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Mad rush for HSRPs, public inconvenienced
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DC tells MC to repair road around bus stand
Attempt to loot Punjab National Bank ATM
BMC intersection in city a cause
of scare for pedestrians
Seven more diarrhoea cases reported
Abandoned newborn found
Procurement agencies’ staff hold protest
Retired defence personnel residing in Kewal Vihar threaten to return medals
Bogus complaints issue
BJP frowns at leaders’ participation in dharna
from schools, colleges
1 held with stolen cell phone
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Mad rush for HSRPs, public inconvenienced
Jalandhar, August 19 While the office was to remain open for 15 hours from today from 6 am to 9 pm to meet the August 31 deadline, those who came early had to face problems. While the staff of the Agro Impex company doing the job came in time, the counters at the office did not open, as the DTO staff did not turn up as per the orders of the DTO. The private company staff only cut the manual receipts for the 10 applicants who came up to 8:20 am, their computerised prints and entries could be done only after the staff came over and the applicants had to wait till that time. The rush started as the clock struck 9 am and the applicants kept on pouring in in very large numbers the whole day. The rush became maddening and the staff of the DTO office had a tough time in manning the applicants standing in long queues at the three counters set up there. As all this kept on happening, DTO RP Singh was not in his office today. Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishor Yadav kept a close watch on the scene at the HSRP counters through CCTV coverage on his office screen. He said he had asked the DTO to check the problem regarding non-cooperation by the staff for extra hours. Kamlesh Singh, an applicant, said the worst part was that he could not even see the face of the clerk at the counter. “They had kept the wooden sliding shutters so low that I could not even see the face of those taking the money. I could not even know whom I paid the amount and talked to at the counter,” he lamented. Prem Sehgal, another visitor, said he kept standing in the queue in the morning for two hours, but did not get his turn. “I was told that the system is running slow and that I should come later. I again went in the evening and got the chance after two hours. On reaching the cash counter, I was told that Haryana numbers could not be printed from here and that I would have to apply in my district there,” he said. Meanwhile, in all this melee, it is the agents who have started making a brisk business. Sham Lal, also an applicant, said he was being approached by an agent asking for Rs 1,200 over and above the fee charges. He said he was told that he would not have to come and the plate would be fixed on his car at his place.
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DC tells MC to repair road around bus stand
Jalandhar, August 19 While it has been four months since an approval for the relaying of the Garha Road has been done, SE of the MC Kulwinder Singh said the B&R staff could not relay the road till the time the sewerage system was laid there. He said the sewerage work was yet to be approved at the Finance and Contracts Committee meeting of the MC. The DC also told the Municipal Corporation (MC) engineers present at the meeting to make some arrangements for setting up an autorickshaw stand in the vicinity of the bus stand. As they expressed helplessness, the Deputy Commissioner told them that it was their job to plan and create the space which they would have to do owing to an increasing problem of stranded autos each day. The DC pointed out that even the taxi stands had to be moved out to vacate the service lanes along the old GT Road. He reportedly expressed surprise over the proliferating stands and no three-yearly renewals taken from his office by any of the stand owners for a long time, pointing to several illegal stands in the city and directing the staff concerned to keep a check. He pulled up the staff for not bringing written progress reports on previous matters. On the issue of plying of schoolchildren, the staff of the DTO said that 65 autorickshaws had been impounded, as they were found to be unfit. The Deputy Commissioner asked the staff of the DTO and the Traffic Police to keep on checking the buses and autos on a regular basis. A representative of the District Education Office said only 80 out of 180 schools had responded to the details on school vehicles sought by the department. He said none of the schools was ready to take the responsibility for the auto-rickshaws on which the children were commuting. The Deputy Commissioner also told the MC and PUDA staff to ensure that the encroachments by scrap dealers along Ladowali Road should be removed permanently. He asked the Civil Hospital staff to arrange for smaller ambulances which could ply in congested markets and help in the quick movement of the patients from such areas. |
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Attempt to loot Punjab National Bank ATM
Jalandhar, August 19
The robbers had been caught on CCTV cameras and experts were called to study the footage to identify them. Incidents of breaking ATMs with gas-cutters and making attempts to break open ATMs with other methods had been haunting the Doaba region for the past one year. The region has reported several such cases in the past in which miscreants either looted cash from the ATM or made attempts to break open ATMs. However, the police has failed to get lead even in a single case. Interestingly in most of the cases, the miscreants were caught by the CCTV cameras installed inside the ATM room, still police failed to solve a majority of the cases. On June 18 this year, miscreants had also targeted the ATM of the Union Bank of India in the Bashirpura locality. In this case as well, they were caught on the CCTV camera, but the police have still not able to identify the accused.
