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Dark Ways
Chandigarh, September 2 For the past several days, driving on the section of the highway passing through the southern sectors has become a nightmare. Accidents are a daily
occurence.
After sunset, most streetlights on the city’s main roads are non-functional, thanks to the apathy of the municipal corporation and the Chandigarh administration. The non-functional streetlights are also a cause of worry for the Chandigarh Police. On roads dividing Sectors 30 and 27, 31 and 31, 46 and 49, 20 and 33, 36 and 42 and 39 and Dadu Majra, a number of street light points are non-functional. “The road leading to the Sector 42 hockey stadium, especially from the side of Sector 36 is unlit,” said Vikas Sharma, a resident of Sector 42. The unlit roads also create a law and order problem. Incidents of anti-social elements having an upper hand are higher compared to the roads lit,” said a senior police official.The streetlights fed by underground cable are with the corporation, while others are with the Administration.. The section of the highway passing through Sectors 47 and 48 is among the worst-hit roads. After sunset, the movement of heavy vehicles increases on the highway and chances of accident are high.
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Saketri villagers taken ill
Panchkula, September 2 Under treatment at Mani Majra, 35-year-old Gursharan Singh said the entire village had been in the grip of diarrohea for the last four days. “In my family , three of the five members are suffering from vomiting and dysentery. We have complained about contaminated water being supplied to us, but nothing has come of it. The public health department does not seem to have taken our complaints seriously,” he said. The sarpanch of the village, Mohan Singh, said a new tubewell was commissioned nearly a month back. “I have received information that a number of families have taken ill. Unfit water supply is likely to be the cause. The villagers had earlier complained that the water supplied to their homes was stale and not medicated,” he said. Maintaining that he was aware of at least 25-odd families which were “unwell and taking medication from dispensaries, hospitals and private doctors in Chandigarh,” he said the public health department had been told of the problem. Another resident of Saketri, Bharat Bhushan Bansal, also suffering from dysentary, said they had repeatedly asked the health department to test water samples from the village. However, there had been no response.“There is leakage in the pipes and dirty water finds its way into homes of the villagers. Our entire neighbourhood is down with these symptoms,” he maintained. Doctors at General Hospital, Sector 6, said a few cases had come from different parts of the city, not from a particular area. When contacted Civil Surgeon Dr Kamla Singh said they were sending a team of doctors to Saketri to assess the extent of the spread of the disease. “We will also get the water samples from the area tested,” she added.
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City's first mobile eatery gets admn's nod
Solar heating, Executive Development Centre projects
okayed In another major decision, the Administration has okayed the establishment of a Executive Development Centre for which land has been selected alongside the Ambedkar Institute of Hotel Management. The centre will be developed to train executives from service industries. It will also have facilities for corporate training and conferencing. Funds for the project have come from the Government of India. The Administration has also decided to provide solar heating facilities for both the institutes of hotel management in
Chandigarh.
Chandigarh, September 2 Planned on the lines of services abroad, Chandigarh's mobile van eatery facility will be initially stationed at Sukhna Lake and Rock Garden. It is ironical that the Rock Garden, despite being Chandigarh's face on the world tourism map, continues to lack professional catering service. This, despite the fact that Nek Chand’s environment architectural marvel is the most visited art park in the world, averaging nearly 3,000 visitors per day; a whopping over a million visitors per year. The total number of visitors to the park in the past 30 years has been over 20 million. They have, however, hardly had access to good eatery services. With its latest proposal, the UT administration seeks to bridge the gaps so that the city's tourism potential is not affected. The Chandigarh Institute of Hotel Management has been assigned the task of conception and execution of the project. It has been chosen for its in-house restaurant Chandigarh Beckons, which will eventually provide catering services for the van. The van will target visitors on the move and will serve only fast food.
