Ranchi, Jan. 29: Get prepared to pay an extra buck for quenching your thirst with running tap water.. The drinking water and sanitation department has asked the urban development department to revise water supply taxes — recommending a 40 per cent hike — to recover cost of maintenance of pipelines and other operations. Sources said that the water taxes were last revised in 2006.

For the first time, 500 NREGS workers have drawn their wages in January utilising the UIDAI Adhaar, a micro ATM, and biometric data. The pilot project, to ensure transparency and timely disbursal of wages, has been welcomed by villages. Launched simultaneously at Meru in Hazaribagh and Ratu in Ranchi on January 5, the project is expected to cover 30 villages soon.

Ranchi, Jan. 17: The state fisheries department is looking at setting up hatcheries to increase seed production and net a bigger haul of fish.
The department will set up 40 fish seed hatcheries across the state to breed carp such as rohu, katla, mirgel as well as other Indian and exotic varieties under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. The department is also eyeing to generate 100 crore fish seeds or fertilised eggs and 320 crore fish spawns or released eggs.

Ranchi, Jan. 15: A first-ever water pollution audit carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pegged Jharkhand at the bottom of the performance chart with most river conservation projects lying incomplete in the state. According to the report, Performance Audit of Water Pollution in India, the Ganga, Damodar and Subernarekha were selected for pollution abatement projects in Jharkhand under the National River Conservation Programme (NRCP), which was launched in 1995.

To overcome the delay in payment of wages to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) workers in Jharkhand, allegedly owing to administrative apathy, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has piloted a project in Jharkhand.

Under the project, online authentication and Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) in respect of MGNREGS was conducted in three blocks of three districts.

Ranchi, Dec. 25: The wait for resumption of Khajuri medium irrigation project in water-starved Garhwa district may be soon over, as the state water resources department has revised its estimates and granted administrative sanction to the tune of Rs 9.83 crore. Progress on the project in Majhiaon block has been virtually zero for two decades after it was launched in 1988 and abandoned three years later for want of funds.

Ranchi, Dec. 25: First power supply, then public distribution system (PDS).
Close on the heels of launching a call centre to redress grievances against power supply, the state government is now working on a plan to set up call centres that will deal with complaints about PDS, responsible for supplying food at subsidised rates to over 35 lakh BPL families.

The ball has been finally set rolling for a centralised drainage and sewerage in the state capital under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The technical committee — set up by the state government to verify the suitability of the new detailed project report (DPR) prepared by Meinhardt Pvt Ltd — has approved the same.

Chief engineer of drinking water and sanitation department D.D. Sharma, who headed the technical committee, said the DPR was fine and they had recommended the urban development department to forward it to the Centre for approval.

In a worrying development, hundreds of crows have died in Jharkhand due to bird flu, a government official said Thursday.

The crows first started dying mysteriously last month in Jamshedpur district. This was followed by their deaths in Ranchi, Bokaro, Khuti, Sahebganj and other districts of the state.

Jharkhand has produced more rice than it needs this season, thanks to the monsoon bounty after three consecutive years of drought, enabling the state to set up procurement centres in all 24 districts for the first time. Till now dependent on Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh for its annual requirement of around 20 lakh tonne of par boiled, or usna, rice, Jharkhand is likely to log a bumper harvest of 35-37 lakh tonne paddy this kharif season.