Ludhiana, March 6
In a move that is likely to provide relief from congestion at the railway station here, all Uttar Pradesh and Bihar-bound trains and those coming from these states will be given a regular stoppage at Dhandari railway station from April. This will enable the migrant labourers travelling to these states to board trains from Dhandari, located close to the industrial belts.

Talking to mediapersons after inspecting Sahnewal and Dhandari railway station here last evening, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) of the Ferozepur division Satish Chandra said the ongoing work for renovation of platform at Dhandari would be completed by the end of this month and the station would be ready to take the load of having a scheduled stoppage for more than two dozen trains.

The authorities have also proposed to set up unreserved ticket system (UTS) at Sahnewal and Dhandari railway stations as well as at 42 other stations in Ferozepur division by June 2009. Besides, a total of 173 new UTS will be installed in the division this year.

Giving details of various development projects being undertaken by the Railways, the DRM said Railways had decided to execute at their own level the work for proposed 20 feet wide footbridge connecting all seven platforms and Civil Lines side of the railway station here. The bridge, a tubular-concrete structure, will be fabricated at railway workshop at Jalandhar at an estimated cost of Rs 3 crore, he added.

He said that 25 unmanned railway crossings had been converted into manned crossings and 18 others had been interlocked as an additional safety measure. Work for electrification of Jalandhar-Jammu section was on at a satisfactory pace and it will be completed by the year-end, said the DRM. 

Ludhiana, March 6
Taking strict measures after yesterday’s incident, the police has decided to pull up the parents of underage children caught driving a vehicle.

The development followed an incident in which three students of UPSC Jain Model School (two brothers) were injured as they met with an accident with a truck near Vardhman Chowk.

All three are recuperating in CMC Hospital with multiple injuries. The incident has once again brought to fore the menace of underage driving. In the wake of the annual examination, police officials are also feeling the heat. The city police has decided to go strict again the violators.

According to SSP, Sukhchain Singh Gill if an underage child was caught driving, the vehicle will be confiscated and will be returned only to the parents.

The erring parents will be taken to Traffic Park along with their ward and will be made to sit in a class of two hours on hazards of underage driving.

It is necessary to teach parents a lesson, as they are responsible for this hazard on roads, said Dr Gill, adding that parents are not only putting the life of their child at risk by buying a vehicle for them but also endangering the life of others on road. It has been witnessed in the past that the challan has failed to deter the children from driving a vehicle.

SP-city-I on Harsh Bansal said, “People should realise the gravity of the situation.

A student goes through the most crucial phase during their examination. They are in a hurry while they are going to take exam and if they do well in exam, they drive in mad frenzy and if they don’t, they burst all their anger on their vehicle so parents should realise their duty and pick and drop their children during exams or hire a school bus for them.”

Sushma Chabra, a homemaker, said children are not to blame for reckless driving. It is the parents’ job to teach children how to go by the rule book.

Ludhiana, March 6
The CIA staff has busted a gang of snatchers with the arrest of four of its members, allegedly involved in over 250 cases of snatching in the last 10 months.The police has also recovered 101 mobile phones and two laptops from their possession. 

Interestingly, most of the snatchings committed by the gang went unreported. Police sources revel that the accused used to stab the victims before snatching. The police has also recovered a knife used for the crime. 

Meanwhile, more than 25 new cases have come to light where the accused stabbed the victims. The police has also nabbed two shopkeepers who used to purchase the stolen mobile phones and further sell it in the market.

SSP Sukhchain Singh Gill said, “It is due to the greed of the shopkeepers, who wanted to earn quick bucks, that these accused were nabbed.” The accused have been identified as Krishan Kumar Sharma, Jatinder Kumar Sharma, Sanjay Kumar Sharma and Sahmmi Kumar.

While three accused are residents of Railway Colony, the fourth is a native of Jawahar Nagar Camp. Krishan Kumar and Sanjay Kumar are brothers.

Interestingly, all the four accused are children of railway employees.

The shopkeepers involved in the crime have been identified as Rajiv Kumar and Narinder Singh. While the former has his shop near Dhuri railway lines, the latter is operating from the Field Gunj area of the city. According to the CIA-II in charge Dilpreet Singh, the accused were operating in posh localities across the city and used to target the pedestrians on secluded streets.

The gang divided itself in a pair of two. While one group used ride pillion, the other group used to crouch behind a hedge and attack the victim completely off guard. They also used to use fake number plates on their two-wheeler.

