NEIGHBOURHOOD

Report on organic farming
Punjab farmers’ experiences ignored, says NGO
Megha Mann
Tribune News Service

Ropar, January 14
Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar are being included under the National Urban Health Mission’s (NUHM) pilot project, health minister Laxmi Kanta Chawla said here recently.

Chawla was here to preside over a function against female foeticide and to burn medicines abused as drugs confiscated from various medical stores worth Rs 7.1 lakh.

She said the Government of India would contribute 85 per cent in the NUHM, while the state government would give its 15 per cent share. These three cities had been included in the pilot project that had been launched across the country.

Chawla said the government’s efforts to curb female foeticide had started showing results. “Already 10 villages of Mansa have registered an increase in infant ratio of girl children as compared to male children. Keeping this success in view, we have undertaken a survey to study the improved demographic aspect,” she added. The government plans to honour 20 panchayats that have succeeded in achieving commendable infant sex ratio and Rs 1.5 lakh grant would be given to each panchayat.

Talking about the vacant posts of doctors in the state, she said around 600 posts were lying vacant at present. The government would appoint 140 doctors and another 100 doctors would be selected through Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC). Besides this, 45 specialists would be appointed.

The appointed doctors will be first stationed in districts of Mansa, Moga, Barnala and Muktsar, where 65 per cent of posts are lying vacant. Besides, two medical officers will be deputed in 100 hospitals.

To check the menace of female foeticide, the state government health officials have conducted a raid on 250 ultrasound centres, wherein, an action was taken against 100 centres.

Ropar, January 14
In view of shortage of women staff in the Punjab police it has been decided to recruit 466 women cops in the force. The process of filling vacant posts has begun and applications are invited by prospective candidates. The applicants should be between 18 and 22 years of age and 10+2 pass.

SSP, Ropar, RN Dhoke said applicants should be residents of India and their date of birth should be between 1.1.1987 and 1.1.1991. Five years of exemption has been given to those belonging to SC/ST and other backward classes as per the government prescribed rules. The interested candidates can procure forms for Rs 100 from the SSP office during office hours till January 31. The last date for submitting applications is February 5. The candidates should have certificate of studying Punjabi in matriculation. Wards of ex-servicemen, widows, daughters of freedom fighters and children of police officials can send their applications for reservation.

Applicants should be at least 5 feet 3 inches in height. To test physical fitness, all candidates will have to compete for 800 m race, 3.25 m long jump and 1.05 m high jump.

Those who clear physical fitness exam will undergo written test. Students qualifying written test will be enlisted in a merit and will be called for interview, which carries 15 marks.

Candidates can log on to www.punjabpoliceindia.org for more information.

Patiala, January 14
Giving a ray of hope to power-shortage hit people of Punjab, the newly appointed Chairman of the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB), Harinder Singh Brar, has assured that the state would get rid of tormenting power cuts in March.

“My priority is to improve the present conditions of the PSEB in every possible way, particularly, from financial point of view and to relieve people from power cuts. We have a huge power demand and supply gap of 133 lakh units per day, owing to the banking system, under which we have to return power to those states, from where we have taken power under the banking and exchange system. We will return entire power arrears to other states by March, when we will be able to provide people with adequate power supply. Our effort will be to improve the situation within the available framework,” said Brar.

Brar further said the PSEB was having another priority of cutting expenditure of the board. “We need to do a lot of introspection. Our focus will be on savings. We will follow the philosophy of every penny saved is a penny earned in the coming days. Next thing is to provide better services to people to maximum of possible limits,” he added, while talking to The Tribune.

Patiala, January 14
The Punjab Nursing Association, in association with Class IV employees of the Government Rajindra Hospital, held a rally today and urged the government to fill vacant posts so that work of the hospital should not suffer.

For the last couple of years, the working of hospital, considered to be one of the biggest hospitals of the Malwa region, had hit a roadblock with the hospital facing an acute shortage of Class-IV staff.

The Class-IV employees’ unions are up in arms against the management and are urging it to fill up the vacant posts.

Spokesperson of the Punjab Nursing Association, Bimla Kaushal, said for the smooth working of the hospitals, there was an urgent need of 900 staff nurses.

Sources said since 1990, more than a dozen departments had been established in the hospital, yet there had been no recruitment of Class-IV employees. The hospital management had to do with shunting employees from one department to the other.

Moreover, earlier, there were three units each of surgery and orthopaedics, which now have been increased to six units each.

Ram Krishan, branch president of the Class-IV employees’ union, said the contract of 210 persons on Class IV duty had expired on January 7. This further aggravated the problems of the hospital authorities. As many as 70 staff nurses, along with these employees, had also left jobs after their contract-term expired. The staff had been drawn from Government Dental College, Ayurvedic Hospital and TB hospital.

The union leaders demanded from the management that all pending vacancies should be filled.

A senior doctor at the hospital claimed the vacancies that tendered for filling posts had already been floated for other persons to be contacted. However, he claimed that the total number of Class IV posts were less than what was being claimed by some union leaders.

