Bathinda, June 26
Power and traffic remain appeared to have disrupted following incessant rains that lashed Bathinda and its surrounding areas and brought down temperature to a few notches. Besides, ‘thieves’ also seemed to have a field day who indulged into pilferage of uprooted trees lying alongside the city roads.

The brisk wind accompanied with rains had uprooted trees, temporary hutments and brought down the advertisement hoardings and damaged the roadside vends and temporary sheds in houses at many places in Bathinda and adjoining Mansa.

Reports of maximum damage were reported from the rural areas, including villages falling under Rampura, Nathana, Maur, Bathinda and Mansa.

A visit on Bathinda-Mansa Road revealed that the uprooted trees were being taken away by poor villagers and some unscrupulous elements in tractor-trolleys and other mode of transportations.

Power supply remain disrupted in Model Town Phase-III, Bibiwala Road, ITI Chowk and some others as the wind also brought down some power cables. “Though the power outage was for nearly an hour but it was more in the rural areas as the authorities take some time to restore the same after removing entangled electric wires,” said Gurwinder Singh, a resident of Ajit Road.

Another Sukhjiwan said people woke up as the rain that launched itself in full fury in the wee hours at around 3.30 am. Following high velocity wind trees got uprooted on the Bathinda-Mansa and Bathinda-Talwandi Sabo Road.

“Poor people have a field day in view of the uprooted trees who did not left even a single tree to be lifted by the authorities of the Forest Department,” said Maggar Singh, a former sarpanch.

He added that as soon as the rain subsided people came out with the vehicles and axes to take the ‘remain’ of trees with them. A series of tree fall is also reported on the Bathinda-Goniana Road and the people of nearby areas took these trees away.

Traffic was also disrupted on Bathinda-Dabwali Road and some low-lying areas of the city in view of the rains. Some villagers removed the trees and cut some others to restore traffic.

A high tower of more than 50 feet, installed on a private bank in Mansa, too, fell off on to a house, but did not damage anything. Interestingly, the roof of some liquor vends, situated on Bathinda-Mansa Road, too blown off its perch and was being restored.

Officials of the District Forest Department said they have recently filled the sanctioned post of 47 forest guards, against the sanctioned strength of 40 guards, who keep a check over the axing of trees by unscrupulous elements. The services of seven extra guards are taken during the time of leave taken by the other guards. The department also has seven vehicles which are used to pick up the uprooted trees during the rainy season.

Divisional Forest Officer Sanjeev Tiwari refuting possibility of stealing any tree with having considerable girth, or a numbered tree, said small trees of branches might have been stolen by the public. “Our forest guards immediately rush whenever reports of tree felling pour in. If the number of fallen trees is more or has big girths then supurdari is given to one of the area residents and the tree is not removed. The matter is then brought into the notice of the Municipal Corporation and during auctioning the contractor is told to lift the tree from the place where the tree or trees lie. Tiwari assured to look into the reports of the stealing of trees on Bathinda-Mansa Road.

Bathinda, June 26
Aiming to take stock of the construction of the special school for meritorious students, pet project of the Chief Minister of Punjab Parkash Singh Badal, Principal Secretary (Education) Rahul Tiwari visited the premises of the school late in the evening today. After taking a round of the under-construction buildings, Tiwari expressed his satisfaction with the pace of work and asked the contractors to finish the work in the stipulated time period.

Tiwari arrived on the school premises, on the campus of the Giani Zail Singh Punjab Technical University, around 4.30 pm. He was accompanied by the District Education Officer (Secondary) Amarjit Kaur Kotfatta, officials of the Mandi Board and other government functionaries.

During his interaction with the representatives of the three firms, which have been invested with the work of constructing different sections of the schools and hostel buildings, Tiwari expressed his satisfaction over the pace of work and the quality of the material being used for construction.

Date extended for submitting forms

Considering the much-hyped special school for meritorious students has not been able to pull many students, the education department has extended the last date for the submission of application forms for seeking admission to the school. While earlier, the last date for submitting the forms was June 20, it has been extended till June 30.

