CMYK

Unchecked dogs? The law gives teethBy Maneesh Pandey

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Have a dog that bites?You need to be careful — if someonedecides to take the law seriously, youcould end up facing a three-year jailterm.

The South-West District Policehave admitted a complaint filedagainst against Shobha, resident ofSector 8, R K Puram, and owner of atwo-feet high Bhutanese breed dog,which bit Shashi Pandey, a lawyerwhile she was shopping in thecolony market.

Pandey, the complainant, lives inShanker Vihar, Delhi Cantonment,and is a practising advocate at thePatiala House Courts. Shobha is ascientist with the National Infor-matics Centre.

According to Pande, the incidenttook place late last month (March 24)when she was heading home aftershopping at the market in the R KPuram neighbourhood. Just then a

‘stocky, hairy’ white dog came out ofa house and on to the road, and at-tacked her.

Police said the dog bit the lawyeron her thigh and she had to be takento hospital and admitted there.

On March 26, she registered acomplaint with the R K Puram

police station.Deputy commissioner of police

(southwest), Tejinder Luthra, saysthe charges, if proven, could lead toa jail term of well over two years.

Pandey has alleged that the “four-feet long and two-feet high white col-or Bhutanese dog” was not chainedand bit her on the road adjacent toShobha’s flat in the middle-class gov-ernment colony.

Luthra said the victim was rushedto Safdarjung Hospital and onMarch 26 she got the complaint reg-istered at the R K Puram police sta-tion. In normal conditions, it couldbe six months-imprisonment and Rs1,000 in fine under Section 289 IPC.

In her defence, Shobha told the po-lice that her servant forgot to chainthe dog.

Police added that Shobha had inturn lodged a complaint on April 3saying that she had been receivingcalls from the victim threateningher with a long spell in jail.

AJT proposal cleared: Defenceminister George Fernandes said inBarmer on Friday that the ministryhas cleared the long-pending propo-sal to procure Advanced Jet Trainers(AJTs) for the Indian Airforce. P6

PM in Sikkim: Prime Minister ABVajpayee, who arrivedin Gangtok on a three-day visit on Friday, saidhe would look into theproblems being facedby Sikkim, which joinedthe Indian Union, 27

years after Independence. P8

Meet on PDS: Prime Minister Vaj-payee has called an all-party meet-ing later this month to tackle prob-lems that plague the country’s publicdistribution system (PDS). P6

Gujarat on CNG mode: Takingthe cue from Delhi’s clean-up act,Gujarat plans to set up a chain of246 CNG filling stations along thehighways between Hazira andMehsana by the end of next year.P7

Kailash Joshi left out: BJP’sMadhya Pradesh unit state presi-dent, Kailash Joshi, has not been in-cluded in the 12-member electionmanagement committee for thatstate. P11

Ambedkar museum: The Luc-know Bench of the Allahabad HighCourt has declined to interfere withUttar Pradesh government’s deci-sion to build an Ambedkar museumon the land earlier allotted for theconstruction of the Indira GandhiPratisthan. P8

Combating polio: ‘Polio fatigue’among vaccinators and people’s ap-athy could be a major factor for therecurrence of the disease in UP. P8

Dry Saurashtra: The water crisisin most parts of Saurashtra is soacute that the state government mayrun water trains to ease the short-age, which is likely to get worse inpeak summer. P11Cannibal traits: A genetic studymade by a team of researchers inLondon points to a long history ofcannibalism. P12

NEWS DIGEST

What difference does it maketo the dead, the orphans,

whether the mad destructionis wrought under the name

of totalitarianism or theholy name of liberty ?

— Mahatma Gandhi

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Mainly clear sky. Likely to become cloudyduring day with dust haze. Max tempera-ture will be around 41oC. Max relativehumidity on Friday 67% and min 13%.

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WIN WITH THE TIMES

Summerscores 41on debut

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The onset of forty-something temperature here on Fri-day provides an unsettling intima-tion of the nasty summer that liesahead.

This day, last year, it didn’t get hot-ter than 35 degrees centigrade butalready the mercury has touched 41.For the next six months, then,there’ll be no looking back. Homesfortunate enough to have fans andelectricity need not switch them offtill October.

Words like sun and heat, which inAnglo-Saxon cultures are laden withthe promise of gaiety and abandon,tend to conjure up for Indians theprospect of (loadshedding-induced)darkness at noon, droopiness andunbounded thirst.

The Beatles may have serenadedthe coming of the sun andMendelssohn the midsummer nightbut in India, there is little that is ro-mantic about the grishma ritu. Sum-mer here tests the patience — andthe patriotism — of the wiltingmasses, who must toil on regardlessof the sun’s fury.

The one compensation nature of-fers for the relentless punishmentthat is an Indian summer are man-goes, which boldly ripen underthe strongest rays of sunshine.And then, of course, there’s the jas-mine flower, whose delicate fra-grance emerges only in the heat andhumidity of summer, rendering sen-suous even the most ordinaryhead of hair.

No food, no water, no rulerBaghdad: Iraq’s capital is noman’s land now, ruled by none.This is a city running low onfood, water and with no elec-tricity. But, most of all, it is lawand order that is in shortsupply.

In a related development,Saddam Hussein’s half-brother,Barzan al-Takriti, died Fridaymorning in a US bombing ofhis farm in Ramadi, west ofBaghdad, a family friend said.Barzan had been placed underhouse arrest by Saddam onMarch 5.

Families stayed off Bagh-dad’s streets on Friday, leavingthem to roaming bands of boysand men who terrorised neigh-bourhoods with automaticweapons.

Plumes of smoke from ran-sacked buildings could be seen

across Baghdad. Shopkeepersopened fire on looters for thefirst time on Friday. At least 25people were injured in the ram-pages.

Merchant Mohammed al-Shamai fired his pistol in theair as he saw a band of lootersnearing his garment store. ‘‘Wewant law and order and wewant the Americans to protectour stores,’’ said Shamai.

The chaos has left some long-ing for the days of Saddam. ‘‘Of

course, we miss Saddam Hus-sein now,’’ said Kazem al-Far-tisi, 52, who owns electronicsand clothing stores in the al-Arabi area. ‘‘Under him thiswould never have happened.’’

Even hospitals were notspared. ‘‘The situation is chaot-ic and catastrophic,’’ Interna-tional Red Cross medical coor-dinator Peter Tarabula said atAl-Kindi hospital, one of thebiggest city medical centres,which was looted. All staff

have fled the hospital, and Shi-ite fighters from Najaf have setup camp there.

The city’s two most presti-gious hotels, the Rashid andthe Mansur, were both inflames on Friday. Looters wereseen climbing over the railingsof the Rashid and hauling outfurniture, carpets and televi-sions. The power failure leftthe city’s people in the darkabout news of the war. ArkanDaoud Boutros spoke of stay-

ing up for seven nights withoutlights or electricity to protecthis home from looters. ‘‘Wedon’t care about the govern-ment buildings, but we areafraid for our homes, for ourfamilies,’’ said Boutros.

US forces — guardingagainst the kind of suicidebombing that injured fourMarines on Thursday — arekeeping roads closed andshooting at vehicles that ig-nore warning shots.

A CNN report said Marinesstopped a man dressed incivilian clothes carrying asuspicious black briefcasewhich was going to be used asa bomb. Agencies

AP

Iraqi college student Sama Samira tells an American soldier in Baghdad that US troops have hurt Iraq by invading it.

See Edit: Ends & BeginningsSee also Samvad: UN is dead;

long live the UN

Max: 41oC / Min: 22oCMoonset: Sunday - 0347 hrs.Moonrise: Saturday - 1357 hrs.Sunset: Saturday - 1845 hrs.Sunrise: Sunday - 0559 hrs.

www.timesofindia.comNew Delhi, Saturday, April 12, 2003 Capital 42 pages* Invitation Price Rs. 1.50

IndiaMallya’s art of living inpolitics: Dump JD(U),revive Janata Party

InternationalHello! You had no right to take thosewedding photosPage 12

Yuvraj cracks hismaiden one-dayhundred

Times Sport

Page 7 Page 17

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●● No law or services as cities fall ●● Saddam’s half-brother dead ●● Fidayeen fears persist

Hong Kong Singapore Meanwhile...

Ajit Ninan

A top Russian medical expert didnot rule out Friday that the SARSvirus could be a biological weapondeveloped by China. According toProf Sergei Kolesnikov, member ofRussian Medical Sciences Academy,SARS virus is a hybrid of two virus-es, which can only be produced inlaboratory conditions.

Kolesnikov told a conference inthe Siberian city of Irkutsk that thesevere toxic nature and the speedwith which SARS is spreading alsoallows to draw inference that it is aman-made biological weapon.

“If it is true then its antidoteshould be looked where it originat-ed,” Kolesnikov was quoted as say-ing by TVS network. He said theoutbreak took place in two districtsof China and for a long time the au-thorities kept silent about it. PTI

Singapore’s largest hospital tracedFriday the origin of a batch of in-fections to a Chinese man in his 60swhose multiple ailments maskedthe illness while he unwittinglypassed it on to 19 people.

Singapore General Hospital,where 19 people, including staff, pa-tients and visitors, have caughtSARS in a week, fears the viruscould have spread to other wards.

Nine people have died of 133 con-firmed cases — a rate of 6.7 percent,above the global average of aboutfour percent. It has the world’sfourth-highest number of cases.

Singapore General Hospital Med-ical Board chairman Tay Boon Kenglisted him as a SARS “super spread-er”. “There is concern that the viruscould have spread to other wards,”said a spokeswoman. Reuters

2 SARS super-spreaders at largeHealth officials announced that aman infected with a new respiratorydisease had flown from Hong Kongto Munich, Barcelona, Frankfurt,London, Munich again, Frankfurtagain and then back to Hong Kongbefore entering a hospital.

The Hong Kong Department ofHealth appealed for passengers andair crews from all seven flights toconsult medical professionals. Ahealth department spokeswomansaid it was not yet known whetherthe man, who is 48, had infectedanyone else on the flights withSARS. All the flights were onLufthansa.