Dilpreet Singh said the accused were nabbed following a tip-off at a naka near Sanatan Vidya Mandir. The police also seized the motorcycle used in the crime. According to the police Krishan Kumar was the kingpin of the gang. All the accused are drug addicts and used to commit the crime when they ran short of money to buy drugs. 

Ludhiana, March 7
Only 80,000 streetlights for a city spread over 134 sq km. That's the reason why one finds it tough to spot streetlights whenever one has to roam about in the city at night. It takes around Rs 10,000 for the installation of a streetlight and as far as maintenance of these are concerned, the work is given to private contractors. 

These contractors are paid Rs 19, 32, 45 per month for a tubelight, small and big bulbs, respectively, by the civic body and the contractor has to be fined Rs 50 per streetlight in case it is not functional. Besides, the contractor also has the duty to switch on and off these lights, and most of these contractors work in connivance with politicians.

Whenever you come across fused lights at night or switched on lights during the day time, remember that the elected representative by you never gave a thought to question the civic body about the public expenditure submitted by you in form of various taxes given by you.

While the industrial cities like Ahmedabad and others are switching to solar lights for energy conservation and reducing the power bills, irony is that not even a single street in the city has a solar cell panel to save power bills. It's a pity for an industrial town that has been a victim of regular power cuts that no energy saving efforts are being taken by the politicians. Instead, fancy lights at the cost of around Rs 6 crore are being installed stating the direction of development in which city is going.

Out of 75 wards, more than half of them are flooded with streetlight polls with either fused tubelights or bulbs and broken power cables due to which they are not serving the purpose for which they have been installed. Besides, the power cables hanging from these lights are too an example of how officials have been working under your elected representatives. Every road, be it the Ferozepore Road or the Mall Road, one could see a large number of streetlights nonfunctional and only few of them glowing.

Talking to The Tribune, Gurdit Singh a resident of Model Town said, “Even though the poll have been announced it seems that the leaders who are going to contest elections would never point on small petty things like this which would affect common man”.

He said the MPLAD fund which the Member of parliaments had was generally given in the form of donations and never utilized for initiating a project for development of the city.

So, do think about contributions made by MPs in the city before deciding who should come to power as your vote would affect all who are parts of Ludhiana.

Ludhiana, March 6
Class XII chemistry paper of the Punjab School Education Board has caused lot of heartburn among the students and the science teachers. The teachers have alleged that the paper setter had not followed the norms and the pattern prescribed by the board.

Sukhdev Kaur, a science lecturer at Government Multi-Purpose Senior Secondary School, said for the first time, the paper was set on the pattern of the CBSE and it was beyond the comprehension of the students. Only an intelligent student could attempt such a paper. All the three sets of paper — A, B and C — were quite difficult for average students. "We have given practice to our students according to the pattern of the PSEB and the students are not used to this type of pattern," said the teacher.

Gurmeet Kaur, lecturer in chemistry at Government Senior Secondary School for Boys, Jawahar Nagar camp, said the question paper brought tears to the eyes of the students. "We have taught the students with great dedication and hard work throughout the year, but such a question paper can simply mar the future of the students.

Numerical questions were extremely tough and not within the reach of the students. In one question, instead of writing “ethyle”, it was written “ET” and students were not able to understand it due to which they left the question," said Gurmeet Kaur.

Neeraj Kumar and Harpreet Singh, students of Class XII, were very upset as they found the paper very tough and said it was going to affect the overall percentage of their marks.

Mandi Ahmedgarh, March 6
Accusing successive state governments of ignoring demand to enact the Public Library Legislation, office-bearers of the Old Students’ Association of the MGMN Senior Secondary School and the Punjab Library Association urged the voters of the area to impress upon the legislators of their respective constituencies to do the needful in getting the bill passed.

In a communication addressed to public in general and political leaders in particular, office-bearers of the association, led by Bal Anand, have demanded that the state Assembly should start the process to enact the Punjab Public Library Act.

Terming scarcity of quality books as the main reason for lower share of Punjabis in national pool of civil services, the laureates regretted that the successive governments had failed to provide adequate facilities to poor students who wanted to enhance their knowledge through public libraries.

“Unfortunately, the leaders of various parties have been impressing upon constituents of the government to provide massive grants for other purposes, but no one bothered to demand establishment of libraries for their wards. Philanthropists and social leaders also preferred to constricting religious places and stadiums instead of establishing libraries,” regretted Bal Anand.

