Jalandhar, August 26
The police today nabbed the son of the president of Christian Movement, Punjab, Hamid Masih, with one gram of heroin. Hamid was also a member of the State Minority Commission.The accused has been identified as Rahul, son of Hamid Masih.

The police said they received a tip-off that the son of the president of the Christian Movement, Punjab, was involved in drug peddling. They acting on the tip-off and conducted a raid at the Suranasi locality from where he was nabbed.

During the search operations, one gram of heroin was recovered from his possession.

The accused was later sent to the judicial custody by the police.

In another incident, the police nabbed a drug peddler with 20-gm of heroin. Acting on the tip-off, the peddler, identified as Joginder Singh of Toor village in Taran Taran, was nabbed by the police. He was on his way to supply the drugs to his clients in the area but he was nabbed by the police.

The police said his judicial remand was sought to inquire into his network in the drug trade. A case under the NDPS Act was registered at the police division number 1.

Jalandhar, August 26
With the district administration turning a blind eye towards the well-being of lakhs of students studying in various government schools, the condition of these students spending most of the time here is fast deteriorating with each passing day. Stinking toilets without flush, dirty and contaminated potable water point to the inadequate storage capacity while filthy classrooms are posing a serious threat to the children's health.

On a visit to Doaba Khalsa Senior Secondary school at Ladowaali road , a government aided school which is shortly planning to celebrate its centenary celebration in November, the toilets were founds to be sans flushing system. "While most of the toilets do not have a water point and are stinking badly, the ones that have are always leaking with a huge quantity of water gushing out regularly with a loud noise," said one of the student. He also informed that since the toilets are very close to the classrooms, it becomes difficult for the students as well as the teachers to sit in the class. "So many times we have complained to the school authorities, they have not paid any heed to this," said a girl student. She also informed that even some girls’ toilet do not even have doors. "There is a gate outside the main wall only and inside, the toilets do not even have gates. It sometimes becomes a little uncomfortable to relieve oneself in a huge crowd during the recess period.

Also, the students were seen drinking water from unclean water points in the school. When contacted, Barchinder Kaur, principal, informed that although the committee has installed the flush inside the toilets, the children broke them while playing. When asked, the children revealed that the flush systems were never installed in the first instance itself by the school authorities.

The scene was no different at the Government elementary school, Kishanpura. As most of in the district do not have an authorised water connection, the children are forced to drink groundwater coming through the submersible pumps. Also, the toilets and potable water points were not found to be hygienic as they were located just next to each other.

The toilets were found to be badly choked with a lot of litter filled in the toilet seats. Also, there was no provision of dustbins inside the toilets. The children could be seen relieving themselves in the same unhygienic condition with a reeking odour coming out from the toilets.

Similar conditions were also found to be in many other government schools at Garha Road, Adarsh nagar, Rainak bazaar area and even in Model town and Model House area. When asked, the school authorities informed that since the education in the schools are free till class 8 and the students are asked to pay only the fund charges ranging from Rs 30 to Rs 60 per child, the school do not have funds to maintain toilets for so many students. "The buildings are very old and need too much repair and renovation. Since the fee up till class 8 is made free under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, we are facing a shortage of funds. Although the state government pays around Rs 75,000 in a year, it is too less as we have to pay the whopping electricity and telephone bills also from the same amount and even have to get the building repair done from the same fund," said one of the principals.

While the school authorities are struggling with acute shortage of funds due to the state government's apathetic attitude towards the children from poor families, the district administration also didn't bothered to come to the rescue of these children. "Despite repeated reminders, the MC people never bothered to come and clean the choked sewerage system of our toilets. We have to shell out money from our meagre students fund of around Rs 2,500 every month to unclog the sewerage and for the maintenance of essential services like the toilets and the potable water," said Kamaljit Kaur, Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Ladowali road. She also informed that the school also has to contribute a major share of the student's fund to the government treasury as well. 

Jalandhar, August 26
Having made innumerable rounds of the District Administrative Complex and given scores of representations to the politicians for the past two years, the residents of Lutera Khurd village falling in Adampur block have not been able to get rid of the name in their official records.

The village, with a majority population of NRIs, feels insulted by the name and wants it to be changed to Banda Singh Bahadur Nagar. The villagers said they felt ashamed in telling the name of their village to anyone, especially those from abroad as they were then suspected to be from the land of looters.

As a result, the panchayat had two years back unanimously proposed to get a new name and get rid of the tag of looters. The panchayat members have since then been running around with the proposals before various officials of the rural development and even the revenue department to get the clearance for the change of name but have so far failed in their effort.

Since the name has not been changed, the residents have themselves started erasing the name Lutera Khurd from various landmarks in the village and instead painted Banda Singh Bahadur Nagar on them.

