Ahmedabad Tops The List With Maximum Notices

Ahmedabad: Following repeated violations of pollution norms in chemical hotspots, the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) has issued the highest number of show-cause and closure notices in recent times to several clusters of industries. Ahmedabad topped the list with most notices, according to the GPCB’s data. In just two financial years, the GPCB issued 1,680 closure notices to errant factories and nearly 2,118 show-cause notices, for violation of air, water and environment protection Acts respectively.

AHMEDABAD: The woes for CNG car and rickshaw users refuse to die down. Adani Gas Ltd (AGL), a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Ltd, has announced Rs 2.80 per kg hike in CNG prices. The announcement comes in less than two months after AGL revised CNG prices by more than Rs 4 per kg on March 31.

Ahmedabad: A lioness staring into the lens with a stately gaze. This photograph on the Madhya Pradesh tourism department’s website to sell the Kuno Palpur Sanctuary has upset officials in Gujarat — the only home of the Asiatic lion in the world. MP tourism has started selling the Kuno Palpur as an alternative site for the wild cats even as the two neighbouring states fight a legal battle in the Supreme Court over shifting lions from the Gir sanctuary. While MP is seeking lions, Gujart is holding on to them, not ready to share the ‘Khusboo Gujarat Ki’ mascot with anyone.

AHMEDABAD: As many as 41% of the children in the state are underweight and 55% of the women between 15 to 45 years of age in the state are anemic. This was revealed in a Rajya Sabha session on Thursday.

Union minister of state (independent charge) for women and child development, Krishna Tirath in Rajya Sabha gave the details of the number of women and children suffering from malnutrition. Tirath was replying to a question posed by Member of Parliament from Jharkhand, Parimal Nathwani.

Despite new lakes being announced every year in its budget, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has been found wanting when it comes to their upkeep. Mid-way through the summer, some of the major lakes in the city have already dried or are close to drying up. The water levels have gone down drastically in some of the bigger lakes, including Kankaria, Vastrapur and Lambha, while Chandola in Danilimbda has completely dried up. The source of water for almost all these lakes, including the eleven under the interlinking project, is storm water.

To attract investments, Maharashtra has rolled out a red carpet for the Gujarat textile sector. State textile minister Naseem Khan plans to lead a high level delegation to Ahmedabad in May to ask the textile industry in Gujarat to invest in Maharashtra in order to take the benefit of the newly released textile policy and the sops offered for development of textile parks in the state.

Maharashtra textile policy offers a 10 per cent capital subsidy for new textile projects in Vidarbha, Marathwada and north Maharashtra, and 12.5 per cent interest subsidy on long-term loans linked to centrally-sponsored Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme for new projects.

Ahmedabad: Cold treats seem to be a hit with Amdavadis. The city consumes more ice-cream than bigger cities like Mumbai and Pune, says a report by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham). The report says almost 35% of ice-cream sold in India is savoured by the western region — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Goa. And, Ahmedabad tops the list in the region. The group’s report takes into account countrywide consumption between April and December 2011.

For a state government that pats itself for having turned Gujarat into a power-surplus region by connecting all the urban and rural areas to the electricity grid, the census data of 2011 — that shows over 11 lakh households without electricity — could come as a shock. The housing data of the census points out that there are over 11 lakh residences that do not use electricity in a state that has a power generation capacity of over 14,000 MW (mega watt) and claims to have 2,000 MW of surplus power.

Only mass rapid transit solutions can provide India’s urban commuters with efficient mobility. Billions of man-hours are lost with people ‘stuck in traffic’. This fact is also echoed in government’s national urban transport policy. The reasons are well known: exponential growth of motor vehicles with negligible increase in road space. To make things worse, unprecedented rate of urban population growth has been reported in the last census. So, travel within major urban networks such Mumbai and Delhi has become unpredictable.

AHMEDABAD: A team of US researchers looking to study the impact of traffic on society decided to take the road less travelled. Rather than going for usual parameters such as pollution, fumes emitted or how many people travel per car, they decided to take three streets with high, moderate and low traffic.