Jalandhar, July 24
The applicants at the Suwidha Centre here have been a harassed lot for the past two days, as the server has either been remaining off or running at a very slow speed, causing a great deal of inconvenience to them.

Applicants said they had been made to wait to get their work done for three hours today as well as yesterday and finally told by the Suwidha Cetre staff that they could not be helped. The staff also said that they were feeding data into the systems, but it was not getting uploaded owing to which they were not able to process the files.

Applicants at the affidavit and countersign windows were the most harassed, as the work which gets done in less than half an hour was today taking long.

Some of the applicants even went to lodge their complaint with the systems manager of the Suwidha Centre and the Deputy Commissioner’s office, but to no avail.

Only a few files could be processed today, as the working of the systems remained erratic till evening. The staff said ever since the e-governance department had started the Web Suwidha scheme, the working of the systems remained dicey.

The queue for token system remained very long, as there was a problem in dispensing tokens too and the applicants had to wait for over two hours simply to get the tokens issued. Humid weather further compounded their problems.

Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishor Yadav said he had been contacted by the higher officials concerned in this regard to get the problem rectified from the Chandigarh-end.

Jalandhar, July 24
In a fresh development in the embezzlement case which has rocked the Education Department, the anticipatory bail plea of DEO office clerk Bir Meherban was rejected in the court of Additional Sessions Judge Arun Dev Vashishth here today. An arrest warrant had been issued against Meherban following an FIR registered against him at the police station No. 2 two under Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, following which raids were being conducted at various places for the past many days, to find him.

While the FIR primarily dealt with alleged embezzlement on the issue of medical claims, Meherban’s lawyer had sought anticipatory bail based on the claims that all government funds received with regard to the medical claims had been submitted by Meherban in the government account and none of the money was with him. However, the prosecution today furnished documents in court claiming the opposite.

Both Meherban and former DEO (Secondary) Jalandhar Kuldeep Kumar were suspended in July for reported embezzlement of funds in the Education Department in connection with schemes, including medical claims, Uttarakhand Relief Fund, SC/BC stipends, MPLAD funds, Red Cross Ticket Fund and Army Flag funds.

The Education Department, meanwhile, continues to maintain a studied silence on the issue. While the FIR against Meherban was lodged in the first week of July, so far the clerk hasn’t been found by the police.

Jalandhar, July 24
A day after members of the Old Railway Road Sant Cinema Market Shopkeepers Association and New Railway Road Shopkeepers Association gave a complaint to the Vigilance Bureau regarding the poor quality of road being constructed and that, too, without fulfilling the norms, the Municipal Corporation (MC) authorities today got into action.

The shopkeepers, led by Lalit Mehta, Lajpat Rai Mehta and Sudesh Vij, had yesterday lodged a complaint that the MC had not got constructed any road gullies or left spaces for new sewage manholes for the drainage of rainwater. The B&R Department of the MC today directed the contractor to do the needful and get the rectification done. After this, the road patches where road gullies are to be constructed were scrapped again for the purpose.

In the complaint, the shopkeepers had alleged that the MC had allotted works to contractors at Rs 94 lakh for road from Bhagwan Valmiki Gate to the railway station and Rs 44 lakh for New Railway Road, but the roads had started wearing out just days after they had been laid out.

The shopkeepers had alleged that the staff had colluded with the contractors and had not been taking any action against them. They said the roads had been lying in a bad condition for the past 10 years but even after the road had been laid now, the work had not been done properly. 

Jalandhar, July 24
A move by the Deputy Commissioner (DC) to catch hold of the unscrupulous elements in the Revenue Department by making random calls to property buyers and sellers has started yielding results.

During such an exercise, DC Kamal Kishor Yadav found that during a recent sale-purchase deal in Jalandhar-1 tehsil, a deed writer, who is supposed to take just Rs 270 as his fee, had taken Rs 2,000 and a numberdar, who is not supposed to charge any amount, too, had taken Rs 500.

The DC said he was in the process of issuing showcause notices to the deed writer and the numberdar. In case, they fail to give me a convincing reply, they will have to face the music, he said.

The DC said he had himself made the calls to the property buyers and sellers. He said he had been daily getting computerised lists of the registries done in the tehsil complex with the name and contact numbers of the buyers and sellers, names of the deed writer and registry clerk concerned and stamp fee and other charges levied.