The sick man’s nationality was amystery. The health department’sstatement did not specify it, whilethe airline’s statement described theman as “Chinese.”NYT News Service

• Town of 260,000 owes its wealth and prominence to favourite son Saddam

• Site of largest Presidential palace compound and Republican Guard

Tikrit

Kirkuk

Mosul

Dohuk

Target Tikrit

Air attack

Specialforces guard exit points

101 Airborne4th infantry3rd divison

1

3

2

US PLAN

Baghdad

UN Security Council

unlikely to grantlegitimacy to USrule over Iraq

Only UNSCcan decide

how Iraqi oil is soldand how revenuesare spent

The Pentagonhas planned an ‘interim

authority’ with retired US generalJay Garner as viceroy and Ameri-cans heading all 23 ministries.Loyal Iraqis will work as ‘advisers’

How Bushwill run Iraq 1 2 Germany hasshot down a

US proposal to involve NATO inpeacekeeping role

3FROM WAR TO PEACE

Maximum temperature

• April 29, 1941 45.6oC • April 11, 2003 41.0oC

• April 2,1965 10.7oC

April simmers

Rainfall

In ’83, city recorded 183.5 mm

Between 34-38oC

Average rainfall is 11.5 mm

Between 18-23oC Minimum temperature

Swati

Powell in South Asia soon: Page 8

CMYK

Teachers’ training: DelhiPublic School, MathuraRoad, organised a trainingprogramme from March 24to 29 for teachers from DPSDurg (Madhya Pradesh), un-der the aegis of the Educa-tion Management Council.School principal M I Hus-sain says such training pro-grammes can cater to all re-quirements of teachers ofnew schools. The teacherswere involved several work-shops and interactive ses-sions organised during theirstay. DPSS Narendra Kumaralso apprised the teachersof promotion opportunitiesprovided to DPS teachers.

Silver jubilee: MaharajaAgarsain Public School,Ashok Vihar, conducted var-ious inter and intra school

activities at school as partof its silver jubilee celebra-tions in the first week ofApril. The activities includedEnglish humorous newsreading, play, maths quiz,social science quiz, generalscience game show, powerpoint slide contest, websitecontest and inter-schoolfancy dress competition.Maharaja Agarsain Inter-school Volley Ball Competi-tion (under 19 years, boys)was also held from April 3to 5. Apex School won thegame, followed by MaharajaAgarsain.

Career meet: DAV PublicSchool, Vikaspuri, organ-ised a career meet onMarch 27 for students ofClass 10. Urvi Vikram Chari-table Trust’s counsellor P NVasudeva briefed studentsabout various career op-tions available for them.Parents and students alsohad an interactive sessionon the issue.

D E L H I The Times of India, New Delhi2 Saturday, April 12, 2003

SCHOOLNEWS

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To chat on SMS send 'cchat' to 8888

Q. Fever in chil-dren cause anxietyamong parents.What do you sug-gest?- Mayavi

A: Fever is a protectiveresponse on the part of thebody to fight an infection.There is no need to be unduly disturbed or getpanicky because mostfevers occur due to self limiting viral infections whichresolve spontaneously without any treatment.Q. Which is the safest medi-cine that can be given athome?- RaoteA: According to WHO thedrug of first choice for treat-ment of fever is Paraceta-mol. It should be taken in adose of 10-15 milligram perkg per dose every 4-6 hours.It should be preferably ad-ministered with the help of agraduated dispenser provid-

ed by the manufacturer in-stead of using teaspoons.Q. What should be done toprovide relief to the child be-fore calling a doctor?- GulluA: The child with fevershould be kept in a cool wellventilated room, he shouldnot be excessively clothedor covered with a blanket,the patient should be givenlot of fluids and water andencouraged to take a nutritious diet.Q. If a child has a moderatefever, is it advisable to let itrun its course? - GayatriA: There is no need to giveany medicines to bringdown the temperature iffever is mild. Antipyretic likeParacetamol should be giv-en when body temperaturegoes above 101 F or whenthe child has body aches.

“First choice for treatment of fever is Paracetamol” — DR. MEHARBAN SINGH, Former professor and head, department of paediatrics, AIIMS

For complete chat log on tohttp://chat.indiatimes.com

No power forillegal cattleowners: NDMC

By Rahul ChhabraTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: People rearingcattle illegally in residentialareas falling in the New Del-hi Municipal Council(NDMC) zone will lose theirelectricity connection.

In a bid to curb the straycattle menace, the civicagency is planning to discon-nect power supply to at least15 illegal cattle owners, someof them residing in the VIPresidential pockets on AkbarRoad, Kushak Road andSunehri Bagh Road.

The coercive measuresplanned by NDMC comeclose to a collision betweenstray cattle and a car near theresidence of Union homeminister L K Advani onPrithviraj Road.

NDMC’s electricity depart-ment chief, B M Sukhija,said: ‘‘The electrical depart-ment has issued notices to allillegal cattle owners who fig-ure in the list provided by thehealth department.’’

Officials claim illegal rear-ing of cattle in residential ar-eas is responsible for thestray cattle menace.

Owners of illegal cattle of-ten free their stock duringthe day so that these couldfeed on green waste in near-by markets. Consequently,the cattle squat on the roads,throw traffic out of gear andoften cause accidents.

The stray cattle menace ismore acute in colonies likeSarojini Nagar, Palinji vil-lage near Kidwai Nagar andLodhi Colony where resi-dents rear cattle for dairies.

A health department offi-cial said stray cattle fromDelhi Municipal Corporationarea, which surrounds theNDMC area, were also caus-ing problems. ‘‘Stray cattlefrom the MCD area wanderinto the VIP areas in our ju-risdiction and cause trafficproblems,’’ he said.

The NDMC had recently is-sued notices to unauthorisedcattle owners, includingsome politicians, judges andbureaucrats, following which76 of them applied for a li-cence. ‘‘Almost 90 per cent ofthe residents rearing cattlefor personal milk consump-tion have applied for a li-cence,’’ the official said.

Sanjay Sekhri

BEATING THE HEAT: Temperatures soared to 41 degrees Celsius on Friday, the highest so far this year.

Fires in industries,slums on the rise

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: About 35 firesbreak out in the city every-day, said Delhi Fire Service(DFS) chief R C Sharma.

‘‘Most of these fires are oflow intensity which arecaused by short circuit insettlement colonies. About 65to 70 fire cases are reporteddaily between May and July,’’he said.

DFS figures of April 2002to February 2003 show that270 people lost their lives invarious fires, up from 261deaths the previous year.About 1,294 people sustainedinjuries compared to about1,200 last year.

Most of the deaths report-ed in the fire incidents were

because of inhalation of tox-ic gases released by petrole-um products and plastics inthe blazes, a fire official said.

The statistics also show arise in fire incidents inmushrooming slum clustersand industrial areas, whilethe number of calls fromhigh rises have shown a de-cline.

The fire service has askedthe Delhi state governmentnot to encourage more clus-ters and resettlementcolonies as they are majorfire hazards.

Most of the fires reportedduring summer season arereported from congestedslum clusters and unplannedcolonies.

‘Transplant well or let trees be’By Chandrika Mago

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Finding newhomes for trees, which comein the way of development,isn’t as easy as it sounds. Infact, the Union environmentministry feels Delhi and oth-er civic authorities havedone such a ham-handed jobthat it has advised them towork trees into their develop-ment plans or transplantthem only under expert su-pervision.

The latest set of orders fol-lows a recent meeting withDelhi officials and represen-tatives from Dehradun’s For-est Research Institute, indus-

tries and Assocham. Tree au-thorities in urban areas havebeen directed to focus on ac-commodating fully-growntrees where they stand. Relo-cation, the ministry has or-dered, should be done onlyunder the supervision of theIndian Council of ForestryResearch and Education,Dehradun, and its institutes.

How feasible this willprove remains to be seen.But, for director-general(forests) M K Sharma, theconcern is that just 10 percent of the trees survive relo-cation to a new home — suc-cess being measured by thesprouting of new leaves at

the relocation site. ‘‘The tech-nology is not yet sound, theclimatic conditions are dif-ferent from Europe and therelocation is done by work-ers, not experts,’’ says Shar-ma. ‘‘Yet, it’s a highly-sensi-tive and technical job.’’

Also, the survival figurewould be disputed by some.Delhi Metro Rail Corpora-tion, presumably one of theprime removers in the Capi-tal, claims it has transplant-ed more than a thousandtrees, generally within 3 kmof the original site — and itpegs the survival rate at be-tween 50 and 70 per cent.

DMRC chief public rela-

tions officer Anuj Dayal saysthey do try to fix Metro align-ments to save trees but if thisis not possible, they try to re-locate trees or cut them andpay for compensatory af-forestation. For every treecut, DMRC pays for 10 to beplanted at a site given to it inNajafgarh, claims Dayal.

Sharma, however, doesn’tfind the transplantation re-sults in cities ‘‘encouraging’’— to say the very least. Thetechnology may work in Eu-rope but it has not been per-fected for Indian conditions.Europe, says Sharma, hasfewer species and has studiedthem much better.

Man loses leg, hospital told to payBy Lalit Kumar

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Noida: A consumer court has ordered alocal hospital to pay Rs 1 lakh as com-pensation to a patient whose leg was al-legedly amputated without giving him achance to get a second medical opinion.

Holding Prayag Hospital guilty of un-fair trade practices in its billing systemas well, the forum has ordered its own-ers to return the Rs 1.33 lakh the patienthad paid as bills.

A Noida dairy owner, the com-plainant, Vijay Pal, said he had come toPrayag Hospital on September 29, 2000,with an injured left leg. He was retainedin the hospital till December 22. He al-

leged that his left leg was amputatedwithout giving him a chance to consultany other specialist.

In its defence, Prayag Hospital saidthe patient had been admitted to thehospital with gangrene of the left leg.Initially, on the patient’s insistence, thehospital carried out a relatively minorsurgery to try and save his leg. But thisdid not work. Later, after making avail-able to him all documents of his treat-ment and allowing Vijay Pal to consultother doctors, his leg was amputatedwith his consent, the hospital said.

