Jalandhar, September 18
Even as the Property Tax branch of the Municipal Corporation (MC) has got a huge target of recovering Rs 10 crore after the recent amnesty scheme, the department has managed to make a minimal collection of just Rs 50,000 in the first three days since the re-introduction of the scheme for the same.

With just 12 days more remaining for the deadline of September 30, there seems to be almost a negative response to the scheme. All those who have paid up some dues in the past few days are those from small residential properties. None of the owners of the commercial properties, which are so far the biggest defaulters, have come forward to pay any amount even after the Local Bodies Department decided to waive of interest or penalty for two weeks.

Even as Mayor Sunil Jyoti and Commissioner Manpreet Singh Chattwal had announced that 15 mobile teams would be formed with superintendent and staff going door to door, there has been no such movement as of now. The officials had also mentioned that harsher measures, including sealing, attachment and sale of properties, could follow for the recovery of dues after the addition of a section in the MC Act. Traders have, instead, said that they would oppose it outrightly.

Various trader associations, led by sports goods manufacturer Ravinder Dhir, are contemplating holding a meeting on the matter to decide the future course of action. “We may hold a meeting and take some collective decision. Our efforts earlier have already made the government amend its existing property tax policy. The ruling combine, during the recent Lok Sabha polls, has come to know about the common sentiment of the masses against such policies of the government, he said.

Dhir, however, asserted that the threats of the authorities by imposing harsher sections on people would not work. If they will resort to such measures, we may also have to show our stance all over again, he said.

Rajan Gupta, president of the Guru Gobind Singh Avenue Welfare Society, said when the MC had held a property tax camp in our colony a few months ago, nearly 70 per cent of the residents had paid. It is now these 70 per cent people who are asking that they have had not advantage of being a responsible and a tax paying citizen. We are not getting any better facilities. There are no sweepers coming to our colony and we have had to hire private sweepers to clean roads. Likewise, it is the residents who are paying the amount to even the gardeners of the park. Rest all provisions, including roads, streetlights and sewage that the MC is to provide are already in bad shape. The general sentiment of the public after making such tax payments has been going against the government even more, he said.

Jalandhar, September 18
In the mysterious death case of a polytechnic student near Addi Khui at Mand village on the Jalandhar-Kapurthala road yesterday, the postmortem of the body was today conducted at the Civil Hospital. However, the report did not mention any physical injurires.

DSP Kapurthala Mahinder Singh said the postmortem report stated that the body had no physical injury marks, which signalled that the death might have been accidental. Since the postmortem report had not shown any bodily harms, it meant the victim might have died in a road mishap or some other reasons. We have sent the viscera samples to the Kharar chemical laboratory in Chandigarh and the report of the same will actually clear the cause of the death, the DSP added.

He said the police had also been digging up the call details of the accused to get vital clues about his death.

Ranjit Singh (22), a resident of Adarshan Colony, was found dead near Mand village last morning. He was doing a diploma in electronics at Lord Krishana College in Kapurthala. He had gone to take exam at the college and was found dead a day after in the morning.

Jalandhar, September 18
Social networking site Facebook has turned into a virtual ‘hatebook’ for the Punjab Police as several pages poking fun at the police and giving out vent to people’s ire against the department have come up on the site.

Objectionable remarks supported by visuals have been uploaded on the site through which miscreants are trying to dent the image of the police by terming them corrupt and inefficient.

Five such pages have been spotted on Facebook — ‘I hate Punjab Police’, ‘I hate punjab Police’, ‘We all hate Punjab police’, ‘Punjab police rocks’ and ‘Drive against traffic police in Jalandhar’.

The page ‘I hate Punjab police’ reads “This is a page to let the world know up to what extent people of Punjab hate the Police Department because of their cruelty, injustice, voilence.”

This page has 44 likes, contains two visuals showing policemen beating up a woman. The page also makes an appeal ‘pls share this page as much as possible to show that we don’t tolerate injustice’.

The page also has an abusive comment on the police.

Another page ‘I hate punjab police’ has 23 likes. The page has a picture of policemen doing pushups. A funny comment has been posted along the picture, “Kadey jadon Punjab police ne dand, kayian de ta pai gyi tanj, eh Punjab police de gabru, kayian to dand ni vaje panj” (Punjab police officials tried doing pushups but failed to do even five pushups at a stretch)

Another page ‘Punjab police rocks’ has 6,800 likes. It has funny photographs of Punjab Police officials with sarcastic remarks. The page has a picture of woman police officials busy on mobile phones at a police station. It also has a picture showcasing policemen taking drugs, with a slogan ‘Badal Sarkar Murdabaad’.

