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TOI : PUNE: The railway budget presented by Mamata Banerjee on Friday evoked mixed responses from common commuters in the city. Commuters welcomed the announcement of new non-stop train to New Delhi as well as trains for Solapur, Hyderabad, Osmanabad and Vishakhapattanam. However, strong disappointment was also expressed as the demands to increase frequency of trains on Pune-Ahemabad-Jaipur-Jodhpur route were not met.

Citizens also cheered the fact that no announcements were made in fares of any of the classes as well as the monthly passes by the railway minister.

Representatives of various commuter groups called the budget a mixed bag.’ They said the long-pending demands of train to Delhi, Solapur, Hyderabad has been addressed adequately. Commuters also expressed happiness as Pune station has been selected among the stations to be developed to a world class facilities. “We look forward that Pune station will be able to provide the top class facilities to commuters,” said the representatives.

Calling it the best for Pune division among the last three rail budgets, the representatives said the announcements, including clearance for Pune-Nashik railway route, double-decker boggies for intercity trains and increase in frequency of the train to Patna will prove helpful to common commuters.

Kanubhai Trivedi, president of the Pune Pravasi Sangh, said, “The budget has addressed around 80 per cent demands of the Pune commuters. The new non-stop train to Delhi is a strong announcement for Pune division. The use of railway land for other commercial purposes is also a welcome move. However, preference must be given to reserve land for laying tracks and creating passenger facilities.”

President of the railway travels service agents association (RTSAA), Manik Birla, said, “The revision of tatkal (instant ticketing scheme) is a welcomed move. However, the scheme should also be applicable to physically-handicapped and mentally-challenged passengers. The budget has neglected the demands to increasing trains to Ahemadabad, Jaipur and Ajmer. However, trains to…More

TOI : PUNE: The state government has sanctioned Rs 40.5 crore for purchasing 175 buses for Pune under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Mission (JNNURM).

According to a government resolution dated July 1, 2009, orders have been given to release Rs 40.5 crore as the first instalment to add buses to the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamadal’s (PMPML) fleet.

The funds have been released following a meeting of Pune MP Suresh Kalmadi with state chief minister Ashok Chavan to discuss various issues pertaining to Pune last week.

The GR issued by the state government says that the funds are being released as per the announcement made by the Union Ministry of Urban Development in January this year, that purchase of buses will also be added to the JNNURM funding schemes. The decision was taken in order to improve the public transport system in the 56 mission cities of JNNURM.

Pune was one of the first cities to have received a sanction for its proposal to procure buses, which were expected to hit the roads by May. However, the plan ran into trouble when the PMPML authorities proposed that 250 buses will be air-conditioned and the ownership of another 200 other buses will be with private partners. Later, the election code of conduct was clamped and the whole process was delayed.

A total of 650 buses have been sanctioned and the Rs 40.5-crore-fund will be used to procure the first batch of 175 buses.

The state government has issued orders that the state will take a review every three months to judge the progress in the bus procurement process and the use of funds. Print Emai…More

TOI : PUNE: Starting Monday, the American Center of the US Consulate General will begin its special workshop in the city for teachers teaching English in madrassas and Urdu-medium schools to help enhance their skills.

According to the consulate, the 12-day long programme has been specially designed for English teachers in madrassas and Urdu-medium schools, for promoting new methodologies of English teaching and promoting an interactive atmosphere between them and their pupils in classrooms. The workshop called Skills update workshop for English language teachers’ will see teachers from other states, including Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, participating.

“We had done a study to check where such skill-enhancement programmes are required the most. That’s when we found that organising such a workshop for madrassas and Urdu-medium schools would be beneficial,” Tasneem Kalsekar, cultural affairs specialist of the American Center, Mumbai, told TOI. “Moreover, in most of these schools, teaching appears to be a one-sided communication, where students do not get the opportunity to express themselves. This method should change,” she said.

Kalsekar said that during the workshop experts will stress on promoting the new style of teaching, as used in US schools, for better understanding of subjects. Another intention behind the programme is to help students increase their grasping power.

According to Kalsekar around 30 teachers will participate in this workshop, organised jointly by the American Center in Mumbai, the Maharashtra Cosmopolitan Education Society and the US state department office of the English language. Julie Ciancio, English language specialist of the office of the English language programmes will conduct the workshop.

“Many participating teachers are from rural madrassas and schools. This would be an opportunity for them to get exposed to teaching styles of countries like the US,” said Shaheen Shaikh, programme coordinator at the Azam Campus said. “Such workshops will be a continuous process hereafter. Another workshop on the same lines will be organised next year.”
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TOI : PUNE: As an effort towards curbing wasteful use of water, Ajit Pawar, the Pune Guardian Minister, on Thursday said that the PMC and PCMC should install meters for all consumers.