Vijay Pal, however, alleged that theconsent note was a fake one and the sig-nature on it was not his. He also said thehospital did not give him complete

records of his treatment.Observing that the consent letter was

‘‘under consideration’’ since there ap-peared to be some overwriting on it, theforum, headed by Kartar Singh, alsonoted that the hospital had not providedit with the complete medical records.Even the surgeon’s name had not beenrevealed, the court observed.

‘‘The hospital claimed there was nonegligence, but did not provide any de-tails of the arrangements made or theprecautions taken before the surgery,’’the forum said. Holding Prayag Hospi-tal guilty for not allowing the patient asecond opinion, the court said the hos-pital’s ‘‘gross neglect’’ had left Vijay Palphysically handicapped for life.

CMYK

D E L H IThe Times of India, New Delhi Saturday, April 12, 2003 3

NCERT stopsstate Govt fromprinting books

By Anuradha MukherjeeTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Breaking awayfrom a 30-year-old practice,the National Council of Edu-cational Research and Train-ing (NCERT) has refused togive the Delhi state govern-ment copyright for re-print-ing books for Classes 1 to 8.

‘‘Every year, the NCERTgrants us the copyright. Weproduce cheaper editions forstudents of governmentschools,’’ said Delhi state ed-ucation minister Raj KumarChauhan. The government,however, has gone ahead andre-printed the books for Class1 to 8 despite NCERT not giv-ing it the copyrights. ‘‘Theyasked us to buy the books atmarket prices. Our studentscannot afford it,’’ he said.

NCERT publication de-partment head Puran Chandsaid this was a policy deci-sion. ‘‘We will not give copy-right for books in Hindi, Eng-lish and Urdu as we are pub-lishing in these languages,’’he said.

Chauhan said the reasonfor not granting copyrightcould be the state govern-ment’s opposition to ‘‘saffro-nisation of education’’. ‘‘Forthe next session, the StateCouncil for Educational Re-search and Training(SCERT) is preparing booksfor Class 1 to 8. But for Class-es 9 to 12 we will be forced touse NCERT books as they are

recommended by the CBSE,’’said Chauhan.

SCERT has already startedwork on 44 books for the nextsession that are expected tobe ready by October. ‘‘It is forthe first time that books foreight years are being plannedtogether,’’ said SCERT direc-tor Janaki Rajan.

She said the planning forthe books involves a stronglinguistic component so thatthey are comprehensible.‘‘We are providing thesebooks for Rs 8 to Rs 15. Aslum child can only pay thismuch.’’

Speaking on the issue ofnon-availability of books,Chand said there was noshortage of textbooks. ‘‘Over60 printers are on the job.While the books for Class 1, 3,6, 9, 11 that are being reprint-ed are available, books forClasses 2, 4, 10 and 12 aresteadily being pumped intothe market,’’ he said.

Mohammed Ilyas

Processions marked the end of Navratri in the city as people observed Ramnavami on Friday.

These MLAs believe ina silent democracy

By Radhika D Srivastava TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Silence is gold-en for about eight DelhiMLAs who just do not opentheir mouths during an As-sembly session. Nothingcan provoke them to talk,be it a burning corruptionissue or the most viciousallegations against theirparty leaders. They preferto slump on their benchesand occasionally raise anarm during a vote. Theworst are those who nei-ther talk nor attend theproceedings of the houseregularly. Topping the listis Sushila Jai Kishan, theMLA from SultanpurMazara. According torecords, she has not attend-ed an Assembly session formore than 10 days since De-cember 1999.

Sushila, who has no pre-vious political experience,won the first time she con-tested the seat. She was re-portedly given a Congressparty ticket at the insis-tence of her husband JaiKishan who was an MLA inthe previous government.

When contacted, her hus-band said, ‘‘You can directall questions to me. I virtu-ally do all her work. Shesimply signs what I tell herto.’’ He said his wife was un-able to attend the Assemblyregularly or participate inthe proceedings as sheneeded to attend to house-

hold chores. ‘‘Many visitorsthrong our residence daily.My wife needs to be at hometo be able to attend tothem,’’ he said.

Congress MLA fromTilak Nagar, Jaspal Singh,seemed to have a clear cuttheory behind his silence.‘‘Why should I embarassmy party ministers by ques-tioning them?’’ he asked.

But was it not his consti-tutional duty to effectivelyrepresent his constituencyin the Assembly andthrough questions and dis-cussions, get ministers toact for the improvement ofhis area?

‘‘Whenever I want some-thing done, officials and

ministers do it right away.There is no need to askquestions. I keep quiet sothat the Assembly’s pre-cious time is not wasted,’’he said.

Singh’s need to keepmum to help his party inthe Assembly can still beunderstood. Not so if amember of the oppositionremains silent. BJP MLAfrom Moti Nagar, AvinashSahni, has never had a curi-ous bent of mind.

‘‘It is true that I do notask many questions. Butmost of my work gets donewith the help of my partyleader Madan Lal Khuranawho belongs to my area,’’he said.

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Huge racket in fake Army boozeBy Rajat Pandit

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: There’s a certain mys-tique about Army booze —more po-tent, 100 per cent foolproof and muchcheaper. Everyone tries to prise a bot-tle or two from the defence canteens.

Acting on information developed byMilitary Intelligence (MI), the MilitaryPolice and Delhi Police are on theverge of of smashing a major racket ofspurious liquor being sold in Army‘uniform’.

After the nabbing of a non-commis-sioned officer (NCO) with 240 fake bot-tles from the Delhi Cantonment areaon Thursday, further investigations byMI led to the arrest of four more NCOs,from different units, on Friday. Onethousand bottles of fake CSD liquorwere confiscated.

The enormity of the racket is evi-dent from the fact that some 10,000 fakelabels of different brands like Direc-tor’s Special, Royal Challenge, McDow-ell’s Number 1, Old Monk and Contes-sa were also seized.

‘‘The labels are quite like the origi-nals with CSD markings specifyingthat the liquor is only for defence per-sonnel’’, a source said. ‘‘The racketcould be worth crores, and it is verylikely that some mid-level officers likemajors and colonels are also involved.

The kingpin most probably is a politi-cian or someone with political clout,’’he added.

The racket, sources say, begins withthe collection of glass and pearlpetempties from kabadiwallas. The bot-tles are taken to bootlegging gangs inthe Bagar region of Haryana wherethey are filled with country liquor andcorked.

In Delhi, couriers and middlemenpaste fake labels on to the bottles andthen use armymen to get the liquor tocustomers.

A case of spurious CSD Old Monk,for example, is supplied to these sales-men for Rs 720 a case; they, in turn, selleach bottle for Rs 100. ‘‘The Army per-sonnel are used to convince people thatthe liquor is genuine CSD issue’’, asource says. ‘‘After all, fauji daru issupposed to be asli daru.’’

Boy killed by dacoits, four robbed

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Modinagar: An eight-year-old boy was battered to deathand four persons robbed andinjured by dacoits on theModinagar-Khanjarpur roadon Thursday night.

The victims were return-ing home from Sikri Fair.The police said one Sitaramwas returning with his son,Nakul, when at about 11 pmsix dacoits forced him to stophis scooter. They threatenedhim with lathis and steelrods. When Sitaram resisted,the dacoits attacked him andhis son. While Sitaram wasinjured and lost conscious-ness, Nakul died on the spot.

The dacoits also attackedother passers-by and robbedthem of their valuables.Three persons, including awoman, were later hospi-talised.Sanitary workers killed:Three private sanitary work-ers drowned in the Najafgarhdrain in Shakti Nagar areaon Friday. Police said the vic-tims had gone into the drainto remove some sand bags.

K K Laskar

Spurious liquor and duplicate labels seized during a joint operationby Military Inteligence, the Military Police and Delhi Police.

•Glass and Pearlpet bottles arecollected from kabadiwallahs•Bottles aretaken to bootlegginggangs where they are filled withhooch and sealed•Couriers and middlemen pastefake labels and use armymen asmiddlemen to sell the alcohol

Modus operandi

Convict found hanging in jailTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: A convicted criminal andalleged robber was found hanging inmysterious circumstances in a southdistrict police lock-up in Madangir onFriday morning. A head constable hasbeen suspended for showing negligenceon duty.

The victim, Ravinder, was being in-terrogated by the special staff of Southdistrict after his arrest on Thursday forhis alleged involvement in a robbery

case in Hauz Khas in January this year.While an inquest has been launched

into the incident, the south district po-lice claimed it to be a case of suicide.

The police said Ravinder tore stripsfrom a rug and used them to hang him-self from the ventilator grill in the lock-up. Another criminal present in thelock-up failed to notice Ravinder’smovements as he was asleep, the policesaid.

South district police have now or-dered an inquiry into the custody death.

‘‘An independent enquiry has been or-dered which would be conducted by As-sistant commissioner of police(ACP/PG Cell). The sentry on lock-upduty at that time, head constable Ra-jesh, has been suspended for his negli-gence,’’ deputy commissioner of police,P Kamaraj, said.

The DCP said Ravinder was a life-term convict who was jailed in 1995 formurdering a maid servant and attempt-ing to murder a senior citizen inGreater Kailash-II.

Pregnant womandies for want ofemergency aid

By Pallavi MajumdarTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: A woman died inthe labour room of GuruGobind Singh hospital amonth ago, due to the nonavailability of a resuscita-tion kit. The woman, a deaf-mute was expecting her thirdchild.

When she came to the hos-pital, doctors realised thather baby had died inside thewomb.

According to sources, thesearch for a resuscitation kitbegan only when there was asharp drop in her vital signs.The ambubag was found only after the woman haddied.

A resuscitation kit con-tains an ambubag, a laryngo-scope, ET tube and emer-gency medicines like adrena-line, soda bi-carbonate andatropin.

The kit helps the patientrespire artificially and havebeen made mandatory in am-bulances.

