Briefly City

Manpreet gathers support for Maghi rally

Patiala: Ousted Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal,who visited Patiala,Sangrur and Barnala on Tuesday,sought support for his Maghi Mela rally in Muktsar on January 14 and urged the people to bring in the much-needed change in Punjab. Addressing a rally here,Manpreet said he had visited almost 30 per cent of Punjab as part of his Jago Punjab Yatra

PTU sets up directorate of distance education

Chandigarh: Punjab Technical University (PTU) has established a directorate of Distance Education (DDE) to handle the distance education programmes being run by it. Dr NP Singh,Dean Distance Education,said the proposal’s implementation was long-awaited and upon approval of the required manpower by the Board of Governors in the last meeting,formal execution has been done. PTU has 2,013 learning centres across India where more than 1.65 lakh students are pursuing their higher education. PTU has become the largest technical university in the country with an overall strength of 3.25 lakh students.

Super-fast express train via Dhuri-Sangrur

Patiala: The new ‘Sri Ganganagar-Delhi Sarai Rohila Express’ train will be diverted via Dhuri and Sangrur from January 5. This was announced by Sangrur Member of Parliament Vijay Inder Singla. He said the diversion of this train via Sangrur will be followed by diversion of the Sachkhand Nanded Sahib-Ganga Nagar Express train via Sangrur in March.

Sukhbir reviews work on highways

Chandigarh: Sukhbir Singh Badal,Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab,on Tuesday asked National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to ensure scheduled completion of all ongoing National Highways Projects and offered total support from various wings of the state government,including district administrations,in overcoming hurdles coming in their way. Reviewing the progress of National Highways Projects in a meeting with regional chief of NHAI,Dev Raj,and representatives of various infrastructure companies involved in these projects,the deputy CM regretted that most of the projects were running behind schedule.

Deputy CM takes stock of urea supply

Chandigarh: Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal on Tuesday also asked agriculture and co-operative departments to work in tandem to ensure availability of urea to farmers within three days. He said the state should immediately solve the distribution problem of urea at the society level and take strict measures to check black-marketing of urea. The director-agriculture was asked to conduct raids to check black-marketing and cancel the licences of erring dealers forthwith.

All major cities to have ‘maxi cab’ service

Chandigarh: All the six corporation towns,including Ludhiana,Jalandhar,Amritsar,Bathinda,Patiala and SAS Nagar,will have Maxi Cab service to supplement the local transport system and provide doorstep services to the residents. These towns would also run Maxi Cab service to adjoining and isolated villages devoid of regular bus service. Sukhbir Singh Badal,Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab,on Tuesday instructed the secretary transport to operationalise these services within two months as people living in isolated villages were facing a lot of problems in commuting and they had to depend upon variable means of transport to reach cities.