The Tribune...Chandigarh

C H A N D I G A R H

Saturday, July 11, 1998

weather n spotlight
today's calendar

Admissions go on despite rain
CHANDIGARH, July 10 — Marginal admissions have been recorded for plus one classes in most of the ordinary senior secondary schools, particularly in rural areas...
Substation collapses in rain
CHANDIGARH, July 10 — The working of over 100 small-scale units was virtually crippled today following the collapse of a mini power substation due to rain in Phase II of the Industrial Area here this morning..
UT to press Centre for captive power unit
CHANDIGARH, July 10 — The Chandigarh Administration will press the demand for setting up a liquified fuel-based power generation unit in the union territory before the Union Power Minister, Mr K. Kumaramangalam, here tomorrow...
Concern over UT law and order
CHANDIGARH, July 10 — The local unit of the Lok Shakti at an emergency meeting today expressed concern over the deteriorating law and order situation in the city...
Postal services hit for second day
Chandigarh, July 10 — The indefinite strike by the postal employees in the city as well as in the neighbouring satellite towns of Panchkula and SAS Nagar continued for the second day today...

Campus Beat

Crime file

Sculpting his 'aradhana'
CHANDIGARH: Sculpting is his driving force. It is his 'aradhana' suffusing, him with endless joy and he has been making visual forms for the past two decades. All this is about famous sculptor A.C Sagar of Patiala who is exhibiting his works at Punjab Kala Bhavan till July 17...
UT move on erring cops
CHANDIGARH, July 10 — The Chandigarh Police will detain all cops who are found carrying automatic weapons while in plain clothes and will start challaning Gypsies that have no numbers attached with various officials for security purposes...
PGI timings
Chandigarh, July 10 — After functioning for two months according to summer timings, the PGI will revert back to its original work hours from July 16...

Admissions go on despite rain
Tribune News Service
CHANDIGARH, July 10 — Marginal admissions have been recorded for plus one classes in most of the ordinary senior secondary schools, particularly in rural areas. Students securing over 60 per cent in the matriculation examination were interviewed on the third day here today.
In Government Senior Secondary School, Sector 27, only two seats each had been filled in the medical and non-medical streams. A large number of seats were vacant in GSSS, Sector 47. In GGSSS, Sector 20, five seats were filled in the medical stream while only one student was admitted to the non-medical stream. In GGSSS, Sector 8, only three students had been admitted to the medical stream while five seats were filled in the non-medical stream.
Non-medical seats in a number of model schools were filled. While GMSSS, Sector 16 and GMSSS, Sector 35, finished their admissions in the non-medical on the very first day, seats in GMSSS, Sector 23 had a cut-off percentage of 68. In GMSSS, Sector 10, seats in the non-medical stream were filled yesterday. The cut-off, percentage for the medical stream was 60.8. Even the GGSSS, Sector 18, and GMSSS, Sector 40, have exhausted their quotas of seats in the non-medical and medical streams.
In GMSSS, Sector 23, as many as 25 seats had been filled in the commerce stream and seats were still available in the medical stream. In GMSSS, Sector 33, 50 seats out of 60 has been filled in non-medical; about 20 each have been filled in the commerce and medical fields.
GGSSS, Sector 18, had also completed the admissions for the commerce stream. The cut-off percentage was 61. The cut-off percengate for the medical in the same school was 65. In the vocational subjects in the school: 17 seats out of 25 had been filled in stenography and 17 out of 25 in computer course. Only five students were admitted to the LIC course.

Substation collapses in rain
Tribune News Service
CHANDIGARH, July 10 — The working of over 100 small-scale units was virtually crippled today following the collapse of a mini power substation due to rain in Phase II of the Industrial Area here this morning.
The roof and walls of the sub-station, which were already in bad shape, collapsed around 11 a.m., disrupting power supply to the units and rendering over 1000 persons employed there "jobless". As it would take several days for the power situation to return to normal, industrialists fear that it would result in a loss of lakhs of rupees to the industry.
Entrepreneurs informed the Tribune team which visited the scene today that despite repeated reminders to the electricity department to repair the sub-station, nothing was done. Mr Rajeev Gupta, secretary of the Federation of Small-Scale Industries, said since 1996 the federation had written to the department three times to repair the sub-station, but this failed to move things.
he alleged that due to the theft of costly parts of the transformer and transformer oil, power shutdowns were normal in the past few months, affecting the production of the local industry, which is already passing through a phase of recession.
It is learnt that a portion of the walls of the substation had already fallen and steel frames and doors of the building had been taken away by anti-social elements. Nothing was done by the department and the police in this regard, entrepreneurs said.
Meanwhile, Mr Yash Pal Mahajan, president of the federation, has demanded a high-level probe to fix responsibility for the lapse and delay in the repair of the sub-station.
Senior officers of the electricity department were not available for comments.

