Punjab News Weekly: PGI's Sangrur centre to focus on liver, kidney diseases

SANGRUR -  The satellite centre of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), whose foundation stone would be ...

Applicants face a harrowing time at Passport Seva Kendra (PSK)

Chandigarh, August 24

Applicants faced a harrowing time at the passport mela held at Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) today. With no waiting room on the premises, applicants had to stand in scorching heat while waiting for their turn. “It is like a punishment to reach the venue early and then wait for an hour on the roadside due to the absence of any waiting room for the passport seekers,” said an applicant who came from Punjab.

Other applicants too who reached the venue ahead of the scheduled time had a similar tale to tell

Adding to their woes, applicants were made to wait for another half-an-hour to reach the counter after the issuance of the token.

Some applicants had another problem waiting for them at the counter.

“The officials who were deployed for the verification of documents rejected my files without mentioning which documents were missing. When I asked them about it, the official said they add those details to their database and were not required to mention in on the file,” said a woman who had come to get a passport made for her 10-year-old daughter.

“We came to the passport mela thinking that the authorities might have set up additional counters to clear the rush, but surprisingly no additional staff was deployed here,” said an applicant from Chandigarh.

Regional Passport Officer Rakesh Agrawal said it was difficult for the department to maintain a waiting room. He said the department had banned the entry of any other person along with the candidate to avoid agents.

Aggarwal said space for 17 counters had been earmarked on the premises keeping in view the future demands.

Records of the department revealed that today there were only seven counters entertaining the applicants, while earlier there used to be 10.

The Regional Passport Office had organised the passport mela to receive the forms as there are three holidays during the weekdays in August.

Records of the department revealed that of the 864 applicants who had taken an appointment today, 780 turned up. Of these, 629 were able to get their passports made, while 135 failed to produce the required documents. They were asked to submit the documents in the next three days.

Dial-a-cycle-rickshaws launched in Chandigarh

Chandigarh, 25 June - City residents need not walk across the streets to spot a cycle-rickshaw. They just have to dial the operators’ number and the rickshaw will be at their doorsteps within minutes.

In perhaps first of its kind initiative in the city, a group of volunteers have come up with a facility that enables the residents to call up rickshaw operators on their cellphones.

The phone numbers of rickshaw operators (sector wise), for ‘Dial-a-rikshaw’ service are available on the website http://www.chandigarh.ecocabs.org.

And if you are satisfied with the service, you can recommend the rickshaw operator’s name to other residents by uploading his name and phone number online. A separate link on the website enables residents to recommend the name of rickshaw operators.

The website has a database of 110 rickshaw operators who are spread across 12 sectors. The service is available in Sectors 9, 11, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 and 56.

Sample this: If a resident of Sector 44 hires a rickshaw, he can take the details of the operator and upload the same on the sub-section of Sector 44 on the website.

A team of 12 volunteers from different walks of life joined hands to form a non-profit association and developed the concept of ‘Dial-a-rickshaw ecocabs’. The service was launched today in collaboration with the UT Administration, Municipal Corporation and the New Kranti Cycle Rickshaw Union.

“In case of any complaint against the rickshaw operator, the residents can access the contact number of the sector mentor from the website,” said one of the volunteers, Navdeep Asija, the founder of ‘Dial-a-rickshaw ecocabs’.

Chandigarh Municipal Corporation is all set to impose house tax

Patil gives the go-ahead to MC proposal; Tax to be collected from July

Chandigarh, June 17 - Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC) will start collecting house tax at the rate of Re 1 per sq yard per year from July.

With the imposition of house tax, the MC will get around Rs 2.50 crore annually. The owner of a five-marla house in the city will have to shell out only Rs 125 per year, followed by Rs 187.5, Rs 250 and Rs 375 per year for owners of 7.5, 10 and 15-marla houses.

The owner of a one-kanal house (500 sq yards) will have to shell out Rs 500 per year, followed by Rs 1,000 per year for owners of two, three, four, five and six-kanal houses. No house tax will be levied on houses less than 125 sq yards. EWS and LIG houses have been exempted. In the case of apartments, a category-wise lumpsum amount will be charged proportionately.