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BMC intersection in city a cause
of scare for pedestrians
Jalandhar, August 19 Although there are zebra lines on all eight roads, all of these were behind the high central verge constructed in between the roads that prohibit a pedestrian from crossing the roads. “It is so scary to cross the road. Everyday, I have to cross the BMC intersection to go to my office in front of the courts complex. There is no underpass or over-bridge to cross the busiest intersection in the city. I don’t know why the district administration can’t find a solution to So many times in a day, pedestrians could be seen crossing the BMC in heavy traffic. As there are no separate lanes for two-wheelers or rickshaws there, traffic of all sorts moves together in a single lane, causing a lot of congestion and chaos. This makes it all the more difficult for the pedestrians to cross the massive intersection. Another pedestrian Rahul Puri said like the BMC, many other intersections also pose serious threat to the pedestrians. “Not only the BMC but Guru Nanak Mission Chowk and Ambedkar Chowk are also highly accident-prone areas for the pedestrians. The administration must streamline the traffic in these areas,” said Puri. He also suggested that the administration should make underground subways and could earn some money by opening shopping complex etc in the area. Kulwinder Singh, Axion MC, while accepting the flaw, said that the city was an unplanned one since beginning. It becomes difficult sometimes to incorporate all traffic geomatics into all projects. “We cannot incorporate all our vision in a project as the city is an unplanned one unlike Chandigarh or Bangalore. In this scenario, our main aim is to first regulate the smooth flow of traffic. Nevertheless, this flaw is there in our mind since beginning and very soon, we are going to find a solution to this problem,” said Kulwinder Singh. Till the time the district administration finds a concrete solution to this problem, pedestrians have no way but to risk their lives every day to cross the eight deadly roads on the BMC.
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Seven more diarrhoea cases reported
Jalandhar, August 19 While four cases were reported from Abadpura, three were reported from the New Sant Nagar area. The health department has also taken three water samples from Abadpura, Bhargo Camp and Ekta Nagar near Rama Mandi. RL Bassan, Civil Surgeon, visited the affected families in the New Sant Nagar area. “We have taken three more water samples and have sent these for testing. The department has also distributed chlorine tablets in the affected areas,” said RL Bassan, Civil Surgeon. He advised people to use boiled water and immediately see a doctor in case of loose motions. Meanwhile, the Municipal Corporation was unable to find the fault in these areas even on the third day of the outbreak. Till late evening, the MC team was seen digging and looking for the possible contamination of water with that of the sewerage line. According to Dr Satish Sood, district epidemiologist, Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSA), the city, due to being congested and having a very old water and sewerage system laid underground, is highly prone to water-borne diseases. “We have identified around 35 areas that are highly prone to the outbreak of water-borne diseases. People should be very careful and should report immediately to us if they find any change in colour or odour in their fresh water supply,” said Dr Sood. He also advised people to avoid water, milkshakes and juices from roadside vendors.
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Kapurthala, August 19 The baby was in a bad state with worms crawling all over it and skin badly infected. The baby was brought to Civil Hospital Nakodar. SMO Dr Roshan Lal said since the baby was seemingly premature, weighing just 1.4 kg, badly infected and required a lot of care, they shifted her to Doaba Hospital in Jalandhar. — TNS
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Procurement agencies’ staff hold protest
Jalandhar, August 19 The employees of Punsup, Pungrain, Markfed and Punjab Agro raised slogans against the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and the state government demanding improving of the mandi system and insisted that the managements must devise a scientific way of calculating the increase or decrease in the weight of the stored grains in varied weather conditions at different places. President of the committee Bhupinder Singh said even as there were Supreme Court orders on the issue since August 2012, nothing has been done by the managements of the agencies. He said that the recoveries were being forcibly taken from the field staff by deducting the amount from their retirement benefits and leaving them penniless at the fag end of their career. "Since the conditions vary from year to year, region to region, no definite formula for fixing the gain in wheat could be worked out by the Indian Grains Storage Management and Research Institute (IGMRI), Hapur. After this, the apex court had ordered that the managements of the procurement agencies work out some formula after discussion but nothing had been done and the employees continued to face chargesheets and recoveries," said the participants at the protest. While the study recommends gain in weight on a month-to-month basis, the government has issued a policy for taking standard increase in weight at the rate of one per cent for wheat stored in godown and 0.7 per cent for wheat stored in the open, they said. Members Vidhu Shekhar Bhardwaj, senior vice-president, Swaranjit Singh, general secretary, Harmandeep Singh, vice-president, Baljit Singh Gill, financial secretary, said the members had held rallies at Patiala and Faridkot but the management seem to be asleep. They said that while the FCI was to pay dues worth Rs 20 crore to the procurement agencies, the latter were not taking any measure in this regard and instead were penalising the staff. They said there was no tribunal set up to resolve the dispute between Punjab agencies and the FCI. The members said that discussions regarding the shortage of staff and storage space too had been held with the managements, Commissioner, Food and Civil Supplies, Secretary, Food and Civil Supplies, Minister for Food and Civil Supplies and the Chief Secretary, Punjab, but no concrete step was being taken in this regard.
