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Heritage conservation project planned

Friday, 08 January 2010 05:03 administrator
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The Hindu 08.01.2010

Heritage conservation project planned

Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government is working on a major project for conserving heritage structures and land records which have been tattered, Revenue Minister K.P. Rajendran has said.

Inaugurating the 42nd national conference on “Conservation of historic buildings with special reference to wooden structures” organised by the Culture and Archaeology Departments in association with the Indian Association for the Study of Conservation of Cultural Property (IASC) here on Thursday, Mr. Rajendran said that many important revenue documents pertaining to land ownership in the State got damaged due to negligence. Hence, it had been proposed to take up a project for the conservation of the structures and old documents.

Protection vital

Protection of structures was as important as conservation of history and culture. This would help to hand over the tradition to posterity.

The Revenue Department had already drawn up a list of buildings that had to be conserved and was attaching top priority to such efforts.

V. Sivankutty, MLA, presided. IASC president M.V. Nair spoke. Archaeology Department director K.K. Mohanan Pillai welcomed.

Last Updated on Friday, 08 January 2010 05:07
 

LDA approval for township a tall order?

Wednesday, 06 January 2010 11:50 administrator
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The Times of India 06.01.2010

LDA approval for township a tall order?

Pankaj Shah, TNN 6 January 2010, 06:18am IST
LUCKNOW: It might have constructed the world's tallest building in Dubai but all is not well for EMAAR-MGF in the state capital. The builder's two ambitious projects in the city — an integrated township and a Mall — are in a limbo.

To begin with, the proposed integrated township on Sultanpur Road finds itself on a sticky wicket with the state government apparently in no mood to renew the licence of the builder. The licence was cancelled by the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) in June, 2008, on the grounds that the builder violated terms and conditions pertaining to development of the township.

Deputy general manager, Emaar, Ashu Bajpai, while speaking to TOI on Tuesday confirmed that no development activity is being done on the project. He refused to comment further.

While LDA vice-chairman, Mukesh Meshram could not be contacted despite repeated attempts, sources said that the builder's case is being scrutinised. Chief engineer, LDA, S N Tripathi said that the case is "under review". "We cannot say anything as of now," he said.

Sources said that the builder has already acquired some 100 acre of land near Shaheed Path to develop the township. This is 25% of the total 400 acre of land needed for the project. Sources said that the builder had also entered into an agreement with the housing department for help to acquire the rest 300 acre of land.

The other project of the builder which finds itself on a slippery turf is a Mall proposed over some 25 acre of land in Paper Mill Colony. The LDA had though sanctioned the map of the builder for the proposed project but is yet to release it.

But it's the legal dispute over the ownership of land which might affect the project. The land over which the Mall is proposed happens to be a joint lease of Upper India Cooper Mills. The land was partly bought by Emaar and partly by another builder, Arif Constructions. While Arif went ahead with its housing project, the builder applied for freehold, which LDA did not grant. The builder moved the high court, which ruled in favour of the builder. In a counter-move, LDA moved the supreme court and ever since the decision is pending.

Managing director, Arif Constructions, Shavez Arif refused to say anything claiming that the decision is pending in the supreme court. Sources, however, said that Emmar too is waiting for the supreme court's decision before it makes any decision on the ambitious project.
 

Sewage treatment project: condition of Mutha river to indicate success

Wednesday, 06 January 2010 11:41 administrator
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Indian Express 06.01.2010

Sewage treatment project: condition of Mutha river to indicate success

Following the implementation of five projects for the treatment of sewage in the city, Pune Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Zagade has set the level of cleanliness of Mutha river water as the benchmark for deciding whether sewage treatment is complete.

“The PMC has set up new sewage treatment plants (STPs) at various places in the city. More projects to ensure 100 per cent treatment of sewage generated will come up over the next few years. At the end of the day, the best benchmark to measure the success rate of sewage treatment in the city would be the condition of the river water,” said Zagade.

Many STPs are being put in place and their capacity to treat a certain quantum of waste is merely statistics, he said. “It is the river water that speaks for the success in achieving our goal. If the water continues to be polluted then the civic administration has failed to achieve its goal,” he said. Zagade said that 20 per cent of the sewage generated does not reach the STPs due to leakages while 20 per cent gets treated locally. The STPs should be able to treat the remaining 60 per cent sewage generated in the city. “Therefore, the sewage treatment department has been asked to carry out an audit of the sewage to ascertain the actual sewage generated and treated through the existing system,” he said, adding that it was a long way in reaching the objective of 100 per cent treatment. The PMC is able to treat 300 million litres of sewage per day at its various STPs while the quantity generated is 700 MLD. We are proposing more STPs to achieve the objective of complete sewage treatment,” said V G Kulkarni, PMC development engineer (project).

He said that the civic administration is committed to treating all the sewage generated in the city and thereby keeping the Mutha river clean. “We will ensure that there is no discharge of sewage in Mutha river, but cannot do much if the river water is getting polluted even before entering the city,” Kulkarni said.

The civic chief is moving in the right direction going by the river water condition. A lot of capital investment is being made for setting up STPs,” said Sanskriti Menon of Centre for Environment Education (CEE). She said that the civic body might come up with a large number of STPs but the performance of the system can only be ascertained by gauging the quality of the river water.

Under JNNURM, the PMC is setting up STPs in Baner, Mundhwa, near Naidu hospital, Kharadi and Vithalwadi. The work of two STPs is complete while the others are near completion.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 06 January 2010 11:43
 
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