Notably, this page also carries positive things about the Punjab Police. It shows visuals of policemen with recovered drugs, police taking on criminals and dashing pictures of Punjab Police officials.

Similarly, the page ‘Drive against traffic police in Jalandhar’ has a visual showing policemen driving a bike without helmets. The picture carries a comment, “Sadey apne rule, sadey apne asool.”

The page also carries other remarks — “Why do they ask for bribe?; I have given them money countless times for no …..(abuse) offence ......they waste your time for no reason....we are with you” and “Most of them need heavy counselling.... Some moral science classes perhaps !!!!!!.”

Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Cyber Crime, Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, said recently, the police had removed some pages having objectionable content against the Punjab Police. The police would scan fresh pages and would punish the guilty, he added.

Jalandhar, September 18
A boy named Sunny Deol who was kidnapped by a migrant labourer over a week ago was recovered today. The boy was reportedly hale and hearty as the kidnapper didn’t inflict any injuries on him.

The police said the accused had kidnapped the boy to have additional income by forcing the child to do some labour.

Sunny Deol, son of a migrant labourer, hails from Bihar and is presently a resident of Hardyal Nagar. He was kidnapped by a friend of his father from his residence.

“My son was kidnapped by my friend Naresh Kumar alias Raju, who is also a migrant labourer, from my home on September 6. He had taken my son Sunny Deol along on the plea of taking him to market for a ride, but Raju didn’t return home thereafter. When I tried to contact him on phone, initially he didn’t respond to my calls and later switched off his phone, the boy’s father Vinod said. Suspecting some conspiracy behind it, he informed the police division No. 8 and lodged a formal complaint.

Station House Officer Sukhjit Singh said a special team was formed to trace the boy. The team had put the mobile phone of Raju on surveillance. Initially, his mobile location was found near the Rama Mandi area and then near Nangal Sama village, but the location near Bhojuwal village was found more often, which cleared that the accused had kept the child at Bhojuwal village only.

According to the mobile location, the team raided Bhojuwal village and after intercepting the accused, nabbed him. On his disclosure, Sunny Deol was also recovered. He had kept the child at some rented accommodation in the village.

During interrogation, the accused said he had kidnapped the child with the motive to increasing his income. I wanted to put the child in some labourer work to earn a fixed monthly income. I had even contacted several farmers, but they refused to employ him, citing that the boy was a minor, the accused told the police.

A case under Section 365 of the IPC was registered against Raju.

Jalandhar, September 18
Potato farmers of the Doaba region have been ruing the unavailability of high-quality early generation potato seeds for the past few years.

Despite several representations to Dr Mangal Singh Sandhu, director, Agriculture, Punjab, nothing has been done to redress the issue.

The sowing of potato crop has been initiated in the region, while farmers are in dire need of high-quality seeds.

Speaking to Jalandhar Tribune, a representative of the Jalandhar Potato Growers Association (JPGA), Jagat Parkash Singh, said the Central Potato Research Institute (CPRI), an offshoot of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research, used to provide the potato farmers with early generation potato seeds that has been stopped for the past around three years.

The farmers are forced to grow their own seeds that are not of good quality, resulting in a low yield. The yield has been deteriorating year by year owing to the unavailability of early generation potato seeds.

He said despite the fact that the Doaba area was capable of producing a high yield of potatoes, high-quality seeds were being provided to the states like UP and MP where better quality potato could not be produced.

Meanwhile, we are planning to develop seeds on our own through tissue culture as I don’t anticipate that seeds are going to be provided to farmers in the region any sooner, he added.

Dr Satvir Singh, deputy director, Horticulture Department, said this was the policy of the Government of India to provide breeder seeds to government agencies and not to the farmers directly. However, it is high in demand among farmers in the Doaba region.

He said the Horticulture Department was a government agency to multiply breeder seeds and provide seeds to the farmers that were capable of producing a better yield for around five years.

Jalandhar, September 18
The Punjab Government today nominated the new chairmen, vice chairmen and members of the Dhilwan and Bholath market committees in Kapurthala.

A spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s office said CM Parkash Singh Badal cleared the file in this regard and orders regarding the newly nominated chairmen, vice chairmen and members of these market committees would be issued shortly.

As per the orders, Lakhwinder Singh and Natha Singh have been nominated the chairman and the vice chairman of Dhilwan Market Committee.

Swaran Singh, Elles, Bakhsish Singh, Paramjit Singh, Sukhwinder Kaur, Balwinder Singh, Satnam Bajwa, Satnam Singh, Makhan Singh, Amarjit Singh, Kasturi Lal Shah, Manjeet Singh, Sucha Singh and Harjinder, besides the concerned BDPO have been nominated as the members of the committee.

