Urban News

The Hindu 08.09.2009

Hassan CMC wants increase in development charges withdrawn

Staff Correspondent

Opposition: The councillors of Hassan CMC at the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Hassan on Monday.

HASSAN: All 35 councillors of the Hassan City Municipal Council, led by its president Nethravathi Girish and vice-president C.R. Shankar went in a delegation to the Deputy Commissioner Office urging him to withdraw the increase in development charges.

Addressing presspersons, Ms. Girish said that earlier development charges after conversion of land (from agriculture to non-agriculture) was fixed at Rs.70 per sq. metre. The CMC collected development charges of which Rs. 20 was kept with the CMC and remaining Rs. 50 was paid to the Hassan Urban Development Authority. A few months ago, the Deputy Commissioner increased the development charges to Rs. 300 per square metre. Ms. Girish said this hike was the highest in the State.

She said that following the increase, people who had converted their land and applied for grant of license for construction of houses would not pay the development charge and continue construction work. There are 3,000 such applications pending with CMC.

Ms. Girish said that at the monthly meeting of CMC held in August, he council passed a unanimous resolution urging the Deputy Commissioner to withdraw the hike.

Councilor H.T. Prakash of the BJP wondered what was the yardstick adopted by the Deputy Commissioner while increasing the development charges.

As the Deputy Commissioner was not in station, CMC president presented the memorandum to Additional Deputy Commissioner Subbaraya Kamat.

Commissioner of Hassan Urban Development Authority Paramesh said that before 2003, development charges of Rs. 70 were collected by the CMC within its municipal area. This was continued in the absence of Government order.

Now, the Government had passed orders and as per this order, the HUDA had to collect development charges of Rs. 300 per sq. metre. The authority will not get any share in the development charges collected by CMC and vice-versa.

The Hindu 08.09.2009

GHMC wakes up to rising dengue, malaria cases

HYDERABAD: Taking a serious note of rising cases of malaria and dengue fevers in the twin cities, GHMC Commissioner S.P. Singh has directed the health and medical staff to step up anti-larval operations as well as public awareness on controlling the mosquito menace.

Three confirmed and nine suspected cases of dengue and three cases of malaria have been reported from both government and private hospitals. As many as 17 dengue cases have been reported since August and there were even two suspected deaths.

Areas

Alarmingly, most dengue cases have been found from areas of Banjara Hills, Kukatpally, Jubilee Hills, Ameerpet and the likes.

Malaria cases have been found to be arising out of Mangalhat, Ameerpet and Katedan. Gastroenteritis cases are being reported from old city.

Mr. Singh directed the staff to map the city into ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ areas for allocating more men and material to stamp out the mosquitoes.

“There should be a visible difference with a week,” he said.

All Deputy Commissioners have been told to take assistance of the Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) to educate citizens in controlling mosquito breeding in stagnant water containers.

The Assistant Medical and Health Officers (AMOHs) have been directed to test water sources at all the eating establishments, especially mobile eateries where there was a likelihood of wholesome drinking water not being used.

Board cautioned

The water works (HMWS&SB) officials were cautioned to be more vigilant about the water quality supplied since there was a forecast of more rains.

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jairam said the GHMC was monitoring the situation and taking steps following information gathered from the epidemic cell.

“Generally fevers would have subsided by September but with continuous rains, they are still prevalent,” explained a GHMC health official.

Water stagnation

“We have patients coming from those living in Cantonment and Industrial areas, where there is a lot of water stagnation,” said another health official.