Jalandhar, April 17
Continuing their attack against Mayor Sunil Jyoti ahead of the Lok Sabha poll, Congress councillors today served a notice on him to call a special meeting at the earliest “to deliberate upon some irregularities and corruption issues emerging on the civic matters and to safeguard the image of the MC House”.

The councillors, led by the Leader of the Opposition Jagdish Raj Raja, today served him the notice under Section 55 (2) of the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act 1976. The section reads, “The Mayor or in his absence the Senior Deputy Mayor, and in the absence of both, the Deputy Mayor may, whenever he thinks fit, and shall upon a requisition in writing by not less than one-fourth of the total number of councillors, convene a special meeting of the Corporation”.

Since the House is represented by 60 councillors, 18 of them (constituting more than one-fourth as per requirement) gave him a signed notice.

The notice was signed by Raja from ward 37, his wife Anita Raja from ward 36, Gurvinder Banti Neelkanth from ward 24, Gurvinder Kaur from ward 44, Sarabjit Kaur from ward 56, Dalwinder Kaur from ward 8, Des Raj Jassal from ward 1, Aruna Arora from ward 55, Pardeep Singh Rai from ward 40, Tarsem Lakhotra from ward 51, Uma Beri from ward 30, Neerja Jain from ward 33, Reena Kaur from ward 6, Baldev Singh from ward 42, Palani Soami from ward 17, Pawan Kumar from ward 55 and Surinder Kaur from ward 58.

Jalandhar, April 17
Residents and shopkeepers of Gurjit Nagar near Garha held a protest in the Municipal Corporation (MC) office today for alleged inaction on part of the building branch staff over an illegal construction in the area at the behest of some leaders.

Residents of the area, led by Sucha Singh Padda, said a jeweller in the area had purchased a residential property on Garha Road and had started the construction of 16 shops there without any Change of Land Use or getting the building plan sanctioned from the MC.

They alleged that officials were hand in glove with the builder and had been protecting him over the issue. They said that after they held the protest yesterday, the builder had to get the construction stopped themselves at the site.

Today, they met Senior Town Planner Tirlok Singh who told them that he had got served a notice to the builder for the alleged violation. He said since the owner had on earlier occasions not received the notice, he was told that an FIR would be lodged against him, at which he took the notice and stopped construction. 

Jalandhar, April 17
The police division No. 4 today conducted a flag march in inner parts of the city. The police were accompanied by two companies of the Anti Riot Police (ARP).

Sumit Sood, Station House Officer, police division No. 4, who headed the flag march, said the march was conducted in the wake of the Lok Sabha elections, adding that the flag march was held in busy streets, markets and residential areas that fall in the jurisdiction of the police station.

“The motive of the flag march was to instill a sense of security among the city residents and ensure that the police were prepared to counter any untoward incident ahead of the elections. No anti-social element will be allowed to disturb the peace in the city,” Sood said, adding thatthe police would continue to conduct flag march in the coming days as well.

He also appealed to the residents who had still not deposited their licensed arms to deposit the same. “About 80 per cent licensed arms have already been deposited atthe police station and notices are being served to the others who are yet to deposit their arms,” he held.

Jalandhar, April 17
All attempts of the Local Bodies Department to repeatedly revise norms for property tax, advertise about the same and extend rebates a number of times by making them easy and more acceptable have, perhaps, not brought ample results for the civic body.

Only 40 per cent of the land owners in the city deposited the property tax till the last financial year.

The annual collection under this head stood at Rs 23.60 crore against an amount of Rs 25 crore, which was being anticipated during the presentation of the budget at the year end. Of the total nearly 2.25 lakh properties in the city assessed by a recent property survey in the city, only 91,000 owners have so far deposited the amount.

Assistant Commissioner Municipal Corporation Gurbinder Randhawa said, “If someone is to pay up the property tax now, he will have to deposit it with 20 per cent penalty. So there are very few people coming after March 31.”

Till March 31, those paying up the tax were being given 10 per cent rebate. We will wait for about two more months. From June onwards we will start issuing notices to all defaulters. By then, the ongoing property survey in the city will also be complete.

We will be clearly able to give the exact number of people who have defaulted the amount only then, he added.

While most owners of residential properties have paid up, most pending dues are to come from commercial areas. The government had revised the formula, zoning plan, per unit area values and even simplified the calculations. The department had also repeatedly advertised the rebate schemes and other incentives, but 100 per cent recovery still remained a distant dream.

The MC Jalandhar still has dues to the tune of Rs 3.45 crore for the year 2012-13. The department had started sending notices to the defaulters about two and a half months ago which are still being dealt with. 

Jalandhar, April 17
Members of the Jalandhar Box Manufacturers Union today said if the paper mill owners do not cut down on paper prices soon, they will be forced to shut down their establishments.

Addressing a press conference here today, Manjeet Singh Titu, head, Jalandhar Box Manufacturers Union and district president of the SAD trade wing said, “Paper rates have increased by 25 per cent. While we can keep a margin of five to 10 per cent on our orders, 25 per cent is unaffordable. There is also no possible reason for the hike. While mills have pooled in to show a shortage in material, we are suffering. There are no electricity cuts now, so how can production suffer.”

"Öur customers are getting inconvenienced and export orders are suffering. We have requested the paper mill owners to cut down on prices by at least 15 per cent if not much. We have also requested the district administration to organise a meeting and address our troubles, but so far, nothing concrete has happened,” he said.

Exporters and manufacturers gathered on the occasion said they had older orders worth crores, but with the raised prices, they either won’t be able to give proper orders or the supply would stop which will further affect their earnings.