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Fire in cardboard factory
Mohali, September 2 According to reports, the fire broke out around 6 p.m. and fire brigade employees were able to bring the flames under control by 9 p.m. Three fire tenders from the local fire brigade and one each from Chandigarh , Dera Bassi, the Semi Conductor factory were pressed into service. Additional deputy Commissioner Jaspal Mittal, SDM Raghbir Kaur Khaira , SP (City) Varinder Pal Singh reached the spot. The cause of fire could not be ascertained.
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In Basta
Chandigarh, September 2 Despite clues provided by the victim’s son, Ganderv Yadav, the police did not find it fit to take a single person into custody for interrogation. The mutilated body of Dajo, who was in his late thirties, was found at a pathway between the lake and the Golf Club, the head smashed with a brick and a muffler tied around the neck, indicating that he had been hit and strangled. Broken teeth were found at the site. The police noticed injury marks on private parts of the victim. A blood-stained brick was found nearby. Ganderv told the police that his father, who was working as a porter in Ludhiana, had gone for a walk on the evening of January 4 and had not come back. Dajo came to the city on January 2 and demanded Rs 100 from one Soni of the BDC. The following day, he against demanded Rs 150, saying that he wanted to send money to his family in Bihar. Dajo met a few people in the city during his short stay before he was murdered, but the police failed to unravel the mystery behind his killing. On July 8, 2006, admitting failure, the police sent the case to court marked as “untraced.”
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Admn equally responsible for poor development works: Gill
Panchkula, September 2 This was stated by the president of the Municipal Council, Manvir Gill, at a press conference, here today. She was reacting to the interim report made public by president of the Punjabi Mahasabha Hemant Kinger last week. “I got to know about the interim report prepared by the district administration from newspapers. I realised that the council was being blamed for the poor quality of work carried out in the city. However, I want to clarify that the district administration is party to every work carried out in the city. A day after I was made president, the deputy commissioner formed a district level monitoring committee to supervise all development works. If they are nailing us for poor quality of work, they must share the responsibility,” she said. Giving a reply to all the allegations levelled against the council and its members, Gill said material in all development works undertaken by the council had been approved by the National Institute of Technical Teachers’ Training and the Punjab Engineering College. “We have reports for the same. This belies the claims of the officials that the material used was not tested by any agency,” she maintained in defence of the allegation that all samples sent to a Delhi laboratory had failed quality tests. Adding that the monitoring committee comprising the city magistrate and the panchayati raj and nagar parishad officer were supervising all development works, she said they were being “shielded” and the entire blame was being passed on to the council. “First, there is no problem with the works carried out. Second, if there is any problem it is our collective responsibility and the administration cannot absolve its officers of that,” she emphasised. Stating that all payments were received after getting a “satisfactory” report from the technical monitoring committee, Gill said weekly reports about stray cattle and sanitation were regularly submitted to the district administration. “We kept the officials informed at every step. They have said we were splitting the estimates to carry out development works. However, these were forwarded to the administration. The officers could have put their foot down if they wanted to. Why are they accusing us of any manipulations,” she said. Gill held that she had not “misued” the emergency powers vested in the president. “I only used the section for works, which were demanding immediate attention and causing great inconvenience to public,” she explained. She said a meeting with the Chief Minister had been fixed for September 3 to apprise him of the goings-on in the city. “We will demand a vigilance inquiry into all 250 development works carried out by us and seek punishment for those found guilty,” she remarked. A legal notice had been served on Hemant Kinger and a public apology sought for all his wrong utterances, she said.