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Retired defence personnel residing in Kewal Vihar threaten to return medals
Jalandhar, August 19 The officers have said that while they spent all their life fighting for the protection of civilians, their basic demand of ensuring a clean environment for them in their retired life was being unheard by the bureaucrats and political leaders. The residents of the area, Nirmal Singh, SP Tuli, Maluk Singh and Lovejeet Singh, have said that even as the colony had been named after the first Vijeta Chakra awardee who lost his life at the age of 20 in the Indo-China war of 1962, the authorities had failed to at least ensure due respect to the martyred soldier. The residents have said that the cremation ground for the residents of Model Town and Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar falls just 60 feet from their houses and they are forced to daily bear the smoke emanating from the place for over 12 hours each day. SP Tuli said, "What has made the lives of the 68 families even more difficult is an improperly organized Sunday vegetable market. We not only face difficulties due to traffic jams but also the stench emanating from the heaps of rotten remains of fruits and vegetables the next day." "Just across the cremation ground is a garbage collection point where the filth from five wards around the area accumulates," he said. Claiming that the health of their families was in jeopardy, the residents said that they approached the founder of Dishadeep NGO SM Singh on the matter. They said that it had been decided that in case their demands are not fulfilled, they would go on hunger strike and even resort to transferring the garbage from the dump in front their houses to that in front of the Mayor's residence. "If even that does not work, we would return our medals as the last resort to express our disapproval," they said.
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Traders, excise officials lock horns
Additional ETC to submit report on August 25 Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, August 19 Notably, the traders are sticking to their allegations that the penalties levied on them were not genuine while the Excise Department officials continued contradicting them saying that only those traders who had been nailed in the inquiries were protesting. The officials said the traders had been using the ploy of levelling bogus complaints against them. Traders, who had already given a deadline to the Excise Department to suspend ETO Sareen, warned that if the department didn’t relieve them of the ‘illogical’ penalties that were imposed upon them by the ETO, then they would launch a strong protest. Additional Excise and Taxation Commissioner Shiv Dular Singh Dhillon has been entrusted with the inquiry by the department. Dhillon had also recorded the statement of excise officials and traders and will submit his report on August 25. Ravinder Dhir of traders unions said if the final report of Additional ETC does not recommend the suspension of ETO Sareen, they would launch a state-wide protest against the department. On the other hand, the ETO and ETI union representative Amit Sareen said the union would stick to their demands and if the final report goes in the favour of traders, they would adopt an even stronger protest.
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BJP frowns at leaders’ participation in dharna
Jalandhar, August 19 The district unit of the BJP has sent its report to the state president Kamal Sharma regarding the presence of the BJP state vice-president and Municipal Corporation councillor Ravi Mahendru at the dharna. BJP district president Subhash Sud said, “He, being the head of the local unit, could only send a report and not directly issue notice to anyone.” Asked if any action or reply had come from the state president side, he said, “It has been just two days since I sent the report. Time and again, in all party meetings, a message is being conveyed that no party leader should participate in any dharna against the government since we are a part of it. The participation of the leaders in a platform where anti-government slogans are being raised is against the principles of our party”. Mahendru, however, has been maintaining that he participated in the dharna in the capacity of a trader. Running a pig iron business in the city, he said, he too was aggrieved with the attitude of the Excise and Taxation officers and supported them for a cause. “My participation in the protest was already after bringing the matter to the notice of the state president,” said Mahendru. Interestingly, none of the Congress leaders participated in the dharna. There were, in fact, three BJP leaders including Ravi, Anil Sachar and Dhani Ram Gupta who had participated in the dharna. Sachar and Gupta had held on mikes, as Ravi sat raising his hands. None of the trio even once objected to the slogans raised against Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal during the protest. State BJP president Kamal Sharma said, “I am yet to get the report and not very much clear in the matter. Mahendru is the state vice-president and is also associated with some traders’ associations. He could have been supporting the traders on some issue against an employee of the department for which the party does not stop him.”
