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Rodrigues kicks off meal scheme for schoolchildren
Chandigarh, January 18 The inaugural ceremony started with a yajna which was marked with deep human concern and parental love. The hot cooked food was served both by Mrs Jean Rodrigues and the Governor to the children in a home-like ambience. Speaking on the occasion, General Rodrigues expressed his concern over the malnutrition figure of 62 per cent in the Union Territory’s Government schools as revealed by a survey ordered by him and conducted by the Health Department of Chandigarh Administration. He added that the revised modified programme aimed to make the system more responsive and suited to the needs of our school going children. He suggested that the project should be combined with constant monitoring of the health status of school children by medical teams and a periodical review by senior officers of the Administration. He said under this action plan, teams of doctors would visit schools once a month to provide nutrition supplements in tablet form to deficient children and all anaemic and worm-infected children would be provided necessary treatment in the schools. Teachers would be educated and assigned the task of administering the requisite dose of medicine, with follow-up and updated data base, he added. He later added that the children requiring further medical and dental treatment and eye check-ups would be referred to the main hospitals for further management. He also asked the NGOs and self-help groups to associate themselves to accomplish the goals of this scheme. General Rodrigues informed that the Administration would soon launch a comprehensive immunisation programme by using IT to register and monitor vaccine and immunization programmes. He reiterated that all the 18 villages of the Union Territory were being put online, through ultra-modern telemedicine project linked with leading government hospitals, for support and guidance. Giving a brief account of the scheme, the Home Secretary, Mr Krishna Mohan and Mr. D.S. Mangat, DPI (Schools), said all 60 model and non schools in rural and colony areas, with a student strength of 25,000 in the primary classes, would be provided with cooked meals which would be arranged by four agencies including CITCO, Dr Ambedkar Institute of Hotel Management and Child and Women Development Corporation. The parents of the school-going children in these target areas would be educated and motivated to meet the target.
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296 students given scholarships
Chandigarh, January 18 The function was presided over by Dr K.N. Pathak, Vice-Chancellor, Panjab University, and Mr D.S. Mangat, DPI Schools. Mr Ranjit Singh, chairman of the trust, was also present on the occasion. The shortlisted students were identified by a panel of the trust with the assistance of the Education Department, Chandigarh. Children from the economically weaker sections, who secured more than 65 per cent marks, were awarded the scholarships. Mr Gurdip Singh Deep, managing trustee of the trust, said financial assistance would be available to these children till class XII as long as they continued to secure more than 65 per cent marks. He added the trust would also extend help for higher education on case-to-case basis. Each student from classes VI to X received a scholarship of Rs 1,000 while Rs 2,000 was given to each student from classes XI and XII from a fund of Rs 1 crore created by the trust.
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PU non-teaching staff hold protest
Chandigarh, January 18 Rejecting the recommendations of a PU committee to change the timings of the Evening Studies Department, the general body of the employees appealed to the Syndicate to maintain status quo regarding the
timings.
Currently the Evening Studies Department runs from 5.15 pm to 10.15 pm. It has been proposed that these timings be changed to 2.30 pm to 8.30 pm. Stating the PU was not a Central university, the employees pointed out that the Central Government rules did not extend to them. “The National Academic Calendar does not apply to the non-teaching staff,” pointed out Mr Dharam Pal, president of the federation. Meanwhile, the 18-member PU committee constituted to give its recommendations for the National Academic Calender met today. It was decided that a common calendar be formed at the state level following which proposals could be made for a National Academic Calendar. A member said it was further decided that the university would collect data from other universities in the region regarding the calendar following which another meeting would be held.
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DPS bags ‘Best School Trophy’
Chandigarh, January 18 The award has been given on the basis of the results of the National Talent Search Examination conducted in schools all over India and abroad as well. The school Principal, Sunita
Tanwar, congratulated the staff and lauded the efforts put in by them as a team.
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Pension adalat brings smiles on many faces; 48 cases solved
Chandigarh, January 18 She had not hoped of getting the PPO so early after she had sought voluntary retirement owing to poor health and the death of her husband. Similarly, Ms Phool Wati, widow of a zoo keeper at Chattbir Zoo, got an authority letter of the gratuity amount of Rs 2.68 lakh , one-and-a-half years after the death of her husband. Another widow, Ms Singe, got the pension benefits of her husband, who died in April 2005. A total of 48 cases pertaining to employees of the Punjab Government and the Chandigarh Administration employees who are retiring in the coming months and those whose cases had been kept pending, were addressed on the spot. All beneficiaries were given the PPO on the spot by Mr Nand Lal, Accountant General (A and E), Punjab and Chandigarh and other AG officers. The camp brought smiles on the face of many. But there were some who were complaining of being harassed for not being guided properly by the departments concerned. During the camp, the pension sanctioning authorities in various offices of the Chandigarh Administration and the Punjab Government had also been invited so that the pending and returned pension cases could be settled in consultation with the Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs). The AG office has launched a drive to finalise the pension cases of retiring state government employees before the date of their superannuation, breaking the nexus between the middle men and the certain employee in the AG office. The authorities have evolved a new mechanism to enable disposal of cases within 21 days of being received at the AG office. A daily monitoring of the cases at the level of the Accountant General so that the processing time of the cases was reduced to about a week. “The office of the Accountant General ( A and E) had taken up the matter of inappropriate handling of pension cases by Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDO) of various government with the Chief Secretary, Punjab and Principal Secretary, Finance, Punjab. The state government had been asked to issue directions to the DDOs to send all pension cases six months before retirement of the employees”, said an officer. But still there were some DDOs who were creating problems.