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Rights council flays police atrocities
Chandigarh, September 2 Addressing the seminar, former Chandigarh MP and senior advocate Satya Pal Jain, said protection of humans was of utmost importance as these were the basic rights for the protection of life and liberty of an individual. Governments, NGOs and all right thinking persons should come on one platform to protect human rights, particularly those of the underprivileged sections of society. Senior human rights lawyer Amar Singh alleged that violations of various judgements of the Supreme Court, including DK Basu vs State of West Bengal, was rampant by the police forces of all states. Saying that the NGOs will have to work within the ambit of law, Maheshwar Singh, Reader, Rayat and Bahra Law College, called upon the human rights organisations to coordinate with the law enforcement agencies to improve their functioning. Chairman of the GHRC Arvind Thakur said since its inception on January 1, 2007, the council had been able to highlight police atrocities in northern India. With a view to expand its activities, the council would open offices in the UK, USA and Canada, Satish Bhardwaj, general secretary, informed. Prominent among those who spoke on the occasion were Anil Kaushik, chairman of the All-India Human Rights Watch, Pushpa Salaria, chairperson of the Human Rights Protection forum and Ranjana Shahi, a former councillor of the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh. A booklet on guidelines regarding arrest, based on the judgements of the Supreme Court, was also released on the occasion by Jain.
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Hike in parking rates flayed
Chandigarh, September 2 Neither public opinion nor the democratic process has any role in taking such decisions. Condemning the new paid parking policy, the executive body of the group felt that the paid parking system in the city failed to do any good because of inadequate infrastructure and faulty implementation policy. Unprofessional approach, rowdy behaviour of the contractors’ staff and ineffective control of the government machinery over their activities proved that no body means public welfare. And now despite strong opposition from elected representatives of the corporation, the MC has yielded to the undemocratic pressure from the officialdom of the administration to hike the rates of parking.
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Proposal to hike pension in armed forces
Chandigarh, September 2 According to excerpts of the recommendations sent to the Sixth Pay Commission, the proposal has been justified on the grounds that an individual needs to cater to his immediate needs on retirement. Also he faces a host of commitments till the age of 55 years. The proposal is aimed at personnel below officer rank (PBOR), the vast majority who start retiring at the age of 35 or so after completing their service. Early retirement is necessary to keep the profile of the services young and fighting fit. Central government rules stipulate that a government employee needs to complete 33 years of service to be eligible to earn full pension. Weightage of some years is given to PBOR, depending upon their rank, but most of them are still unable to breach the 33-year ceiling. The situation for officers, however, is different as they are able to meet the criteria because of the weightage system. Officers begin retiring at the age of 54 years. The services have also sought pension for reserve liability. At present, armed forces personnel have a reserve liability for three years after hanging up their uniform. During this period, they can be re-called for active service in the interest of national security, but are not compensated for this liability. It has been recommended that “compensatory pension”, equivalent to 10 per cent of the basic pension, plus dearness allowance should be authorised for three years to ex-servicemen on reserve liability. Other recommendations include that applicability of ordinary family pension should be increased from the present 7 years to 1 years as seven years is inadequate keeping in view domestic commitments. Disability pension has also been sought for those whose disability is below 20 per cent on the grounds that psychological problems of disability are life long.
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Sector 27 Market
Chandigarh, September 2 Many a time, such acts lead to quarrels or arguments between the shopkeepers and the ‘culprits’. Such scenes have become routine affair in Sector 27 and 28 markets as the toilets there are under renovation for the past three months. Expressing resentment over this Lucky, a shopkeeper of Sector 27, said, “Three months have elapsed but the work is still not finished. The authorities concerned seem to be least bothered about the inconvenience being faced by us”. The renovation work was started three months ago. But due to lack of interest of the authorities, it has not been completed till now, added Lucky. General secretary of the welfare association of Sector 27-C market, Jaswant Singh, said, “The policy of demolishing all toilets at the same time is not appropriate. The renovation should have been done on one-by-one basis. Providing no alternative facility is a big lapse on the part of the authorities”. A visit to the site by this correspondent revealed that the roofs of the toilets were under repair resulting in leakage of water. Due to leakage, many shopkeepers face lot of problems because water accumulates in front of their shops. “It is not possible to open the shops and even customers avoid showing up due to water logging right at the entrance of the shops. The authorities should take proper action to solve this major problem faced by us,” said Ashwini Kumar, owner of a photo studio in Sector 27 market.
