagar, Parminder of Mohala Sagara in Adampur, Ajaib Singh of Saraba Nagar in Ludhiana, Balkar Singh of Naugaja village, Jatinderpal Singh of Jandhu Sangha village, Amarjit of Kangniwal and Gurbax Singh of Sunder Nagar. The police also impounded 10 trucks, including Pb08 J 9832, PB08 AW 9916, PB08 AA 1221, HQ 45A 9535, HP 72 5214, PB 13 U 9080, HP 19B 2318, PB 30E 9307, PB02l 9789 and PB 10 BT 9757. It is pertinent to mention that this is the first such big recovery by the rural police after the enforcement of election code of conduct. Police sources said the Goraya police had erected a naka for routine checking due to the code of conduct and on suspicion, stopped a queue of trucks for checking. During search, the police found that all trucks were fully loaded with liquor and the persons driving the trucks failed to produce documents which could establish that liquor was not illicit. Although the rural police officials refused to divulge more details about the liquor, sources confirmed that each truck was carrying near 1,300 bottles of liquor, meaning that about 13,000 bottles of illicit liquor were being carried in the 10 trucks. SP (Detective) HPS Khakh, confirmed the development. We have apprised the Excise Department of the matter which will further initiate legal action, he said. Some truck-borne persons were also nabbed by the police and they would question them where the consignment was being taken and for what purpose. When asked whether the liquor was being carried for election purpose, Khakh replied it would be too early to say that the liquor was being supplied for election purpose, but further investigations were on to inquire the same. Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner Sarojani Gautam Sharda said the department was inquiring if there was the legal permit to shift the liquor stock from one station to another. Excise officials are on the job and they will submit me the full inquiry report on Monday. If any violation comes to the fore, action will be taken accordingly, she said. As of now,the whole liquor stock has been impounded.
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Youth hacked to death in city
Jalandhar, March 23
The deceased was identified as Richi, a resident of the same locality. The incident occurred around 8 pm when Richi was roaming outside his house. He was suddenly cornered by five to six armed men. The assailants attacked Richi with sharp-edged weapons and hit him hard on the head. The victim was then taken to the Civil Hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead. Persons close to Richi said an old rivalry was the cause behind the murder. The victim's kin had reportedly identified the assailants and had told the police about them. The police division No. 5 has started investigation.
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No check on water wastage at washing centre points
Jalandhar, March 23 Neither the Municipal Corporation (MC) nor the district administration seem to have given a thought to save this vital resource. A move to formulate a policy had begun during the tenure of former Jalandhar MC Commissioner CS Talwar, but no headway in this regard has been made ever since. Sources revealed there were over 100 car-washing points in Jalandhar where hundreds of vehicles were being washed, but none had reportedly installed water-recycling plants. To curb water wastage in the city, CS Talwar, had in 2009, issued strict guidelines to the service stations (washing centres) regarding the installation of water-recycling plants so that the used water after recycling could again be used for washing vehicles. The MC had also warned the owners of washing points of levying huge penalty for not installing recycling plants. But even after years, the MC had not levied penalty even on a single car-washing point owners till date. Sources said after issuing warnings to the washing centres, MC officials had also reportedly conducted some raids to check the status, but they always returned empty handed by just issuing fresh warning to the owners. Water-recycling plants is not only the issue which needs to be dealt with seriously. Sources confirmed that hundreds of washing points, instead of using commercial connection, were using residential power connection for submersible motors. When questioned why they had not installed water recycling plants, washing-point owners termed investment factor as the main reason behind not installing these plants. "We are very much aware of the fact that huge water is being wasted everyday, but installing water-recycling plants involved huge investment, which we can't afford," owner of a car-washing centre said. If the government gives us subsidy to install recycling plants, we can install the same at the washing points, said a station owner. MC Commissioner Manpreet Singh Chattwal said as of now, though the MC had not been doing anything on the issue, in future he would surely bring some plans to prevent water wastage at the car-washing points. He said two years ago, someone had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in which the person had sought direction to the Punjab Government for water conservation. Apart from the state government, the Sewerage Board, Local Bodies and Drainage departments had been made respondents and all were going for hearing in the High Court on March 28.
