26122020-CT-01.qxd 12/26/2020 12:52 AM Page 1 c m y b Chandigarh TRIBUNE SATURDAY | 26 DECEMBER 2020 | CHANDIGARH ATS ESTATES TO PAY ~10 LAKH TO TWO MUMBAI RESIDENTS PAGE 2 Punjab consumer panel orders it to compensate complainants for delay in handing over possession of flats. FORECAST MAINLY CLEAR SKY TRICITY COVID REPORT CHD SAMPLES TESTED SAMPLES REJECTED POSITIVE NEGATIVE RECOVERED REPORTS AWAITED ACTIVE DEATHS P’KULA MOHALI 1,74,395 1,36,184 1,74,765 874 — — 19,345 9,848 17,849 1,54,176 — 1,55,926 18,686 9,471 15,984 97 — 990 345 237 1,530 314 140 335 AIR QUALITY INDEX CHANDIGARH 113 PANCHKULA 153 MOHALI 183 401-500 301-400 201-300 101-200 51-100 0-50 SEVERE VERY POOR POOR MODERATE SATISFACTORY GOOD INBRIEF PROPERTY TAX ‘EXEMPTION’ Chandigarh: Charitable institutions in the city may get property tax exemption. The MC is likely to bring in a policy under which buildings and land of charitable organisations will be exempted but their property must not be used for any commercial activity. The MC charges property tax at the rate of ~10 per sq ft from institutional buildings. It gives property tax exemption to economically weaker section, defence personnel and veterans, widows, differently abled people entitled to benefits under the I-T Act and religious institutions (except areas being used for commercial activity). TNS Mohali, December 25 A total of 48 fresh Covid cases surfaced in the district during the past 24 hours, while 67 more persons recovered from the virus. Among the new cases, 34 were reported from Mohali (urban), three from Gharuan, one each from Banur and Dhakoli, four from Dera Bassi and five from Kharar. The district has so far seen 17,849 positive cases of whom 15,984 patients have been cured. There are now 1,530 active cases with 335 deaths in the district. — TNS UT sees 36 fresh cases chandigarh, December 25 The city on Friday reported 36 fresh cases of Covid, taking the UT case tally to 19,345. The toll stands at 314. A total of 52 more patients recovered from the disease in the past 24 hours — TNS 22 fresh cases in Panchkula panchkula, December 25 The district on Friday reported 22 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the tally to 9,848. The Covid toll remained at 140. While 9,471 patients have recovered from the coronavirus so far, 237 cases are still active. The recovery rate of the district stands at 96.17 per cent. — TNS UT PLANS WILDLIFE CENSUS AT SUKHNA SANCTUARY NEXT YR Inpatient dept of Drug De-addiction Treatment Centre, shut due to Covid outbreak, will restart on January 1. MAX 20°C | MIN 5°C | YESTERDAY MAX 20.2°C | MIN 4.4°C SUNSET SATURDAY 5.29 PM PAGE 3 UT Forest and Wildlife Dept plans to carry out wildlife census in Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary in March/April. SUNRISE SUNDAY 7.17 AM TWITTER/THETRIBUNECHD FACEBOOK/CHANDIGARHTRIBUNE Campaigning ends,over to voters now Farmers take over Chandimandir toll plaza P’KULA MC POLLMayor’s, 20 posts of councillor up for grabs| Polling tomorrow| Results on Dec 30 Amit Bathla Tribune News Service Panchkula, December 25 The campaigning for the Panchkula Municipal Corporation elections ended today, setting the stage for around 1.85 lakh voters to choose their representatives on December 27. The results will be declared on December 30. The posts of mayor and 20 councillors are up for grabs. The party leaders and contesting candidates today made last-ditch efforts to woo voters. For the BJP Haryana Speaker , and local MLA Gian Chand Gupta, Ranjeeta Mehta and the party’s mayoral candidate Kulbhushan Goyal led the campaign, while the Congress’ last day campaign saw participation of party’s national spokesperson Randeep Surjewala apart from local faces. Vote for BJP, vote for development: Gupta Haryana Speaker and Panchkula MLA Gian Chand Gupta, who was campaigning for the party’s councillor candidate in ward number 8, said, “You saw the campaigning of every party – their ideology and agenda in the recent past. You know about their working style as well. You know who can stand by you. You know everything. Think about it throughout continued on page 3 SEE ALSO PAGE 3 48 new cases in Mohali dist PAGE 2 DRUG DE-ADDICTION CENTRE AT PGI TO RESTART ON JAN 1 Panchkula, December 25 Hundreds of farmers, under the banner of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU), threw open the boom barriers of the Himalayan Expressway toll plaza at Chandimandir on the Zirakpur-Shimla Highway this morning, as they intensified their ongoing agitation against three farm laws on a call of farmer unions. 