Talking at a meeting called to discuss the ongoing water crisis Pawar said, “There is need to install meters for all users in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. In the long run, this system will help us save water. This system will also that consumers use water judiciously.”

Based on the condition that the cost of service and its recovery should also be equal under the JNNURM, the Union government has set the 24-hour water supply norm and also installing meters for all consumers in Pune. The civic administration has repeatedly attempted to introduce the metered water billing system to calculate water tax, but the PMC general body had scrapped it for domestic users from April 1, 2000, and had instead been billing users on a system based on the Annual Rateable Value (ARV) of their property.

Ajit Pawar said that the culture of minimum usage of water should be imbibed and the meter system would help in this regard.

Meanwhile, Pawar came down heavily on reports that the Irrigation department had asked for Rs 500 crore from the PMC for providing infrastructure and water from Bhama Askhed. “These is no such discussion and it is up to the PMC at what rate they want to lift the water from proposed scheme,” said Pawar. Print Emai…More

TOI : PUNE: The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) plans to shift the statues of martyrs Bhagat Singh and Narayan Dabhade located along the Pune-Mumbai highway in Dapodi to another place.

Speaking to TOI on Thursday, additional municipal commissioner Subhash Dumbre said that a decision in this regard was taken at a meeting held with local corporators and social organisations on Wednesday.

“The statues are located along the highway in Dapodi. The road here is to be widened by 30 meters and hence the statues need to be shifted,” Dumbre said.

These statues were shifted to the present location when the Pune-Mumbai highway was widened by 45 meters in Dapodi and the statues were kept in a store room for nearly a year before their installation at the present locations.

Dumbre said that local corporators suggested that the statues could be shifted to the open plot located behind Babasaheb Ambedkar statue in Dapodi village. The PCMC committee on statues will finalise the new location.

Rajesh Sharma, executive president, Vande Mataram Sanghatna said that the area where the statues were installed should be barricaded so that anti social elements did not use the space.

Reacting to it, Dumbre said, “We had received complaints regarding misuse of the areas around the statues and the engineering department has been directed to put up barricades.”

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TOI : PUNE: The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has partially stopped construction of the sewage treatment plant (STP) in Charholi.

Speaking to TOI, Ashok Sonavane, the group leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporators said, “The municipal commissioner has given directives to stop construction of the STP till the legal issues have been scrutinised.”

He said that this decision was taken when Shirur MP Shivajirao Adhalrao Patil and a delegation of corporators of the BJP and Shiv Sena met municipal commissioner Ashish Sharma at his office in PCMC on Wednesday.

When contacted, municipal commissioner Ashish Sharma said that there was some land-related disputes regarding part of the 15-acre land earmarked for the STP. “We have stopped work on the disputed portion of the land, but construction on the remaining part is going on.” he said.

During the two-hour meeting, Patil also discussed the construction of a flyover, widening of Pune-Nashik highway in Moshi and construction of the STP at Charholi village.

Local villagers have opposed construction of the STP for which the PCMC had earlier reserved land in Sr nos 14 to 28 that was later changed to Sr No 33.

Patil had demanded an inquiry into the allotment of transfer of development rights (TDR) for acquiring grazing land in Bhosari for various developmental projects.
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TOI : PUNE: City commuters can look forward to world class facilities’ at Pune railway Station in the future. In her budget speech on Friday, railway minister Mamata Banerjee said that Pune station would be one among 50 stations to be developed into a world class station with international-level facilities.

The stations are to be developed through innovative financing and in the public-private partnership mode.

The railway administration told TOI on Friday that the Railways have already started work and have initiated major upgradation works at the station.

“Though we have yet to receive details about the plan proposed in this year’s budget, we have already undertaken developmental work,” said Y K Singh, public relations officer of the Pune railway division.

Welcoming the announcement, representatives of commuters’ organisations said that though facilities are being upgraded, these are not enough.

Singh said that the division has so far spent more than Rs 8 crore for upgradation and beautification of the station. Plasma TVs have been installed every 15 metres and inquiry booths are in place for passenger convenience. Services and infrastructure at the waiting rooms and retiring rooms at the station have been upgraded. The station is now well equipped and there are CCTV cameras working round-the-clock.

“Provision for special lighting has been made on the station premises, including the platforms. This lighting arrangement has given the station a fresh look. Passenger amenities like unreserved ticket vending machines and passenger operative enquiry machines have been introduced at the platforms,” Singh added.