‘‘One gets only four min-utes to resuscitate a patient.The ambubag should alwaysbe kept ready for such emergencies,’’ an employeesaid.

Hospital medical superin-tendent Dr B C Patnaik saidhe was not aware of the inci-dent.

‘‘The resuscitation kit is amust. I will look into the mat-ter,’’ he said. What remains amystery is why the womanwas not referred to DeenDayal Upadhyay hospital as

required.The incident highlights

the poor state of affairs ofemergency services in many of the government’shospitals.

Emergency patients, suchas victims of road accidentsor a house collapse, are in-variably referred out to terti-ary level hospitals.

Those who are not, sufferdue to lack of equipment andinfrastructure.

Also, most lower hospitalsdo not conduct surgeries af-ter routine hours.

This means, after 4 pm,emergency services in thesehospitals virtually come to astandstill.

Nevertheless, there isn’t asingle 100-bed hospital with-out a 24-hour emergencywing.

Other essential life-savingequipment such as defibrila-tors, ventilators and nebulis-ers are not available.

Name Constituency• Sushila Jai Kishan Sultanpur Mazara• Ashok Singh R K Puram• Kanwal Singh Yadav Najafgarh• Avinash Sahni Moti Nagar• Ravinder Bansal Shalimar Bagh• Jaspal Singh Tilak Nagar• Prahlad Singh Sawhney Chandni Chowk• Tajdar Babbar Minto Road

Little participation from

•Resuscitation kits:Comprising ambubag, alaryngoscope and ETtube are a must to revivepatient 4 minutes after vital signs fade

• Ventilators: Artificialbreathing equipment

• Nebulisers: used forchronic asthma andacute bronchial attacks

• Defibrilators: used forheart patients

Hospitals lack

•Delhi Bureau of TextBooks prints books forabout 900,000 studentsof government schools•The books are providedat heavily subsidisedrates•SCERT aims to remove‘distortion’ of history inthe textbooks

Prints required

CMYK

D E L H I The Times of India, New Delhi4 Saturday, April 12, 2003

BANGKOK/TOKYO: ThaiAir 0010 (TG-316),A-I 0050 (IC-855) FRANKFURT: Lufthansa0305 (LH-761) AMSTERDAM:Northwest 0140 (NW-037) LONDON: British Air0210 (BA-142) PARIS: Air France 0040(AF-147), A-I 0735 (AI-141) SINGAPORE: Sin’poreAirlines 2315 (SQ-407), I-A 0500 (IC-855) ROME/GENEVA:A-I 0350 (AI-171) HONG KONG/OSAKA:A-I 2320 (AI-318)

MUMBAI: 0520 (AI136), 2145 (AI 309),2205 (AI 311), 2330 (AI 112)

WEATHERRain or thundershowers are likely to occur at isolatedplaces in Andaman and Nicobar islands, ArunachalPradesh, Assam and Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur,Mizoram, Tripura, west Bengal and Sikkim, Orissa,

Jharkhand, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, eastMadhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Marathwada, Vidarbha, Chattis-garh, Tamil Nadu, interior Karnataka, Kerala and Lakshadweep.Mainly dry weather will prevail over the rest of the country.

Max Min

INDIA

Gangtok 21 14Guwahati 32 21 Dehradun 34 19H’bad 35 23 Indore 40 25 Jaipur 40 25 Lucknow 41 22Patna 40 20 Rajkot 40 23 Shimla 25 16

FLIGHTS OUTOF DELHI

Mumbai: I-A 0700,0800, 0900, 1200, 1300,1700, 1800, 1900, 2000,2300 Jet Air 0650,0800, 0935, 1400, 1725,1935, 2030, 2200,Sahara 0700,1800, 2025KOLKATA: I-A 0700,1600★★ ,1700,1945Jet Air 0600, 1720,Sahara 0620,1915CHENNAI: I-A0640,0955★★★1645,1900 Jet Air0645,1900BANGALORE:I-A 0650, 1645, 1900Jet Air 0635,1715,Sahara 0725, 1745HY’BAD:I-A 0630, 1745GOA: I-A 1200,Sahara 1200 KULU: Jagson 0630,0650, 1215 ★AHMEDABAD:I-A 0600,1700★★ 1845,Jet Air 0610 GUWAHATI—BAGDOGRA:I-A 0555★★ , 1010•★ Jet Air 1010

NATIONAL

INTERNATIONAL

AIR INDIA

Ph: I-A:140,142. ★ Mon, Wed,Fri, ★★ Tue, Thu, Sat, ★★★Mon-Fri, Sun, Jet Air: (City)6853700, (Airport) 25665404Sahara: (City) 2335901-9,(Airport) 25675234/875, (Tele-Checkin) 25662600. • Mon, Fri.

A-I: (City)23736446 /47/48(Air.)25652050, British Air:(Air.) 25652908, Lufthansa:23323310, Singapore Airlines23356286, Thai Air: 3323638

TRAIN RESERVATIONS

No. of passengers dealt on 10.04.2003 (Delhi Area): 71,717 (N. Rly. Area)2,60,081. It does not necessarily mean that reservation is available on allsubsequent dates. For further information regarding reservation: Ph: 131 forcomputerised PNR, for status enquiry contact 1330, 1335, 1345.

(Information supplied by Indian Railways)

Earliest date on which berth / seats were available at 2000 hrs. on11.04.2003 in important trains leaving various Delhi stations.

Train No. Train / Exp / Mail 1 ac 2 ac Ac 3t SlNORTH4033 Jammu Mail 12.04 20.04 22.04 21.044645 Shalimar Exp — 22.05 15.05 21.042403 Jammu Exp 20.04 28.04 28.04 29.04EAST2302 Kolkata Rajdhani 13.04 15.04 23.04 —2304 Poorva Exp 16.04 23.04 16.04 15.052382 Poorva Exp 18.04 22.04 21.04 19.052312 Kalka Mail N.A. 15.04 08.05 20.052392 Magadh Exp N.A. 20.04 17.04 23.042402 Shramjeevi Exp — 13.04 16.04 21.042418 Prayag Raj Exp 16.04 13.04 13.04 14.044056 Brahmputra Mail — N.A. 27.05 18.055622 North East Exp — 02.05 26.05 18.052554 Vaishali Exp 12.04 04.05 22.04 29.052816 Puri Exp — 17.04 23.04 24.042802 Purshottam Exp — 01.05 23.04 23.048476 Neelanchal Exp — 27.04 22.04 22.044230 Lucknow Mail 12.04 13.04 21.04 23.04WEST2904 Golden Temple Mail 14.04 16.04 22.04 06.062926 Paschim Exp 13.04 01.05 10.06 10.062952 Mumbai Rajdhani 12.04 23.04 24.04 —2954 AG Kranti Rajdhani 13.04 14.04 16.04 —2474 Sarvodaya Exp — 01.05 17.04 17.041078 Jhelum Exp — 26.05 08.06 13.052916 Ashram Exp 12.04 25.04 16.04 16.04SOUTH2616 G T Exp 12.04 15.04 23.04 14.042622 Tamil Nadu Exp 14.04 14.04 03.06 14.042432 Trivandrum Raj 13.04 N.A. N.A. —2626 Kerala Exp — 09.06 05.06 28.052618 Mangala Exp — 04.06 05.06 21.052628 Karnataka Exp — 15.04 14.04 14.042724 A P Exp 15.04 04.05 08.05 21.042430 Banglore Rajdhani 14.04 07.06 02.06 —7022 Dakshin Express — 15.04 — 13.04

Max MinDelhi 41 22 Mumbai 33 24 Chennai 35 26 Kolkatta 35 26 Banglore 31 23 A’dabad 47 27 T’puram 34 25 Bhopal 40 23B’eshwar 38 26 Pune 38 23

WORLDMax Min

Amsterdam 07 -01 Bahrain 36 26 Bangkok 36 28 Beijing 10 07 Chicago 06 -03 Geneva 07 01 Hong Kong 22 18 London 08 01 Los Angeles 28 13 Moscow 08 00

Police revamp to bemonitored closely

By Bisheshwar MishraTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The Bureau ofPolice Research and Develop-ment (BPR&D) is likely to beasked to monitor the imple-mentation of the Centre’sscheme for modernisingstate police forces.

‘‘There has always been anelement of doubt over howthese schemes actually bene-fit the states,’’ some membersto the 98th ParliamentaryStanding Committee ofhome ministry had observed.The committee then recom-mended that a specialisedcentral agency like theBPR&D be asked to overseethe implementation of thestate police modernisationscheme.

‘‘BPR&D has the expertiseand experience to take upthis responsibility,’’ the com-mittee, chaired by seniorCongress leader PranabMukherjee, observed. Thereare about 14 Rajya Sabhamembers and 43 Lok Sabha

members on the committee.The committee has also

made it mandatory forBPR&D to submit quarterlystatus reports on the imple-mentation of the scheme.

The scheme began in 1960sand continued through 1969-70, with the Centre and thestates sharing the costsequally. Soon it was foundthat states were unable tocough up their share. Be-tween 1969-70 to 1999-2000, theCentre had disbursed Rs536.74 crore under thescheme to various states.However, in view of theemerging threats to internalsecurity, this amount was en-hanced to Rs 1,000 crore.

While accepting that stategovernments were responsi-ble for modernising theirforces, the committee alsonoted the poor financial con-dition position of the states.According to a new fundingpattern the Centre will bear75 per cent of the cost ofmodernising the state forces.

Roads become open-air binsTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: For almost fourmonths now, several roadsin Defence Colony are beingused as open-air garbagebins by the Delhi MunicipalCorporation (MCD).

The collection of garbageon roads has forced resi-dents in almost all blocks toput up with the unbearablestench rising from heaps ofgarbage.

Most garbage bins in thecolony are under repair andin the absence of any alter-native arrangement, thecolony’s garbage is beingdumped on roads close tothese bins.

The problem is acute inblocks C, D and others alongthe drain which passesthrough the colony. ‘‘Thecollection of garbage in theopen is an invitation tostray cattle which use themas grazing grounds throughout the day,’’ said ShielaDawar, a C block resident.

