Rehabilitation scheme may go
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Oct 26 — The allotment of 109 plots to slum-dwellers of Sector 31 Labour Colony yesterday may be the last of the largesse doled out to the so-called weaker sections under the garb of “rehabilitation scheme”.

Sources in the Chandigarh Administration said thinking among senior officials is that the scheme — launched almost two decades ago to rehabilitate slum-dwellers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar — had gone awry and there was a need to scrap it. Over the years the scheme — aimed at providing planned and organised housing in lieu of jhuggis — has faced flak from various sections of society. The plots are invariably sold out at premium by the allottees to property dealers and other persons.

So instead of rehabilitation, the Administration created a problem for itself. The hunger for free plots among the encroachers grew as more and more people from UP and Bihar migrated to Chandigarh, thus making it a ticklish political issue. At present, any person who sets up a jhuggi on any land will be rehabilitated when the government acquires the land. Thus the scheme benefits those who encroach land. These aspects have worried the administration. At present, the file to scrap the scheme is being dealt with by senior officials.

Yesterday, the Estate Office wing of the Administration held a draw of lots to allot 109 plots to slum dwellers, who had set up jhuggis after encroaching upon government land in Sector 31 and the Industrial Area Phase II.

The allottment letters will be issued in a day or two while files will then be transferred to the Municipal Corporation for further action. Sources said once jhuggi-dwellers moved out after the deadline, the colony will be demolished and the land put to some better use.

Some 200 odd migrants still remain in the colony but a final decision about their future is yet to be taken. The Administration has ordered a fresh survey. The previous phase of the ambitious scheme to rehabilitate jhuggi-dwellers in Mauli Jagran and Sector 52 had seemingly fallen flat on its face.

Several allottees have allegedly sold off their units, thus resulting in a loss to the exchequer as the land was allotted to them on rent while an open auction by the Administration by demarcating bigger sized commercial or residential plots could have netted crores of rupees, sources said. They also confirmed that the issue of underhand sale of plots in Mauli Jagran was already in the notice of senior officials.

Close to 50 per cent of the 2565 plots in the second phase of the Mauli Jagran rehabilitation colony, allotted less than an year ago, have been sold out on premium while the jhuggi dwellers, in all likelihood, may have once again moved on to newer sites to set up shanties in the hope of yet another rehabilitation scheme on the already scarce land in the Union Territory. Property dealers in Mauli Jagran and adjoining Mani Majra and Panchkula have a long list of probable sellers with them.

'Hepatitis-B affects 34m'
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Oct 26 — The Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) organised the Dutta Memorial Lecture on 'Auto Immune Liver Disease in Children' here today. The lecture was delivered by Dr Giorgina Mieli-Vergani, a visiting professor to the Department of Paediatrics, PGIMER.

Dr Vergani said the importance of hepatitis-B needed to be understood as it affected about 34 million persons in India. Such infections in children with deleterious effect in adult life could be easily prevented by immunisation of children, she said.

She advocated introduction of universal immunisation. She further said auto-immune liver diseases affected a large number of children and it was hoped that a better understanding of clinical presentation and mechanism of liver damage would allow to devise a more specific and successful treatment.

Dr Vergani is a Professor of Paediatric Hepatology, Department of Child Health, King's College Hospital, London. She is also the Director of Supra Regional Paediatric Liver Services at Kings' College. The major field of her research is auto-immune liver diseases. She has published a large number of research papers and contributed to 27 books.