All large residential, commercial and retail projects, projects involving redevelopment of slums, cessed or dilapidated building and public infrastructure projects that fall within the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) will henceforth be required to go through a detailed public hearing in order to get a CRZ clearance.

Effluents and toxic fumes from factories and refineries and high concentration of vehicles on roads, besides the Deonar dumping grounds (now partially closed) contribute to pollution in Chembur, one of the most polluted suburbs in the commercial capital of the country. A joint survey by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and IIT-Delhi conducted in December 2009 had placed Chembur on the top half of the list of 88 most polluted industrial clusters in the country.

The completion of the second phase of Monorail is expected to be delayed despite more than 50 per cent of the civil work on the 11.30-km route from Wadala to Jacob Circle in Byculla being done. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is still hesitant to set a deadline for the completion of the second phase of the Chembur-Wadala-Jacob Circle Monorail line as crucial approvals from the Central Railway (CR) for viaducts over railway tracks are yet to come.

The state government has issued a notification making it mandatory for all projects on more than 2,000 sq m land to reserve 20 per cent of the plot or constructed space for smaller sized affordable housing.

The rule would be applicable to the 26 municipal corporations and all municipal councils in Maharashtra. The notification issued by the state urban development department is meant to promote the concept of inclusive housing at a time when most developers, especially in Mumbai, are in the business of creating luxury housing.

Following the questions raised by the Union Health Ministry’s Central TB division about the presence of a total drug resistant TB (TDR-TB) in the city, the BMC is now working on multiple projects in its attempt to take stock of the TB situation.

Apart from the anti-TB blueprint that the BMC announced, a plan to revamp the Sewree TB Hospital and to start a high-tech TB diagnosis centre similar to the one at JJ Hospital, are on the agenda.

The technical committee studying the feasibility of building a coastal freeway connecting South Mumbai with the suburbs and the rapidly growing metropolitan region submitted its report to the state government on Tuesday, recommending a combination of tunnels, bridges and roads stretching 35 km along the coast.

While exhibits from the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) have been a regular at IIT Bombay’s Techfest, for the first time at this year’s festival, NPCIL addressed the students to dispel myths and fears about nuclear energy. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster last year, NPCIL had considerably increased it awareness activities to fight misconceptions about nuclear power.

After a long hiatus, the state government has given its nod to another cluster redevelopment project - that of the century-old Botawala chawl in Masgaon. The redevelopment of the chawl is only the fifth such project to be sanctioned in three years since the rules for cluster scheme came in to force.

On Friday, the state urban development department issued final orders for the project after Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan gave his go-ahead. The project on a 4,721 sq mts plot in Masgaon will be carried out by Sarah Housing Development Ltd.

The ambitious Rs 15,000-crore Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP), which aims to redevelop the largest slum in Mumbai, got a shot in the arm on Tuesday with the state government approving the new Development Control Rules (DCR) for the project.

On Monday, the government had announced that the current occupiers of slums built before 2000 in case of the DRP will be entitled for rehabilitation. Combining these two decisions taken over the past two days, the government moved the project ahead significantly as the city corporation goes to the polls in February.

The state forest department has created a new post of Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF), Mangroves, for the protection and conservation of nearly 5,800 hectares of mangroves under it. N Vasudevan has been appointed the CCF.

The new post was created in October 2011 when the forest department did away with the post of CCF (Research), based in Chandrapur, in favour of the CCF(Mangroves) position in Mumbai.