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from schools, colleges
Doaba College's principal Dr Naresh Kumar Dhiman released an international referred journal of English Literature and Language "The Touchstone" on the college campus on Tuesday. Editor Sandeep Chahal said in the inaugural issue of The Touchstone, 16 research papers, 4 poems and 4 stories of different scholars from West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Bangladesh, Turkey and United Kingdom have been published. Prof Chahal said for the first time in the country, a story segment has been introduced in the Touchstone journal in which the stories of renowned writers have been incorporated. Coaching for UGC-NET Competitive cell of DAV College, Jalandhar, organised a special programme to mark the inaugural ceremony of the UGC-NET crash course. Inaugurating the course, former IFS and an alumnus of the college Bal Anand motivated the students to make an all out effort to succeed in the highly challenging and competitive world. He said merely procuring an academic degree was not enough to attain a respectable place in the present global scenario. A set of soft skills, professional orientation and zeal for working under highly demanding circumstances could pave way to a successful and satisfying life. World Photography Day celebrated Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of Kanya Maha Vidyalaya organised a seminar on photography to celebrate World Photography Day. Karamvir Sandhu, a renowned photojournalist, participated as the resource person. He was accorded floral felicitation by the college principal Prof Atima Sharma. While explaining the importance of World Photography Day, he highlighted many significant aspects of a good photograph. He also explained at length the interest, thought process and imagination as the key factors of photography. To provide practical knowledge of photography, the students were divided into six different groups with different assignment of photography. At the end, the resource person answered all the queries related to photography. Dr Ekta Arora extended a vote of thanks on behalf of all the faculty members of the Journalism Department. Students exhibit talent Multimedia department of GNA-IMT organised a T-shirt painting competition and installation art competition based on the theme of Independence Day on the campus. The students participated in the event with great enthusiasm and showcased their talent. It was a great platform which uncovered their artistic ability to capture and translate a positive attitude towards the lucrative career option available after the multimedia course. Using different sources of inspiration, students came up with innovative themes of independence which they designed on T-shirts. Gurdeep Singh Seehra, president, GNA-IMT, and CEO GNA Duraparts Ltd, congratulated the students for such a wonderful presentation of their talent. A total of 10 teams participated in the T-shirt painting competition out of which the team of Sahibjeet and Vipin Kumar of BAMT semester I won the first prize. Blood donation camp A blood donation camp was organised by Bowry Memorial Education and Medical Trust at the Innocent Hearts Group of Institutions, Innocent Hearts Fields, Loharan with the joint effort of Blood Bank, Civil Hospital, Jalandhar. A total of 75 units of blood were collected and handed to the State Blood Transfusion Council, Jalandhar, Punjab. Dr Anup Bowry, secretary and Dr Chander Bowry, finance secretary, Bowry Memorial Education and Medical Trust, and officiating director Prof Deepak Paul were present on the occasion and motivated students and faculty members to make their invaluable contribution. The programme received immense support from the college management. Dr Gagandeep Singh, blood transfusion officer, Civil Hospital, Jalandhar, supported and congratulated the institution for organising this camp every year.—TNS
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1 held with stolen cell phone
Jalandhar, August 19 The Government Railway Police, Cantonment police post in-charge, Gurbhej, said the accused had stolen a purse containing two phones and other valuables from a car in October last year. The phone was put on surveillance. Today, the accused inserted a new SIM card, which led to his arrest. The Government Railway Police has sought a one-day remand of the accused.
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While the district administration seems to be too concerned about road safety issues in the city,
BMC, one of the biggest intersections in the city, is a cause of worry to thousands of pedestrians who are forced to cross the intersection in the fast-moving traffic, as it does not have an overbridge or a subway for the pedestrians.
As per the police, the robbers seemed to have made the attempt in the wee hours. They damaged the ATM completely, but failed to decamp with any cash.