She complained that sev-eral attempts to make theMCD lift garbage promptlyhad failed. ‘‘There is no re-dressal at all. We have beenrunning from one officer toother but there seems to beno end to our woes,’’ shecomplained.

Rani Suri, another resi-dent, blamed MCD’s deci-sion to renovate all the 19colony garbage bins in onego for the latest problem.

‘‘The civic agency couldhave taken one bin at a timeand shifted the garbage loadof a demolished bin to oth-ers. But they preferred todemolish all the bins at thesame time leading to collec-tion of garbage on roads,’’she said.

Suri said the civicagency’s renovation plansseemed ill-planned. ‘‘Thebins were repaired a coupleof years ago as well. Lasttime, the walls were made ofsand stones. Now they areusing glazed tiles for thebins. There seems littlesense in spending money onthe same bins again and

again,’’ she said.R M Batra, a resident,

said the open garbagedumps were attracting straycattle.

‘‘The stray cattle whichfeed on the open garbagedumps lie down on roadscausing traffic hazards,’’ hecomplained. He alleged thatcattle belonged to residentsof nearby villages who de-liberately send them to thecolony for feeding.

‘‘It’s a nightmare drivingpast a garbage bin near theDefence Colony market af-ter sunset. The stray cattlejust don’t leave any space onthe road for movement of

vehicles,’’ said another resi-dent. Deputy commissionerof Central Zone, K D Akolia,claimed garbage being col-lected near bins under reno-vation was lifted promptly.‘‘There is a temporary prob-lem as the bins are being re-constructed on court direc-tion,’’ he said.

Asked about an overflow-ing garbage bin near thecolony market, he said: ‘‘Adecision was taken recentlyto close this particular binand use it for some otherpurpose. It will be closedonce all other bins are readyfor use after the renova-tion.’’

TOI

Garbage dumps in Defence Colony spill over on roads as authorities look away.

Committee tooversee landdeals for Metro

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The Delhi highcourt on Thursday orderedthe formation of a co-ordina-tion committee to monitorthe problems of land acquisi-tion arising due to theprogress of Metro Rail.

Justice Sanjay KishanKaul said the committeewould comprise of senior of-ficials of the Delhi Develop-ment Corporation (DDA),Municipal Corporation ofDelhi (MCD) and the DelhiMetro Rail Corporation(DMRC).

Kaul’s order came follow-ing a petition filed before himwhere there was a dispute be-tween the DDA and the MCDon a piece of land which wasallotted to the residents ofMajnu Ka Tila. While theDDA had relocated the resi-dents to a place in Timarpur,MCD refused to develop it.

MCD advocate Anil Groversaid: ‘‘About 40 residents ofMajnu Ka Tila approachedthe high court after the MCDexpressed its helplessness todevelop the area.’’

The petitioners have beenrelocated to Timarpur be-cause the DMRC requires thearea around Majnu Ka Tila tocomplete the first phase ofMetro.

READER’S GRIEVANCES

Broken drainA rain water chamber’s(sewer) mesh on the mainroad in village Mochi Baghhas been broken for the lastfew months. I had regis-tered a complaint with thesouth Delhi sewage controlroom, Green Park, on De-cember 27, 2002, under com-plaint No. 405 but no actionhas been taken. Two MCDemployees came on Janu-ary 10, 2003, and promisedto change the mesh but did-n’t do so. I have also writtento MCD commissioner, L-G,and chief minister to takelegal action against slackMCD officials. — Som DattTanwar, 69/1A, VillageMochi Bagh, Nanakpura.

Clogged drainsThe drainage system inward number 48,Parampuri Colony, and ad-jacent colonies of UttamNagar has collapsed.Drains are overflowing andthe stagnated sewage hasbecome a breeding groundfor diseases. Several peoplehave started falling ill.

Near S-88 ParampuriColony, all manholes anddrains are overflowing. Onespell of rainfall and all

roads in the area are sub-merged in sewage.

This area has become aliving hell. Authorities mayplease look into it urgently.— Rajesh, S-88, Parampuri,Uttam Nagar.

Transfer pensionI had been drawing month-ly pension under EPSagainst PPO No. 1848 fromPunjab National Bank, Uj-jain. On October 11, 2002, Isent an application to theRegional Provident FundCommissioner, Indore, fortransfer of my pension pay-ment arrangement from Uj-jain to Janakpuri branch(New Delhi) of the samebank. This application wasactually received in RPFCoffice on October 22, 2002.

It is almost three monthsbut the transfer of pensionaccount has yet to be made.— A K Chakravarty, BB-55-B, Janakpuri.

Travel troubleI am a physically chal-lenged person and neededto travel by Kerala Express.I boarded the train with awaiting list (number 8) tick-et. I had to spend the entire45-hour journey near thetoilet. When I requested the

TTEs to treat my case sym-pathetically since I wasphysically challenged, Iwas told that all categorisedreservations, includingthose for the disabled, weremade available only up to acertain stage of the jour-ney. I request the authori-ties to kindly look into thematter. — GuruvayurappanG (Alias- Mani), B-7, HouseNo 48A, Mayur Vihar-3.

Coop duesI am a member of the NewLife Cooperative Thrift &Credit Society Ltd, Moham-madpur (vide no 257). I haddeposited Rs 1,000 and Rs7,100, respectively, as sharemoney and compulsory de-posit. But many of us havebeen cheated.

I was informed by thenjoint registrar of coopera-tive societies that the par-ticular society had been liq-uidated and an official hadbeen appointed as a liquida-tor of New Life Janta CoopT/C Society Ltd. Till datethe liquidator has not beenable to settle my dues. Isthere any other forum that Ican approach to get backmy hard-earned money? —C M Deb, H-3/11-A, MahavirEnclave, Bengali Colony,Palam.

Readers should send their contributions addressed to Readers’ Grievances c/o Metro Editor, The Times of India,7, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002.

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D E L H IThe Times of India, New Delhi Saturday, April 12, 2003 5

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Store chaindirector heldfor fraud

By Maneesh PandeyTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The executive di-rector of the departmentalstore chain Apna Bazar, hasbeen arrested for duping 52investors of over Rs 1 crore.They alleged that the ac-cused, Shyam Kishore Math-ur, lured them to invest be-tween Rs 3 to 4 lakh each as asecurity deposit. In return,Mathur promised them afixed monthly return of Rs9,000 on every one lakh in-vested.

Deputy commissioner ofpolice (New Delhi), ManojLall, said:‘‘Mathur told themthe returns would be paideven if the store’s productswere not selling. So many in-vested between Rs 3 to 4 lakhexpecting a return upto Rs36,000 a month.’’ But whenthe complainants asked fortheir monthly returns anddeposit money, the accusedallegedly refused to paythem. A case was registeredat Connaught Place and theaccused was arrested in thelast week of March.

However, the police is yetto arrest the accused’s familymembers, including his son,Pankaj Mathur, wife MeenaMathur and his daughter-in-law Shefali Mathur.

‘‘The other accused are di-rectors of the Apna BazarPrivate Limited Companywhich had its branches inJaipur, Delhi, Hyderabad,Calcutta and Lucknow. Thefamily was planning to starta new franchise scheme,‘Teddy Town’, to supply toysto kindergarten children,’’Lall said.

Mathur and his son,Pankaj, registered ApnaBazar in Jaipur and openedan office in Hansalaya Build-ing on Barakhamba Road inAugust 2002 to distribute thecompany’s dealership.

The police has sealed sixbank accounts but have re-covered only Rs 1.4 lakh.They have also seized a car,the DCP said.

Sanskriti awardsannouncedNew Delhi: The SanskritiAwards, 2003 in variousfields were announced re-cently.

The award for literaturehas been won by Malayalamwriter B Murali. DionneBunsha has won the journal-ism award, N S Harsha forart, Bharatanatyam expo-nent Rama Vaidyanathan fordance and the non-govern-ment organisation Pravahwill be felicitated for socialachievement. The awardswill be presented on April 25,2003 at the India Internation-al Centre. TNN

Unclaimed cars clutter NDMC lotsBy Maneesh Pandey

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The ConnaughtPlace police have recentlydiscovered 26 cars and 28scooters, that have been lyingunclaimed for over five yearsin the underground PalikaParking in Connaught Place.

These include a Mercedes,a Volvo, three Impalas, a Cor-sa and 14 Enfield motorcy-cles. Seven of the vehicleshad been reported stolen.

The police first noticed thevehicles while checking secu-rity arrangements in thearea ahead of this year’s Re-public Day celebrations.

The SHO (ConnaughtPlace), Ishwar Singh, said:‘‘The names and addresses ofthe owners have been ob-tained by the NDMC and theyhave been asked to removetheir vehicles, failing whichthe police will initiate action

to remove them.’’The local police said that

10 unclaimed vehicles, in-cluding three cars, have beenlying unclaimed in theMayur Bhavan parking lotfor some time now.

Assistant commissioner ofpolice (ACP), Niranjan

Singh, said: ‘‘Some of the ve-hicles are financed and theowners, unable to pay the in-stalment, had parked the carsthere and absconded.’’

But there are exceptionslike Manish Sethi. Sethi wasnot aware that his late fatherhas bought a Maruti car un-

der a finance scheme. It wasonly when the police contact-ed him that he found aboutthe vehicle. Sethi is planningto clear the dues and reclaimthe car.

The SHO, however, saidmost of the owners would notbe keen to reclaim the vehi-cles. ‘‘The rent for parkingthe vehicle in the NDMC areais Rs 60 per day if the vehicleis parked for 24 hours. Thedues would amount to Rs1,800 for a month and Rs10,000 for six months,’’ Singhsaid.

The officer said sincescooters cost less than Rs5,000, it was unlikely the own-er would pay Rs 10,000 to re-claim the vehicle.

‘‘The NDMC has the powerto auction unclaimed vehi-cles in its parking lots. Thiswould compensate for theparking revenue lost so far.’’

