IT Chandigarh

Mohali: A budget of Rs 3275.06 lakh for the year 2008-09 was unanimously cleared at a special meeting of the municipal council held here today.

The civic body has proposed an income of Rs 3100.70 lakh, while last year’s balance that has been carried forward is Rs 174.36 lakh. The proposed expenditure for the coming financial year stood at Rs 3254.16 lakh. The MC plans to spend Rs 2,365 lakh on development works in the town while the amount to be spent on the staff is Rs 756.66 lakh. A sum of Rs 132.50 lakh has been proposed for contingency works.

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Municipal councillors during the budget meeting in Mohali on Friday.
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CHANDIGARH: While Punjab faces a perpetual cash crunch, it has allowed leakage of revenue to the tune of Rs 197.96 crore in the year ending March 2007. This has been revealed by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India in its report tabled in the Punjab state assembly on Wednesday.

This apart, revenue arrears in 2006-2007 stood at Rs 1916.64 crore. Of this, Rs 1547.84 was recoverable from dealers on account of sales tax.

Action taken efforts were said to be in arrears for three years despite public accounts committee (PAC) of Punjab assembly making all efforts to plug loopholes. In revenue receipts, no action-taken notes on 65 entries were available indicating a tedious progress towards finding wrong-doers.

State transport commissioner and district transport officer did not report arrears of Rs 62.73 crore of road and token taxes due on PEPSU Road Transport Corporation. As a result, arrears were hidden in the books of transport department. Transporters, both public and private, short-changed Rs 53.05 crore of special road tax during 2003-2004 and 2005-2006.

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CHANDIGARH: In order to counter the growing numbers of marriage frauds, especially those pertaining to NRIs who desert their spouses, Punjab government on Wednesday passed the Compulsory Registration of Marriages Bill, 2008.

The Bill, presented by justice minister Upinderjit Kaur, is also intended for compliance with directions of Supreme Court which were delivered in the Seema versus Ashwani Kumar case, 2005, seeking adoption of Compulsory Registration of Marriages Act in all states.

Objects and reasons cited in the Bill state that the legislation is meant to mitigate hardships faced by women in Punjab because of matrimonial disputes, bigamy or polygamy and about their legal right to property. It wants to prevent parents or guardians from selling daughters or young girls under the garb of marriage.

The Bill call for appointment of a chief registrar of marriages, district registrars of marriages and a registrar of marriages who will register marriages solemnized in the state under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872, Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act 1937, Anand Marriage Act, 1909 or any other custom of personal law related to marriages.

Source: The Times of India News Service

CHANDIGARH: Summers are not yet here, but Punjab is facing an unprecedented power crisis. Despite an average daily bill of Rs 15 crore for power purchase from outside, consumers are facing long, uncomfortable power cuts, which are turning daily schedules topsy-turvy, besides causing huge financial losses.

Farmers, meanwhile, sit idle during the day and wait for the night when power supply reaches their doorsteps with fits and starts.

In village Ramgarh, around 10 kilometre from Phagwara, serpentine queues of women and children start forming from morning and stay till evening at the lone hand pump in the village since power cuts start from midnight and last till late afternoon hours on the next day and put a hold on the regular water supply.

The old hand pumps have gone dry and submersible pumps or tubewells are ‘powerless’, says Inderjit Kaur, a village resident.

“Cattle remain hungry as most of the households have power-run fodder-cutting machines,” she said, adding that power cuts usually last for 8 to 10 hours a day. In Mehalkalan village, farmer Manjit Singh said they get power only for up to four hours daily.

The scenario in urban areas is dismal where industry is forced to shut down for two days every week due to weekly offs imposed by PSEB. There is also a regular off for the labour force, thus the production shuts down for three days effectively.
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Mohali: The land acquisition collector here has calculated a rate of Rs 32-33 lakh per acre for the price of over 307 acres of land of village Jheorehri, which is to be acquired by the Punjab government for the International airport at Mohali.

The proposed rates were discussed during a meeting of the price fixation committee held under the chairmanship of the Mohali deputy commissioner H.I.S. Grewal, here today.

However, the rates were rejected by Kharar MLA Balbir Sidhu and member of parliament from Ropar Sukhdev Singh Libra, the two persons representing the owners during the meeting. They said the price rates calculated would mean compensation of not more than Rs 50 lakh per acre to the land owner. This amount was much lower than the prevailing markets rates of land, they said.

It was also pointed out during the meeting that the Akali-led government had been promising the farmers that they would get compensation calculated on the basis of the current market rates and not the one calculated on the basis of average of rates of the past year.
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Chandigarh: After indigenous Information Technology companies, it’s now the turn of foreign IT companies to show interest in the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park (RGCTP).

As many as 10 foreign IT companies based in the USA and the UK have shown their interest by applying for sites at RGCTP. About 21 IT companies based in India have also applied for the six Built-To-Suit (BTS) sites and one small campus site.