He claimed the state could have contributed much more in the Central pool of civil services had the state government passed the Act.

According to Bal Anand, the Government of India had circulated a Model Draft Bill for Public Libraries in 1964 and the Punjab Library Association had requested the Government of Punjab to introduce the Bill in the Assembly.

The Punjab Library Association had submitted to the Government of Punjab a draft of the proposed Punjab Public Library and Information Services Bill in October, 1993.

This draft was revised and reviewed by the Department of Education in 2001 and further updated in 2003. The draft bill titled, 'Punjab Public Library and Information Services Bill', 2003, has been agreed upon by the Library Committee of the Department of Education, Punjab and has also been reviewed by the Legal Remembrance Cell.

Ludhiana, March 6
To prepare the extension staff officials from the department of agriculture and allied disciplines, who are also the trainers at field level in inculcating entrepreneurship development skills among the rural youth, Punjab Agricultural Management and Extension Training Institute (PAMETI) organised a five-day workshop on entrepreneurship, which concluded here today.

The contents of the workshop consisted of interaction and discussions on topics like concept and need of entrepreneurship, project identification and report making, financial aspects of any business, HRM and marketing tools. The participants were introduced to enterprises such as custom hiring of farm implements, hatchery, feed processing and testing units, milk processing and value addition.

Besides, the trainees were accompanied to Central Institute for Post Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET), where they were shown the working of various agro enterprises, which a farmer or entrepreneur can adopt. A detailed project report on feasibility of Soya Processing Plant was also discussed.

Mandi Gobindgarh, March 6
“The present financial crisis has once again reminded us of the need that students should be developed as entrepreneurs so that they can become job creators instead of becoming job seekers”, said PTU Vice- Chancellor Dr Rajneesh Arora at the convocation organised by RIMT group of institute, Mandi Gobindgarh.

RIMT group chairman, Hukam Chand Bansal, said his group is committed to develop RIMT institutes as centers of excellence in their respective fields and wish to contribute in the national endeavor to make India, an economic power.

Dr BS Bhatia, the director general of the institutes presented the joint report of the two institutes in which he highlighted various curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and achievements during 2007-2008.

Dr Rajneesh Arora conferred 600 Degrees to students of 2007-2008 passed out batches of BTech, MBA, MCA, BBA and BCA. He said as India is a developing nation, the dissemination of professional education needs top priority. He stressed the need of developing rural India as its market can provide immense employment opportunities to the countrymen.

Dr Pritpal Singh, the principal of RIMT-IET group, presented vote of thanks.

On this occasion, Hina Bansal was awarded gold medal for securing the first position in the university in BCA programme where as Ashish Banga, Dharminder Singh and Sofi Garg got silver medals for securing the second position in BTech electrical engineering, BTech civil engineering and BCA respectively.

Those who were given merit certificates and medals by the institute for securing the top positions in the university included Bhanu Sehgal, Ashish Banga ( both BTech electrical engineering), Amandeep Singh Gill, Ashish Rattan (both BTech mechanical engineering), Puneet Gupta, Parminder Kaur and Anshu Bansal (all BTech CSE), Anil Kumar, Gurpreet Singh Mann (both BTech ECE), Dharmendra Singh, Kailash Nath Tripathi (both BTech CE), Rajni Sharma, Mukesh Arora (both MBA), Ramni Sharma, Ira Kanwar (both MCA) Neetu Rani, Tripti Poddar (both MCA) Paviter Kaur, Jatiner Kaur (both BBA), Ajay Vij, Hina Bansal (both BCA) Arti Verma, Falki Bansal (both MCA), Simranjeet Kaur and Deepshikha Gupta (both MBA.)

Among those present on the occasion were, chief director general SK Ahaluwalia, Dr Surender Singh, Dr SP Singh, Dr Harsh Sadawarti, Dr SN Panda, Dr Amrish Gupta, Dr SPS Virdi, Dr Surinder Singh, Dr SP Singh, Dr Taneja and media coordinator Gurvinder Bakshi.

Dr Arora was presented with a memento and a set of publications and journals published by RIMT group.

Jagraon, March 6
The postgraduate department of History of Khalsa College, Sidhwan Khurd, conducted a seminar on Guru Granth Sahib in collaboration with the UGC.

