The Capital has recorded over 1,100 cases of chickenpox this year. This, according to a senior Municipal Corporation of Delhi official, is high for this time of the year. Over 600 patients were treated at MCD's outdoor facilities, he said. "We do get a lot of chickenpox cases between January and April, but this year the numbers have been on the higher side. However, there is no cause for worry,' he added.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has recorded ten new cases of Meningococcemia in the Capital, taking the total number of persons who have contracted the disease to 94 since January this year, officials said. Three cases have been reported from north Delhi zone, two from Shahdara south, one from Connaught Place and one each from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, MCD's Health department officials said. The disease has claimed 11 lives so far, out of which four were reported from the Capital, while seven were from the neighbouring states of UP and Haryana. However, MCD Health Officer N K Yadav said there was no need to panic and that the number of cases reported this year was lesser than the corresponding period last year. In 2007, 129 cases of meningococcemia were reported while in 2006, more than 200 such cases were reported. "
You would soon forget about the men handing out small slips every time you take your vehicle to a municipal parking slot. If the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has its way, you would instead pay a lump sum and get an annual parking token. And you can use a parking lot under MCD jurisdiction for as many times as you wish for the course of the year. The proposal was mooted at a meeting of the MCD's remunerative projects cell on Tuesday. A concept paper is expected to be presented in a few days. Leader of the House Subhash Arya told Newsline that a concept paper on the plan would be brought out soon. "The system will be totally computerised,' he said. "This will be an effective strategy against unauthorised parking lots. The cost of the yearly token will be Rs 1,000 for two-wheelers and Rs 2,000 for cars.' The coupon would enable one to use any MCD parking lot for the whole year, Arya said. "The token will be renewed at the end of each year.' For the MCD, the benefit comes in that the scheme will raise its coffers withy earnings by doing away with unauthorised parking slots, Arya said. For Delhiites, it would mean a relief from "errant parking contractors', known to charge at their whims, he said. At present, even parking for a few minutes entails paying the minimum fare
The Delhi University is finally looking beyond its boundaries. In a move bound to bring relief to many, the university is planning to open up its libraries to students from other institutes. The decision, awaiting final approval from the university's academic council, will benefit a number of students studying in other universities, say officials.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), it seems, is spending most of its time devising new plans every month to handle parking in the city instead of solving the problem. This time it has more to to add to the further chaos. After parking was decentralised zone-wise few months back to keep a better check on parking mafia, the civic body is again centralising the payment, tendering and collection of parking fees. Remunerative Project Cell (RP)
Data shows noise due to traffic during the day is much higher than what is good for general public
A delegation of slum dwellers of Kusumpur Pahari village here led by Vasant Kunj Municipal Councillor Rakesh Rajora called on Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Tuesday urging her to allow the residents to continue living in the village after construction of rehabilitation flats for them. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Rajora observed: "The villagers have been living here for the past 35 years with their families. The Government has a policy of providing a two-room flat to each family on payment of Rs.2 lakh. While Rs.1 lakh will be paid by the residents, the remaining Rs.1 lakh will be granted as a loan that will be recovered in instalments spread over 25 years.' According to Mr. Rajora, besides rehabilitating the residents, the Chief Minister should also ensure provision of basic civic amenities like electricity, drinking water, dispensary and a community centre in the area. Addressing the gathering, Ms. Dikshit encouraged the residents to make sure of educating their girl children and said the Government would deposit Rs.10,000 in the name of the girl children born in the families residing in Kusum Pahari village. "When the girl reaches 18 years of age, this amount would increase to Rs.1 lakh which could be utilised in furthering the education of the child.' The Chief Minister advised the gathering to not only educate their girl child but also train them in vocational skills such as computers, embroidery and tailoring so that they would have no problem in seeking employment when they grow up.
Power Minister A.K. Walia on Tuesday reviewed the progress of the new power plants coming up in Delhi and those entirely dedicated to supply power for Delhi. Addressing the high-level meeting, the Minister said efforts were being made to make available adequate power supply during Commonwealth Games-2010. He said the foundation stone laying ceremony of the 1,500 MW gas-based Pragati Power Project at Bawana would be held soon and this would pave the way for implementation of the power plant. The first 250 MW turbine of this plant would be commissioned on February 25, 2010, whereas the entire project would be operationalised in October 2010. Dr. Walia also exhorted the concerned agencies to initiate actual work on the 750 MW gas-based Bamnauli Power Plant for which possession of land has been finalised. This plant is scheduled to be commissioned in October 2011 and its first turbine would become functional in May 2011. More power Delhi would also gain from the dedicated coal-based plant at Dadri in U.P. which is expected to provide 760 MW power to the Capital city from October 2010. Also, the Aravali 1,500 MW coal-based power plant at Jhajjar in Haryana is expected to become functional in October 2010. This, Dr. Walia said, would supply 750 MW power to Delhi.