The manufacturers appealed to the district administration to intervene in the matter so that a common ground can be reached between the box manufacturers and the traders.

The manufacturers also said that if a solution to the problem is not found soon, then they might have to close shop.

“Factories will have to be closed if the issue is not resolved soon. It’s up to the paper mill owners to work out a solution,” Titu quipped.

Gurpreet Singh Talwar, Rajkumar Arora, Gurpreet Singh Raji, Rajan Arora, Sumit Mehndiratta, Sudarshan Kumar and Mukesh Jain were also present on the occasion. 

Jalandhar, April 17
There is no criteria for fixing fees in private schools. RTI activist Rajkumar levelled this charge at a press conference here on Thursday. Talking to the press, he alleged that schools were looting thousands of rupees in the name of annual charges and the government hadn’t fixed any guidelines to prevent them from doing that.

Rajkumar had sent an RTI query to the CBSE on January 21 this year, the reply of which he got on January 28.

The answers sought by him were regarding the CBSE guidelines for the fee structure (annual admission charges) and transportation charges levied by the schools. He had also sought an answer on whether the Board had been carrying out routine inspection of schools.

In answer to both the queries, he got ambiguous replies, Rajkumar alleged.

“The reply simply directed me to chapter 2, clause 11 of the CBSE Affiliation By-laws, which is silent on the norms based on which admission is determined or regulated. All the by-laws say is, 'Fee charged should be commensurate with the facilities provided by the institution," he said.

“Unfortunately, there is no body or law to determine the regulations regarding the fee. There is no standard procedure to make sure the fee is justified or isn’t hefty. Due to this, schools are charging exorbitant fees,” he added.

He also said the reply of the CBSE on transportation charges and conducting of surprise inspections was such that no such information was available. He said the schools had begun to seek security charges to ensure that a student admitted to nursery will study until class X in that institution. This was troubling the common man, since the sum of money will be with the school for 12 years while the student is studying. He said while the school might take an interest in that sum, the parent will be returned no amount other than the sum they paid after 12 years. He said the CBSE were mum on the issue.

Rajkumar said an RTI query sent to the GND University on the fee issue also generated a worrisome reply. He said the university said the colleges themselves decide their fee and the university doesn’t regulate its structure.

Rajkumar demanded that due to lack of regulations and guidelines to decide fee in educational institutions, they were charging whimsical amounts with disregard to ethics.

Meanwhile, he said the Punjab Government has no Education Act which emerged through a ruling made by the High Court in 2013.

He demanded that a structure to regulate fees and additional charges in all educational institutions should be created so that parents are not overburdened and the fee charges remain under check.

Jalandhar, April 17
Apart from delaying the harvesting of the wheat crop, continuous bad weather may affect the quality of the grain. Some farmers feel that the yield would also get affected by 25 per cent as compared to last year.

The prolonged winter season this year and the continuous cloudy weather for the last few days have delayed the harvesting of wheat crop as harvesting starts around the Baisakhi festival.

As per the information gathered from the State Agriculture Department, the recent rainfall and the moist weather may affect the quality of the wheat crop. Farmers, on the other hand, believe that such weather conditions have caused 25 per cent less yield this year.

Gurvinder Singh of Ahmadpur village, who has nearly 23 acres of land under the wheat crop, said he felt the produce would be 25 per cent less this year because of the rainfall. He said farmers should keep checking weather updates online. There is likely to be mild to heavy rainfall tomorrow (Friday), which may cause further damage to the crop, he said.

"We always pray to the Almighty that there should not be a hailstorm as it has happened in some parts of the state, where crops have been damaged. The small farmers who own less land and all of it is under the wheat crop are among the worst affected," Gurvinder Singh added.

Suttantar Kumar, Chief Agriculture Officer, said the Phillaur tehsil in Jalandhar district has been the worst effected by yesterday's rain as 17 mm of rainfall has occurred. It will certainly affect the quality of grain as it is likely that the grains will grow black. Rainfall in Jalandhar and Nakodar has been reported at 5 mm and 4 mm, respectively, he added.

"So far, it is not of much consequence. Yet a little more of it can cause terrible damage," he added. 

Jalandhar, April 17
Taking a serious note of lack of cleanliness and hygiene at the railway stations, a Jalandhar-based human rights activist has approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to bring the issue to their notice.

The co-convener of the Centre for Human Rights, Initiative Training and Research Association, KS Nagra, in his complaint, quoted a news reports published in these columns on February 18 this year and August 25, 2013 about the condition of the railway station.

In his complaint, he said the condition of the railway station is such that garbage can be seen scattered all around the platform. The garbage bins are over filled and appear to have been never emptied. ]

Nagra said in his complaint that the picture painted in the news item and the CAG inspection report clearly shows negligence on the part of the Railways, which is the biggest polluter of environment in gross violation of the human rights of passengers who often belong to the poor segments of society.

He said the tracks are littered with night soil which are highly infectious and emit an obnoxious smell making it uneasy for the passengers to breathe while waiting for the train on the platforms. The rats can be seen roaming on the tracks and the yard freely. The accumulation of garbage blocks the drains.

The complaint further stated that continued dropping of human excreta has become a major public health problem for the railways that requires immediate attention of the railway authority to contain the spread of disease among the travelling public.

“Filthy toilets, crawling cockroaches and dirty linen are some of the things noticed by the Comptroller and Audit General (CAG) in its audit of cleanliness and sanitation in the Indian Railways. The report presented to Parliament in August 2013 pointed out that despite the issues having been raised in the past, unhygienic conditions continue to prevail not only at the station but also in coaches,” the complaint stated.