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3-day-old murder solved
Jalandhar, March 23 The accused were identified as Rajinder Singh of Subhanpur village in Kapurthala and Ram Sewak of Jalandhar. One of the accused Rajinder was the alleged paramour of the victim. The woman was found dead near a dry canal in Khojewal village on March 19. The deceased was then not identified ,but a day later, she was identified as Baljit Kaur of Dhirpur village in Kartarpur. She is survived by her husband and a child. During investigation, the police found the role of Rajinder with whom the woman allegedly had an extra-marital affair. The police said the accused took the extreme step due to some tension in their relationship. The police said the case was cracked with the help of mobile call details of the woman, adding that the day murder took place, the victim and her paramour had a long talk on mobile phones. Accordingly, the police rounded up Rajinder, who later also confessed to committing the crime. The accused had told the police that they had murdered the woman by strangulating her. — TNS |
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Better
jalandhar: Suwidha centres Lack of infrastructure and awareness block services at Suwidha Centres Rachna khaira Tribune news service
Jalandhar, March 23 Although it’s been two years that the Right to Service Act (RTS) has been implemented in the state with much fanfare, it is yet to become, well, a right in the city. The lack of infrastructure, awareness and coordination at various inter-department levels here has filched the essence of the Act which was aimed at making government servants accountable to public by redressing citizen’s grievances through ‘Suwidha’ Centres in a stipulated time. Election duties slow down work
With elections around the corner, most of the services at the centre have ceased to exit, due to the non-availability of some of the key signing authorities like Executive Magistrate (EM), Tehsildaar, District Food and Civil Supplies Controller (DFSC) and Miscellaneous Assistant (MA) at the Suwidha Centres in the district. “Due to the involvement of these officials in election duties, the general public is suffering a lot. Although, the jobs of these officials are being assigned to other executives, due to them having additional charges of many other departments as well, they do not make themselves available for the Suwidha work most of the time. Due to this, the pendency work of our centre has almost risen to 60 per cent,” said Rajbir Singh, Suwidha Manager, Jalandhar. He also said that since the last few months, the highest pendency was being reported from the arms licensing department followed by the MA branch and DFSC office. “We have around 300 pending cases in the arms department, almost same in the MA branch and around 600 in the DFSC branch,” confirmed Rajbir. Delay in e-governance project dampens the ‘Suwidha’ spirit
The Suwidha project in the district has still not taken off completely due to the non implementation of the e-governance project in the state. According to Amit Monga, District coordinator, e-governance project, “Presently, Suwidha Centres are acting nothing more than a postman in the entire process. They take the applications and deliver them by hand to the respective departments. Then the respective official scrutinises the whole documents manually and after confirming them sends again by hand to the respective Suwidha Kendra. Sometimes, if he is busy or has been assigned some additional charge as it happens most of the time, the whole concept of the ‘Suwidha’ being provided to the general public in a stipulated time goes for a complete toss.” He also highlighted the dire need to launch the e-governance project in the state to allow all the Suwidha Centres to work efficiently in the service of people. “The 100 per cent electronic workflow will ensure single point interaction for the public. The certificates which presently take a long to get signed by the concerned authority due to varied reasons, will be easily issued through digital signatures and can be printed by concerned Suwidha Centres. Also, the public can track the status of their applications through the portal and the escalation metrics will ensure adherence to the service level defined for each service,” said Monga. Lack of awareness in general public
The administration is providing around 146 services under the RTS but due to lack of awareness, people are availing only a few of them. Although, the Suwidha Centres in the district is reporting pendency of about 60 per cent, surprisingly, none of the applicant has filed an appeal or complaint against any kind of delay or harassment in getting service in a stipulated time till date hence making the district administration earning full marks in solving all queries coming under the RTS. “The biggest problem is the lack of awareness. People are not being able to make full use of RTS for which we are planning various contact programmes at the city as well as at the rural level. We are also targeting to crack the illegal agents network in various PUS departments,” said Sanjay Sehgal, a city-based RTI activist. The Suwidha Centres in Jalandhar are providing around 149 Public Utility Services (PUS) from 21 various departments of the district administration under RTS. Although, in some of the generic services like attesting or getting certified copies of documents like birth/death and loss of articles like mobile phones etc, the administration did succeed in providing some relief to the public but the specific services like issuance of arms licence, transfer of land sale deeds, affidavits, issuance of Registration certificates (RCs) and driving licence etc, there is a clear violation of the RTS Act. Staff mandate
Presently, more than 60 Suvidha Centres employees are working in the district. They are employed by the Sukhmani Societies for Citizen Services, a district-level body that works under the overall umbrella framework of Punjab State E-Governance Society (PSEGS).While the state government has asked the industrialists to implement the Minimum Wages Act in their units, so that, workers get the minimum wages, it seems they themselves do not take it seriously. As per the Minimum Wages Act, Rs 6,200 is the minimum salary for an unskilled worker to be recruited in any factory, while the skilled workers are to get Rs 8,000 per month and if the worker is a Matriculate,the salary should be Rs 8,250 per month. However, in the Suvidha Centres of the Punjab government, the computer operators and accountants are being paid in the range of Rs 7,000 - Rs 10,500 only. The computer operators working on contract-bases since 2004 were enrolled at a mere Rs 3,000, which was enhanced to Rs 5,000 and finally Rs 7,000, while the accountants get Rs 10,500 only. Admn fails to curb illegal agents’ racket