While the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government may boast of having successfully implemented the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme across the country, the real story in the national Capital is that graduates and post-graduates have taken to begging due to lack of employment opportunities. They may be indulging in an opprobrium-filled career, but there are the rich and middle-class among them that can put to shame many well-educated people in the country. This news about beggars in Delhi may make the salaried class feel small. A survey conducted by the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) of the Delhi University shows that six graduates and four post-graduates are beggars and they earn anything between Rs 200 and Rs 500 daily, depending on where they pick conduct their business. The best areas are religious sites, major red light intersections and markets. That adds up to Rs 15,000 per month, a salary level that is attained by a post-graduate after slogging for a few years in the normal course of events. According to the survey, eight beggars earn between Rs 200 and Rs 500 per day in the Capital. The DSW interviewed 5,003 beggars to take stock of the begging menace in the city following the direction of the Delhi High Court last year. As per the survey, out of the 506 beggar respondents who were literate, 321 (9-10 per cent) were educated up to the primary level followed by 175 (4.56 per cent) beggars who were educated up to the secondary level. The survey reports that beggars earn anywhere between Rs 50 to Rs 500 per day. There are approximately 58,570 beggars in the State, and the majority are from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with Haryana, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Delhi also making a fair contribution. Interestingly, most of the beggars who were interviewed were aware of the fact that beggary had been made illegal by the Government. Around 54.13 per cent beggars responded that they were aware that begging was illegal while the rest of the others said they did not know It also shows that either the beggars are unafraid of the law or that it is not being implemented properly. For many, asking for alms was a family profession,only a few said they were forced into it by someone else or were part of a gang. A large majority live on pavements (1,082), near temples (644) and under bridges (406). Although the department is still in the process of finding out about those who have a physical deformity, whether someone actually caused it or if it was genetic or due to a disease. That they were opting for begging as the best career option can also be gauged from the fact that their age category was between 13 and 19 years. Surely, they could have done some other work, but chose this particular mode of earning a living as it generated greater cash on a regular basis plus and did not entail much physical exercise.
On January 10, the day Ratan Tata launched his much-awaited cheapest car in the world, one of the TV channels aired a panel discussion, mostly featuring auto industry experts. With the exception of Sunita Narain, head of the Centre for Science and Environment, nobody even remotely acknowledged the enormity of the daily travel crisis. If Nano sales take off in a big way, the roads may even get completely clogged. The Nano is a cost and engineering marvel, and a well meaning entrepreneurial endeavour. But the promise of individual mobility will end in collective gridlock. The pro-Nano panelists uttered the usual platitudes about the crying need for more infrastructure. Undoubtedly, a lot more roads are needed. But building more roads by itself will never solve the problem. Cars will expand to fill up the available space, the automobile version of Parkinson's Law. In Los Angeles, despite frequently building ten-lane highways, officials predict that travel times will double by 2020. Besides, the legal and other costs to building roads in cities in India are huge
Over two lakh residents of five villages in Outer Delhi have a stinking problem: living with a sewage treatment plant (STP) as their neighbour. The plant is part of the Capital's initiative to sanitise 189 villages with an "appropriate sewage disposal mechanism' by the end of 2009. The villagers moved the Delhi High Court recently, through a registered society called Gramin Uthan Avam Jankalyan, to halt the plant's construction. A Bench led by Justice T S Thakur, though, dismissed the petitioners' contention. The court observed that it was high time that sewage treatment in Delhi began on a "war-footing', and that there was no "real and compelling reason for interference in public interest'. The petitioners claim at 200 metres, the plant is too close for comfort, and would add to diseases and pollution in their area. "The STP will adversely affect the environment by breeding mosquitoes and spreading viral diseases and foul smell,' the petition says. The plant was meant for treating sewage of five villages
With 1.67 million cases of malaria and around 1,000 deaths last year, the government has changed the drug policy and directed states from January this year to introduce the ACT (artesunate and sulpha pyrimethamine) combination as the first line of anti-malarial drug treatment in chloroquine-resistant areas. Dr G S Sonal, Joint Director, National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVDCP), told The Indian Express that there has been concern over the increasing number of plasmodium falciparum (PF) cases of malaria. India contributes to 77 per cent cases of malaria in South East Asia. PF in the 70s amounted to less than 15 per cent of the malaria cases, but this has now gone up to 50 per cent of the total malaria cases. Moreover the dangerous PF has developed resistance to chloroquine in various parts of the country. Sixty-five per cent of cases of malaria in various pockets of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal are due to PF and drug resistance to chloroquine is high here. Chloroquine however is useful in states like Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. At least one million ACT course drugs will be supplied to the high endemic states. So far the government had supplied 20 crore tablets of chloroquine in the country. This quantum of drugs will be slightly reduced, Sonal said. According to Dr A P Dash, Director, National Institute of Malaria Research (NIMR), the PF species of malaria is spreading wider due to migration of population from endemic to non-endemic areas and drug sensitivity studies from various states have observed that there is resistance to the drug chloroquine - which is being used as the first line of treatment for malaria cases. The last time the policy was revised was in 2003. Vaccine for malaria Two sites have been selected for trial of a vaccine against malaria. Epidemiological and immunological data will be collected from the sites selected in Orissa and Madhya Pradesh to test the vaccine. The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Delhi, has developed the vaccine and will be tested at these two sites, Director, National Institute of Malaria Research Dr A P Dash said.