Ministry okaysresignation ofjudge named in land scamNew Delhi: The resignation ofShameet Mukherjee, the Delhi highcourt judge accused in the DelhiDevelopment Authority (DDA) scam,has been accepted. The ministryonly has to notify it, sources said.

Mukherjee (48) had tendered hisresignation citing his wife’s illhealth. He, denied any links with theDDA officials under Central Bureauof Investigation (CBI) scanner. OnApril 6, he wrote to President A P JAbdul Kalam seeking to withdrawhis resignation. He said he wanted toclear his name first.

The president forwarded his resig-nation letter to the law ministry. Hissecond letter was also forwarded tothe ministry, which opined that therewas no question of reconsidering theresignation.

Mukherjee, who broke down whiletalking to PTI, said ‘‘I want to get onwith my life now as a legal profes-sional.’’ Asked if he would meet CBIofficials if they wanted to talk tohim, he said ‘‘I can’t say anything.’’

Mukherjee, a lawyer, who was ap-pointed as an additional judge of theHigh Court on January 16 last year,repeatedly claimed he had nothing todo with the scam.

‘‘Talk to people and find out if anyhanky panky is remotely possible(on my part),’’ he said.

‘‘All these files are non-sensitiveand fairly inconsequential type inwhich nobody will or can possibly beinterested,’’ he said. PTI

No one to question top officialsTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: New DDA vice-chair-man, Anil Baijal, is promising aclean administration but he may befacing an uphill task.

The long queues at DDA’s griev-ance redressal counters show thestaff ’s failure to give people-friend-ly and transparent services.

‘‘The citizens’ charter drafted byDDA to root out corruption does notapply to senior officials. A senior of-ficial cannot be questioned if hesits over a file, as in the case of for-mer DDA V-C Subhash Sharma,’’said a DDA official. Officials admitmost changes introduced with theaim to check corruption were, infact, attempts to plug loopholes ex-posed by earlier scams. There havebeen mixed gains from these at-tempts.

In the housing scam, the last ma-jor scandal in DDA before the cur-rent land scam, lakhs of rupeesmeant to be refunded to flat appli-cants were misappropriated.

The refund cheques of applicantsnever reached them but were en-cashed by corrupt DDA and bankofficials. Now, the DDA involvesbanks for accepting and refundingapplication money for all its hous-ing schemes.

DDA commissioner (housing) DB Gupta said: ‘‘The allotment offlats in Vasant Kunj, Sarita Viharand Dwarka was done through thisprocess.’’

‘‘The decision to involve fully-computerised banks in the processwas taken to guard against the mis-takes committed during the hous-ing scam. The employees of non-computerised banks had connivedwith scamsters then,’’ he said.

Gupta said computerisation ofseveral procedures like mutation,issue of demand letter, and interestcalculation were also aimed at curb-ing corruption. He said procedurefor issuing posses-sion letter has alsobeen revamped. ‘‘Thebanks which receivepayments on DDA’s behalf informour department daily. This helps usto verify receipts daily and to issuepossession letters within 48 hours.’’

The new mechanism has doneaway with the need to involve theaccounts department for issuing ano-objection certificate as a confir-mation for receipt of payment, he

said.Despite computerisation, corrupt

officials continue to harass people.‘‘I wanted to cancel my applicationfor a flat in Rohini under the 1979

scheme and get a re-fund. Despite severalattempts, I have notmanaged to get my

money back,’’ said Satish Bangia,who comes to the DDA office all theway from Panipat.

DDA officials claimed no seriousattempt has ever been made to clearthe backlog. Citizen charters havebeen drafted but their implementa-tion was left to corrupt DDA offi-cials.

TOI

DDA’s harsh fall from lofty ideals.

Maneesh Pandey

If monitored, parking spaces can be a big source of revenue.

DDAGATE

CMYK

I N D I A The Times of India, New Delhi6 Saturday, April 12, 2003

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Failure of PDS:Vajpayee callsall-party meet

By Parul Chandra TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The coun-try’s godowns may be over-flowing with foodgrains.And yet the states, includ-ing those which pleadedfor foodgrain aid to combatdrought last year, havebeen extremely tardyabout lifting foodgrains al-located by the Centre.

Concerned about thisand other problems thatplague the public distribu-tion system (PDS), PrimeMinister Vajpayee hascalled an all-party meetinglater this month.

The PM had assuredParliament in the last ses-sion that such a gatheringwould be held after thePDS came in for criticismin the light of starvationdeaths in the country. An-other meeting of chiefministers is likely to bechaired by Vajpayee soonon the same issue.

The all-party meeting islikely to focus on the strat-egy to be adopted to in-crease the off-take underPDS. This poor off-take ex-tends even to allocationsmade for Below PovertyLine (BPL) and AntyodayaAnna Yojana (AAY), bothschemes meant to providefoodgrains to the poor at

highly subsidised rates.Ministry officials note

that even though the food-grain allocation to BPL,AAY and APL (AbovePoverty Line) categorieshave been increased to 35kg per family per month,the off-take remains farless than the allocation.

Among the issues likelyto be raised are: ensuringthat fair price shops re-main open daily and thatthey have a regular and ad-equate supply of food-grains which they makeavailable to consumers.

At present, many FPSshops don’t open for dayson end or they claim theyhave no stocks, having di-verted the grains to theopen market. The all-partymeeting will also discussthe possibility of allowingthe poor to buy foodgrainsfrom these PDS outlets ininstalments.

The agenda note pre-pared for the meeting saysstate governments ‘‘needto have a correct balancebetween the interests ofthe consumers and of theFPS owners’’. One way ofmaking FPS outlets prof-itable is by allowing theowners to offer a ‘‘basketof commodities like soap,salt, and tea’’.

Scrap DoD,demandsRSS outfit

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The RSS labouroutfit Bharatiya MazdoorSangh (BMS) has demandedthat the disinvestment min-istry be scrapped and thegroup of ministers and sec-retaries be unbundled.

Outlining the ill-effects ofdisinvestment at its centralworking committee meetingin Satara, BMS has also de-manded that governmenttake over privatised PSUslike BALCO and ModernFoods and make it clear thatprofit-making PSUs wouldnot be privatised.

The BMS has also comedown heavily against N KSingh committee report onforeign direct investment, ex-horting the government toreject FDI in theory and prac-tice. What the union finds in-triguing is the fact that whileFDI is being encouraged, thegovernment is neglectingand discouraging Indian in-vestors. ‘‘The governmentwants domestic savings to gofor consumption, creating amarket demand. This is sui-cidal, for which the countrywould have to pay a heavy so-cial cost. Foreign marketwould wean away the Indianproduction engine,’’ BMSsaid in its resolution. Theunion also found it surpris-ing that while the govern-ment is yet to accept the N KSingh report, planners, bu-reaucrats and ministers havealready swung into action.

George sees light at end of AJT tunnelBy Rajat Pandit

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Barmer (Rajasthan): Isthe frequent flip-flop on thelong-pending decision toprocure Advanced JetTrainers (AJTs) for the IAF— reeling under a spate offighter crashes — finallycoming to an end?

Yes, proclaims defenceminister George Fernandes.

‘‘The time for procure-ment of AJTs is near... thedefence ministry hascleared the proposal andsent it to the finance min-istry,’’ said Fernandes onFriday, after a function to in-augurate a polyclinic underthe new national ex-service-men contributory healthscheme.

Finance ministerJaswant Singh, in turn, saidthere would be ‘‘no delay’’on his ministry’s part forthe AJT proposal.

‘‘The armed forces willnot suffer from lack offunds,’’ he said.

The final decision on theAJTs — which the IAF hasbeen desperately demand-ing for the last 20 years tohelp train rookie pilots to flyhighly-demanding super-sonic fighters like MiG-21s— will of course be taken bythe Cabinet Committee onSecurity (CCS).

Sources say the BritishAerospace-manufactured‘‘Hawk’’ AJTs, shortlistedseveral years ago, are stillthe frontrunners in the lu-crative deal worth over onebillion pounds.

The cheaper Czech-Amer-ican ‘‘L-159B’’ jet trainershave also emerged as con-tenders after evaluation bythe IAF last year.

Fernandes made it clearthe MiG-21s, the mainstay ofthe IAF combat fleet, wouldnot be phased out despitefrequent crashes.

As for the induction ofnew fighters, Fernandessaid a proposal of the IAFchief to acquire 130 multi-role fighters was being ex-amined.

‘‘We are also developingthe Light Combat Aircraft,’’

he said.Sources said France, in

particular, is pressing hard

to sell its Mirage-2000-V jetsto India.

The French defence min-ister, in fact, will visit Indiasoon to push deals like the‘‘Scorpene’’ submarine deal,talks on which are in the fi-nal stages.

Turning to Pakistan, Fer-nandes said he was ‘‘in fullagreement’’ with foreignminister Yashwant Sinha’sstatement that it was ‘‘a fit-ter case’’ than Iraq for pre-emptive military strikes ifpossession of weapons ofmass destruction, export ofterrorism and absence of

democracy were the crite-ria.

He dismissed Islamabad’sretort that India, not Pak-istan, was a fit case for suchpre-emptive action.

‘‘Pakistan is in the habitof lying,’’ declared Fernan-des.

As for the US-led attackagainst the Saddam regimein Iraq, Fernandes saidthe war was still inprogress.

He said India was readyto provide all possible helpto the Iraqi people to rebuildtheir country.

AP

Finance minister Jaswant Singh talking to former defence personnel at a function in Barmer, Rajasthan, on Friday. Acontributory health scheme was launched for them on the occasion.

“Pakistan was a fittercase than Iraq for pre-emptive military strikes ifpossession of weapons ofmass destruction, exportof terrorism and absenceof democracy were thecriteria.”

—George Fernandes

CMYK

I N D I AThe Times of India, New Delhi Saturday, April 12, 2003 7

Gujarat all set to cruise along CNG highwayBy Sanjay Dutta

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Gujarat is taking achapter out of Delhi’s clean-up actand improving it to ensure thatmotorists running their cars onCompressed Natural Gas (CNG)are free to cruise along highwayswithout switching to petrol ordiesel.