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5,000 participate in Onam celebrations
Chandigarh, September 2 Bansal was chief guest at the Onam celebrations organised by the Confederation of Malayalee Organisations in the city here today. All eight Malayalee organisations in the tricity with population of 5,000 decided to celebrate Onam jointly for the first time at Sacred Heart School. Kerala Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy inaugurated the celebrations. The snake boat race (known as Vallamkali) is the noticeable feature of Onam, a harvesting festival of Kerala celebrated during Chingam (the first month of Malayalee calendar in August-September). The festival lasts for ten days. The boat race attracts a large number of tourists from the country and abroad as well. The minister also assured the community to help in solving the problem of inadequate quota of seats in Sampark Kranti train from the city to Kerala. Speaking on the occasion, Sreemathy elaborated upon the health services and education facilities being provided to the people in Kerala. He pointed out that the state with high literacy rendered excellent education and health services. It was also awarded the world’s first baby friendly state by World Health Organisation. Prominent among those who addressed the gathering included A.J. Philip, senior associate editor, The Tribune, Father Thomas Anchancikal, and principal of Sacred Heart School, sister Sabestina.
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Doc drives to victory in car rally
Chandigarh, September 2 The rally was flagged off from Himachal Bhawan, Sector 28 by Hari Singh, famous car rallyist. More than 50 cars participated in the event. The second and third places were grabbed by Balvinder Singh (mileage 31.86 km per litre) and N.D. Sharma (mileage 31.46 km). Other winners were Dinesh, Duggal, Jagdish, Rajesh, Rajeev and Gurmeet, under different categories. The event format saw existing customers drive their cars on a pre-determined route. The basis of this exercise was to ascertain the best fuel consumption figures. Winners were adjudged on the basis of the best mileage figures attained during this drive. The route for the Logan Drivethon was about 55 km (spread over tricity- Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali) with regular traffic conditions and took about two hours to cover.
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Tributes paid to Dadi
Chandigarh, September 2 Speaking on the occasion, minister of state for finance Pawan Bansal said Dadi dedicated her life to spreading the message of peace and universal brotherhood. Prominent among those who paid tributes to the departed soul included Justice A.N. Jindal of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, city mayor Harjinder Kaur and Satya Pal Jain, a former local MP.
Mohali: A function to pay homage to B.K. Rajyogini Dadi Parkashmani, who died on August 25, was organised at Sukh Shanti Bhawan, here today. B.K. Prem, in charge, Rajyoga centre, Mohali-Ropar area, said Dadi was a spiritual lighthouse, who, with her courage, honesty and dedication, worked for the upliftment of the society. She added that Dadi had toured over 100 countries to propagate ancient Indian heritage. Prominent among those who paid homage to Dadi included Kharar MLA Balbir Singh Sidhu and Dr P.S. Jassi, former director, health services, Punjab.
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Woman suffers 70 pc burns
Chandigarh, September 2 The police said the victim, Sudesh, was admitted to the PGI in a critical condition. She suffered 70 per cent burns. The police received information at around 12 midnight. The police tried to get her statement recorded by the magistrate, but the doctors declared her unfit to record her statement. The family told the police that Sudesh was preparing tea when all of a sudden they heard her cries and saw her engulfed in flames. They doused the flames and rushed her to the hospital.
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65 girls adopted for free education
Dera Bassi, September 2 Besides launching a crusade against female foeticide, 65 girls were adopted for free education up to Class V and 65 children were given school bags. Appreciating the club’s gesture, Capt Kanwaljit Singh, his wife Sarbjit Kaur and son Jasjit Singh Bunny promised to extend all support to the club.
