Chandigarh, January 28 (Doaba News Service)- Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal earns Rs 4.58 crore a year and makes the maximum money among all candidates in the election fray. Following him at second position is his father and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, with income of Rs 2 crore. These facts were made public by the Punjab Election Watch, an NGO, which studied the Income Tax returns of the candidates and released its analysis of 408 candidates belonging to major political parties in the fray. The father-son duo is followed by Congress candidate Rana Gurjit Singh with an annual income of Rs 1.59 crore, Kewal Singh Dhillon (Congress) at Rs 1.53 crore and Deep Malhotra (SAD) at Rs 1.10 crore, as per their latest Income Tax returns. As many as 92 candidates (23 per cent), of the 408 candidates analysed by the Punjab Election Watch, have declared that they had never filed IT returns. The party-wise percentage is: Congress, 15 candidates (13 per cent); SAD, 11 candidates (12 per cent); PPP, 20 candidates (22 per cent); BSP, 27 candidates (44 per cent) and the BJP, one candidate (5 per cent). Top three candidates with maximum assets but who have never filed IT returns are Karan Kaur of the Congress who is contesting from Muktsar. She has assets worth Rs 128 crore, followed by Ramanjit Singh Sikki of the Congress (Khadoor Sahib candidate) and Gurpartap Singh Wadala of the SAD (Nakodar candidate) having assets worth Rs 20.12 crore and Rs 13.71 crore, respectively. As many as 47 candidates (12 per cent) ...
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Kharar, March 7 (DNS)- A Ludhiana-based lensman of the Times of India (TOI), was killed and three of his colleagues were injured when a car in which they were travelling collided with a truck in Punjab's Kharar area near here. The deceased has been identified as Aditya Jaitley. Other three victims include Vaivasvat Venkat, Sandeep Dua and Naveen Kalia, all of who are staff correspondents with TOI, Ludhiana. As per Kharar police officials, the accident took place at around 1.30 am at Khanpur y point where Punjab minister Captain Kanwaljit Singh had died on March 29, 2009. All four were on their way from Ludhiana to Chandigarh to attend a jagran function at one of their common friend’s place in Chandigarh. Aditya was driving the Maruti car last night when the mishap occurred, the police said here. The car collided with a truck (HP 13 B 2001) bound for Morinda from Chandigarh. The impact of the collision was so strong that the car zoomed under the front portion of truck. Seats meant for driver and co-rider got detached and bounced into back portion of the truck. The police officials said truck was carrying feed for animals and was supposed to go to Shimla. The truck driver fled away from spot. All four car occupants were rushed to civil hospital in Kharar from where they were further referred to PGIMER, Chandigarh. Aditya died on reaching Kharar hospital. Attendants of other three injured at the PGIMER said, “All of them are unconscious and out of danger.” Venkat has suffered a jaw fracture and multiple ...
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Jalalabad (Ferozepur), December 16 (DNS)- To give a boost to administrative reforms initiated in Punjab, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal today said that the right to service Act would soon be introduced in the state. The move has been initiated with the aim of empowering residents of the state to claim services by different agencies as a matter of right, with a provision to penalise government officials who deny, delay or fail to deliver services to the residents. While stating this at a function organised in connection with the launching of development works and laying the foundation stone of the office of the local municipal council in his home constituency, Badal said the SAD-BJP government would not tolerate any attempt to defeat the purpose of its people-oriented policies. “The right to service Act is a natural extension of exercise of administrative reforms to ensure hassle-free services to the people of Punjab. The services meant for citizens, who will be covered by this proposed Act, are being identified and shortly the government will be ready with its draft for further action,” pointed out the Deputy Chief Minister. Sukhbir demanded that an all-party meeting must be called at the national level to work out the modalities to stop the repeated hikes being made in the prices of petrol and diesel by the UPA government. The hikes had been proving detrimental for agriculture and transport business besides triggering inflation. “Why does the UPA government fail to reduce the prices of ...
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Jalandhar, December 11 (DNS)- While Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal has announced several administrative reforms after Manpreet Badal’s expulsion from the Cabinet and the ruling Akali Dal, it has been found difficult to implement these due to an acute shortage of officials. It is learnt that over 50 per cent (146) of a total of 296 sanctioned posts of Punjab Civil Service (PCS) officials are lying vacant for the past several years. Instead of making regular appointments, the SAD-BJP government recruited 35 PCS officials on contract -- something unprecedented -- a few months ago. However, contractual PCS officials could not serve much purpose as their responsibilities could not be fixed. That is why, Punjab Chief Electoral Officer Kusumjit Sidhu issued directions to the Punjab government recently to not engage the contractual PCS officials in election-related work. Sources said though the Punjab government should start the process for the direct appointment of PCS officials, it would take several years for these officials to actually start their work even after their selection as they would require to get mandatory training for two and a half years. Under these circumstances, the only way to minimise the shortage of PCS officials immediately would be to promote tehsildars as they may directly start work on their new posts. They did not require any training. There was 18 per cent quota of filling the PCS cadre by elevating tehsildars but no post of PCS had been filled by promoting tehsildars for ...
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Chandigarh, November 17 (DNS)- Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal held a meeting with a high-level team of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to discuss the proposed metro rail project for Ludhiana. An official release said the state had earlier requested the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to conduct a feasibility study for a mass rapid transport system in Ludhiana. It said the cost of the metro project was estimated at Rs 6,600 crore. According to a detailed project report, the first corridor of the Ludhiana Metro will be 15.7-km long, with 14 stations while the second corridor would be 13-km long, with 13 stations. A team of the DMRC gave a detailed presentation to Sukhbir and discussed various financial models for the scheme. The Deputy CM asked officials to explore various alternatives and expedite the processing of detailed project report. Sukhbir Badal, on assuming charge in January 2009, had promised for Mass Rapid Transport System including, a metro for Ludhiana. The DMRC took one and half year to conduct detailed feasibility study of the ...
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Chandigarh, October 20 (DNS)- After winning over Sant Ajit Singh, the Shiromani Akali Dal is learnt to have decided to isolate Manpreet Badal further and win over the MLA from Beas, Manjinder Singh Kang, who too had pledged support to Manpreet Badal along with Sant Ajit Singh. SAD sources claimed that Sant Ajit Singh had been camping in his dera in the Chambal ravines beyond Gwalior after appearing with Manpreet Badal last week. Senior SAD leader Prem Singh Chandumajra was assigned the responsibility of persuading him to return and rally round the party, they held. The Anandpur Sahib MLA was presented before the media at the Chief Minister’s press conference, where he castigated the former finance minister. Praiseworthy work is being done in the state under the CM and the party has become stronger under Sukhbir Badal, he said. When questioned about his about turn, the Sant said he had always stood for subsidies and that he felt he should part ways with Manpreet when the latter made subsidies an issue at his recent press conferences. “I feel the state needs to find other ways to reduce debt”, he added. Later, Sant Ajit Singh also had a meeting with the Chief Minister and was assured that party spokesman Dr Daljit Singh Cheema would not interfere in Anandpur Sahib. Meanwhile , efforts are on to win over the Beas legislator Manjinder Kang, who is said to be annoyed with Bikramjit Majithia. Efforts are on to bring about a rapproachment. If Kang also deserts Manpreet Badal, he will be left with a ...
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