He said that the entry-exit gates at both ends of the station have been made wider for passenger convenience. This has helped in preventing the chance of a stampede or over-crowding at the entry-exit points. Also, new gates have been opened at platform number one, so that passengers are not forced to take a longer route.

“The railway administration has taken up an…More

TOI : PUNE: Refuting a media report about the outbreak of dengue in the city, R R Gadia, consultant physician of the King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital, said on Friday that the hospital did not have 30 patients suffering from dengue admitted there currently. That, he said, was the figure for the month.

However, he did say that areas like Bhosari, Wadgaon Sheri, Ghorapadi gaon are susceptible to an outbreak of dengue due to the rapid construction works and urbanisation there, leading to water logging and water becoming stagnant.

“We have received dengue patients from areas like Bhosari, Wadgaon Sheri, Ghorapadi gaon. These are the areas where construction work is happening leading to water logging and also water becoming stagnant, which, in turn, becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes the carrier for dengue fever,” consultant physician Rajesh Gadia told TOI.

The KEM hospital had received a total of 30 dengue patients throughout the last month. Most of them were from Bhosari, Waigaon and Kondhwa, said Gadiya. “Of them, a few patients were given treatment in the OPD. We had 10 patients admitted in the hospital on July 1. Of them, we discharged four on Friday,” added Gadiya.

When contacted, Sadashiv Patole, head of the insect control department of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), said, “We have registered 11 cases of dengue in May and 15 cases in June. The total cases so far are 26. There is no outbreak of dengue in the city.”

Citizens have been advised not to leave stagnant water for more than a few days in and around their houses as it breeds the aedes aegypti mosquito, vector for the dengue fever, said Patole. Print Emai…More

TOI : PUNE: The Union railway budget, which has stressed on the importance of metro rail as well as circular rail and suburban rail services for big cities, has some lessons for Pune.

The city, planning to set up a metro rail system, initially on two corridors, would need to explore how it could have an energy efficient rail-based system for providing rail connectivity to the existing suburban system and the proposed metro rail.

Railway minister Mamata Banerjee, in her budget speech, has stated that rail-based suburban services, such as metro rail, circular railway, and electrical multiple units (EMU) services are the lifeline of the cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. She, however, pointed out that even after augmenting the capacity of existing EMU trains by way of additional coaches and introduction of additional services, the rail-based suburban system will not be able to meet the demand of the ever-increasing population. She pointed out that there is a perceived need to provide an energy-efficient rail-based system as a feeder route connectivity to the existing rail systems.

Pune, at present only has a suburban rail system between Pune and Lonavla, on which it operates 40 local trains (EMUs) everyday. Several transport experts have been saying that there is a need to augment suburban rail services, not only between Pune and Lonavla, but also between Pune and Daund. If more trains are introduced on these sections, the burden of providing public bus transport services would reduce considerably. The available buses, thus, can be plied in city and suburban areas.

The metro project is the second big mass transport project that the city is looking to implement. As part of the metro rail project, the two corridors to be developed in the first phase include Nigdi-Swargate (16.6 kms), and Kothrud depot to Ramwadi (14.9 kms).

Invariably, the points made in the budget about rail-based suburban services in other metros…More

TOI : PUNE: Nanded, chief minister Ashok Chavan’s hometown, has benefited significantly from the Union railway budget announced on Friday. The city has been allotted a weekly superfast train to New Delhi, which will further go to Shriganganagar. The announcement of this train is significant, as several new development projects have been initiated in Nanded, ever since Chavan assumed the all important post of the state chief.

Nanded is also one of the 50 stations where multiplexes will be set up by the Rail Land Development Authority and Ircon. These multiplexes will have facilities, like shops, hotels, restaurants, book stalls, telephone booths etc., for travellers.

The budget has also promised to provide a new rail link between Nanded and Bidar in Karnataka. Also, the Hyderabad-Osmanabad express will be extended to Pune.

Residents of Latur too have something to cheer about as the former chief minister’s hometown has been selected as one of the 375 stations to be developed as adarsh’ (ideal) stations. These stations will have basic facilities like clean drinking water, adequate toilets, catering services, waiting rooms and dormitories, especially for female passengers and better signages. Also, the gauge conversion of Pandharpur-Miraj in the Miraj-Latur section, is scheduled to be completed in the present financial year itself.

The railway budget also offers some sops for Solapur, which is represented by two high-profile ministers Sushilkumar Shinde and Sharad Pawar both elected from constituencies from Solapur district. While a superfast train has been added between Pune and Solapur; a new train between Bangalore-Hubli and Solapur has also been announced. This train will run thrice a week. Print Emai…More