Swaran Singh and Sham Lal have been nominated as the chairman and vice chairman of Bholath Market Committee.

Sanjiv Singh, Nirmal Singh, Capt Mangal Singh, Sukhdev Singh, Balvir Singh, Gurmail Singh Multani, Harjeet Singh, Simarjeet Kaur, Balwinder Kumar, Amarjot Singh, Desh Raj Passi, Amarjeet Singh, Naresh Kumar and Kuldeep Singh, besides the concerned BDPO have been nominated as the members of the committee.

Jalandhar, September 18
The heads of various departments, including agriculture, dairy, horticulture, fishery and agricultural science centre explained the works carried out by them in the last six months and their future plans during a meeting of the Agriculture Produce Committee.

The meeting was presided over by Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Kumar Amit. The ADC has instructed the regional heads of all the departments to provide benefits to the farmers and to conduct awareness campaigns to educate the farmers.

He said prior information must be provided to the farmers about training and other such camps so that a majority of them could take part and draw benefits.

Chief Agriculture Officer Dr Suttantar Kumar said a training camp would be organised at Bhogpur.

He said the farmers would be provided with Rs 1,000 per quintal subsidy on wheat seeds. — TNS

Phagwara, September 18
Chief Parliamentary Secretary (CPS) Som Parkash today inaugurated the project of laying new sewerage lines worth Rs 11 crore in Chachoki and Gobindpura localities. Later, the CPS attended a sangat darshan programme and listened to the grievances of people.

He instructed the officers concerned to redress the public grievances. SDM Keshav Hingonia, MC Commissioner Sukhwinderpal Singh Marar and Executive Officer Adarsh Sharma were also present on the occasion.

Jalandhar, September 18
Shaheed Bhagat Singh Naujwan Sabha, Punjab, and Punjab Students Federation have decided to protest on the birth anniversary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh.

State Secretary of the sabha, Mandeep Singh Ratiya, and PSF State Secretary Ajay Phillaur said the rising unemployment in the state was a matter of great concern. The education system in the state had also been deteriorating, he added.

He said these factors were leading youngsters towards drug addiction. — TNS

Jalandhar, September 18
Students of St Soldier Group of Institutions, Jalandhar, have made a first generation JoJo Robot. The major features of the robot are that it can be controlled through a remote, it can move in any direction, greet the guests and offer tea by sliding his arms forward and backwards.

The remote with an encoder-decoder system consists of a circuit board with three DC motors. The movement of the robot is controlled with the help bevel gear mechanism.

The body of the robot is made of aluminum sheet. The sensors of the robot work on I-R technology called infrared.

Jalandhar, September 18
The Plato House of MGN College of Education, Jalandhar, organised an interaction programme on ‘Education – Platform for Competency Building’ to make the would be teachers aware of the real objectives of education.

Jasleen Kaur, a student of the college, presented the life sketch and philosophy of education. Sandeep Kaur, Savita Devi, Parmpreet Kaur and Prerna depicted the importance of education through their poems. Harjit Kaur threw light on the role of teacher in competency building. Dr APJ Abdul Kalam’s views about education and teachers were presented through a video. Principal Dr Amit Kauts said teachers should provide a strong platform and opportunities to the students for the holistic development of their personality. The programme was organised under the supervision of Mandeep Dosanjh.

Hindi Divas celebrations

As part of the Hindi Divas celebrations, a creative writing contest was organised by the Department of Hindi. Around 78 students from different streams took part in the programme and wrote poems, stories and articles on various themes. Nearly 52 students from PCM SD Collegiate School also participated in the contest. Principal Dr Kiran Arora appreciated the efforts put in by the students and motivated them to scale greater heights.

Celebrity script writer visits college

An alumnus of Apeejay College of Fine Arts, Jalandhar, Manoj Sabharwal, who has achieved success as a script writer of Comedy Nights with Kapil, was in the college to motivate the students of theatre. He recollected the time spent in the college and also acquainted the students with the challenges of building a career in television and film industry. He has also written the script of the grand premiere of the current season of Kaun Banega Crorepati. He also wrote the script for Double Di Trouble and Mundeya Ton Bach Ke Rahi. He has written the script for the new Punjabi movie Mukhtiar Chadda starring Gippy Grewal, which is currently under production. He said participating in youth festival would not only boost their confidence but also develop their personality. It would equip them with skills to face the challenges of life head on. He took part in skit, mime and plays during his college time. He was welcomed by principal Dr Sucharita.

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