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IndianExpress:  With civic elections round the corner, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Sunday hastily inaugurated the incomplete Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) pilot project on Katraj-Swargate corridor. The Rs 62-crore project under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) envisages nearly 13-km of dedicated bus lane on the Pune-Satara Road.

However, except for the 2.7-km stretch from Dhankwadi to Hotel Panchami junction, work is still going on to create a dedicated lane for BRTS. The entire work for the pilot project is expected to complete only by this month-end.

The Pune Municipal Transport is also planning to start the operations of five Volvo buses on the incomplete 6.6-km Katraj-Swargate corridor. “The BRTS buses will proceed on dedicated bus lanes where they are ready and at places where the work is still going on, they will move along with other vehicles. The BRTS buses will run at a frequency of 10 minutes,” a senior PMT official said

IndianExpress: Refuting the claim of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) that all city roads which were ridden by potholes that came up during the monsoon have been repaired, the Better Roads Group has alleged that the recent pothole filling work has led to indiscriminate creation of bumps.

In a press note issued here, Better Roads Group president Youvraj Bagade said that after the group visited the road repair works of the PMC, it is evident from the photographs taken of roads in Hadapsar, Karve Road, Baner Road and Pune University areas that the PMC procedure for filling potholes are a total deviation from the specifications of the Indian Road Congress and those set by the Public Works Department.

As a result of this, Bagade said, the pothole filling work had led to creation of bumps and haphazard and uneven laying of bitumen patches across the roads in the city. He said the Better Roads Group was preparing a dossier that would be sent to the Bombay High Court at an appropriate time.

IndianExpress: Students seeking admission to engineering colleges next year will have to make up their mind soon, as all those securing admission within the second round will not be given another chance to apply elsewhere, as was the practice earlier.

As per the Directorate of Technical Education’s (DTE) new policy that came into force during the August 2006 engineering admissions, students will undergo only two rounds of admissions, after which the applications of all those who have secured admission will be cancelled. Special software will be designed for this purpose, a DTE senior official said on Sunday.

In the past, engineering admissions were spread out over several rounds, wherein even if students were admitted to a college as per their preference list in the first round, if they were unsatisfied they were allowed to apply again in the next round.

IndianExpress: In what parallels the recent incident of rash and negligent driving, that killed several people in Mumbai recently, one person was killed and at least seven injured when they were hit by a car, allegedly driven by a sixteen-year-old on Saturday.

The accused, a resident of Indiranagar, Bibvewadi, was driving a Ford Ikon when he lost control near Shani Mandir on Bibvewadi Road at around 4.15 pm and hit Ayan Bi Maulana Shaikh (70), a resident of Upper Indiranagar, killing her on the spot. Seven pedestrians, included four children, too were hit by the car.

The boy was taken into custody by the Sahakarnagar police but was let off as the accused is a juvenile.

Meanwhile some of those injured — Radhika Janrao (90), Suman Sakat (70) and Kasudi Gudve (30) — were admitted to a private hospital in Sahakarnagar and the others — Monika Shinde (9), Manju Dalai (9), Asha Sanjay Gaikwad (11) and Poornima Sanjay Gaikwad (9) — have been discharged treatment.

IndianExpress: Three days after it was set alight in Ulhasnagar, the Mumbai-Pune Deccan Queen rolled in at the Pune Railway Station on Sunday evening. The train will resume services from Monday.

Following the desecration of a statue of Dr BR Ambedkar in Kanpur, violence had broken out in several parts of the state and the Deccan Queen was among the two trains torched at Ulhasnagar, the other being a local train.

A railway official from Pune Division said the Mumbai Division had sourced the coaches from the Matunga workshop for the Deccan Queen. Railway spokesperson A K Singh from the Mumbai Division said: “We cannot hold back the train any longer.’’

IndianExpress:  With the State once again facing power crunch, the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL) has increased the loadshedding of villages that are covered by Akshay Prakash Yojana and have single phasing system. Both these schemes were specially designed to reduce power cuts.

However, with the power demand for agricultural sector going up to 14,000 MW in this month, at least 800 MW more than the corresponding period in the previous year, MSEDCL will increase loadshedding in villages under Akshay Prakash Yojana and single phase by an hour. Currently, villages under Akshay Prakash Yojana have an hour-long power cut, while single phase villages have three hours a day.

MSEDCL said it was necessitated because other areas were already facing power cuts of 6-12 hours a day. MSEDCL said the decision has been taken because it was forced to resort to unannounced power cuts due to the power shortage.