Rohtak :
The appointment of the director of IIM-Rohtak has come under a cloud with reports indicating irregularities in his selection.

As per the reports, information received by an RTI activist associated with the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) has indicated that the person selected as the director may not have fulfilled the eligibility criteria.

Two Members of Parliament have written to the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development to get the matter probed and take appropriate action.

On the other hand, IIM-Rohtak Director Prof Dheeraj Sharma maintained that he fulfilled the eligibility criteria for the post and had been appointed after following the due procedure.
He refused to comment any further.

Karnal :
Scores of disabled persons held a state-level protest march here, demanding pension on a par with DC’s rate, concessional bus and train passes for a person with 40 per cent disability, and BPL ration cards.

Their other demands are five per cent reservation in outsourced jobs, 100-sq-yard houses, and ramp and lift facilities at public places.

They were adamant on blocking National Highway 44, but the police stopped them near the Mini-Secretariat. They blocked a road there and raised slogans against the state government.

Subdivisional Magistrate (SDM) Narinder Malik and Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Rajiv Kumar tried to pacify the protesters, but they remained adamant. After the SDM assured them of a meeting with the OSD to the CM in Chandigarh on May 31, they lifted the blockade.

Charan Singh, state president, Viklang Kalyan Adhikar Samiti, said disabled persons had been staging a dharna in Karnal, the CM’s constituency, for 54 days, but no officer took note of it.

“Members of the samiti had met CM Manohar Lal Khattar on August 21 last year. He had assured the members of fulfilling some of the demands in 10 days and some in three months. To date, the demands have not been met,” he added.

Kurukshetra :
The police have booked seven persons for allegedly submitting false income certificates to secure admission for their wards under the EWS quota in a leading private school here.
Prateek Kumar, SHO, City police station, said the accused have been booked under Sections 420 (cheating), 181 (false statement on oath) and 200 (using as true such declaration knowing it to be false) of the IPC.

Kumar said the case was registered on Tuesday on the basis of a detailed preliminary investigation and a legal opinion from the Assistant District Attorney (ADA) of the Police Department.

It was allegedly found that the parents secured admission illegally for the seats reserved for underprivileged children, said the SHO.

According to Rule 134-A, parents with the income of less than Rs2 lakh per annum are eligible to get their wards admitted to private schools.

“The school management provided documentary evidence to buttress its claim. The Income Tax returns of the parents did not match with the income certificates submitted with the admission forms. We will soon arrest the accused,” said the SHO.
Statements of the accused would be obtained to examine who others were involved in obtaining and attesting the false documents, he added.

On May 1, city-based Wisdom World School had lodged a complaint with the Chief Minister, Education Minister and district authorities, claiming that at least seven cases of fake income certificates were detected. In all cases, it was found annual family income of applicants was more than Rs2 lakh.

The fraud came to light after the school administration started scrutinising the details of the I-T returns reportedly submitted by parents at the time of admission.
The income certificates were approved by the municipal authorities and acknowledged by the Education Department.

Meanwhile, District Education Officer (DEO) Namita Kaushik said a district grievances redressal panel would soon meet to decide the fate of admissions of “ineligible” students. However, manager of Wisdom World School Vinod Rawal said three out of seven students, whose admissions had been objected, had quit the school.

“We want a fair probe in the case and the guilty should be punished,” he said.

Chandigarh : 
Haryana would go paperless under the e-Office project by August 15, 2019. The Chief Minister has given directions to the officers concerned to make it a reality.
While informing this here, an official spokesman said that the Additional Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Rakesh Gupta, along with the team of e-governance is speedily working on this concept. The first meeting regarding the implementation of paperless offices has already been held.

He said during the meeting, the presentation on e-office was also presented. It was informed that on the pattern of Human Resource Management System, the data of employees engaged in dealing files would be prepared.

E-office will shift the focus from manual to digital movement of files thereby giving more emphasis on the use of information technology in the government working.

Faridabad :
A drive launched by the Municipal Corporation Faridabad (MC) authorities to unearth irregularities in collection of various charges and taxes from defaulters appear to have started yielding positive results. The corporation has received cheques of over Rs 1 crore in the past 24 hours from two units, which were issued notices recently.

It is claimed that many more defaulters were likely to clear their pending dues that had been outstanding for the past several years. “The total amount to be recovered is around Rs 35 crore, if the number of cases under scrutiny is to be believed,” said sources.
Irregularities got unearthed after a special audit was carried out by a team of Auditors accredited to the Institute of Public Auditors of India. It is alleged that gross violations of policies, guidelines and instructions of the government were carried out. ‘Malpractices’ in the collection of composition fee, CLU charges subdivision, external development charges (EDC) and conversion charges for granting permission resulted in the scam, that laid unexposed since 1980.

After partially sealing a five star hotel here for recovering the pending tax of Rs 9.32 crore recently, the civic body authorities on Tuesday issued a similar notice to an automobile company located on the Mathura road for not depositing EDC of Rs 7.80 crore since 2002. It has also issued a notice to a private builder for not paying CLU fee amounting to Rs 4.64 crore and raising a commercial construction illegally in Sector 49. The MCF has already issued notices to around 80 farmhouses developed illegally in the Surajkund area a couple of months back.

Revealing that the two defaulters included a ‘sealed’ hotel and an automobile dealer, who were found encroaching upon the government land in NIT, have come forward to deposit an amount of Rs 60 lakh and Rs 42 lakh, respectively, said Mohammed Shayin, Commissioner, MCF, adding that the two units had agreed to clear their dues.
Claiming that an FIR had been recommended against the officials concerned in eight cases of irregularities that were detected to the tune of Rs 18 crore, RL Rohilla, OSD, Panning Section, said probe was being conducted and the amount involved in the irregularities was likely to increase.