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Parliamentary committee recommends UDF witdrawal, reopening HAL

In what is sure to be a shock, to both the BIAL and HIAL consortia, the Deccan Chronicle reports, the parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture, on Thursday October 23, recommended immediate withdrawal of user development fees (UDF) being charged by Hyderabad and Bengaluru airports.

Single body for all transportation works - Pune does it

Learning from mistakes and gaps at other cities - Pune could be doing that. Read this morning, with great interest that Pune has created a special purpose vehicle called Pune Infrastructure Development Corporation (PIDC). Quoting this story (PIDC cleared), this body will be:

Pune Metro - lets start tracking it here

A detailed project report for Pune Metro should be due out anytime now. Newspaper reports back in Aug had said the DPR should be out in a month. Not sure if it is out yet. Back on early 2007, Delhi Metro had floated several tenders for detailed project report (DPR) of Pune Metro.

Dreaming Challaghatta Bagh - big new lung space for Bangalore

Park Possible?You may remember reading this last year - Army to close Agara Farm. Each time I am on Inner Ring Road or Sarjapur Road around Agara, I wonder what use is Army putting this vast stretch of Land into. Thanks a million to them, we don't have another middle class slum developing and congesting this area. But if they don't have any serious use planned right now, would they be game to lease it out to us (the citizens) to help create a nice big park cum eco preservation area!? Challaghatta Bagh anyone!?

Voter Registration Made Easy for MNC employees - Filled forms collected at Company premises!!

For MNC employees, it doesn't get any easier to get their names on voter list. Forms can be filled at their office desks, and submit the filled/signed forms to VoteDeIndia booth that is setup right next to their Cafeterias.

Outer Ring Road project - work first, tender later?

ORR tenderIt was a bit puzzling to spot this tender from BDA in newspapers last week. Dated Oct 15, it called for "Improvements to Service Road of Outer Ring Road from Marathalli underpass to Central Silk Board junction (missing bits)". At least on the tenderwizard site (click for all recent BDA tenders), there is no other older tender calling for improvements to these service roads. The puzzling part however is this. Service Road improvement work is already in full swing! In fact, I have been noticing digging work for over a month now.

Water water everywhere

Did you too notice a spate of water supply related news and announcements recently? Perhaps some influential  individual or minister has water on his mind. Have a look:

Save these trees - road widening?

BBMP/BWSSB are at it again. I am surprised at the ease with which they go about cutting the trees.

This time it is the stretch of road between BDA junction and Cavery Theater junction (New Airport Road). Some one really very creative is at work here - they are finding new innovative ways to cut down trees and this time BWSSB has chipped in to help them.

In this particular case - BWSSB dug deep trenches just next to the trees (they are laying a pipe line). With in days most of the trees tilted dangerously towards the trench. A couple of days latter all these trees were cut down - may be citing treat to life and property. Surprise surprise, a few days latter, the foot paths are decreased and work is on to increase the width of the road - all this natak for a few extra feet of road (for a road which is already wide enough). Most of these tress were atleast 50-60 years old.

BDA Junction

The other side of CARD acceptance by merchants

The credit /debit card usage for shopping in the past couple of years has increased tremendously, the main factor being ease and safety. No more carrying those huge amounts of cash in your pocket or purse, just one card can do it.

Traffic Congestion – Possible case for a PIL

As outlined below, the formation of the prescribed bodies to tackle traffic congestion & to improve living conditions in the city was completed some time ago as recommended. Despite this, no concrete steps seem to be planned to stem the rot. The same old solutions continue to be doled out – the usual widening of roads after felling more trees & introducing more bus routes. These temporary solutions have been making things worse as widening roads invites more vehicles & the losers continue to be pedestrians & public transport users.
 

City-states as viable alternatives

If Bangalore, for instance, has to become an international city, like Singapore, it must be made into a separate province. China has done it. Its cities deal directly with Beijing. And it has worked. We remember the likes of IT icon Narayana Murthy having spoken on similar lines. Such out-ofthe-box ideas sometimes help in finding viable solutions.

First Urban Land Title in India

"I am delighted to share with everybody that Guaranteed Land Title is now a reality in Rajasthan. Rajasthan is leading the country in its "second wave" of land reforms - land title security.

Karnataka to do a Pune

The Karnataka government appears to be looking seriously at the DG set plan, experimented by Pune two years ago, involves getting companies with large captive generation sets to utilise those sets during peak hours instead of drawing power from the state grid.

How infrastructure projects get delayed and stopped

The ROB at Whitefield is delayed because of inability of the parties (tenderer and tenderee) to work out a commodity rise formula. As noted in the following article, because of unexpected and steep rise in steel and cement prices, the tenderee could not complete the project and had to cite force majeure clause.

Money Crisis, Power crisis

Blame empty coffers for power outages. The crisis has arisen as power generation in hydel power stations has been low due to a weak monsoon. The main power generation centre, Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS), has been affected as coal suppliers have been demanding KPCL clear outstanding debts and increase pay per load.
    

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