Rates to be revised after three months

According to UT officials, initially they will impose house tax at the rates proposed by the MC. However, after three months, they will review the rates and there are chances that the Administration will increase the rates because Re 1 per sq yard will not make much of a difference to the financial health of the MC and the Administration.

Number of houses to be affected

There are 20,265 houses (five marla and above as well as kanal houses), 7,979 houses in co-operative societies, 5,597 MIG houses, 10,675 HIG houses, 15,053 houses under the Administration and 22,040 under the Central Government, which will have to pay house tax.

BJP opposed the decision

Former Union Minister and senior BJP leader Harmohan Dhawan opposed the decision of the UT Administration, saying that the UT was a fund-surplus state.

Lawyers’ Chambers Issue

HC issues notice of motion to UT
Chandigarh, December 6

A day after a section of the UT District Bar Association sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the ‘criminal’ wastage of money in the construction of the lawyers’ chambers building in Sector 43, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today issued notice of motion to the UT and others.

The petition has been filed by the construction committee constituted by the investor-members of the District Bar Association for the allotment of chambers in the Sector 43 district courts complex. It has been filed through its members, including HS Awasthi, Vinod Choda, RS Walia and Amar Singh Chahal. The chambers are being built on self-finance basis.

The petition says the CBI may be directed to register a case on the basis of a complaint dated November 6 sent by the member-investors of the chambers building. Directions have been also sought to “undertake investigation of the same for the purpose of prosecution of persons responsible for the offences so committed by them, as stated in the complaint”.

The petitioners said their grudge was that amount “running into crorers, collected from some members of the District Bar Association had been wasted on the basis of forged bills, use of substandard material, procurement of forged documents and showing purchase of material on false documents”.

Elaborating, the petitioners said the total contract money was Rs 13.30 crore, while the amount paid to date to the contractor was Rs 14.60 crore. As such, an excess payment of Rs 1.30 crore was made, while 40 per cent work was yet to be completed. “The estimated money wasted could well be more than Rs 5 crore,” the petitioners alleged.

Chandigarh doctor gets prestigious award

CHANDIGARH: Dr. Dharam Vir , faculty speech and hearing, department of ENT, PGIMER, Chandigarh has been awarded talented scientist award for his contribution to alternative medicine on the occasion of XXVI National Medicos Congress at Hoshiarpur. The award was given for contributing a tool to assess the prevalence of articulation errors/defects in the Panjabi speaking children and adult population.

'Speech' is the auditory-vocal form of expressing and comprehending languages. A person with an articulation problem is the one whose production of speech sound varies too widely from the average values. This variation interferes with communication.

Around the globe, Punjabi is spoken by more than 80 million people. Need was felt to develop a specific tool to assess the prevalence of articulation errors/defects in the Panjabi speaking children and adult population. The tool thus developed is known as Punjabi Articulation Test (PAT). No such test was available for Punjabi Language prior to it.

The study made to develop the test examined the articulation errors of consonants on normal pediatrics population of Punjabi speaking children between the age ranges of 8 and 10 years. The present study examined the Punjabi Consonant Errors of Punjabi speaking children of rural (130) and urban (70) population of the Punjab State of India.

This Punjabi Articulation Test (PAT) will be very useful for the North Indian Punjabi speaking population as well as for the Punjabi speaking folks living in Pakistan and elsewhere. This test can be administered on different types of speech and language disorders of Punjabi speaking population.

Crackdown on encroachments in Sector 17

Chandigarh, November 21
As the UT estate office has stepped up its drive against banks and other offices which have encroached upon corridors of upper floors of buildings in sector 17, the estate office has ignored similar violations by shopkeepers near the central piazza of the commercial sectors.

On Wednesday, teams of the estate office started removing the glazing in the rear balconies of the buildings housing banks.

Apart from the violation, the glazing is a major fire hazard as has been witnessed during recent incidents of fire in the buildings located in the Bank Square.

Sources said notices to around 70 violators have already been issued. The chief architect has sought to maintain the heritage status of Sector-17. The heritage status does not allow glazing in the corridors. The architect department has pointed out that the defacement of buildings was also against the heritage plan.

Most of the owners and occupants of the buildings in the sector have covered their corridors with glazing, plywood or other material to convert the open area into rooms.

The violators also included the UT Excise and Taxation Office and 30-bays building, which housed several government offices of UT.