Owing to ignorance on the part of poor villagers and lack of interest being shown by nationalised and cooperative banks, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is facing a rough weather in the district despite more than two months of its implementation on paper. Of the 25,000-odd poor families who have shown interest in getting employment under this scheme and actually procured application forms from the authorities, only 1,677 have so far been able to get job cards, which are a prerequisite for demanding job under the scheme.

With about 20 biomass-based power projects generating 183 MW at Sirsa, Panipat, Karnal, Hisar, Fatehabad, Bhiwani, Nilokheri, Jagadhari, Khanesar and Dabwali, the people of Haryana can be assured of lesser power cuts. As the projects are being set up at the sites of the load centres, the power supply is expected to increase in these blocks, with transmission losses going down in a big way. Confirming this, officials of Haryana Renewable Energy Development Agency (HAREDA) said since the state is purchasing massive power from other states, it has to bear huge transmission losses.

Chandigarh In the agrarian states of Punjab and Haryana, power cuts have been the order of the day for years. This, in turn, has affected economic development in these states. While the two states have decided to spend almost one-third of their five-year Plan for 2007-12 on power projects, they have also realised that the immediate need was to save energy. With that in mind, Punjab has tied up with a US major, Econoler International, to light the streets of municipal areas of the state.

Farmers in Haryana have been persuaded to give up growing a lucrative crop because of the harm it causes to the earth.

The Punjab Government is seriously perusing a nuclear power plant for the state. After the SAD-BJP government in Punjab announced a reversal from the stand taken on the issue by the previous Congress regime, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Cabinet colleagues have asked the Centre to build a