Jalandhar, August 8
Following the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the municipal corporation (MC) authorities have told the owners of 1,123 buildings along the national highway to withdraw their boundary walls in the scheduled roads by August 15 or face demolition.

The MC is also in the process of issuing a public notice in this regard, saying any construction at a 5-m distance from a national highway or a scheduled road is a violation of the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act (PAPRA) 1995. In the notice, Senior Town Planner Tirlok Singh has said the notice had been issued following orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in a Civil Writ Petition 4559 of 2007.

The Town Planning Department of the MC has already made a roadwise detail of the buildings which have encroached upon the government land illegally. The list with the details, including road, name of the owner, violation, notice number and size of violation, has been put up on the MC’s official website www.mcjalandhar.in.

A perusal of the list indicates that almost all commercial constructions along the Jalandhar-Nakodar road will have to remove their frontal portions. The list also partly includes 560 x 16 feet of the TV Tower and Centre on NH-71.

There are 503 encroachments along Jalandhar-Nakodar road only. While there are 327 encroachments on the left side of the road, there are 176 on the right side.

The number of illegal extensions on the left side of the Hoshiarpur road are 121. On the right side, there are 204 encroachments. The number of illegal extensions, however, are fewer on the Amritsar road, where owners of 87 building owners will have to recede their frontal boundary wall. The list also includes 206 encroachments on the Pathankot road.

MC Commissioner MC Chattwal said the owners had just a week’s time to withdraw their boundary walls, else the MC would have to deploy its machinery for the same.

Jalandhar, August 8
Conflicting statements of Akali-BJP functionaries have led to an impasse, with hundreds of people across the state groping in the dark on whether the huge amount of CLU charges that they had paid to the government after June 18, 2009, would be refunded.

Since neither the minister nor the department officials have cleared the air on the issue of the CLU charges that have been levied from owners of hotels, industry and hospitals, they have said that they have been running around to seek clarity, but to no avail.

The owners have said that they had been daily reading papers to check the latest stand of the government on the issue.

Even the Municipal Corporation (MC) officers across Punjab and the offices of Local Bodies are flooded with queries on the issue, with owners saying that they should be refunded the amount with interest.

A city based cardiologist, who has recently constructed a hospital on a 4-acre land on Jalandhar-Pathankot Road, said he had paid an amount of Rs 36.26 lakh as the CLU charges in 2010. “I had yesterday called up town planning officials to know if I would be refunded the amount ,but they said that they could not say anything till there were clear instructions from the government.”

Likewise, another local doctor, who, too, has come up with a hospital few months ago, said, “We have certainly paid the CLU amount after June 2009. I have asked my architect to check the date and amount so that we can make a claim from the government.”

Hoteliers Sarabdeep Lally, who is coming up with Taj Hotel on the Jalandhar-Phagwara highway, and Anil Chopra, who has come up with the revolving hotel project in the city, too, have said that they had been trying to contact officials for clarity on the CLU refund.

Senior Town Planner MC Tirlok Singh said the notification mentioned in the papers is the one issued by the Housing Department for areas outside the MC limits.

The same notification is yet to be put up by the Local Bodies Department. “But we are yet to get an official letter on the same,” he said.

Director Local Bodies Priyank Bharti and Secretary Local Bodies Ashok Gupta refused to comment on the matter, saying the code of conduct was on. Local Bodies Minister Anil Joshi was stated to be out of station and not available till tomorrow evening.

Former Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia, however, said that it had become an extremely difficult situation for the cash-starved MCs to repay the CLU.

Jalandhar, August 8
In a major setback in the case of suspended education department clerk Bir Meherban, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued a stay on his arrest until the next date of hearing on the issue.

Bir Meherban had been booked on July 3, 2014, after an FIR regarding embezzlement in medical claims had been filed against him at the division No. 2 police station in Jalandhar.

He was later suspended from the Education Department on July 14, following allegations of embezzlement of government funds against him and then DEO Kuldeep Kumar.

He was booked under Sections 13 (1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and 409/120-B of the IPC.

On July 24, the anticipatory bail plea of Meherban was also rejected in the court of Additional Sessions Judge in Jalandhar. However, today’s development has dramatically altered the status of the case.

Sources said the basis of today’s stay was reportedly a compromise reached between him and the party which lodged the FIR against him.

Interestingly, while the hunt for him had speeded up a bit when reports of his suspension hit the media, the police has been unable to trace him for the past over a month despite claims of raids at his home and those of his relatives etc.

The next date of hearing in his case is November 17, 2014.

The presently ongoing Education Department inquiry is looking into schemes like the Uttarakhand Relief Fund, SC/BC stipends, MPLAD funds, Red Cross Ticket Fund, Army Flag funds in the case. However, the department remains tight-lipped about the status of the inquiry even after 15 days of the issue.

Jalandhar, August 8
About 20 days after the suspension of former DEO Kuldeep Kumar and clerk Bir Meherban, another employee of the Education Department has been suspended following serious allegations made against him.

The Education Department has, meanwhile, failed to make public the details of these enquiries and remained mum in all cases.

On the very day the news of BPEO Lakha’s suspension became public, a three-member committee, appointed by the Circle Education Officer Hukam Singh, framed a report based on charges and allegations of harassment made against him.

Deputy CEO Rampal, principal, District Institute of Education and Training and Deputy DEO (elementary education) were made members of the committee.

While the district education officials from the DEO to the inquiry committee members remained mum on the details of this inquiry, sources said the committee had taken a serious note of the charges of harassment made against the BPEO by female employees.

Statements of as many as 10 to 13 female volunteers and teachers were collected during the course of the inquiry.