A two-day workshop for "Prevention and Control of Vector and Water-Borne Diseases' organised by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi opened at India Habitat Centre here on Monday. Inaugurating the workshop, Delhi Mayor Arti Mehra emphasised the need to sensitise children to take preventive measures for control of vector and water-borne diseases. "A separate action plan formulated for children will be implemented in municipal schools, public schools and aided schools. This plan will create awareness and will also target residents' welfare associations, slum dwellers and municipal employees,' she added. Delhi Health Minister Yoganand Shastri congratulated the civic body for taking the initiative of organising the workshop and said, "It is only through vigorous efforts of the MCD that dengue cases in the Capital are on the decline. Local bodies such as the Delhi Cantonment Board, the New Delhi Municipal Council and the Railway Board should come together in a joint endeavour to control diseases.' Addressing the gathering, MCD Standing Committee Chairman Vijender Gupta said the action plan proposed during the workshop would be implemented from April 1. Health Committee Chairman V. K. Monga and Municipal Commissioner K. S. Mehra were among those present on the occasion.
Ever wondered how many different kinds of winged friends share the city with us? Better still, how many species can one spot in a single day
India will host the first four-day global conference on agro-industries, to be held in Delhi from April 8, 2008. The Global Agro-Industries Forum (GAIF) will promote the importance of agro-industries for economic development and poverty reduction, a press release of GAIF said. Around 500 senior representatives from the agro-industry, governments, technical and financing institutions, civil society and UN agencies will discuss the potential of agro-industries and the challenges they are facing. The conference will be jointly organised by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in close collaboration with the Indian government. The Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh will officially inaugurate the Forum on April 9, in the presence of The FAO director-general Jacques Diouf, UNIDO director-general Kandeh K Yumkella, IFAD president Lennart Bage. Rapid globalisation, market liberalisation, and urbanisation have created new opportunities for countries to trade agricultural and food products. However, they have also created challenges and increased risks. Countries with inefficient agro-industries are likely to be left behind those with modern and efficient agro-industries. While high-income countries add, on average, US$180 of value by processing one tonne of agricultural products, developing countries generate only $40 of value per tonne, the press release said. Increasing the market opportunities particularly for small-scale producers in rural areas, by improving their production, processing and marketing capabilities, will be one of the main issues of the conference. Delivering better products at lower prices could be beneficial for poor consumers and could also create employment opportunities. The GAIF will also encourage dialogue between the private and public sector in order to foster partnerships for developing competitive agro-industries.