3-day “toll-free plazas” agitation to cost firm ~45 lakh Mayoral candidates Kulbhushan Goyal (BJP) and Upinder Kaur Ahluwalia (Congress) campaign in Panchkula on Friday. TRIBUNE PHOTOS WILL REGISTER LANDSLIDE WIN: GOYAL Our party will register a landslide victory in the Panchkula Municipal Corporation poll by winning the mayoral seat and a majority of the councillors’ seats. Kulbhushan Goyal, BJP NOMINEE ❝ ❞ WILL SERVE CITY AGAIN: AHLUWALIA My party is clearly winning these elections. People are with us. Will serve the city once again. ❝ Cellphones prohibited in polling booths Panchkula, December 25 Returning Officer-cum-ADC Mohd Imran Raza today said cellphones would not be allowed in the polling booths for the Panchkula Municipal Corporation election. Referring to the instructions from the State Election Commission, Raza said even agents of political parties and contesting candidates should not carry cellphones to polling booths. The voting will be held on December 27 between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm. Covid patients will be allowed to cast their vote during the last hour of polling. At least 275 booths have been ❞ Upinder Kaur Ahluwalia, CONG NOMINEE set up across 20 wards to ensure not more than 1,000 voters visit a booth on the day. Of these, 127 polling stations have been declared sensitive and hypersensitive where tight security will be ensured. Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer said sanitisers, masks and gloves would be made available at the pooling booths to prevent transmission of coronavirus. — TNS DC, DCP review security: Deputy Commissioner Mukesh Kumar Ahuja and Deputy Commissioner of Police Mohit Handa on Friday inspected security arrangements at several polling booths set up in schools for the Panchkula MC elections. POLL FACTS Traffic advisory: The distribution of polling equipment, including EVMs, will be held at the Government College for Girls, Sector 14, on Saturday. Hence, both sides FEMALES – 98,323| MALES – 87,316 of the road separating Sector 12 and 14 will be closed to traffic MAYORAL CANDIDATES: 6 COUNCILLOR CANDIDATES: 83 between 9 am and 6 pm. WARDS: 20 POLLING BOOTHS: 275 NUMBER OF VOTERS: 1,85,707 PCR test on arrival at the airport. Those found positive on arrival must be sent for institutional quarantine/isolation. Those found negative should be advised to isolate themselves at home for seven days and should be medically monitored. DC Mukesh Kumar Ahuja said, “A committee was constituted under the SDM to trace people who came to Panchkula from December 1 onwards.” A source from the Panchkula Civil Hospital said, “Even those who are asymptomatic will be tested after seven days and those found positive will be kept in isolation while their results would be sent to Pune for genome sequencing.” — TNS Gaurav Kanthwal Tribune News Service Mohali, December 25 There are only two UKreturned passengers in Mohali district and both of them are Covid negative, said officials of the Mohali Health Department. Both of them belong to the Zirakpur area and the department has established contact with them. Since their Covid test has returned negative, they have been advised home isolation. “One of them came earlier, while the other came recently,” said GB Singh, Mohali Civil Surgeon. Meanwhile, at the airport, passengers, both domestic and international, are being medically screened for Covid -19. District Epidemologist Har- IN UT, 132 UK RETURNEES SINCE NOVEMBER 25 Chandigarh: The police on Friday stated that special teams of police personnel had been constituted to trace people who travelled from or transited through the UK in the past four weeks. Police officials said cops went door to door to trace these passengers and obtained their undertaking forms to follow the guidelines issued by the Centre. The police said 132 passengers returned from the UK since November 25, and 95 of them were found to be residing in the city. They have given an undertaking to follow the guidelines. TNS mandeep Kaur said, “According to the government guidelines, testing is for UKreturned passengers, but there are no such passengers as there is no flight from the UK here. The medical screening of domestic and international passengers has not stopped.” To look into all suspected cases and their contacts, the SARS-CoV-2 Control Room will be manned by the District Epidemiologist and her team and will be supported by the District Programme Officer. On December 23, the district administration ordered that all international passengers, who arrived at the international airport since November 25, would be traced and tested for Covid-19. A team has been deputed for the purpose. NRIs buy wooden toys for kids for cultural connect Sanjay Bumbroo HOW MUCH THESE COST Tribune News Service Mohali, December 25 While kids are spoilt for choice when it comes to toys, non-resident Indians (NRIs) are purchasing wooden playthings for their children to keep them attached to the rich culture of Punjab. Not only this, unemployed youth from the Doaba and Malwa regions of Punjab, who have got training in carpentry, are now adopting the trade keeping in view the profitability. Landran-based Gurpreet Singh Dhami, who sells wooden toys to his customers living abroad, said he had learnt carpentry from his father and started making furniture and other wooden products in 1996. He recalled he was returning from the