Gujarat State Petroleum Corpo-ration Ltd (GSPCL) — the only oilcompany in the country promoted

by a state government — hasplanned to set up a chain of 246CNG filling stations along thehighways between Hazira andMehsana by the end of next year.

GSPCL has decided to providean initial subsidy of Rs 20,000 forconversion kits to populariseCNG. At present, the subsidy isavailable only to the vehicles reg-istered in Hazira.

GSPCL plans to sell the CNG atRs 18 per kg. Another firm, Gu-jarat Gas, is running CNG opera-

tions in Surat, selling at Rs 20 perkg. In Delhi and Mumbai, CNG issold at Rs 16.83 per kg.

The highways-CNG project is es-timated to cost Rs 300 crore andwill cover major cities like Surat,Vadodara, Ahmedabad and Gand-hinagar. Consultancy firm DalalMcDermott is preparing a detailedreport for the CNG project, even asthe first GSPCL station nears com-pletion at Icchapore near Hazira.

The station is being set up bySulzer India on a turnkey basis.

The company has also identifiedlocations for few other stations.

GSPCL is expected to spend onabout Rs 1.4 crore on each of the300 CNG stations. Of these, 45 willbe on the main gas pipeline (moth-er stations) and 200 will be sup-plied either through connectingpipelines or mobile storage facili-ties (daughter stations). GSPCLplans to raise Rs 2,000 crore to pro-mote various projects as part ofModi government’s move to createa gas-based economy.

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Ram Naik hintsat petro price cut

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The Iraq war islikely to have some goodnews for domestic petro-goods consumers as pricesmay come down next weekfollowing a steady decline ininternational crude oilprices.

The declining global pricesis also good news for thecountry’s exchequer, whichhad spent Rs 84,017 crore inimporting crude in 2002-2003,up 24.2 per cent from the pre-vious fiscal’s Rs 67,646 crore.

‘‘After the outbreak of warin Iraq, crude prices havefallen substantially, largelydue to end of uncertainty. Oilcompanies will take into ac-count these changes and I amsure they will make con-sumers happy,’’ Petroleumminister Ram Naik said onWednesday. He, however, de-clined to quantify the reduc-tion, saying it was for the oilmarketing companies to doso.Crude prices haveslumped to under $24 a barrelfrom a three-month high of$34.73 before the war.

Petrol prices have risen byover 26 per cent during 2002-03, from Rs 26.54 a litre in Del-hi on April 1, 2002 to Rs 33.49per litre at present.

Diesel prices have gone upby around 33 per cent to Rs22.12 a litre at present as op-posed to Rs 16.59 a litre on

April 1, 2002.In dollar terms, the oil im-

port bill rose by 22.61 per centto $17.35 billion against 14.15billion in 2001-02.

During 2002-03, India im-ported 89.02 million tonne ofoil — 82.34 million tonne ofcrude oil worth Rs 76,131crore ($15.71 billion) and 6.68million tonne of petroleumproducts worth Rs 7,886 crore($1.64 billion).

The country had spent Rs60,397 crore ($12.64 billion) onimport of 78.7 million tonneof crude and Rs 7,249 crore($1.51 billion) on petroleumproducts in 2001-02.

The year saw export ofproducts jump to Rs 10,053crore ($2.08 billion) asagainst Rs 8,285 crore ($1.73billion) in 2001-02.

Naik said the net importsof 79.23 million tonne cost Rs73,964 crore ($15.27 billion) asopposed to Rs 59,361 crore($12.42 billion) spent on 75.62million tonne in the previousfiscal.

Naik expected a robustgrowth in 2003-04, pinninghopes primarily on goodmonsoon which would revivedemand in the agriculturesector.

Average cost of crude oilimport in 2002-03 was $26.59 abarrel as opposed to just over$22 per barrel average cost ofIndian basket of crude in theprevious year, Naik added.

Mallya quits JD(U)to revive Janata

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore: Disillusionedand hurt by the KarnatakaJanata Parivar leaders’ at-titude, MP and business ty-coon Vijay Mallya has de-cided to quit the JD(U) andrevive the Janata Party(JP) across the country.

‘‘I want to channelisemy energy and resourcesin an environment where Iam welcome. I was unwel-come in the JD(U) andsome leaders resented mypresence from day one,’’Mallya told TNN over tele-phone from Delhi.

He said he had been of-fered the national workingpresident’s post in Subra-manian Swamy’s JP andwas taking it up. ‘‘I willwork towards reviving theJP which is the mother ofall Dal factions. I have spo-ken to JD(U) leader Ra-makrishna Hegde, whosympathised with me andfelt that I will probably bemore useful to the youth,’’he said.

Mallya said he was not aparty to Dal’s on-goingmerger talks nor was heinvited. ‘‘I am disillu-sioned with the constantdisagreement, change ofhearts taking place on aregular basis. How longcan I continue this seem-ingly endless journey?’’ heasked.

For the JP’s revival,Mallya said he had spokento about 20 Karnataka BJPMLAs who were expelledfor voting him in the RajyaSabha elections besidessome Independents. ‘‘I willnot be ploughing a lonelyfurrow as with my abili-ties and capabilities what-ever I have taken up hassucceeded. But I havecome to the conclusionthat my services in theJD(U) are not required,’’he maintained.

Mallya was appointedJD(U) national senior vice-president in 2002 and con-tinued in the same post inAIJD.

Potshots in Houseover potatoes

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Potatoes made arare appearance in Parlia-ment on Thursday apparent-ly to stress the plight of thefarmers following the suddencrash in the crop’s prices.

Holding the potatoes inboth hands, an agitatedAkhilesh Singh of the Sama-jwadi Party (SP) recountedhow farmers across UttarPradesh were committingsuicide over their failure toto sell the produce.

‘‘Depending on the outlookof his potato crop, a farmerwould finalise his daughter’smarriage, but this year it hasonly spelled disaster forhim,’’ said S P Baghel, anoth-er agitated member.

With the issue acquiringan emotive edge, other Oppo-sition groups joined the SPmembers in the protest. Theyblamed Union agricultureminister Ajit Singh for thefarmers’ misery. The SPmembers claimed that theUP farmers had broughtmore areas under the potatocrop this season, followinghis assurance at a farmers’

gathering that the govern-ment would ensure a good re-turn for the produce. Thefarmers, they claimed, weremisled by the promise of ex-porting the crop. However,nothing like that happened.

They demanded the Cen-tre’s immediate interventionto save the farmers. ‘‘Theagriculture minister mustmake a statement in theHouse,’’ they demanded. Themembers pointed out that thefarmers faced a terrible situ-ation after they had grownpotatoes borrowing heavilyfrom the market.

The crop, they said, wouldnow rot unless the Centre be-gan a procurement drive. Animmediate statement couldhave saved the situationsince Parliament would be inrecess for well over a week.

Basudev Acharya of theCPM said potato-growers inWest Bengal awaited a bleakprospect after they raised abumper crop of 40 lakhtonnes this year. Without in-tervention by the Centremuch of the crop would rotin view of the inadequatestorage facilities in the state.

•A chain of 246 CNG fillingstations to be set up along thehighways between Hazira andMehsana

•An initial subsidy of Rs 20,000for conversion kits to popu-larise CNG

•Surat, Vadodara, Ahmedabad,Gandhinagar to be covered

On the anvil

CMYK

I N D I A The Times of India, New Delhi8 Saturday, April 12, 2003

Many tourismprojects areincomplete:House report

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Nearly a thou-sand of the 1,563 tourismprojects sanctioned duringthe Ninth Five-Year Plan re-main incomplete.

This ‘‘dismaying’’ figure ishighlighted in the latest re-port of the Parliamentarystanding committee ontourism, tabled in both Hous-es on Thursday.

MPs say they are unable tobuy the arguments given bythe tourism department —lack of coordination betweenministries and state govern-ments and a low level of mon-itoring. These projects wereworth Rs 372 crore.

The committee, chaired byCPM MP Dipankar Mukher-jee, also found the tourismdepartment couldn’t use thefunds it allocated for theNorth-East in 2002-03. Muchneeds to be done to explorethe region’s tourism poten-tial, notes the committee.

This year, Rs 32 crore hasbeen set aside for projects inthe north-east. The commit-tee recommends the ‘‘highestpriority’’ to tourism-relateddevelopmental work there.

Given the state of the 1,563sanctioned projects, the com-mittee has suggested thatMPs be involved in identify-ing, developing and monitor-ing tourist destinations intheir states to avoid delaysand cost over-runs.

The committee says the de-partment of tourism justhasn’t done enough to pro-mote the sector.

Set-top boxes areGovt’s responsibility

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The governmentcannot deny its responsibili-ty to make set-top-boxesavailable for a smoothswitch-over to the condition-al access system (CAS)regime, the ParliamentaryStanding Committee on IThas said.

Dealing with the issue oftransition to the new era, thecommittee, headed by Som-nath Chatterjee, in its latestreport disapproved of the as-sumption that the govern-ment did not have any con-trol over the quality and sup-ply of set-top-boxes.

‘‘The committee, therefore,feels that the (Information

and Broadcasting) ministryand Prasar Bharati shouldensure that private operatorswould supply on demand set-top-boxes for viewing the paychannels so as to ensure(their)availability, affordabil-ity and quality.’’

Another issue that con-cerned the committee wasthe ‘‘huge outstanding forsponsored serials and in-house programmes againstthe major kendras’’. Taking aserious view of the dues run-ning into hundreds of crores,it recommended ‘‘adoption ofappropriate steps like month-ly monitoring of outstandingdues, suspend normal creditperiod, telecast on advancepayment for defaulters’’.

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Bush sendingPowell toSouth Asia

By Chidanand RajghattaTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Washington: Top Bush ad-ministration officials, in-cluding secretary of stateColin Powell or his deputyRichard Armitage, will becoming to South Asia possi-bly within the next fortnight.

There is growing concernin Washington that the situa-tion in the region is taking aturn for the worse.