He said he made a call to the buyer and crosschecked the facts stated by him by making a call to the seller. Yadav said he had gathered information that some MC councillors and numberdars were repeatedly becoming witnesses in numerous cases in a day. They clearly had been doing this to make additional income by illegally charging an amount from property sellers, else they have no reason to remain in the compound the whole day.

“Now I have told the tehsildars to provide me an additional detail in the daily report by giving names of the witnesses for each deal. I will look for multiplicity of names in the list and get this malpractice checked,” he said. 

Jalandhar, July 24
After the launch of e-stamping in Himachal Pradesh, New Delhi and other 11 states, the government seems to be preparing to launch a similar computerised service for the payment of non-judicial stamp papers to the government.

Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishor Yadav, however, said he was yet to ascertain if the scheme would be launched along with the e-district project. He said preparations to launch the 10 services in the e-district programme from September onwards were on. Various services to be launched, include pension applications, SC/BC certificate and residence certificates.

The scheme will bring much relief to the public, who have to run around to get stamp papers of the right denomination or forced to purchase stamp papers of higher value than required. Stamp vendors often fleece customers by charging more amount than the actual value of papers.

The new online application, which is being offered by the Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited (SHCIL), will help a buyer purchase stamp papers sitting on his or her desktop. The system devised is also said to be tamper-free. Each stamp paper downloaded this way is generated with a unique identification number, which is also verifiable from the internet.

Meanwhile,stamp vendors in the district are a worried lot. They have been lodging protest on the issue as they feel that they would be rendered jobless once the e-stamping system is launched. 

Jalandhar, July 24
Hackers are trying to cash in on the ongoing crises in Ukraine by hacking email accounts. After getting access to stored contacts in hacked email accounts, miscreants are sending requests for financial help on the pretext that they are stuck in the strife-torn Ukraine.

One such email was received by a Jalandhar-based Rishi Verma, who is also vice-president of Anti Hacking Anticipation Society. Considering the seriousness of the issue, he is alerting his friends and others in social circle to prevent them from falling prey to fake emails.

The original email account of Rishi’s teacher, Neelam, was hacked by miscreants when he received an email about a woman and her family, who needed financial help to reach India as they were stuck in Ukraine.

“I am sorry for reaching you rather too late due to the situation of things right now. My family and I were visiting Kharkov (Ukraine). Everything was fine until last night when we were attacked by some gunmen. All our money, phones and credit cards, including some valuable items were stolen. We have reported the incident to the local authorities and the consulate, but their response was too casual. We were asked to come back in two weeks time for proper investigations, but the truth is that we can’t wait till then as we have to return as our flight is booked and is leaving in few hours from now. Presently we have problems we have no money to pay our bills or to get a cab to the airport. All we need is 2,850 US dollars. I promise to repay you the full amount as soon as I return India,” says the email sent from Chandigarh-based Neelam and received by Rishi.

On inquiring Rishi found Neelam at home in Chandigarh and not in Ukraine. On further inquiry Rishi found that the email was sent from Mumbai and not from the original email account of Neelam, his teacher.

Experts recall that in 2010 with the imposition of a ban on corporate SMS by the Indian Government, computer hackers had become active across the country. Hackers had then sent fake e-mails, generated for various bank IDs and asked account holders to fill an online form asking name, ID, password, transaction password, name of card, card type, debit/credit card no, expiry date, CVV code, ATMs PIN etc.

Jalandhar, July 24
Seeking annulment of Section 13(1) of the VAT Act, the Jalandhar Industrial and Traders Action Committee today burnt copies of the VAT Act at Gurh Mandi. Members of the committee have threatened to launch a protest if their demand was not fulfilled.

Representatives of the committee, Ravinder Dhir and Pritam Singh Arora, said amendment to the VAT Act was not at all acceptable to them.

Industrialists and traders of Punjab have opposed the recent notification regarding the VAT Act as it has a lot of complications. “According to the notification, dealers cannot get VAT refund on the stock lying with them as it is being given only on the actual sales. It has also made the criteria of calculating the VAT refund cumbersome. Its sole motive is to harass businessmen,” alleged traders.

Continuing with their campaign, the traders would also hold a protest against state government at Attari Bazar tomorrow.

Jalandhar, July 24
Educomp is all set to transform schools across India into smart schools with the launch of Educomp Smart School (ESS).

The launch of the ESS coincides with the 10-year celebrations of Educomp’s flagship product, smart class. The ESS is the next generation smart learning suite of products for schools, which brings together five layers of technology adoption for schools and integrates them into one composite solution.