AttariWagah border when a bus con- The price of wooden toys ranges from ~200 to ~600 depending upon the size and design of the toy. The cost of customised toys ranges from ~4,000 to ~8,000 per item. A wooden toy seller on the Landran-Banur road in Mohali. TRIBUNE PHOTO: VICKY ductor advised him to make wooden toys. He said he liked the idea and started making wooden toys. Dhami said initially, the demand for his products was less, but later a c m y b large number of customers started approaching him for making specially designed wooden toys. He said the price of wooden toys ranged from ~200 to ~600 depending upon the size and design of the toy. He said most of his clients were from Canada, the UK and the USA. He said he also made customised wooden toys on demand, adding that the cost of specially designed toys ranged from ~4,000 to ~8,000 per item. Dhami said the wooden toys he sold included replicas of tractors, trucks, Gypsy, bus, oil tanker and agriculture implements. Dhami said after witnessing his success, many youths from the Doaba and Malwa regions of Punjab were approaching him for training in making wooden toys. He said he had trained over 100 youths from the two regions. He said 30 youths were still connected with him for advice on the designing of wooden toys. Vehicles will have a toll-free pass at the plaza for three days till December 27. The three-day “toll-free plazas” call given by the protesting farmers will cost the Chandimandir toll plaza company up to Rs 45 lakh, Rs 15 lakh per day on an average. Gagan Sharma, in charge of the toll plaza, said: “As it was Christmas Day, we witnessed the movement of about 45k-50k vehicles against 30k-35k vehicles on normal days. Given the ensuing weekend, our total loss for three days could go up to Rs 45 lakh,” he added. The toll official said the farmers, who came in groups, took over the toll plaza around 11:15 pm. Meanwhile, the farmers said their threeday toll-free call was successful on the first day and they had set up makeshift tents for overnight stay at the plaza. continued on page 3 TRIBUNE PHOTO: RAJESH SACHAR 15 in Panchkula to be Only 2 UK-returned passengers tested for new strain in Mohali district, both negative Panchkula, December 25 A list of 15 UK-returned persons has been given to the Civil Surgeon of Panchkula by the administration to trace and test them for the new strain of Covid-19. The step has been taken in the wake of a letter issued the by Director General, Health Services, Panchkula, to the DC and the Civil Surgeon regarding “enhanced epidemiological surveillance, enhanced containment and other measures to effectively tackle the distinct phylogenetic cluster of the SARS-CoV-2 variant in districts”. As immediate measures, the letter states, all passengers arriving from the UK should be subjected to the mandatory RT- Tribune News Service The vehicles recovered from the suspects in Patiala. Gang raising fraudulent vehicle loans busted Tribune News Service Patiala, December 25 The police have busted a gang that allegedly duped banks and finance companies by raising fraudulent two-wheeler loans on the basis of migrants’ Aadhaar cards carrying fake addresses in Mohali and then selling these in Haryana. The police said they had recovered 18 two-wheelers and arrested one of the members of the gang, identified as Pankaj. Members of the gang made migrants hand over their Aadhaar cards to them, got addresses on these changed to Mohali and raised two-wheeler loans on their names. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Vikramjeet Duggal said the gang members raised vehicle loans on the basis of migrant labourers’ Aadhaar cards with fake addresses and sold these through their members at Shahbad in Haryana. In this way, they escaped action by banks and finance companies as the latter failed to trace the loanees as well as the vehicles. He said the police recovered 18 two-wheelers from areas in Haryana which were sold by members of the gang. The police arrested Pankaj while he was driving a Swift car in 1 held, 18 two-wheelers recovered from Haryana MODUS OPERANDI ■ Members of the gang made migrants hand over their Aadhaar cards to them, got addresses on these changed to Mohali and raised two-wheeler loans on their names ■ In this way, they escaped action by banks and finance companies as the latter failed to trace the loanees as well as the vehicles Patiala. He was carrying a pistol. The SSP said they had secured police remand of the accused till December 30. Members of the gang, identified as Rakesh Kumar of Rajpura, Bimal Kalra of Patiala and Asees of UP have , also been booked. Duggal said the police were collecting more information from the banks and finance companies duped by the gang. A case has been registered under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 469 (forgery intending that the document or electronic record forged shall harm the reputation of any party) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.