New Delhi: Continuing uncertainty over the fate of numerous parking projects has become a cause of concern for not only vehicle users but also the city’s planners. While there are plans to raise parking fees in the city, only one of the 41 multi-level parking projects conceived by the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi has been made operational so far, and work on 24 is yet to start.

Even as Assam has renewed its campaign to get UNESCO World Heritage Site status for Majuli, one of the largest inhabited river islands in the world, some in the state are blaming the Archaeological Survey of India for the failure of its previous attempt. UNESCO had returned Majuli’s nomination for World Heritage Site saying it was “technically incomplete”. ASI had sent only two copies of nomination dossier instead of three as required. Worse, one of them had several pages missing. The World Heritage Committee has now asked New Delhi to send its revised dossier by September 30.

New Delhi: MCD is conducting a study to assess the feasibility of levying additional parking fee on vehicles parked on public land, especially in residential colonies. This comes after the special task force directives. While the government and the civic agency are considering increasing parking rates and levying new fee to bring down vehicular load, little has been done to provide new parking lots. Of the 41 multilevel parking projects conceived by Municipal Corporation of Delhi in the last five years, only one stackparking behind Shiela Cinema at Paharganj, has been made operational.

GUWAHATI, April 17 – Governor JB Patnaik today asked the authorities concerned to take urgent steps for making the Majuli Cultural Landscape Management Authority (MCLMA) fully functional. He also desired that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) should submit the required number of copies of the island’s nomination dossier and other required information to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre (WHC) by June next. The Governor was reviewing the physical protection measures of the island and the status of its nomination dossier at a meeting held at the Raj Bhawan here.

Residents Flout Heritage Law, Illegal Structures Rise Within 100M Of Monument
Khirki village in south Delhi has no time for heritage laws. From the roof of its Tughlaq-era Khirki Masjid, you can see workers with hammers at work inside houses and scaffoldings raised along the walls of buildings creeping up an arm’s length away, even as drilling machines drown out all other sounds in the vicinity. This, when rules for the protection of national monuments clearly prohibit construction within 100 metres, and allow it between 100-300 metres only after permission from heritage bodies.

Planned by British architects Chapman Taylor, and to be executed by the National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC), East Kidwai Nagar is an ambitious redevelopment project, pegged at an approximate cost of Rs 4,500 crore. The government plans to raze the existing 2,331 government quarters in East Kidwai Nagar and replace them with multi-storeyed buildings with around 4,800 units for categories Type-II to Type-VII. The tallest of these buildings would have 18 floors, while others would have 10 floors.

The Centre does not have unlimited powers to allow construction and mining in prohibited and regulated areas, the Supreme Court has ruled. The public interest must be the core factor for consideration of grant of permission for the construction activities within such areas, the court has said.

A city-based NGO today urged Dispur not to allow construction at Urvasi island on the Brahmaputra.
The NGO, Citizens First, submitted a memorandum to chief secretary Naba Kumar Das, objecting to an application filed by Samir Damodar Ropeway Pvt Ltd, seeking permission for construction on the island to shore up the tilted pillars of the ropeway project over the Brahmaputra.

The NGO said any construction on the island would violate the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act.

Construction was stopped in June last year, when ASI objected to the site