Thriving illegal chicken market
By Rupesh Kumar

CHANDIGARH, May 31 — Shopkeepers and residents of Sector 21 are a harassed lot as the site in front of the meat market here, which has illegally become a wholesale market of alive chicken, is posing a great danger to their health.

Poultry farmers and some commission agents of Chandigarh and nearby areas in connivance with some meat shop-owners of Sector 21 have been making fast buck at the cost of public health and sanitation.

A shopkeeper, on condition of anonymity, complained, “everyday whole-sellers dump unwanted feather of chicken, which creates hardship to me and my customers. In this situation, few people prefer to have a confectionary items from my shop. What is needed is cleanliness.’’

“In spite of being a poultry farmer, I work as a middleman for poultry farmers and retailers,” a poultry farmer from Bahlolpur said.

Mr Vijay Chopra, a poultry farmer from Karnal, said, “Except Tuesday, I sell two trucks of broiler chicken to a meat shop-owner here, who on the other hand sells it to retailers in Chandigarh, SAS Nagar and Panchkula.” He said chicken which die during transportation from Karnal to Chandigarh, were also bought by retailers and commission agents.

The foul smell of dumped feather of chicken is hazardous for those working here. Mr Anil Kumar, a resident of this area, said, “Due to bad odour, it is impossible in the morning to fetch anything from the market.”

The condition of the market is unhygienic. “Earlier sweepers of the Health Department used to take care of cleanliness but now they have become indifferent. We have complained to the department many times but to no avail. They neither lift unwanted things nor give attention to sanitation,” Mr Ramesh Nagpal, a member of the Meat Market Association, here alleged.

Nothwithstanding this, the site has become a focal point as a wholesale market of alive chicken. Neither the Health Department nor the enforcement staff have taken any step to end this illegal wholesale market and the sufferings of public.

Bar-headed geese prefer to stay back
By Varinder Singh
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, May 31 — The serene Sukhna Lake has something unusual to offer to nature lovers in general and bird lovers in particular these days.

About 30-strong gaggle of beautiful and gorgeous bar-headed geese can either be seen resting at quiet and secluded shores of the lake at its farthest end with forest in the backdrop or undertaking flights during dawn and dusk over the water body, which is one of the major wetlands of the region.

The gaggle, quite unusually, has not adopted its natural course of migration to the upper Himalayas and Central Asia. It has preferred to stay back here this year for reasons not known, forcing bird-watchers and wildlife experts to ponder over this rather abnormal though pleasant development.

According to wildlife experts, bar-headed goose normally descend on various wetlands of the northern and north-eastern region of the country during October from the uplands of Ladakh, Tibet and high altitudes of other Central Asian countries along with other migratory birds.

It is often taken as a local migratory bird as, besides Central Asia and Tibet, a large number of its nesting places and habitat are situated in the Ladakh region of India. Hundreds of flocks of bar-headed geese, called hans and rajhans in local parlance, start their return journey to home, leaving their temporary abodes in India in April and May.

The distinctive grey-coloured bird can be identified from a distance because of two prominent black bars on its predominantly white head and from its yellow-orange legs. Another peculiar feature of the bird is that its juvenile are sans the two bars.

For food, these birds largely depend on green shoots of wheat, gram and grass and for this reason, they are often abhorred by farmers.

The not returning of the geese has baffled the experts who are unable to pinpoint the cause for this change of routine.

Mr Gurmit Singh, Director Wildlife, Punjab, said the reason could be a possible disturbance of their habitats in Ladakh and Tibet due to a number of factors, including a bad weather. He, however,said that not a single bird has stayed back at the Harike Wetland, which receives thousands of such birds with the onset of winter.

Mr B.C. Bala, Chief Wildlife Warden, Punjab, said a small group of birds might have strayed away from their companions when they took the flight back. He said it was also possible that some birds might have been staying back every year, but the development might have been noticed for the first time this year.

Agreeing with him, Mr H.S. Sohal added that some hormonal changes in a group of birds could also have lead to such a situation.

‘Killer’ stretch on national highway
Tribune News Service

PINJORE (Panchkula), May 31— Yesterday’s road accident in which 25 passengers of a Delhi-bound bus of the Himachal Roadways received serious injuries when it collided head-on with a truck near Rampur Sheori here is not an isolated mishap to have occurred on this particular stretch of the Ambala-Shimla section of National Highway no. 22.

This particular 100-m part of the busy road, say locals, has in fact become a “killer stretch”, causing a number of road accidents, including three serious mishaps, involving a number of causalties during the past three years.

Three persons, including two CRPF personnel, were killed and 11 others injured in a road accident involving a CRPF ambulance, a Himachal Roadways bus, a car and a scooter which took place on this stretch in November 1997. The site of the accident was just a few yards away from the previous night’s mishap.

The CRPF ambulance was on its way from Panchkula to Pinjore while the Himachal Roadways bus was going from Shimla to Jalandhar when the accident took place. Subsequent investigations by the police in to the causes of the accident revealed that the bus had failed to negotiate a small turn and collided with the vehicle coming from the opposite direction.

In yet another accident three persons, including a woman and a school-going teenaged boy, were killed and 50 others injured when a loaded truck went out of control and collided with a Haryana Roadways bus near Surajpur. In the accident, the Haryana Roadways bus was badly damaged. Later, a the case was registered against the truck driver.

Locals say the design of the road on this particular stretch was responsible for the accidents. Corroborating their view point, the police says the 100-m stretch of the highway near Rampur Sheori which has a sudden slope towards the Shimla side had been bifurcated for smooth flow of traffic by the national highway division of the Public Works Department ( B and R). The problem arises when the Panchkula-bound traffic accelerates due to a natural gradient while negotiating the downward stretch, resulting in accidents.

Even in the previous night’s accident when the speeding Himachal Roadways bus of the Nalagarh depot, which was on its way to Delhi from Nalagarh, reached the “ killer stretch”, the driver of the bus, Jagat Singh, reportedly took wrong side of the road, resulting in a head-on collision.

However, road users say there are no proper indicators and sign boards, showing the bifurcation of the road. As a result, a number of motorists get confused while negotiating the stretch of the highway.

Meanwhile, eight injured persons in yesterday’s accident, who were admitted to the PGI in Chandigarh, are reported to be stable. Of the 17 persons, who were admitted to the General Hospital at Panchkula, many have been discharged. The police has registered a case against the bus driver, Jagat Singh, for negligent driving.

Divider sans reflector
From Our Correspondent

DERA BASSI, May 31 — Two vehicles rammed into a road divider due to the absence of any reflector and inadequate arrangement of streetlights along the Chandigarh-Delhi National Highway, here at about 10.30 last night.

A truck (HR-47-3839) loaded with gross items rammed into the divider and turned turtle, leaving its all the four wheels on the road, detached. The Contessa car (CH-01-L-9050) preceding the truck with the same speed, also collided with the road divider which disrupted the traffic.

According to the drivers of the vehicles, the divider without any reflector, was invisible as vehicles approaching from the opposite direction did not use the dipper at night which resulted in the accidents.

An eyewitness, Mr Ram Swaroop, who runs a dhaba here, also complained about the absence of any streetlight along the road crossing through this town.

Mr Gopal Krishan who narrated the sight of the two accidents said, "It is the 59th such an accident after the construction of the road divider. I have seen a number of casualties on this point in the past many years. The speeding vehicles often collides here as the road is congested at this point," he alleged.

Whereas the PWD denied the allegations, saying that the light reflectors, placed form time to time, have been broken by the road users themselves.