Meanwhile, even after the suspension of the said BPEO, the Government Teachers Union refused to relent on the issue. Activists of the union, even after the BPEO’s suspension, reiterated that they would not sit quiet until he was dismissed from service and his state awardee status revoked.

CEO Hukam Singh, who had received the report of his committee on Wednesday, continued to maintain today that he hadn’t gone through the report so far.

Jalandhar, August 8
Unable to bring up her children, a woman today hanged herself to death at her residence on the Gulab Devi road. Anju also left behind a suicide note in which she stated that nobody was responsible for her death. Police sources said she, along with her husband and children, was living separately from her in-laws, and for the past few days, was under some tension.

Today, she was alone at home and took the extreme step, a police source said, adding that a suicide note was recovered from the spot in which she had stated that she took the extreme step as she couldn’t bring up her children. Suspecting no foul play, the police, after sending the body for postmortem, initiated inquest proceedings under Section 174 of the CrPC.

Jalandhar, August 8
ETO Sareen, against whom traders have opened up front for allegedly penalising them on the pretext of bogus billings, claimed that he had a full-fledged recording of conversation that took place between him and a trader Hanuman Singla which clearly established that trader was part of the bogus billing scam.

Handing an audio recording to The Tribune, ETO Sareen said, he along with his Excise and Taxation Officer and Inspectors Union, would soon submit it to the inquiry officer Additional Excise and Taxation Officer, Punjab, Shiv Dular Singh Dhillon.

However, the trader, Hanuman Singla, has denied the allegation.

“In a conversation, that took place after I slapped penalty on trader Singla, he arrived at my office and made a clear attempt to bribe me. He even also named some senior officials of the Vigilance Department and the Punjab Police, with whom he claimed to have close proximity,” ETO Sareen said, alleging that Singla had forced him to take 50 per cent tax than the actual amount.

In the recording, trader Singla was also found saying that after closing the firm, he would apply for another TIN number in another state, the official revealed.

Sareen said their union had decided to submit that recording to the Additional ETC Shiv Dular Singh Dhillon soon, adding that he would also take up the matter with the Deputy Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.

“Whatever penalty is levied, is genuine and as per the law. Now traders are raking up the matter by levelling fake allegation against me that I levied bogus penalty on them. Everything is on record and investigation by our senior officials will soon bring out the truth,” Sareen claimed.

As per the ETO Amit Sareen claims, owner of Ghanaiya Lal Jai Narain Company Hanuman Singla was also likely to face Rs 30 lakh penalty on account of a complaint of bogus purchases made by him from a fake company and claiming back the amount as the VAT refund. Further, traders Gursharan Singh and Ravi Mahendru, had been found to be involved in unethical practices by the department.

Earlier, Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner Sarojini Gautam Sharda had said that Gargip International, owned by another agitating trader Gursharan Singh, had made huge bogus purchases to the tune of Rs 13.30 crore from Sumesh Sales and Rs 38 lakh from Saslasar Ispat during the period 2012-13.

“After the investigations, VAT refund of Gargip to the tune of Rs 20,45,219 (July 1, 2012 to September 30, 2012), Rs 16,99,549 (October 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012) and Rs 27,39,013 (January 1, 2013 to March 31, 2013), had been rejected,” she had said.

When asked about audio recording, trader Hanuman Singla denied the allegation and said Sareen was trying to malign his image. He had tampered with assessment records. He reiterated that many traders had submitted affidavit against Sareen for demanding money to sort out tax issues.

Phagwara, August 8
MLU DAV College, Phagwara, organised a Talent Hunt Competition (Phase-II) on its campus. The main events of the competition were elocution debate, poetical symposium and quiz.

Varun bagged the first position, Komal and Abhilash got the second positions in elocution. In quiz, Ankit, Sonika and Shubham got the first, second and third positions respectively.

Principal Dr Suman Tandon presented the mementoes to the winners and appreciated the efforts of the faculty in motivating the students to showcase their talent.

Jalandhar, August 8
Even as it has been nearly 40 days since the Jalandhar administration had slashed the collector rates of properties, the official website of the administration continues to flash the old rates.

The rates were revised on June 30 on the orders of Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Collector Kamal Kishor Yadav.

There had been a cut in the rates up to 25 per cent, especially in certain pockets including Model Town, New Jawahar Nagar, GT Road near Paragpur, Central Town, Chhoti Baradari, Lajpat Nagar, Basti Bawa Khel and Adarsh Nagar.

The new rates were implemented on July 1.The applicants visiting the tehsil complex for registry and get other works done have to contact the revenue staff on phone to check the rates.

The systems at the tehsil complex, however, have the soft copies of the new rates available from which the rates are checked before calculating the registry charges.

Avtar Singh, a resident of Basti Sheikh, said he wanted to sell his property but was not aware of the collector rates for which he had especially come to the tehsil to get the information.

The staff of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) said since there were hundreds of pages which were to be scanned and uploaded on the website, it was taking a little time. “We cannot directly upload the soft copy. A signed hard copy has to be put up. The new rates will be available on the website by Monday”, they said. 

Jalandhar, August 8
A team of the Local Bodies Department, led by the secretary, Ashok Gupta, today visited solid waste sites in and around the city.

Gupta accompanied by the departmental secretary JM Balamurugan, Deputy Director Local Bodies Praneet Bhardwaj, MC Commissioner Manpreet Chattwal, Chief Engineer AS Dhaliwal and SE (O and M) PS Jaggi went to Nakodar and the dairy complex at Jamsher.

A meeting with staff and a site visit at the Wariana Solid Waste Treatment Plant and new dumping site near Pholariwal has also been planned for tomorrow.

The issue assumes importance as the solid waste management project is yet to be started in Jalandhar. The case pertaining to improper lifting of garbage at Nakodar has also been pending with the National Green Tribunal.