Sarpanch of the village Raj Rani and panchayat member Satpal said, “There are just about 325 voters in our village, most of whom are settled in the USA or Canada. Time and again, they have been demanding that the village name be changed for they were facing problems offshore.

“Each time we move the file, a new question is raised. This time, we were asked to assign the reason as to why we only wanted it after Banda Singh Bahadur. We have replied back saying that we wanted to get rid of the name Lutera and instead wanted to recall the bravado of the Sikh warrior.”

A resident of the village and an NRI Virinder Singh Parhar, shares the history of his village, “Ours is a 500-year-old village which was founded by the Muslim community that moved to Pakistan after the partition. There have been files for change of name of village mooted from other districts as well. A Kutein Wali village in Muktsar district too has managed a change but our request is not being honoured”.

The villagers say that they had also taken up the matter with MLA Adampur Pawan Tinu and Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal ahead of the last Assembly and even Lok Sabha polls but to no avail.

District Development and Panchayat Officer Sarabjit Singh Walia could not be contacted. His predecessor DDPO Avtar Singh Bhullar had said that the file was being wrongly moved to the office of Director Rural Development even as it was a subject matter of the Revenue Department and that is why the delay is happening. 

Jalandhar, August 26
The final report on the ongoing spat between traders and excise officials, which was scheduled to come up on August 25, is still lingering on.

Traders, who were leveling allegations at excise officials for levying bogus penalty on them, were demanding action against ETO Amit Sareen. The Excise officials, who were also adamant on their stand, were demanding action against the traders for evading taxes worth several lakhs.

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 the inquiry by the department. Dhillon had also recorded the statements of the excise officials and traders and was scheduled to submit his report on August 25, but till date, no final report was submitted.

Gursharn Singh, a trader, said the report was delayed for two days and they would wait for one more day failing which they would resort to state- wide protest. ETO Amit Sareen, against whom allegations were being levelled, didn’t respond to the phone calls.

Jalandhar, August 26
The state government has initiated the process for identifying land in different districts for the installation of 2,000 MW solar power plant in the state.

Government functionaries have informed that a letter has been sent to the deputy commissioners across the state to identify the vacant land in excess of 100 acres and submit the report to the state government so that the solar power project could be initiated at the earliest.

Notably, recently conceding the request of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to allot a mega solar power plant in Punjab, the Minister of State for Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal had announced to set up 
a 2,000 MW solar power plant to further augment the power generation in the state.

Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal has already announced that he would personally supervise the entire process to identify the requisite land for the installation of a 2,000 MW solar power plant in the state.

A meeting of the SDMs, revenue officials and BDPOs was held in this regard under the headship of ADC (General) Pritam Singh Virk. During the meeting, the officials apprised Virk that 100 acres of land has been identified in the villages Jasmer and Kamalpur falling under the Shahkot sub-division.

Officials said the solar power project was a great initiative to help the state in augmenting its power generation in solar energy, which was not only eco-friendly but also, cost effective.

Out of the 2,000 MW solar power generated in the state, 1,000 MW would be purchased by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). 

Kapurthala, August 25
The Golden Arrow Division of the Indian Army organised a pension adalat for the ex-servicemen and retired Army personnel dependents from Kapurthala and Tarn Taran here today.

Vimal Kishore Gupta, Defence Pension Disbursement Officer, Kapurthala, coordinated the event. Col GJS Baghiana, Officiating Commander, Gurki Brigade, addressed the veterans. Representatives of Principal Controller of Defence Account (Pension), Allahabad, Meerut, representatives of the SBI and various record offices attended the pension adalat to guide and resolve pension issues pertaining to pensioner awards of Armed Forces personnel and their dependents. A medical camp was also organised for the healthcare and treatment of ex-servicemen and their dependents by the medical, dental and eye specialists. Over 175 ex-servicemen, widows and veer naaris attended the adalat and their grievances were redressed. 

Jalandhar, August 26
On a call given by the Council of Junior Engineers PSEB, junior engineers from Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) and Punjab State Transmission Corporation Limited (PSTCL) held a protest in front of Powercom circle headquarter offices in the state today.

General secretary Davinder Singh said junior engineers participated in large numbers in these rallies at Patiala, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, Bhatinda, Ferozpur, Faridkot, Kapurthala, Gurdaspur, Khanna and Tarn Taran.

President of the council RK Chourdhary said, “Junior engineers are highly aggrieved over the delay in settlement of their pending demands. Despite an assurance given on June 24, the Powercom management has not resolved their pay structure issue.” The council condemned the lethargic attitude of the authorities responsible to frame the seniority of JEs, AAEs, SSA and LMs for months together, causing an inordinate delay in the promotion of employees.