The UPA government took a bold step on the first day after its third anniversary by allowing state-run oil marketing companies to raise ex-refinery prices of petrol by a whopping Rs 6.28 per litre, the highest so far. With excise, duty and state levies, this translates to a Rs 7.5-Rs 8 (just over 10%) hike per litre.

Bihar has set out to match Mumbai with its own version of the Marine Drive. The 21.5km Ganga Path, coming up in Patna by June 2015, will be one of the country’s biggest public-private-partnership projects at an estimated cost of Rs 2,234.46 crore. The Bihar State Road Development Corporation will in November finalise one of six leading construction companies that it has shortlisted. The government has signed a deal with Transparency International to ensure transparency in the bidding process.

Latest satellite imagery shows that a fourth reactor at Pakistan’s Khushab nuclear facility, which is dedicated to production of plutonium for weapons, is halfway through. A new paper on the status of the facility, which is located 200 km south of Islamabad and is not under IAEA scrutiny, by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) claims the fourth reactor will significantly increase Pakistan’s ability to make plutonium.

The Environment Ministry on Wednesday finally made public the controversial report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel prepared by ecologist Madhav Gadgil and submitted almost a year ago. The publishing of the report also came with a disclaimer saying that the ministry has not yet accepted the recommendations of the report.

Moving towards partial privatisation, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on Wednesday concluded a two-day Jal Bhagidari workshop held to create awareness about the revamping of the water supply, transmission and distribution network under the Nangloi Water Treatment Plant. The water utility has also come out with a booklet to sensitise all stakeholders on the functioning of the public-private partnership model, which will be implemented in four project areas on a pilot basis. The areas include Malviya Nagar, Vasant Vihar and Nangloi underground reservoirs and water treatment plant, and Mehrauli.

The East corporation has decided to conduct free health check-up camps for its safai karamcharis, gardeners and nullah cleaners every week. The check-up camps will begin from June 9. “The health of safai karamcharis is a cause of concern. Their work requires them to be in unhygienic places. Due to this, there is a high mortality rate among the workers and many suffer from occupational hazards. Keeping this in mind, the corporation will conduct special medical camps for them,” Sajjan Singh Yadav told Newsline.

Alarmed by the rise in poaching incidents, the Maharashtra government has said its forest staff would be empowered to shoot at poachers on sight while the National Tiger Conservation Authority directed all tiger range states to treat every tiger/leopard death as a poaching case unless proven otherwise beyond reasonable doubt.

The coal ministry on Tuesday denied having received any report from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on irregularities to the tune of over Rs 1.80 lakh crore in coal block allocations and said that all coal blocks were allocated in a transparent manner. “The media has been asking me, but we have not received any report on the CAG’s latest version,” said coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal when asked for a statement on reports that the CAG had toned down its assessment on irregularities from the earlier figure of Rs 10.60 lakh crore.

Many of the Capital’s multi-level and automated parking projects are still in early stages of construction, despite crossing their deadlines long ago. Of 15 automated multi-level parking projects, the one in GK-II was dropped. Till date, only the Kamla Nagar Market project has seen significant progress. It is 80 per cent complete. The 13 other projects are still stuck in various initial stages. The parking projects at South Extension-I and II are yet to begin as soil testing has been going on for the past one year.

In response to demands from companies engaged in extracting coal bed methane (CBM) for a single operator who would work the CBM blocks, an inter-ministerial panel has asked the petroleum secretary GC Chaturvedi to prepare a note on best practices for the sector in areas where oil and gas finds overlap.