New Delhi Highlighting its inability to support increasing number of metro projects, the Centre has asked state governments to follow the models of Karnataka and Delhi for financing capital-intensive Metro rail projects by levying cess on residential and commercial developments, and increasing house tax. It has also urged them to set up state-level urban transport funds with such levies to finance the projects.

The Centre says its unable to support the increasing number of metro systems through the Budget and therefore wants the states to develop their own funding sources to part-finance such capital-intensive systems.

Many projects in the country may be languishing because of land acquisition problems but the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation (DFCC) has over the past three years acquired 70 per cent of the 10,000 hectares it requires to construct exclusive railway lines for goods traffic. The area acquired is more than half as large as the 18,500-hectare Kolkata metropolitan city.

MUMBAI: Western Railway (WR) has geared up for the monsoon by carrying out cleaning of culverts, desilting drains, increasing the level of tracks and identifying flood-prone spots. "We have indentified flood-prone areas. We will pay more attention to these sections near Marine Lines, Charni Road, Grant Road, Mumbai Central, Elphinstone Road, Dadar, Mahim, Andheri, Jogeshwari and Nalasopara-Virar," said WR chief public relations officer Sharat Chandrayan.

In a relief to students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campus, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) will complete installation of the 3m-high and 1,500m-long noise barriers from Powai lake to the end of the institute’s boundary wall by May-end. “The barriers will block the outside noise from the IIT campus. We have already installed noise barriers in Bandra- Kurla Complex (BKC) and the decibel levels have reduced from 98 to (the) acceptable limit of 55,” said Dilip Kawathkar, joint project director, MMRDA.

As the monsoon nears, railway authorities have sought to assure Mumbaikars that this year, there will be no disruptions in suburban services, which usually witness substantial breakdowns every rainy season. The Western Railway (WR) has added Digital Axel Counters (DACs) on standby in case the track circuiting system fails, and in turn causes signal failures, at nearly 500 flood-prone areas. DACs are trackside equipment which, when the train passes, count and store the number of axles by means of a software at both ends of the track.

MUMBAI: If the state is faced with a drought-like situation almost all year round, water experts suggest it's time to rise above party politics and conce n trate on core water resource po licies and cropping patterns. "State policies only pay lip service to equitable water distribution . They spell out water distribution for command areas (around dams and waterbodies ) and landholders, but fail to address pockets which fall outside either of these," says Mandar Sathe of voluntary organization Prayas that works on resource management .

Mumbai has emerged as the second-most liveable city in the world, according to an Ericsson ConsumerLab survey. The liveability factor has been tied to connectivity. Stockholm topped the list.

India's business capital has in the survey outranked cities such as New York, London and Los Angeles.

The 30-minute online survey (with 1,500 participants per city) was carried out in Cairo, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Stockholm, Beijing, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Seoul, London, Los Angeles, New York and Hong Kong.

MUMBAI: To get residents to take up rainwater harvesting, BMC officials will begin visiting housing societies and urge them to implement the project in their colonies. The civic body also plans to put up hoardings, advertisements and start awareness campaigns regarding the system. Besides, it has also introduced property tax rebates and water tax rebates for those building that have implemented rainwater harvesting.

The civic administration will soon visit residential societies to urge residents to implement rainwater harvesting technology. With the slow progress of the rainwater harvesting technology, the civic body will also plan hoardings, advertisements and awareness campaigns to advocate residents regarding the project.

A senior official said ward level officials would be asked to visit residential societies to explain and urge citizens to implement the rainwater harvesting scheme in their colonies.