Despite its almost totalpreoccupation with the Iraqcrisis, the heated rhetoricfrom the subcontinent hastriggered off alarm here, par-ticularly after external af-fairs minister Yashwant Sin-ha suggested several times inrecent days that Pakistanwas a fit case for pre-emptiveaction on the same lines asthe US war on Iraq.

Following frantic in-quiries by the Bush adminis-tration, New Delhi has clari-fied that the statements weremore rhetorical in nature,but at the same time made itknown to Washington thatincreasing public pressureon India’s elected representa-tives would make it difficultfor the government not totake action on infiltrationsand violence inspired by Pak-istan.

The blunt message hascaused some consternationin Washington, and senioradministration officials havegone on air at least twice totemper the situation, conveyto New Delhi that the US doesnot see the need for India totake any military action, andpromise greater Americaninvolvement in resolving ten-sion.

In an interview on Pak-istan’s state-run televisionon Thursday, Powell said,‘‘We do have a very difficultsituation and a dangeroussituation with respect to ac-tions across the Line of Con-trol,’’ a statement that im-plicitly agreed with India’scharge of infiltration.

Powell also refined earlierUS’ statement about the dis-similarity between US actionin Iraq and India’s threat ofpre-emptive action againstPakistan, saying he did notthink there is a ‘‘direct paral-lel’’ to the two situations.

But he also promised thatthe US will stay engaged inthe region and it did not ‘‘be-lieve there is a need now forany military action of anykind’’.

‘‘We are looking to help thetwo parties resolve this in apeaceful way, and you can besure that I will personally re-main engaged, as will Presi-dent Bush and members ofhis administration,’’ Powellsaid.

There is now talk of astream of US officials, lead-ing with assistant secretaryof state Christina Rocca andfollowed by higher level offi-cials, making a beeline to theregion in an effort to renewpressure on Pakistan tostop infiltration across theborder and convince Indiathereafter to reopen dia-logue.

Polio drive runsout of steam in UP

By Manjari MishraTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Lucknow: One of the majorcauses behind the recur-rence of polio in UP could be‘‘polio fatigue’’ among thevaccinators.

Since the launch of pulsepolio programme in 1995, thestate has witnessed a a totalof 26 vaccination rounds.These do not include themop-up operations whichprecede the detection of po-lio cases. And after the thirdround this year, which con-cluded on April 5, the 4.5lakh-strong army of vaccina-tors have begun to showsymptoms of polio overkill.

The repetitiveness of thedrive has led to a sense oflethargy, admit officials. Thepractice of administering anunlimited number of polio

drops has possibly reducedthe whole exercise to ‘‘vacci-nation on paper’’, they say.

Prior to 1999, the year theWorld Health Organisationdecided to introduce thedoor-to-door vaccination pro-gramme, booth attendance,according to statistics, hadvaried from 60 to 80 per cent.The number has registered abig drop since then and, thisyear, despite mega publicity ,booth attendance reachedonly 44 per cent.

The government’s zeal hasbeen misconstrued by thepeople, who treat the vacci-nation drive as an officialagenda strictly.

This can actually be quiteirritating to field workers,feel experts. The attitude hasadversely affected the rou-tine immunisation pro-gramme also. Setback to Cong on museum

Lucknow: In an apparentsetback to the Congress,the Lucknow Bench of theAllahabad High Court hasdeclined to interfere withUttar Pradesh govern-ment’s decision to build anAmbedkar museum on theland earlier allotted forthe construction of the In-dira Gandhi Pratisthan(IGP).

A Division Bench com-prising Justice JagadishBhalla and Justice G KGupta passed the order onThursday on a Public In-terest Litigation (PIL),

challenging the govern-ment’s decision to shift theIndira Gandhi Pratisthanto an alternative site.

The court, however, di-rected the government toreallocate 25 acres of landfor the construction ofIGP.

The Bench said in its or-der that the area of the In-dira Gandhi Pratisthancould be decreased if 25acres of land was not avail-able but directed the offi-cials to keep in mind theoriginal design of the in-stitution. PTI

The worryIndia tells US Govt is under pressure to actagainst infiltration

Powell reactionSays there is no need fordirect military action now

VIP visitorsTop US officails will soonmake a beeline to the region to diffuse tension

Hard talk

PM’s healing touch for SikkimTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Gangtok/New Delhi:Prime Minister Atal BihariVajpayee, who arrived hereon a three-day visit on Fri-day, said he would look intothe problems being faced bythe Himalayan state.

This is Vajpayee’s firstvisit to Sikkim — whichjoined the Indian Union, 27years after independence —as Prime Minister.

‘‘During my stay here, Iwill discuss the problemsbeing faced by the state andthe changes that have takenplace here,’’ Vajpayee toldmediapersons on Friday, onhis arrival here.

Earlier in Delhi, Sikkimchief minister Pawan KChamling had briefed Vaj-payee about the problems.

The Prime Minister saidhe was happy to be inSikkim as the visit was longoverdue. Chamling said hisgovernment would submit amemorandum to the PrimeMinister on the immediateproblems of the state.

One of the demands is en-forcement of the IncomeTax Act in the hill state. Thestate government will alsoask the Centre for a grant ofRs 130 crore for the con-

struction of an airport atPakyong — the PlanningCommission has alreadysanctioned Rs 50 crore. Itwill demand Rs 110 crore for

the construction of a 500-bed referral hospital andfunds for the constructionof an annexe building ofthe state secretariat.

The state governmentwants the present reserva-tion of seats for differentcommunities in the state as-sembly retained.

AP

Sikkim chief minister P K Chamling welcoming PM Vajpayee in Gangtok on Friday.

CMYK

Saturday, April 12, 2003 9The Times of India, New Delhi

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T E N D E R S & C O N T R A C T S The Times of India, New Delhi10 Saturday, April 12, 2003

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CMYK

Assistance denied: The Centrehas refused any financial assistanceto Chhattisgarh to construct its newcapital, the foundation stone forwhich was laid by Congress presi-dent Sonia Gandhi on March 8. In aletter to CM Ajit Jogi, urban develop-ment minister Ananth Kumar hassuggested the state government ap-proach the Planning Commission.PTI

Policemen released: Naxalites ofthe banned PWG on Friday releasedthe three policemen they had ab-ducted last week in Prakasam dis-trict of Andhra Pradesh. PTI

INSAT-3A placed in orbit: In thefirst critical orbit-raising manoeuvre,India’s multi-mission satellite, INSAT-3A, was placed in the ‘‘intermediateorbit’’ on Friday. PTI

Delzad Khambata, a 29-year-oldmechanical engineer, rides hisbike equipped with a fibreglassroof, in Ahmedabad on Friday. Thedetachable roof for motorbikesand scooters can help ward off thesweltering summer heat.

AFP

INDIA DIGEST

I N D I AThe Times of India, New Delhi Saturday, April 12, 2003 11

Bet your life on young achieversBy Robin David

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad: It’s not oftenthat a 21-year-old earns Rs 17lakh in a year and that too inwhite money. But that’s ex-actly what Sahil Chokshi hasdone. As an insurance agent,he did business worth Rs 52lakh in premiums and haspocketed a cool Rs 17 lakh.

In their 20s and 30s, Sahilrepresents a new breed of in-surance agents. Agents ofprivate insurance companiesare no longer bank clerks orgovernment employees, writ-ing policies on the side toearn extra cash and doingbusiness in their wives’names. These agents devotetheir full time to the job andearn in lakhs. From one-timebusinessmen to fresh gradu-ates everyone is turning aninsurance agent in a hurry.

Among the changing pro-file of agents are many busi-nessmen who have shutdown their factories and arewriting policies. AshokShah, for instance, had suc-cessfully run a chemical fac-tory at Vatva for 18 years till1996. When stringent pollu-tion norms became too muchfor him, he shut shop to be-come a chemical dealer. To-day, Shah is seen as a suc-cessful insurance advisorand will soon be leaving forthe US to attend the MillionDollar Round Table (MDRT)conference.

MDRT is a premier inter-national association of pro-fessionals from the industry.To become an MDRT mem-ber agents have a do freshbusiness either worth Rs 15lakh premium or commis-sion worth Rs 5 lakh.

Saurashtra gears up for yet another parched summerBy Harit Mehta

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Rajkot: Saurashtrians are brac-ing themselves for yet anotherparched summer with mostparts in the region facing acutewater crisis.

Inefficient distribution net-works are compounding theproblem. Now, the possibility ofrunning water trains during thepeak of summer is being dis-cussed.

Check the figures. Suren-dranagar, for instance, with apopulation of 1.65 lakh, gets wa-ter once a week. In Wadwan, the

second biggest town of the dis-trict, the supply is once in everyfour to five days.

The situation is not any betterin rural areas. Out of 657 villagesin district, nearly 104 rely ontanker supplies and by mid-Maythe number may swell up to 150.The main water sources for thedistrict, Dholidaja and Naykadams, are dry. The administra-tion has been heavily banking onthe deep bores, many of whichhave failed. Non-upgradation ofthe water distribution systemhas added to the woes.

‘‘We have dug 14 new bores.

But the underground water ta-bles are fast depleting,’’ saysSurendranagar collector D JDharaiya.

Amreli district too faces thesame fate. The city gets wateronce in every 5 days and supplyvaries from 2 to 3 hours. The

main water source, Khodiyardam, is drying up and anothersource Thebi has touched rockbottom. ‘‘Fortunately, the vil-lages alongside the Rajkot-Bhav-nagar highway get the Mahi-Pariyej water. Some 26 villagesget tanker water,’’ says V S Trive-di, district collector of Amreli.

‘‘People tend to store more wa-ter than required when theyknow there is a crisis and thatmakes things even more diffi-cult, yet another problem is thegrowing number of illegal con-nections,’’ he says.

Junagadh city gets water once

in three days. ‘‘The situation isnot very bad, but we have to becareful,’’ says district collector RK Pathak. The prime culprit hereis the distribution system. Juna-gadh’s main source, Anandpurdam, can fetch 1.5 crore litre wa-ter every day. But only 25 p