While as many as 334 students of the government schools of the district had secured 80 per cent or more marks in Class X examination.

Till June 20, not even half of these students had applied to take admission in the school. The Education Department had received only a few more than 150 applications.

The school has not been able to lure many students despite the fact that the government will foot the bill for admissions, boarding, hostels and food. The school will aim to provide quality education to meritorious students who secured 80 per cent or above marks in Class X of the PSEB during the last session.

World class facilities

Deputy Commissioner of Bathinda Dr Basant Garg stated that the students would get free education in commerce, medical and non-medical streams up to Class XII. He added that e-content and other modern techniques will be put to use. The school is being built at a cost of Rs 29 crore.

He added that the campus, spread over 10 acres of area having two storey building, which has 20 class rooms, a library, seven lab blocks, three office rooms and a principal office. He added that the hostels will have occupancy capacity for 570 girls and 432 boys, dining hall, common room and reading room.

Bathinda, June 26
Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief Partap Singh Bajwa’s visit to Bathinda district is proving to be a trip to reconcile the members of the Bathinda District Congress Committee. On the second day of his visit to the district, Bajwa visited the house of Gura Singh Tungwali, president of the Bathinda District Congress Committee (rural) and followed it up with a visit to the house of Iqbal Singh Dhillon.

A senior leader of the Congress, belonging to Talwandi Sabo and residing in Bathinda, Ram Kumar Nambardar, was also present at Dhillon’s house and spoke to Bajwa in hushed tones regarding the increasing groupism in the party in the district and was assured by the PPCC chief that “all will be settled in the evening meeting.”

The Bathinda District Congress is known for its bifurcation along allegiance lines. While a section sides with the general secretary of the PPCC and former Bathinda MLA, Harminder Singh Jassi and others who are against him. The groupism was out in the open when Jassi and his aides had sat on a chain hunger strike outside the office of the Bathinda Municipal Corporation protesting against imposition of property tax.

Several party members had not taken part in the dharna and had complained that they were either not called for the meeting before the dharna or stated that they didn’t agree with the way Jassi and his supporters had themselves paid the tax and were still protesting against the implementation of the same.

In what may be seen as a major boost to the political clout of Jassi, Bajwa today presented Dhillon a letter announcing his appointment as the secretary of the PPCC. Apart from being a former municipal councilor from Ward No 6, Dhillon is also a close aide of Jassi.

Panel, committees to decide candidates

While the Congressmen were hoping that Bajwa would use his visit to the district to announce the name of the party’s candidate for the Talwandi Sabo by-election, PPCC chief dashed all hopes and stated that the party will constitute a panel which will decide on a name of a candidate for the assembly seat.

Ministers of no use: Bajwa

Tearing into the claims of the state government of being on its toes to bring back the Punjabis stuck in Iraq, Bajwa stated that while the Home Minister of the state, Sukhbir Singh Badal was enjoying in Australia, the Information Minister of the state was away from the state for more than a month and was not even accessible over the phone.

Bathinda, June 26
Members of the PRTC Workers’ Union Azad (Lok Leher Duji Azadi Lai) today organised a gate rally at the Bathinda bus depot under the aegis of their state president Harbans Singh Bhola. Criticising the management and state government for recruiting new employees under the contract system rather than regularising those who have been working already, the union announced that it would observe a complete shut down of services on July 9-10.

They criticised the management for forcing the temporary employees for working at lower wages and also making them work more. They also accused the management of not allowing the temporary employees to take gazetted holidays and were not even paying them money for working over time.

Union leaders Harjinder Biroke, Makhan Singh, Gurdeep Tamkotia, Rachhpal Malout, and others argued that the management was also biased in favour of the private bus operators and had started preparing time table to give them lucrative routes.

Bathinda, June 26
The Punjab Government’s plan to introduce crop diversification in the state seems bleak in the present scenario as the Agriculture Department has almost failed to motivate farmers to opt for cash crops.

