Special Liquor permits help Excise Department to net More..

The Excise Department has been making significant profits by issuing special permission to liquor shops for keeping the outlets open for two more hours during the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

The department has been collecting Rs.1,000 from wine shop owners to keep their outlets open till 1 a.m. This year, the department has collected Rs.1. 5 lakh by issuing special permission to the shops for the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Twenty outlets have been given permission for Christmas and another 130 for New Year. In 2007, the department gave special permission to 10 liquor shops during Christmas and 120 outlets during New Year, according to senior officials of the Excise Department

Taking into account the increase in revenue through the issue of special licence, the department was planning to increase the fee to make a maximum profit. “We have been collecting the same amount for several years. We are thinking about increasing the fee a substantially,” a senior official said.

The revenue from excise had been showing a steady increase in the past two years. During 2006-07, the department collected Rs. 224 crore against the target of Rs. 200 crore.

Till December 31 this year, the department had collected Rs. 200 crore. In the corresponding period last year, the collection stood at Rs.156 crore, officials said. They were optimistic that in the current financial year too, collection would exceed the target of Rs. 257 crore.

The department recently filed an application before the Puducherry Principle District and Sessions Judge, seeking permission to sell 20,000 litres of rectified spirit seized from bootleggers. After getting the court’s approval, the spirit would be tested for quality by experts of the Puducherry Distilleries Limited and sold to them, officials said.

Preliminary examination by the Excise Department revealed that of the 60,000 litres of rectified spirit seized, 20,000 litres was of good quality. Earlier, the department used to destroy the seized spirit, they said. The department also seized 50,000 bottles of fake Indian Made Foreign Liquor from illegal manufacturing units in the past few months, officials said.

New Principal

Head of Department (General), Motilal Nehru Government Polytechnic College S. Udayakumar has been promoted as principal of the institution. The institution, which was started in 1961, will celebrate its golden jubilee in 2011, according to a press release.

On a 2000 mile expedition for charity

On January 1, a total of 60 teams from 13 countries will start an adventurous expedition from Puducherry to Shillong in auto-rickshaws.

The 2,000-mile journey is the fifth edition of the Rickshaw Run, organised by The Adventurists.

Aimed at raising money for charity in India, it is a fortnight of travel across mountains and jungles. It will have participants from countries including the United States, Canada, Singapore and Denmark, a press release said.

The team would raise £ 30,000 for an organisation working on a water project aimed at providing safe drinking water to over 25,000 people in rural India. The Adventurists have tied up with the Department of Tourism and the Puducherry Tourism Development Corporation for the event.

It would begin at 11.30 a.m. at Gandhi Thidal.

Women's access to education a pressing issue, says Gurjar-Lieutenant

Lieutenant Governor Govind Singh Gurjar has said that the need of the hour was to create awareness among the rural population of the importance of women’s education.

He was speaking at a function organised by the Puducherry Women’s Commission to distribute marriage registration certificates here on Wednesday.

“The female literacy rate is 72.9 per cent in urban areas and 46.1 per cent in rural areas. Women’s education helps in the development of half the human resource of our country. Educated women not only tend to play a crucial role in preventing societal concerns such as female infanticide but also in reducing infant mortality rate,” Mr. Gurjar said.

He pointed out that women constituted almost half of the population of the nation and the most pressing issue was the access to education.

The Women’s Commission could consider including women’s education and benefits as part of its future awareness programmes.

“India has the world’s largest number of professionally qualified women. There are more women doctors, scientists and professors in India than the United States. The country has more working women than any other country in the world and this reflects the flair and versatility of modern urban Indian women,” he said.

The Supreme Court had made it mandatory for all States and Union Territories to notify the rules for compulsory registration of marriage.

“Many marriages go unregistered as people are unaware of the procedure or do not know the significance of registration,” Mr. Gurjar said.

Marriage registration would serve as a deterrent to child marriages, save women from falling prey to bigamy and go a long way in addressing grievances of many suffering women and children.

Chief Minister V. Vaithilingam stressed the importance of marriage registration, while Social Welfare Minister M. Kandasamy said that the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act would be implemented in Puducherry in two weeks.

“There are 20,000 applications for marriage registration with the Commission. We will expedite the works and appoint a separate officer through the Revenue Department,” he added.

Engineering counselling to be Delayed

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, Puducherry, is conducting a Lok Adalat on January 12 from 10.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 101, 100 Feet Road, Olandai Keerapalayam, to redress the grievances of members and employers.

According to a release, the members/employers could obtain applications from the Public Relations Officer on the office premises and submit them by name to the Officer-in-Charge by post or in person on or before January 5 . Grievances registered under “Lok Adalat” alone would be attended to on that date.

EPF to conduct Lok Adalat

EPF to conduct Lok Adalat-Counselling for admission to engineering courses in two government colleges and seven private colleges is likely to be delayed by at least two weeks owing to legal proceedings.

Earlier, the Centralised Admission Committee (CENTAC) had planned to kick-start the engineering counselling a few days after the first round of medical counselling. Nevertheless, the counselling would be delayed owing to legal proceedings, according to government officials.

Anxious students and parents have started to enquire with CENTAC about the tentative dates of engineering counselling. A total of 4,054 students from Puducherry and 807 from other States have applied for engineering admissions this year.

Public Works Minister M.O.H.F. Shahjahan, who also holds the Collegiate Education portfolio, said, “There will be a slight delay in the commencement of engineering counselling. All private engineering colleges have allocated 50 per cent of their seats for the government this year.”

The two government engineering colleges – Pondicherry Engineering College and Perunthalaivar Kamarajar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Karaikal – have a total of 450 seats and 180 seats respectively.

As of last year, there were seven private engineering colleges in the Union Territory but officials said that another institution could be included in the counselling this year.

Medical counselling

The number of vacant seats in biology-based courses including medicine has almost come to nil, except for special category students including sports and physically challenged. The counselling had started on July 27.

Officials of CENTAC said that a total of 2,317 candidates from the Union Territory had been counselled in the last four days.

On Friday, counselling for admission to veterinary science was conducted for students from Goa and other States.

“The second phase of medical counselling will be held depending on vacancies arising in the courses. We will ascertain the vacancies and conduct the counselling after the first phase of engineering counselling is over,” he said.

Meanwhile, the fee committee would decide on the final fee structure for private medical colleges on August 7.