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Penal costs of Rs 500 imposed on Citibank
Chandigarh, January 18 On January 3, 2006, the court had imposed Rs 500 as adjournment costs on Citibank and directed it to file its reply and evidence by today. When the case came up for hearing, Mr Rahul Dahiya, counsel for Citibank, Delhi, only filed reply and sought further time to file evidence. The forum allowed him to file the reply after he paid the previous costs of Rs 500 to Mr Pankaj Chandgothia, counsel for the complainant. The costs had been imposed as per the latest Consumer Protection Regulations notified by the National Commission in May, 2005. Now, the bank has been directed to file evidence on February 16, 2006, as last opportunity. The complainant, Mr T.S. Chandhok, had filed the complaint alleging that he had a Citibank credit card with a limit of Rs 64,000. In June, 2004, a bank official rang him up and offered an interest-free loan of Rs 1 lakh due to his good payment record. Since he was not informed of any additional liability or adverse condition apart from repayment of the principal amount in 36 equal monthly installments, he did not object to the offer. Even no signatures of the complainant were obtained for the grant of loan. Instead of sending one composite cheque for Rs 1lakh, the bank sent him one cheque of Rs 64,000 and another of Rs 34,000. Simultaneously, the credit limit was reduced to zero. As a result, the complainant had to pay an interest on Rs 64,000 from day one, though he could have enjoyed the amount of credit limit without incurring any interest charges for the first 50 days. Moreover, the installment amount was added in the credit card bill resulting in an exorbitant interest charge of 3.5 per cent per month. It has been further alleged in the complaint that the bank in its each monthly bill was charging various amounts such as Suraksha Credit Shield Premia, transaction handling charges, OCL charges, etc, without any authority of law. Insurance firm told to pay claim
While dismissing an appeal filed by United India Insurance, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has directed the company to pay the balance amount of claim amounting to Rs 15,342 with interest at 6 per cent per annum, from October 10, 2004, and costs of Rs 550 to the complainant whose Indigo car had met with an accident. Mr Sobha Singh of Sector 27, Chandigarh, had alleged that he had incurred Rs 46,409 on accidental repairs of his car and Rs 2,500 on its towing to the repair shop. The commission observed that although a survey report could not be ignored, it should be reasonable. The complainant had filed an affidavit of the auto repairer which proved that all repairs, including engine overhauling, were caused due to the accident. The commission observed that "on what basis the surveyor assessed only Rs 27,446. The list of spare parts and labour charges of the dealer has not been attached with the report. The report cannot be relied upon as it is based on arbitrariness. It appears that the surveyor has tried to favour the insurance company, without any reason, to keep his job intact. Such type of
practice on the part of the surveyor deserves to be highly condemned."
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RO’s ruling on lawyers having dual membership
Chandigarh, January 18 This has been communicated to the president of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association and the president of the District Bar Association, Panchkula. Citing clause 3(iii) of the Constitution of the District Bar Association, the Returning Officer, Mr H.S. Awasthi, has stated that in case any member, who is holding a dual membership, was interested in casting his vote at the District Bar Association elections, was required to file an undertaking that he will not cast vote in the elections to be held by other Bar associations. Meanwhile, the issue of the plight of munshi working in the district courts has been raised by the Lawyers for Human Rights International (LHRI) as part of the issue for the Bar elections. “While every candidate is talking about the welfare of lawyers, no collective announcement has been made about the welfare of munshis who are instrumental for the efficiency of the advocates,” said Mr Arvind Thakhur, general secretary of the local unit of the LHRI. There is no insurance scheme for around 400 munhis working in the district courts. On the pattern of the insurance scheme for the lawyers, the District Bar Association should start a similar scheme, said Mr Thakhur, who will submit a memorandum in this regard to the District Bar Association. Those in the fray are: president - Davinder Singh, N.K. Nanda, M.S. Waraich; vice-president - Satish Bhardwaj and Arun Dogra; secretary - Navdeep Sandhu, K.S. Lamba and Kailash Chander; joint secretary - Harpreet Kaur and Kanchan Sehgal; treasurer - Manish Joshi, Vipin Negi, Sanjay Gupta, Vikram Singh and Naveen Garg; executive members - Nitin Dubey, Dhiraj Parihar, Tara Chand, Mandeep Singh Saini, Inderjit Bassi, Garry Rana, Mitlesh Puri and Dinesh Kumar Badhwar.
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