The administration has already started weighing the applications and the allotment process for these Built-to-Suit (BTS) sites would be completed within this month. By allotment of the six BTS sites and 1 small campus site, there would be no more space available for Phase-I and Phase-II.

Under the plan to develop Phase-III of the RGCTP, for which 270 acres of land are being acquired, the UT Administration has decided that land in Phase-III will only be allotted to IT companies. No area has been planned for hotels or commercial malls. After developing the whole chunk of land, it has been envisaged that around 160 acres of land would be available for IT use. The remaining land will be used for roads, green patches and public utilities including parking.

Four IT companies have already started their construction on the other BTS sites, while five more IT companies, whose building plans were approved recently, would be starting the construction in the next month. The building plans of the remaining four IT companies are ready for approval and the same would be done in the meeting scheduled for next week.
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Chandigarh: The growing Indian economy has led to a massive consumption of fossil fuels. As compared to a 75 per cent dependence on import of petroleum products now, the country’s dependence on imports will eventually be 90 per cent.

This was revealed by N.R. Raje, director, Centre for Alternative Energy Research, University of Petroleum, Dehradun, during a seminar on Renewable Energy and Climate Change, being organised by International Law Association (ILA) at PHD Chamber House here this evening. The Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice Vijender Jain, who is the patron-in-chief of the ILA, was the chief guest on the occasion.

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Raje said of the 146.55 million metric tonnes of petroleum product consumption in India, the country produced just 33.99 million metric tonnes, while 110.86 million metric tonnes was imported.

“This means that the import bill was an astounding $45 billion. As the demand for the fossil fuels increases, this import bill will also increase. The only alternative is the utilisation of new and renewable energy and use of energy efficient equipment and practices.
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Chandigarh: It will take a few more years before the Indian Railways develops the Chandigarh railway station as a junction for long-distance trains. Reason, the vital rail link between Chandigarh and Ludhiana is behind schedule. Till the rail link is complete, residents will not be able to use long distance trains now running on the Amritsar-Delhi section.

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Today’s announcement reaffirms that Chandigarh and its peripheral areas are not on the priority list of the railway minister. However, there was an applause when Lalu Prasad announced a direct tri-weekly Garib Rath between Chandigarh and Jaipur via Rewari and Bhiwani.

JS Bhogal, member of the Zonal Railway User Consultative Committee, said the train should have been extended up to Ajmer Sharif. He was unhappy that there was no announcement for direct trains between the city and major like Mumbai, Banglore and Goa.

The announcement on a special train between Anandpur Sahib and Patna Sahib to Nanded to commemorate the tercentenary celebrations of Shri Guru Granth Sahib Gurta Gaddi would be of little use if the train was not diverted through the city, he said.

R.L. Goel, another member on the committee, said the priority should be to create more infrastructure at the Chandigarh station so that the pending Chandigarh-Ludhiana track was used as alternative route between Ambala and Amritsar.
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Chandigarh Ungoverned

Chandigarh: The next time you take pity on a child seeking alms, think again. For this child, like hundreds of others, is part of any organised racket. Though he may be the one who rakes in the money, but he gets a paltry sum with 70 per cent of his daily earnings going to the group leader and the latter’s bosses.

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Be it the traffic lights and busy intersections in the city or market places in Sectors 17, 34 and 35, it is an organised gang that is involved in the begging operations. Small children from slum colonies, generally broken homes, are easy prey and recruited in the gang as front operatives. Daily, these children gather in the colony from where their gang leader ferries them to their ‘place of work’.

While the youngest of the gang members are let off and told to gather money, the mid-operatives, who liaison between the children and the gang leaders and are referred to as “bara bhai”- generally work in the same area as roadside vendors. The moment these children make some money, these mid-operatives immediately come and collect the same from them.
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Chandigarh: The state government has amended the Punjab Land Reforms Act, withdrawing powers from Sub-Divisional Magistrates (SDMs) to issue notices to landowners– essentially those possessing farmland– in order to review the status of landholdings. A notification in this regard issued last week will come into place with immediate effect.

Officials say the step has been taken to weed out corruption largely on account of the misuse of the provisions of the Act. Prior to this amendment, for decades SDMs held the powers to issue notice to a land owner to review a farmland’s bonafide status or to ensure there is no surplus land under their procession. The Punjab Land Reform Act to date provides for a cap on the maximum area a farmer can hold for cultivation.

An official says, “The powers were misused by harassing farmland owners. By taking the old records (prior to 1972 when the Act did not exist) as the basis, farm owners were issued review notices.”

Romila Dubey, Punjab’s Financial Commissioner Revenue (FCR), while talking to The Indian Express says there were complaints from certain areas of misuse of powers by the designated authority. “It was hard to track down each SDM in districts to ensure check. Instead of SDMs, now district collectors (DCs) will take care of the task if at all there is a need to review any such case,” she says.
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