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Fix-up autorickshaws
Chandigarh Administration is quite alert in keeping law and order of the Union Territory (UT) in place as compared to its neighbouring states. People travelling from Punjab and adjoining areas are afraid of Chandigarh Traffic Police and before entering the city they get cautious. Things like keeping speed control fasten car belt, cell use, two-wheelers, and wearing helmet comes to their mind. Sadly, entire North India including UT has failed to control the autorickshaws that charge heavily, ignoring meter and move as per their will. Can't we copy Mumbai where auto operators charge strictly as per meters? UT has developed fully with the coming of IT complex and maintains the status of good heritage as well. It is prayed that administration should enforce autorickshaw/taxi operators to charge as per meter. This step will definitely improve inflow of domestic and foreign tourists. O. P. Garg
Readers are invited to write to us. Send your mail, in not more than 200 words, at
news@tribuneindia.com or, write in, at: Letters, Chandigarh Tribune, Sector 29, Chandigarh – 160 030
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Mohali resident attacked
Chandigarh, September 2 Sources said Amandeep Singh of Phase V, Mohali, lodged a complaint alleging that he was on his way back home in his car around 8 pm when he was intercepted by a car (HR-2C-0786). Four persons came out of the vehicle dragged him out of his car. Without saying anything two persons caught hold of him and other two inflicted injuries in his face and arms with a shaving blade. They threatened him of dire consequences before going. He informed the police. He was taken to the Sector 32 Government Medical College and Hospital. The police said Amandeep suffered minor injuries in his arms and face. A case under sections 341, 324, 506 and 34 of the IPC has been registered. The car is registered at Yamunanagar. It being Sunday today, the address of the owner of the car could not be verified, said a police officer. In another incident, Jail Ram of Pandit Colony, Sector 52, reported to the police alleging that one Surinder assaulted him with a sharp-edged weapon near the fish market in Sector 52 on Saturday night. A case has been registered.
Cheating
Tarlochan Singh, president of the Sanghrash Progressive Society, Sector 50, lodged a complaint against Gurbandhan Singh, S.S. Chandel and Rakesh Kumar, all members of the Managing Cooperative Progressive Society, Sector 50, alleging that they had cheated the society by taking money from members on its behalf. But they did not deposit the money collected. The matter was being investigated by the economic offences wing of the Chandigarh Police.
Purse snatched
Jatinderjit of Sector 21 lodged a complaint with the police alleging that two motorcyclists snatched her purse containing Rs 3,000 and a mobile phone from near Sector 15-D turn on Saturday afternoon. A case has been registered.
Held for theft
Ram Singh of Dadu Majra colony reported that Vishal of Agriculture University, Palampur, had stolen his mobile phone from a tavern near the CTU workshop in Phase I, Industrial Area, on August 31. Acting on the complaint, the police arrested the accused from Colony No. 4 on Saturday night. A case has been registered.
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Nephew of Sec 9 shopkeeper held
Chandigarh, September 2 The SHO of Sector 3 police station inspector Ram Gopal said 20-year-old Ankit Gupta was a nephew of the owner of Sector 9 MG Store. He stays with his uncle at his residence and also helps him in looking after his store. He was arrested from Sector 9 following his identification. The police has registered a case of rioting, causing injuries and kidnapping against Rohit Bajaj, son of Sweety Bajaj, owner of Hotel Solitaire, Manimajra, and others on a complaint lodged by Sidharth of Sector 44. He alleged that the accused assaulted and kidnapped them after their vehicles collided on the road dividing Sectors 3 and 4 on Friday and later dumped them in Panchkula. The police said efforts were on to trace the other culprits.
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24-year-old woman commits suicide
Zirakpur, September 2 According to police sources, Kamaldeep, a resident Phase I, was rushed to Government Hospital, Sector 6, Panchkula, where
she was declared ‘brought dead’. Kamaldeep used to work as a cashier in a
private firm at Panchkula and had submitted her resignation three days ago following a theft
at her working place.
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2 youths held
Panchkula, September 2 The two, both aged 20 years, were arrested from Darua village and Sector 28, respectively. Produced in the court of Madhu Khanna, CJM, the accused were remanded to police custody and have confessed to have committed several snatchings, the police said.
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New car stolen
Mohali, September 2
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