Addressing a gathering of school principals, Rakesh Dahiya, regional CEO-North, smart class, said, “With Educomp Smart School, we look at the school as an integrated learning ecosystem, where students can see education come alive in class through 3D animations, lesson plans and cloud based real-time updates. They can create and do experiments through virtual experiments and master language though English mentor, which uses never seen before technology for voice recognition. Our 3D content immerses students into a new world of multi-sensory learning and the assessment system. Educomp Insight allows schools and parents to track where students are in their cognitive development. Through Educomp Online, schools can link students, teachers and parents into an information exchange, messaging, CCE, assessments and peer to peer learning.”

Speaking to the Jalandhar Tribune Rakesh said around 25 to 30 schools would become smart schools by using their services. “The Educomp Smart School architecture also allows schools an unprecedented amount of customisation depending on scale, size or content. Being the largest player in the sector with over 15,000 schools using its products, Educomp will be able to effect a seamless transition for many existing schools to the smart school eco-system,” added the CEO. 

Jalandhar, July 24
The ETT Teacher’s Union staged a sit-in dharna in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s Office today. The union was protesting against the Punjab government’s negligent attitude towards their long-pending demands.

Apart from raising anti-state government slogans, they handed over a memorandum of their demands to the Deputy Commissioner. Addressing the gathering, union representative, Beant Singh Bhadsan, said a total of 13,000 ETT teachers in the state had been teaching in 5,752 schools. He said these schools come under Zila Parishads and Nagar Councils irregularly. He said despite assurances given by the Punjab Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister that such schools would be brought under the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) directly, the state government had failed act on the issue. Beant said state president of the union, Jaswinder Singh Sandhu, had been observing fast unto death for the past five days in front of the DPI Elementary Office at Mohali against dilly-dallying approach of the state
government.

He said not only teachers but the students too had been deprived of the PSEB facilities at schools, which come under Zila Parishads and Nagar Councils. 

Jalandhar, July 24
In the six-month-old murder case in which a woman and her paramour were found dead under mysterious circumstances at the woman’s residence in Azad Nagar, the Jalandhar Police Commissionerate today claimed to have solved the case with the arrest of two accused.

One of the accused is the husband of a deceased woman.

In the sensational double murder case, two persons, Sushil Joshi of Azad Nagar and her paramour Mahinder Singh Titu of Model House, were found murdered in the house of Rajesh on January 18.

The arrested accused have been identified as Resham Singh (47) of Phagwara and Rajesh Joshi (45) of Azad Nagar. Rajesh is the husband of Sushil Joshi. He was also involved in the murder conspiracy with Resham.

Police Commissioner Jalandhar, Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, said during investigation, it had come to the fore that Resham had hatched a conspiracy to kill his brother Jagir Singh with the motive to get a whopping insurance amount of Rs 3.5 crore.

Resham hired Mahinder Singh Titu as Supari killer and assured him to pay Rs 10 lakh for killing his brother Jagir. On May 30, 2013, Resham had specially bought a tipper truck to get his brother killed in a hit-and-run case. He also gave Rs 5 lakh advance to Titu for killing Jagir. Titu had crushed Jagir to death in the Kanhuwan area of Gurdaspur.

Following the incident, Jagir’s brother Resham got a case of death due to negligence registered at the Kanwan police station. After he started the process of claiming insurance amounts, the police got to know about the conspiracy he conspired.

Supari killer Titu, who was only paid half the amount, started pressurising Resham to pay the remaining amount. On January 18, 2014, Resham decided to pay the remaining Rs 5 lakh to Titu, at his (Sushil) paramour Sushil’s house in Azad Nagar.

Resham, who had to visit Azad Nagar to clear the payment, had already hatched a conspiracy to kill Titu. After Resham entered Sushil’s house, he shot dead Titu and later also shot dead his paramour Sushil, as she had witnessed the killing of Titu. The Police Commissioner said further investigation was on in the case.

Now in the hit-and-run case in which Jagir was killed would also be reopened and murder trial is likely in the case. 

The casea On January 18, 2014, a middle-aged woman and her “paramour” were found dead under mysterious circumstances at the woman’s residence in Azad Nagar. The man had a bullet injury on his head, while the woman had three gun shots on her face. The police had then suspected that both Sushil and Titu had shot each other. Then even the senior police officials had said that it seemed that the man had first shot the woman and then shot himself dead.