Kharar, January 14
A joint team of the Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA), Public Works Department (PWD) and the Kharar Municipal Council today removed hoardings from the National Highway-21.

According to officials, as many as 40 hoardings, which were put up in violation of the High Court orders and were posing danger to free flow of traffic, were removed from the highway between Balongi and Kharar bus stand.

The action was taken following the orders of Mohali Deputy Commissioner Rahul Bhandari. The team will continue its campaign tomorrow as well. As per reports, similar hoardings on NH-22 will also be removed.

Ropar, January 14
As many as 11 persons were challaned and nine were fined for smoking in public place and violating the Anti-Tobacco Act.

A joint team of the Chandigarh and Ropar Health Departments conducted surprise checks after three months of the enforcement of the Act. The team members included district BCC facilitator Harvinder Singh Saini, District Health Officer Dr Hardeep Kaur, Drug Inspector, Ropar, Neha Shourie, state programme officer of anti tobacco campaign H.P. Kair and others.

Sohana, January 14
The local police has seized over 595 pirated CDs and arrested one person after a tip-off from the officials of the company.

According to the police, Kesar Singh has been arrested with 595 pirated CDs, video CDs and DVDs. A case has been registered.

Chandigarh, January 14
The police arrested a couple for breach of trust while booked a bank accountant and a Patiala resident for cheating in two separate cases.

Giving detail of the first case, sources in the economic offences wing (EOW) of the Chandigarh police said the couple, Devinder Pal Singh and Manjit Kaur, was arrested today in a cheating case. They were produced before a local court, which released Manjit on bail while sent her husband to judicial remand.

The police said Rajinder Pal Singh of Sector 44, the complainant and the brother of Devinder, alleged that the latter had misappropriated Rs 8.70 lakh, which he was taking in the shape of rent on his behalf. He told the police that his father had given a flat in Sector 43 to him. The father had prepared his will in 1991 and after his death in 1994 the flat was transferred in Rajinder’s name. After some time, Rajinder went abroad and prepared a general power of attorney in his brother’s name and told him to take rent on his behalf.

Later, Devinder told him that he needed money for the maintenance of the flat and suggested him to open a joint account with his wife Manjit Kaur, which he did. They used to take Rs 6,500 as rent since 2002 and when he came back, he found no money in the joint account. He also alleged that Devinder was faking ownership of the flat. The matter was reported to the police when Devinder refused to payback the money to his brother. The police has registered a case of breach of trust under Sections 406 and 420 of the Indian Penal code (IPC) in this regard.

About the second case of cheating, the police said AK Thakur, deputy general manager of the Union Bank of India, Sector 17, lodged a complaint alleging that an accountant in the bank, HK Sodhi of Sector 23, Gurgaon, had duped the bank of Rs 8.70 lakh. He was posted at Sector 40 and Mani Majra branches of the bank. A case of cheating under Sections 420 and 409 of the IPC has been registered against him. The police said he misappropriated with the money by pocketing the same.

The police had registered both the cases after conducting inquiries lasting over six months.

In another case, the police booked a Patiala resident, Sukhdev Singh, for allegedly duping a Hallo Majra resident, Jaswinder Singh, of Rs 3 lakh. Jaswinder told the police that he had given the amount as token money to the accused to buy a piece of land in Patiala. It was only later that he came to know that Sukhdev Singh was not the original owner of the land and had forged the documents to dupe him.

A case of cheating and forgery under Sections 420, 467, 468 and 471 of the IPC has been registered in this regard. The police teams had been dispatched to arrest the accused said a senior police officer.

Chandigarh, January 14
The police has arrested Ajay Singh, a resident of Dhanas, for allegedly abducting a 17-year-old girl of the same locality in January 12.

Chandigarh, January 14
Hosts Panjab University, Chandigarh, and Kerala University, Trivendrum, will vie for the top honours in the All-India Inter-Zonal Inter-University Basketball Championship for Men, here tomorrow, on PU campus.

Earlier both the teams won their semifinal match. In the first semifinal, PU got the better of Pune University, 80-54. Yatin (20 points), Gurbaz Singh (20 points) and Dilawar Singh (19 points) played pivotal role in the win.

In the first quarter, the score 19-16 was in favour of PU and in the second quarter too hosts with their fast attack maintained the lead with the score reading 26-13. But in the third quarter, Pune University managed to take the lead and at the end of the quarter the score was 22-24. For Pune, Arjun with 21 points and Arjun Mehta with 17 points made the difference. But they could not strike in the last quarter in which PU outplayed them by 13-1.

The second semifinal, which was hotly contested, saw Kerala as winner as it managed to edge past one of the top contenders of the tournament, Delhi University 85-82. For the winning team Ajeeth and Nikhil KR, did the trick as they scored 22 and 21 points, respectively.

All four quarters were well contested though for DU, Pravin (26 points) and Gurvinder (17 points) performed superbly but it wasn’t enough as Kerala got the full advantage of the opportunities in the latter part of the match to drub their mighty rival.

Earlier in the league matches, Kerala University beat Rajasthan University, Jaipur, 53-52 and Punjabi University, Patiala, had defeated Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth 47-27.