The girl child seems to be disappearing from the progressive and urban areas of Gujarat. The urban centres of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Kutch, Rajkot and Jamnagar districts — that account for 70% of the investments that flowed into Gujarat during the past one decade — have emerged as centres of female foeticide.

A HISTORY OF POLLUTION?
Threaten To Leave If Expansion Ban Is Not Revoked

Bharuch:Industrialists and officials of the Ankleshwar Industrial Association say the industrial belt is still listed among the critical zones despite the fact that the pollution level here has reduced to a large extent. If the ban on expansion is not revoked, industries here would have to leave the Ankleshwar industrial estate, they say.

Gandhinagar: Closely following the draft Gujarat Water Policy 2011 sent to the chief minister’s office (CMO) for finalization, a fresh high-level document, prepared for the Planning Commission of India, has proposed major water reforms in rural Gujarat.

This document proposes introducing availability of water 24x7 through water meters at the individual household level. Suggesting that this can be done on a pilot basis in 50 selected villages in the first year of the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), the document says other villages can follow “based on results and response of the community towards water usage.”

Gandhinagar: Water woes in the Petroleum Chemical and Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR), an important industrial hotspot along Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, may come to an end soon.
The PCPIR, coming up over 480 sq km in the Dahej-Bharuch region, will get a two-km-long weir off the mouth of Narmada river at Bharbhut, next to the Gulf of Khambhat, for storing sweet water coming from Narmada dam.

When contacted, principal secretary, environment and forests, S K Nanda said, “BOD and COD are down from 2,500 to 500 within a year.” BOD and COD tests are a measure of the relative oxygen-depletion effect of a waste contaminant. Both have been widely adopted as a measure of pollution effect. The BOD test measures the oxygen demand of biodegradable pollutants, whereas the COD test measures the oxygen demand of biodegradable pollutants plus the oxygen demand of non-biodegradable oxidizable pollutants.

Gujarat’s environment and forest department is aiming to bring an additional area of 120 sq km along the state’s coastline under mangrove cover by the end of the financial year 2011-12.

“We aim to carry out plantation of mangroves in 120 sq km area by the end of this year. This will increase the mangrove cover in Gujarat from the present 1,080 sq km to 1,200 sq km,” said the Additional Chief Secretary, Environment and Forests, Dr S.K. Nanda.

The plantation would stretch along the 1,600 km coastline of Gujarat, he said.

GANDHINAGAR: The state's population has reached 6.04 crore in 2011, experiencing an overall decadal growth of 19.17 per cent. Gujarat has also experienced a 35.83 per cent growth in urban population between 2001 and 2011, as compared to rural areas' 9.23 per cent, which could prove to be a major policy indicator for state planners.

GANDHINAGAR: In a remarkable change in industrial investment pattern over the last three decades, the trend in Gujarat has sharply shifted from projects in chemicals and petrochemicals sectors to the non-polluting infrastructure sector.

Latest data with the state industries department, meant for official consumption only, has revealed that as on April 30, 2010, 42.19% of all projects that came

Pact will ensure smooth supply of gas to power units in Andhra Pradesh

Seeking to end the power woes of Andhra Pradesh and ensuring smooth supply to power plants in the State, GAIL (India) on Thursday entered into a deal with Reliance Industries Ltd.

GANDHINAGAR: In a major step towards putting the Kalpasar project on fast track, the Gujarat government last week commissioned a bathymetric and geotechnical study of the entire oceanic space in order to ascertain its different layers, including fault-lines.

The study, to be completed by January 2012, will closely study tidal currents and the type of sediments found in the base and how they wou