PWD officials are hopeful that this work would be completed in a couple of months
The Delhi chapter of Rotary International Club today declared that during the current year there no new cases of polio was reported in the national Capital. In the year 2007, two cases of polio were registered in Delhi and treated with help of the Rotary club. The polio has three categories
The Impact On Urban Transportation By TATHAGATA CHATTERJI Thousands of sleek, little Tata-Nanos are likely to jostle for urban road space within a year. Nano boasts a brilliant design innovation for the all-weather travel requirements of the budget-conscious Indian family. However, the very affordability of the car has raised certain critical questions: If the roads are clogged by millions of new cars, will there be enough space to drive? How does one manage the legitimate aspirations of the Indian family in the urban context? The future of mobility in Indian cities, already teeming with bumper to bumper traffic and exasperated commuters, needs urgently to be addressed as the country moves towards an increasingly urban future along with the structural shift in the economy ~ from agriculture to industry and service. With 285 million people, urban India now accounts for 28 per cent of the country's population, 62 per cent of the GDP and the bulk of the car purchases. Between 1981 and 2001, on an average, the population in the six metro cities increased by 1.8 times but the number of vehicles rose six-fold. In the Delhi-NCR area, 420 million man-hours are lost every month because of traffic congestion, according to ASSOCHAM. With 1,421 cars per square kilometer, Kolkata now has a higher car density than the vastly more affluent Berlin. There has been a spatial shift as well with the IT and the IT-enabled sector emerging as the main factors of the urban economy and frequently locating to self-contained business complexes in the fringe areas of big cities. Such sleepy residential suburbs of the eighties as Gurgaon, NOIDA or Salt Lake, have now overtaken traditional business areas like Connaught Place or Dalhousie Square as corporate destinations of choice. This combined effect of "suburbanization' of the urban economy and the rising road congestion had compelled the state governments to construct highways and flyovers, replicating the American urban model of car dependent, low-density garden suburbs of the 1950s. However, as the Americans found out the hard way, by the 1970s, the ever-increasing freeways resulted in increased use of cars. This led to rising energy cost, pollution and travel time. Delhi is witness to a similar phenomenon today. Amongst the Indian cities, Delhi has the most extensive roadspace along with an elaborate programme of flyover construction. Over the past 10 years, road length increased by 20 per cent, but cars increased by 132 per cent. The ambitious Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway appears to have crossed the carrying capacity estimated for the year 2016 by the time it was inaugurated this year. The 32-lane toll plaza ~ supposedly the largest in Asia ~ has earned the sobriquet, "parking plaza'. Elsewhere, traffic moves fast on the flyovers but gets stuck in bottlenecks down the road. Compare this with New York, London, Paris or Singapore ~ the high temples of international finance ~ cities where people get around on foot, by taxi or via mass transit. Zurich, Melbourne, Copenhagen ~ which frequently tops the urban quality of living index ~ a sort of ATP ranking of the cities, have a dense urban core, pedestrian-friendly streets, a network of high quality mass transit and policies which discourage private cars in core areas. In parts of Tokyo, one cannot own a car unless one owns a private parking space. London introduced congestion charges in city centre areas in 2003. Since then the volume of traffic has been reduced by 21 per cent and delays shortened by two minutes per kilometer. The present gridlocked mess in India is the outcome of short sighted and uncoordinated policies on land use and transportation. According to a Centre for Science & Environment study, a bus carrying 40 passengers occupies about 2.5 times the roadspace than a car with one or two persons and, at the same time, pays 2.6 times higher tax as well. So the poor end up paying in terms of higher travel time and cost. The real estate costs are sky-high but a single parking slot that occupies 23 square metres costs only Rs 10 for a day, whereas a shop or desk space are charged full commercial rates. Diesel subsidies meant for the trucks and buses are gobbled up by chauffer-driven limousines. Public transport is chronically mismanaged and inadequate. The term
Gurgaon: About 40 passengers had a narrow escape on Saturday evening when the CNG fuelled Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus in which they were travelling went up in flames near the Management Development Institute(MDI) in Gurgaon. Fire department officials said that initial investigations have shown that the CNG bus caught fire because of a leak in the gas cylinder. According to eyewitnesses, the bus, which plies on the Karol Bagh-Gurgaon route, caught fire around 6 pm, after it reached the MDI Chowk on Mehrauli Gurgaon road. No one was hurt as all the passengers had got down from the bus before the mishap took place.
Feasibility studies over the alternative project to Tunnel Road have also been taken up DUAC had suggested that the alternate corridor be constructed over the Bara Pulla drain The first phase of East-West Corridor will link Akshardham temple to New Delhi Railway Station NEW DELHI: While bitterness caused over the controversy surrounding the Tunnel Road project from National Highway 24 to Lodhi Road has led to resignation by four members of the Delhi Urban Arts Commission, the Public Works Department of Delhi Government has taken the alternative suggested by the Commission quite seriously and has begun work on the 5.5 km elevated corridor from Sarai Kale Khan to INA Colony on the Bara Pulla drain. Engineer-in-Chief of PWD R. Subramanian said, "The DUAC had suggested that the alternate corridor be constructed over the Bara Pulla drain and so we have undertaken feasibility studies for the elevated road project that would provide a fast link between Sarai Kale Khan and INA Colony.' This road project would involve construction of two three-lane carriageways. The elevated corridor would pass by Nizamuddin, Jangpura and Lodhi Colony on the way to INA Colony. Areas of concern However, there are some areas of concern here too as the Bara Pulla drain is also an aesthetic feature of Delhi and the corridor would pass close to some tombs as well. The PWD would soon also start work on the first phase of the elevated East-West Corridor that has been approved by the DUAC. Mr Subramanian said while the entire first phase is 8 km long and involved construction of an eight-lane corridor from near Akshardham temple on the banks of the Yamuna in East Delhi to New Delhi Railway Station, what has been approved thus far by DUAC is the section up to Ring Road near Bhairon Marg behind Pragati Maidan. New bridge He said as part of this corridor