According to the available figures, there is no dramatic change in the selection of crops in the Malwa region, especially in three districts — Bathinda, Mansa and Muktsar.

The area under the cotton crop has come down only in the Muktsar district but that is because of water logging rather than adoption of crop diversification plan.

In the Bathinda district, 1.05 lakh hectare is under paddy cultivation as compared to 1 lakh hectare last year and 1.50 lakh under cotton as compared to 1.43 lakh last year.

Only 30 quintal seeds of maize have been sold so far and the department expects that the area under maize cultivation will be 500 hectare this season.

The situation is quite similar in the Mansa district. The area under cotton cultivation has gone up by only 2,000 hectares and area under the paddy crop has come down by 4,000 hectare. The area under guar has gone down by 2,000 hectare — from 6,000 to 4,000 hectare this year.

District agriculture officer, Mansa, Parmjit Singh, said the main season behind the present state of affairs was that farmers are reluctant to shift towards diversification and they are sticking to paddy and cotton crops as they feel secured because the government buys his crop at a fixed rate. On the other hand, crops such as guar and maize are sold to private firms and their rates are not fixed.

The area under paddy crop in the Muktsar district has slightly increased from 70,000 hectare last year to 75,000 hectare this year and the area under the cotton crop has gone down from 93,000 hectare to 70,000 hectare. The area under guar has also gone down slightly.

District agricultural officer, Muktsar, Beant Singh, said the main reason behind the area under the cotton crop going down was water logging. “People have not sown cotton because of the fear of water logging. Last year, most of the crop was damaged and the condition is same this year also with rain on two consecutive days recently,” he said.

Farmers have avoided the guar crop this year fearing unexpected market rates.

Bathinda, June 26
The fifth online entrance examination for admission to MA, MSc, M Pharma, LLM, M Tech, M Ed and M Phil programmes in the academic session 2014-15 at the Central University of Punjab (CUP) will be held at 12 centres spread across the country, including the city campus of CUP, Bathinda, on June 28.

Online applications were invited for admission to various programmes and more than 1,200 candidates applied online. About 387 candidates will appear for test at the city centre.

Keeping in view the large number of candidates appearing for test, the entrance examination will be held in four shifts starting from 9 am to 6 pm.

Prof RC Sharma, in-charge of examinations, said the university had made elaborate arrangements for the test.

For the convenience of the candidates, the university will also provide bus facility from the bus stand to the city campus at following timings — 7.30 am, 10.15 am, 12.45 pm and 3.15 pm.

The results will be posted on July 7, on the university website www.cup.ac.in. The interviews of the candidates, who qualify the entrance examinations, will be held from July 16-18. 

Bathinda, June 26
To mark the international day against drugs and illicit trafficking, a candle march was organised in the city today by Sahara Jan Sewa society.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Gurpreet Singh Bhullar and led the march.

The march began from Shaheed Bhagat Singh Chowk in the evening and after covering various parts of the city, it ended at the Mall Road.

SSP Bhullar urged the youth to stand against the drug menace. He asked the people to help the police in nabbing drug dealers.

He said the government had initiated a drive to help the drug addicts and those who wanted to leave drugs must contact them.

Saharan Jan Sewa president Vijay Goyal said they were always against drugs as this menace is destroying the youth of the country.

He said people should help the police by providing valuable information regarding drug dealers or their supply.

Many residents, social activists and police officials took part in the march.—TNS

Bathinda, June 26
The women’s police station has registered a case against the family of Hanumangarh (Rajasthan) resident for demanding dowry from their daughter-in-law. In a complaint filed with the police, Jaspal Kaur, a resident of Gurusar, stated that she was married to Jasvir Ram, a resident of Hanumangarh, who along with his mother Gudi Bai, brother Jaskaran Ram and his sister-in-law Mona used to harass her for dowry. The police have registered a case against all the four accused under Sections 498A and 406 of the Indian Penal Code.