The seminar was presided over by Sukhdev Singh Bhoer, general secretary SGPC, and member Gurbax Singh Purain.

The keynote address was delivered by Jodh Singh Heran regarding the role of communication in Guru Granth Sahib. In the first phase of the academic session, Dr Sarabjit Singh, Surjit Kaur, Kirandeep Singh and Harkirat Singh read their research papers. In the second academic session, Dr Sulakshan Singh, Paramvir Singh, Dheeraj Singh and Ramandeep Kaur read the papers.

In the interactive session, research papers were discussed by various speakers and the audience. Principal Paramjit Kaur and other trustees of the Sidhwan institutions participated in the seminar. 

Ludhiana, March 6
As many as 50 employees of the ESIC Model Hospital donated blood at a voluntary blood donation camp in association with the Civil Hospital here today. Inaugurating the camp, medical suprintendent Dr Sarita Dogra stressed on the need for voluntary blood donation to save millions of lives. 

She said in the wake of huge gap between demand and availability of blood, more and more people should come forward and join the noble task of serving the suffering humanity.

Dr Deepak Saxena, deputy medical superintendent, expressed gratitude to Dr Suman Lata and her team of pathology department for organising the blood donation camp.

Ludhiana, March 6
With the district administration readying voters’ lists along with photographs of voters on the direction of the Election Commission, the residents can heave a sigh of relief that the chances of bogus voting rigging have been reduced to a naught in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

These lists contain stamp-sized pictures of voters along with other details like names and addresses. According to a senior official, the lists have been prepared and everything was set to check fraud voting in the district.

He said it was a countrywide practice this time when most of the states were asked by the Election Commission to prepare pictorial voters' lists so as to make electioneering completely foolproof.

“It was a difficult job to arrange for the pictures of 20,07,257 voters in Ludhiana LS constituency. Now, the constituency can boast of preparing all the lists well in advance. We hope that this year, there will be no complaints of bogus voting,” added the official.

He advised the voters not to fail to bring their electronic photo identity cards along with to the polling stations on the poll day. Their pictures would be matched with the voters list and only then they would be allowed to vote. He warned action would be taken against those who would try to hoodwink the authorities.

City residents have also welcomed this decision of the Election Commission.

Ludhiana, March 6
The local bodies department has stayed transfers of 54 officials of the Municipal Corporation. Those, who have already joined their new posting, have been asked to report to their present postings.

This happened despite the fact that some of the officials have been relieved by the Municipal Commissioner, GS Ghuman, and they have joined their new postings.

According to sources, the orders have been issued by local bodies’ director SK Sharma, who has stated that the development works in the state would be suffering if the transfers were done.

The orders issued by Sharma state that the government has invested a lot of funds in the projects and all of them would be hanging fire if the officials are transferred.

The sources said, "The orders were issued in wake of hue and cry raised by various senior officials, stating that the new transfers would ensure completion of SAD-BJP projects in the city." They added that the stay on transfers would continue till next orders are passed by the director.

The sources said the political leaders were feeling insecure of these orders as various projects passed in sangat darshan too would come to a standstill.

Notably, The Tribune has already highlighted in its column on February 26 revealed that the new officials would taken time in settling, which means development projects hitting a roadblock.

These transfers were made in the wake of upcoming the Lok Sabha elections on the directions of the Election Commission as all the officials, who have been working at a place for more than three years, are to be transferred.

Jagraon, March 6
About 60 passengers of a Jagraon-bound bus had a miraculous escape when a loaded truck rolled down the national highway without any driver. The incident occurred last evening when the truck (PB-23D-1332), parked at a petrol pump near Chowkiman village, suddenly started rolling down the slope and crossed the highway without any driver in it.

The truck is owned by Pardeep of Ludhiana. The driver of the truck, Rajinder Singh, of Tajpur Road, Ludhiana, was not present at the site, as he had gone somewhere after parking the truck in the neutral mode.

Meanwhile, PUNBUS (PB-10-CG-0396) of Jagraon Depot that was coming from Ludhiana had a narrow escape. More than 60 passengers were in the bus 
at that time.

Manjit Singh, driver of the bus, said he sounded horn many times to seek passage from the truck, but when he saw it being driven without any driver, he tried to save 
his bus.

Though he tried his best, there was a minor collision of the bus with the rear part of the truck.

The passengers of the bus, however, escaped unhurt.