Although administration is earning around six to eight lakh per month as fee collected through Suwidha Centres, unfortunately, very meagre amount is being spent on public awareness or the service delivery system. There is still a single token system for all the departments. According to various applicants, the huge rush sometimes forces people to follow a shortcut route by contacting illegal agents to get the work done. “They should give different tokens for different departments so that more people should get benefit through Suwidha Centres. After issuing specified number of tokens, the felicitation counters close the windows causing distress to people coming from the far off places hence allowing mushrooming of the illegal agents’ network,” said Mandeep Kaur, a student. However, to resolve the problem in the delay of the issuance of tokens for various works at the Suwidha Centre, the district administration has recently purchased a touch-screen token-dispensing machine. The machine, which has been bought at a cost of Rs 1 lakh, is likely to be installed in a week's time. The machine has an in-built computer system and software for the purpose. The software is being currently customised to cater to the specific needs of the centre. The administration has plans to buy two more token machines, if the trial with the first one is successful. The administration which had about five years ago purchased a touch-screen kiosk for knowing the status of applications has had a bad experience with the device which hardly remained in use. People used to press the screen so hard and fiddle with its buttons that it often remained out of order. For the same reason, the administration plans to deploy an employee of Suwidha Centre with the new token machine. Present status
Although, the district administration has recently segregated few services from the Suwidha centres to the Municipal Corporation, Tehsildar office and the District Transport office, still due to the lack of interest by some of the officials, the percentage of backlog is increasing with each passing day. It’s high time to implement the e-governance project in the state, the delay in which could crash the ‘Suwidha’ project completely in the state. |
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‘Need to create awareness on NOTA button’
Jalandhar, March 23 Notably, Supreme Court, in its judgement dated September 27, 2013, had directed the Election Commission to make necessary provision in the ballot papers/EVMs and to provide a button for 'None of the above' on EVMs. Using this provision voter can select a button during voting that says ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) and can reject all the candidates in case she/he doesn’t believe in any candidate. Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO that monitor elections all over India and People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) regarding NOTA in 2004. Speaking to The Tribune, Jaskirat Singh, North Zone Coordinator of ADR, which is also making efforts to publicise NOTA, said that it would be the greatest thing if a campaign is launched to make people aware of NOTA. But government and political parties do not want the same to be promoted as it would go against them. “ADR fought for the same cause for nearly nine years. I think having a same button on the EVM itself plays vital role as far as awareness among the citizens is concerned. It has just been few months that the Supreme Court has given verdict over the NOTA. People will get to know about it gradually,” Jaskirat said, adding that similarly the rule 49 (O) has not been publicised since its inception. “Rule 49 (O) of the Conduct of the Election Rules 1961 had the value as NOTA, in which voter was made sign in a particular register for his/her intention of not to vote any of the candidates,” he added. Karnail Singh Bains, Election Tehsildar said students in the colleges were being made aware of the EVM machines and NOTA button option. Apart from this, plans are being made to approach the villagers for the same purposes.
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Students depict modern themes through colours
Jalandhar, March 23 Works by about nine painters (three teachers and six students) have been put up in the exhibition which concluded at the Virsa Vihar today. Started on March 21, the group has already displayed their works at exhibitions in Chandigarh and will be heading to Amritsar from here. While the exhibition sees students depicting various modern themes, neons and vibrant shades rule the colour palette of the students in a visible break from the past traditions. Shailendra Pal, Assistant Professor at the department of fine arts at the BBK DAV College, while talking to The Tribune said, “These are all out of syllabus paintings put up by students. For independent work, we tell them to stick to a contemporary painting.” As many as three students of the BBK DAV College have also recently been awarded with an award from the Indian Academy of Fine Arts. The works ‘Untitled’ Amrit Kaur, Small Things Lead to Big Things (Shruti Khurana) and Journey of Culture (Amrit Kaur) were awarded the state awards by the Academy. “A different approach works differently in attaining greater heights for works. While many people took interest in their works at Chandigarh, we also hope for similar responses from other parts of Punjab,” Pal said. The exhibition at Amritsar will start from March 24.
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NRI's house burgled
Jalandhar, March 23 Victim Kanta Devi said all family members had gone to Khanna to meet their relatives on Saturday. When they returned home today morning, they found the locks of main door broken. She further alleged whole house was ransacked by the miscreants who decamped with 250 gm of gold, four mobile phones and Rs 50,000 lying in the safe. The Bhargav camp police have registered a case against unidentified miscreants.
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Drug peddler arrested
Jalandhar, March 23 The peddler has been identified as Manjit Singh, alias Goldy, resident of Nagra village near here. CIA official said the police had laid a naka near the Basti Bawa Khel area for routine checking and arrested the accused. — TNS
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A 26-year-old youth was hacked to death by certain unidentified persons in the Basti Sheikh locality late this evening.
The deceased was identified as Richi, a resident of the same locality.
With no policy in sight on setting up water-recycling plants at the car service stations, this precious natural resource is being indiscriminately wasted on washing vehicles.
Jalandhar, March 23
The Suwidha (Single User-Friendly Window Disposal Helpline for Applicants) project in the district, which aimed at providing 146 Public Utility Services under one roof, is losing its sheen due to delay in the implementation of the e-governance project and the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections in the state.