Two booked for duping woman

The city police have booked two persons for defrauding a resident of Bucho Mandi of Rs 3.05 lakh on the pretext of getting her daughter selected in the Border Security Force (BSF). In a complaint lodged by the victim Gurmit Kaur, she has stated that she had given Rs 3.05 lakh to the accused Mandeep Kaur, a resident of Romana Ajit Singh village in Faridkot district and her associate Bagga Singh, a resident of Maluka village in Bathinda.

They did not keep their promise once they received the money, she said.

The Nathana police station has registered a case against the accused under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. 

Bathinda, June 26
Keeping in view the fact that the district has the lowest forest cover of 1.9 per cent of the total geographical area, the Forest Department has decided to hold a meeting with the Deputy Commissioner tomorrow in this regard.

Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Sanjeev Tiwari said the department has planned to plant at least 1.5 lakh saplings this year. To accomplish this task, the department will organise a meeting of NGOs, district education officers, principals of schools, colleges, officials from private and government hospitals, industrialists and members of District Bar Association with the Deputy Commissioner.

“We will urge the participants in the meeting to adopt at least one road to plant saplings to increase the green cover,” Tiwari said.

Appreciating the efforts of a section of lawyer’s who successfully planted 40 saplings in the District Courts Complex, adjoining the lawyer’s chambers, he said lawyer’s too were invited to participate in the meeting.

District Bar Association (DBA) president Navdeep Jeeda, secretary Kanwaljit Kuti and senior lawyer Gurwinder Mann said they were given 40 saplings by the DFO and tree guards were provided by the commissioner of Bathinda Municipal Corporation, Dalwinder Singh.

“Initially it seemed like a herculean task but with the encouragement by DFO and MC commissioner, the saplings were planted in the courts complex,” said advocate Gurwinder Mann.

They were worried about the source of water to plant these saplings but then they devised a method and diverted the route of water from the rooftop of lawyer’s chamber, he added.

Assistant Commissioner of the MC, Kamal Kant, said the courts complex had enough area to plant at least 500 more saplings and lawyers were encouraged to utilise the space.

“We assure them to provide more tree guards without any delay,” he said.

The entire green cover on the Bathinda-Barnala Road has been wiped out with the axing of trees. Around 1,00,000 more trees will be felled on the Bathinda-Bajakhana Road in view of the road widening project.

The DFO said a tree transplanter costing Rs 1 crore was demanded from the Punjab Government, which will help in transplanting mature trees from one place to another.

“The transplanter helps in successfully transplanting at least 30 to 35 mature trees with girth not more than 120 cm in one day. The machine has proved its success in Gujarat,” the DFO said.

Around 100 trees are likely to be axed on the Bathinda-Malout Road where a railway over-bridge (ROB) will be built. 

Bathinda, June 26
Quarters inside the Police Lines appear to be lying in a dilapidated condition for police officials’ families. The Police Department seem to have turned a blind eye towards the problem.

There are large numbers of police officials, who have not got any residential quarters who live on rented private accommodations in the city.

The condition of some of the quarters is not worth explaining as the ceiling has fallen down and these quarters are located towards the Civil Lines area, which is a residence area and can lead to major incident if this building deteriorates further.

It is worth mentioning that the Police Department are making new building of barracks for women officials spending a large amount, whereas the barracks could have been made in these dilapidated quarters by repairing them.

As the police are facing several financial crunch due to which the cops fill oil tanks of their vehicles at private petrol pump and that to on credit.

A police official at Police Lines on condition of anonymity said the condition of many buildings in the Police Lines is quite pathetic and its ceilings can come down anytime. He also stated that the police personals had to stay outside the police line on rent as there are very less number of quarters and many of them are closed as they are not maintained from last some time.

Another police official said they are surprised to see the department is issuing funds for building new barracks where as the no one is looking to renovate the exiting structure which is in shambles.

The office of Motor Transport inside the Police Lines seemed to be worst affected. Jasvir Singh, SP (Headquarters) while talking to the Bathinda Tribune said they have made a new plan under which we are constructing new barracks, work on one barrack is on and after that work on others barracks will also be started. He also told that they are going to demolish the old building soon.