UT to press Centre for captive power unit
Tribune News Service
CHANDIGARH, July 10 — The Chandigarh Administration will press the demand for setting up a liquified fuel-based power generation unit in the union territory before the Union Power Minister, Mr K. Kumaramangalam, here tomorrow.
The Administration is expected to present a memorandum to Mr Kumaramangalam which will include demands, like additional ad hoc allocation at common pool rates.
The demands contained in the memorandum were reportedly discussed at a meeting of senior Administration functionaries held under the chairmanship of the Administrator, Lieut-Gen B.K.N. Chhibber (retd), at Raj Bhavan this morning. Among those present were the Secretary, Engineering, Mr Navreet Singh Kang; the Chief Engineer, Mr R.K. Jain; and officiating Superintending Engineer, Electricity Operations, Mr V.P. Dhingra.
The Administration has projected an additional demand of 100 mw for the coming 10 years at a 10 per cent annual growth rate in power consumption.
In case the Union Government agrees to grant captive power generation unit of 100 mw to the Chandigarh Administration, the city may have two separate generation units — one at Mani Majra and the other in a southern sector. Though the Union Government has as a policy decision decided not to permit captive generation units based on liquified fuel, an exception is likely to be made for Chandigarh.
The Administration is also reportedly not averse to the idea of a single captive power generation unit of 200 mw somewhere in the periphery of Chandigarh, falling either in Haryana or Himachal Pradesh.
Sources in the Power Department said that the major cause of the power problem was the snags in the underground cable laid way back in 1985 from the Sector 52 substation to the Sector 39 substation. This summer, the cable had four major breakdowns, including two joint failures on June 14 and 16.
Some other related issues are also likely to be discussed at tomorrow's meeting, which will be attended, among others by senior functionaries of the Administration, Chairman of the BBMB and technocrats accompanying the Union Power Minister. Representatives of the PSEB and HSEB may also be invited to the meeting.

Youth held for abducting girl
Tribune News Service
CHANDIGARH, July 10 — A youth was arrested for allegedly abducting a Class XI girl by making her forcibly sit in his car in Sector 32, the police said today.
The incident took place when the girl was going for tuition in Sector 46. The youth, Hari Singh, made the girl to forcibly sit in his car near a temple. A companion of the girl informed the police about the incident. Hari Singh was nabbed by the police within two hours on the road dividing sectors 43 and 44.
Dead: A domestic servant, Pannu Rajik, who received an electric shock yesterday died at the PGI on Friday. He was electrocuted when he accidently came in contact with a live wire while driving nails into the wall of a Sector 15 house where he worked.
Stolen: A woman's purse containing some cash and her "mangalsutra" was stolen from her car that was parked outside a hotel in Sector 35 here, the police said. In a separate incident, a woman of Sector 38, Mrs Devinder Kaur, reported that her car (CH-01-B-3158) was stolen from outside her residence.
Body found: The Sector 22 police found the body of a resident of Sirsa from outside the country wine shop in Sector 22-B. The deceased was identified as Jagdish Chand, an employee of the Haryana malaria department. He had recently retired from the office of the Senior Medical Officer, Sirsa.

