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Tamil Nadu News Papers

Civic agencies in Chennai told to act against illegal slaughtering

Saturday, 30 November 2013 04:56
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The Hindu              30.11.2013 

Civic agencies in Chennai told to act against illegal slaughtering

R. Sivaraman

The National Green Tribunal, Southern Bench, on Thursday, directed the Chennai Corporation and Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) to take immediate action to stop illegal slaughtering in the city.

The Bench passed the interim order on an application filed by People for Cattle in India represented by its trustee, G. Arun Prasanna, who sought to ban illegal slaughterhouses.

TNPCB

In his application, Mr. Prasanna listed around 20 places in the city where illegal slaughtering took place. In someareas of the city, the illegal activity had been taking place adjacent to meat shops. Such acts caused severe damage tothe environment, he said.

Infected cattle

“The entire act of slaughtering affects the environment as it is happening in places which are not approved and which neither have proper waste treatment plants nor freezer facilities. Such places are unhygienic and slaughtering of infected cattle was done without knowledge,” he said.

The animal welfare organisation said the authorities had been careless and negligent, failing to take any kind of action to avert damage caused due to illegal slaughtering.When the matter came up for hearing before the Bench on Thursday, Kaushik Narain Sharma, counsel for the applicant, requested the Tribunal to pass an interim order to ban illegal slaughterhouses.

Activists

He also said, activists had found, as per a recent survey, illegal slaughtering was happening in 55 places in the city.

The Bench, comprising its judicial member, Justice M. Chockalingam, and expert member, R. Nagendran, said, “There is no impediment felt by the Tribunal to issue direction to the Chennai Corporation and TNPCB to take immediate action and also steps to stop illegal slaughtering in the city of Chennai.”

Stressing that punitive action must be initiated against the violators, the Bench directed the authorities of the Corporationand TNPCB to file reports in the next hearing on December 12.

The animal welfare activist also argued that as per information provided by the district environmental engineer (DEE), Chennai, the Corporation’s slaughterhouses in Saidapet, Villivakkam and Pulianthope were illegal. The DEE had issued show-cause notices to them.

Corporation slaughterhouses in Saidapet, Villivakkam and Pulianthope were found to be illegal

 

Chennai Corporation suspends issuing of birth, death certificates

Saturday, 30 November 2013 04:54
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The Hindu              30.11.2013 

Chennai Corporation suspends issuing of birth, death certificates

Aloysius Xavier Lopez

A few days ago, the civic body had unearthed bogus documents

The Chennai Corporation has suspended issuance of fresh birth and death certificates.

This follows the unearthing of irregularities in issuing of certificates earlier this week.

The civic body is planning to evolve a new system to fix responsibility for uploading and validating the certificates.

Certificates of birth and death recorded in some major hospitals that already have provisions for uploading data directly have not been validated today, said a Corporation official.

The validation is done only after the hard copy of the registers from the hospitals is screened by public health department officials.

“There is a system in place to issue birth certificates on the same day. However, we suspended it on Friday,” said the official.

Residents can, however, download already validated birth certificates.

The work on uploading and validating new birth certificates will resume after a foolproof system is in place.

New system

The civic body is planning to deny permission to all sanitary inspectors to access the new system for uploading and validating births and deaths in the 426 sq. km. of the city.

“Only 46 sanitary officers are likely to be given the responsibility of uploading and validating the data. Access by other employees will not be permitted,” said an official of the Chennai Corporation.

The data in the fresh birth certificates should corroborate with registers maintained by the hospital after verification by the 46 sanitary officers. 

The bogus entry in birth and death certificates issued by the Corporation was easy because of access given to sanitary inspectors. Two officials were suspended on Tuesday for making bogus entries.

The suspended officials had allegedly misused the password to make entries in birth certificates, uploaded it and validated the fake certificates.

Process to be simplified

The Corporation will however take steps to simplify the process of issuing birth and death certificates to residents by streamlining operations.

The number of births registered in each zone ranges between 20 and 80 per day.

Zones with major hospitals have large number of births and deaths recorded per day.

 

Mint flyover to ease traffic

Friday, 29 November 2013 11:13
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Deccan Chronicle          29.11.2013

Mint flyover to ease traffic

Picture for representational purpose only.
 
Chennai: The Mint flyover in North Chennai nears completion and is likely to be thrown open to the public by the end of this year. The bridge is a dream come true for motorists and residents for it will ease traffic in the core area of north Chennai, said a Chennai corporation official.
 
The new structure, taken up at a cost of Rs 23 crore, measures 605 m in length with a width of 16.60 m. The proposal for a new bridge was mooted in 2007 and the preliminary works started in October 2009, recalls an engineer who was associated with the bridgework. It took more than two years for Chennai metro water to shift the underground pipelines in the site and for the Corporation to clear the encroachments and shops to pave the way for the structure. Besides bureaucracy, the structure also faced  litigation. Now, less than five per cent of work is pending.
 
According to Ripon Buildings sources, the old parts of Madras, including Mint, Wash­ermanpet and Royap­uram, known for their heritage buildings and congestion, will benefit from the new flyover.
 
 “The project, connecting Old Jail Road and Basin Bridge Road, will be a boon for local residents and I am eagerly waiting for the inauguration of the bridge,” says senior citizen G.V Alwar Naidu, who resides in Tondiarpet.
 
The corporation had obtained the state government’s approval for executing the project in August 2009. “Hundreds of heavy vehicles ply via Mint junction and if the new bridge is completed motorists will have some respite,” says K Bharathi, a private school teacher.
 
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