Special infrastructure corporation for Mumbai to be set up
- 17 july 2008Maharashtra government is lining up a special corporation for Mumbai.
One of the richest local self governments in the country, with a budget of around Rs 14,000 crore, BMC is faced with the unenviable task of sprucing up Mumbai’s creaky infrastructure. "It’s a mammoth job, considering the size and scale of the city. The proposed fund will make it a bit easier," Mr Phatak said.
Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor to be ready by 2013
- 17 july 2008According to sources in government an ambitious $90 bn industrial project along side the Delhi-Mumbai dedicated rail freight route will be ready with manufacturing and trading hubs by 2013.
The 1,483-km corridor would cover Delhi and NCR, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
The corridor, for which a company has been incorporated, will have a 4,000 mw power plant, three greenfield ports and six airports. It will also link 10 cities with over 10 lakh population, including Faridabad, Surat, Delhi, Greater Mumbai, Meerut, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune and Nashik.
Industrial units will come up along major transport arteries such as highways and railways connecting ports to facilitate internal and external trade.
Meanwhile, the Confederation of Indian Industry and Japan External Trade Organisation have launched a portal for investors.
Mumbai-Ludhiana freight corridor on the anvil
- 10 july 2008The Centre has agreed in principle to allot another railway freight corridor from Mumbai to Ludhiana, the industrial hub of Punjab. The central government had already approved the Ludhiana – kolkata corridor.
This is expected to better transportation of manufactured goods and r aw materials from Ludhiana to the port city of Mumbai. - PTI
Mumbaikars to get the option of selecting the power supplier
- 10 july 2008Mumbai will be the first city in India to have the option of choosing their power supplier.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday opened the Mumbai electricity supply market for competition by ruling that Tata Power was authorised to supply power to retail consumers.
This is going to benefit Mumbaikars in the long run as direct supply from the producer could only mean cheaper power.
Till now, the Tatas had the licence to supply only to wholesalers like Reliance Energy and Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) who, in turn, supply to retail consumers. The Tatas were allowed to supply to factories, the railways etc., that is, those who consume over 1mw.
Through this landmark decision, the apex court has allowed the entry of a second licensee to supply electricity. This is the first time a second licensee has been appointed to supply power in the jurisdiction of existing licensees. Reliance Energy is a licensee for the suburbs, while BEST is the sole distributor for the island city.
Tata Power generates 1,777MW but of this 800MW has been committed to the BEST through the power purchase agreement and 477 MW is supplied to its existing bulk consumers.
Contour mapping of Mumbai not to be done by pvt agencies: MoD
- 05 july 2008As per the views of Ministry of Defence, Contour mapping of Mumbai should not be done by private agencies. Siting the security reasons MoD has asked the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai to keep private agencies out of this task.
"In accordance with the recommendations of the Madhav Chitale Committee, contour mapping of the city has to be done to deal with storm water but the Ministry of Defence has reservations about private agencies doing it," clarified the Additional Municipal Commissioner R A Rajiv adding they were having talks with MoD officials on the issue.
As per the recommendations of the Chitale Committee the contour map survey must be done, recording the contours at intervals of five meters. This was significant as a contour map can prove helpful in identifying low-lying areas and evacuating people at the time of crisis.
The Chitale Committee was constituted to check the reasons behind the flash floods in July 2005.
Rajiv explained that according to the guidelines of the ministry only government agencies should do contour mapping as the data can be misused by the private agencies.
DQ Entertainment opening production centres in Mumbai & Chennai
- 05 july 2008DQ Entertainment, a Hyderabad based production company, is all set to take a plunge into the Indian television market with the launch of its two new production centers in Mumbai and Chennai. Expected to become operational this month, these centers will help the company to make a name for itself in TV production.
These production centers each with employee capacity of 220 per shift and media business division of their own are next in the row after the Kolkata center, which opened last month.
“As we are expanding, we felt the need to be closer to Bollywood and the advertising industry, so we’ve decided to open a center in Mumbai,” said DQE CEO Tapaas Chakravarti.
With its soon to be released movie, Meerabai, DQE has already made a foray into the Bollywood. The company is co-producing the movie with Sony Pictures Entertainment and Pritish Nandy Communications.
DQE has also ventured into the publishing world with its comic books and pictorial novels.
Billboards in Mumbai may be scrapped
- 05 july 2008The billboards and hoardings that dot the city of Mumbai are soon going to be the things of the past. ''Around 99.5 per cent of the billboards and hoardings are not as per guidelines and they have to follow it,'', said R A Rajeev, Additional Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai.
Clamping the height of the stilts supporting the hoardings, the municipality of Mumbai has issued the new guidelines. According to these guidelines, the height of the stilts cannot be more than 85 feet and that too on flyovers whereas the new specifications limited the size of the hoardings to the maximum of 40 feet by 20 feet.
Outdoor advertisers, worried about the implementation of the new guidelines, fear for the loss in revenue.
Though other forms of advertisings are also known but billboards remain the most popular format. But the new guidelines, it seems, is going to change the face of advertising in Mumbai along with the landscape of the city.