Sculpting his 'aradhana'
'Damroo'
CHANDIGARH: Sculpting is his driving force. It is his 'aradhana' suffusing, him with endless joy and he has been making visual forms for the past two decades. All this is about famous sculptor A.C Sagar of Patiala who is exhibiting his works at Punjab Kala Bhavan till July 17.
The subjects which Sagar has chosen are all related to daily life situations and encounters. He has taken up tiny winged creatures flying around heaps of cow-dung. These small beings remind him of his childhood days when he used to stay in the village and they were his constant companions. According to his observation they are always cautious and peeping here and there. Their antennae perpetually alert sent them signals of every kind.
Bulls, a great fascination for Sagar are also placed there in pink marble from Udaipur. One is shown sneezing and this can be interpreted as whether it is man or animal, while sneezing he looks towards the sky or the God. In another piece the bull has been compared to a man, just like the animal tries to dominate the weaker one so does a human being. It is his basic nature.
"Who am I?" poses a question which every man with a slight intellectual bent, asks himself. This carved piece of stone has been realised in such a way that it blends four or five faces together. This is an indication towards the double standards adopted by mankind.
A caterpillar is such a creature which can eat up a whole tree but still retain its shape and size. The same is the case with human beings. They can amass as much of wealth as they like but still their hunger remains insatiable. All this is shown in 'Endless Hunger'.
"Sea shell and Damru" is a creation based on four kinds of sounds which are mentioned in the mythology. It has its genesis in the concept that no sound can be produced without the contact of two things and if there will be no sound, there will be no life.
In the words of A.C Sagar, "Time taken to carve one piece is not fixed. It depends upon various factors. The significant fact is that the forms do not determine the kind of stone to be used. Rather it is the texture of the stone which makes us decide the form to be made out of it".

Campus Beat
Aptitude test for PU course
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh , July 10 — An aptitude test for admission to the Department of Gandhian Students in Panjab University will be conducted on July 21, an official press note said today.
Interviews will be conducted on the same day in the afternoon. The department will conduct the entrance test for M.Phil on August 4.
Test for LLB course: Candidates seeking migration to third and fifth semesters in LLB course in Panjab University will have to appear in a test to be conducted on July 19, a press note said.
Test for those seeking migration in LLM (Part-II) will also be conducted on the same day. The admission will, however, be provisional and subject to production of their previous results by August 21.
Saplings planted: A sapling plantation drive was carried out on the university campus on Friday.
Prof M.M. Puri, Vice-Chancellor, also planted saplings.

UT move on erring cops
Tribune News Service
CHANDIGARH, July 10 — The Chandigarh Police will detain all cops who are found carrying automatic weapons while in plain clothes and will start challaning Gypsies that have no numbers attached with various officials for security purposes.
Following yesterday's incident of shooting by a Haryana cop, the Inspector-General of Police, UT, Mr R.P. Singh, has written to the DGPs of the two states, informing them about the measures to be initiated against the erring cops from the two states.
Later Mr Singh told The Tribune that the identity of the cops would be verified after detention. Without number Gypsies would be challaned under the relevant section of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, and then taken to the police station concerned for verification of the vehicle.
He admitted that constables from the two states in plain clothes created confusion with automatic weapons in hand and this would be curbed soon. Similarly, he said that the DGPs had been requested to ensure that all security vehicles had number plates.

Concern over UT law and order
Tribune News Service
CHANDIGARH, July 10 — The local unit of the Lok Shakti at an emergency meeting today expressed concern over the deteriorating law and order situation in the city.
Members said that the shootout in the district courts complex and a shooting incident inside a theatre complex in UT in the past few days were alarming. The police had failed to control the law and order situation, they alleged.
The party unit wanted the Administration to act immediately and ensure that such incidents did not recur in future.

Postal services hit for second day
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 10 — The indefinite strike by the postal employees in the city as well as in the neighbouring satellite towns of Panchkula and SAS Nagar continued for the second day today.
Postal employees of the region have joined in the indefinite nationwide strike on a call given by the Joint Council of Action (JCA), New Delhi, comprising the National Federation of Postal Employees (NFPE) and the Federation of National Postal Organisations (FNPO) and representing six lakh postal staff.
All employees working in post offices, the Railway Mail Services, the Mail Motor Services, and administrative offices were on strike in UT and Punjab today, Mr Surinder Pal , convener of the local unit of the postal joint council of action, said.
There was no booking of registered articles, money orders and any other type of postal transactions. There was no transmission of mail and delivery of mail to the public. No clearance of letter-boxes were made.
A big rally was held in front of the office of the Chief Postmaster-General, Punjab Circle, in Sector 17.
Speakers said that the 10-point charter of demands of the postal employees was basically meant to rectify the anomalies created by the Fifth Pay Commission.

PGI timings
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 10 — After functioning for two months according to summer timings, the PGI will revert back to its original work hours from July 16.
The PGI will now be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Registration for OPDs will be made from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. on all working days except Saturday and gazetted holidays when it will close at 10.30 a.m., an official press note said.