News

indianexpress: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Tuesday served notices to 105 structures built on the nallas and demolished a structure in Maharashinagar which was obstructing the flow of water that led to flooding of parking areas in the nearby societies.

Ten days ago, seven people died in Baner after a wall built close to the nalla collapsed on the hutments. Many of the slums and the basements of housing societies in low-lying areas witnessed flooding on Monday due to overflowing of nallas.
 
Realising that the situation can be difficult if the PMC fails to remove encroachments on the nallas, municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi promised more action. “The demolition was against structures illegally constructed on nallas but an extensive drive to remove all encroachments would be taken up soon,” he said.

Almost 40 km of the 380 km length of nallas in the city has been encroached upon, said Pardeshi, adding that the PMC would identify all such structures and serve notices to them in the next ten days.

He said a few nallas had not been marked in the Development Plan, but their existence has been discovered through the recently conducted satellite survey report. The PMC has also constructed 50 small bridges on these nallas to ensure smooth flow of water. More will be constructed in a year, Pardeshi added.

A crackdown on officials giving permission to structures that encroached upon nallas would follow, he said.

Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale said the citizens should inform the civic body about encroachments on nallas and ensure that builders do not divert or block the nallas’ course.

indianexpress:  Oakwood worldwide, the US realty major and Los Angeles-based temporary housing and service apartment provider, has commenced operations in India with its Pune project. “Oakwood has set up base in Pune with its first venture Oakwood Residence, an 84-unit project located in Koregaon Park. Another project is being planned for Pune and will be ready by 2008,” said Veronique Sirault, general manager, Oakwood Residence, Pune.

“The market in Pune is growing with new projects such as the Tata Fiat JV, General Motors and Volkswagen setting up base in the city. Top management executives are, therefore, choosing to come to the city for longer spells of three-six months to begin the planning process for these projects. In such cases, instead of putting them up in hotels, company managements prefer to offer employees a home away from home. Oakwood will target top executives of such big companies,” Sirault said.
 
During the venture, Oakwood is bringing two of its service apartment brands to Pune — Residence, which offers the comfort of a four-star hotel and Premier which offers five-star hotel comforts through the real estate developer Panchshil Realty.

The company’s Premier brand in Pune is called Linear, a 200-unit project in the city, Sirault said.

Oakwood Residence in Pune will have one and two bedroom apartments with broadband Internet, plasma TV with DVD and international cable TV, custom designed furniture and a fully equipped kitchen. Amenities include a fitness centre, swimming pool and a lounge serving light meals. Prices would range from Rs 10,000 per day for a one BHK to Rs 13,000 per day for a 2BHK apartment. “The company has sourced furniture from China, kitchens from Germany and bed linen from Dubai for its customers,” Sirault said.

Besides Pune, the company is planning to introduce service apartments in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata by the end of 2009.

indianexpress: The standing committee on Tuesday approved a proposal for the PMC to have a sixty per cent share in the total 50,000 shares of Pune Metropolitan Transport Company Ltd (PMTCL). The PCMC will hold forty per cent shares in the new transport company. As per the proposal, each share would cost Rs 10 each.

The company would be headed by an IAS officer as chairperson with twelve other directors. Pune’s municipal commissioner, mayor, standing committee chairman and the general body’s nominated representative would be directors in the company along with their counterparts from PCMC. A representative from the Central Institute of Road Transport, a financial expert, transport expert, human resource expert and RTO officer will be the other directors.

indianexpress: With a growing demand for cost and management accountants across the country and the professionals playing a more strategic role in an organisation, the Institute of Cost & Works Accountants of India, (ICWAI) Pune chapter has chalked out an expansion plan to improve access of the professional course to more students.

“Indian industry needs around 4500 Cost and Management Accountants (CMAs) every year but we are able to provide only 2,000 candidates. In Pune alone the industry needs around 400 cost accountants every year but an institution provides only 60 to 70 candidates,” said Milind Date, senior faculty at the Pune Chapter of Cost Accountants (PCCA).

Date was speaking to students after the inauguration of PCCA’s first education session for 2007-08 on Tuesday. Chairman of Western India Regional Council (WIRC) Dr N M Veslekar and BMCC principal Aniruddha Deshpande were also present on the occasion. “A window of opportunities has been created with the advent of service sector in the industries including IT, ITES, BPO, KPO, Hospitality, Hotel, Banking and Insurance, Financial Services. Also, the manufacturing sector is embarking on a growth like never before,” said Date.

He further said that the role of management accountants has changed — a shift from cost to value, from an inward looking to customer oriented, from a mere collector and presenter of financial data to a change agent. “Its scope has widened from manufacturing sector to the increasing service sector. The contribution of a management accountant is now more strategic than ever before,” he added.

indianexpress:  A discrepancy in the code numbers mentioned on admission forms of standard XI science stream created some confusion among students applying through the Centralised Admission Procedure (CAP) underway at various junior colleges in the city.

The admission form for the science stream comprises a list of junior colleges along with the allotted code numbers, to assist students while filling their preference. At the end of the form, another list of the colleges and their respective cut-off percentages in the year 2006-07 was also included.

However, while the colleges in the first list were numbered as 011 to 120, the cut-off list was numbered 11 to 119.

As a result, in most cases, the number allotted to each college was different in each list. Some students were anxious whether this would result in admissions to wrong colleges.

Education officials explained that the cut-off list was to enable students to choose colleges realistically. “Students who had doubts about the code numbers were explained ,” said junior clerk Arvind More.

Deputy Education Inspector VL Vahile said the change in code numbers was because the Abasaheb Garware College was earlier mentioned twice with separate code numbers for the aided and unaided course. Vahile said students’ admission would not be affected.

indianexpress: After launching an SMS service for citizens to register their complaints and reduce the response time of civic administration, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has now tied up with the Citizen Empowerment Forum to register their complaint through the internet. The service is available on www.ourpune.com set up by the Forum.

“The system would enable the citizens to file their complaint online,” Pravinsinh Pardeshi said. “This will be in addition to the Helpline launched by PMC to address monsoon woes and complaints to the ward offices via SMS.” He also said the advantage of Forum’s online system is that the complainant can check the status of the complaint on the net.

Leading the Forum, Pratima Kirloskar said the citizens have to register their complaint on the site by specifying the complaint and its location. The moment the complaint is submitted, the ward officer and junior engineer of the particular would receive it on the mobile. The status of the complaint would also be made available on the internet after getting inputs from the PMC officials, she said.

techtree: Asus India has introduced its P5K3/P5K series motherboards that make for superior overclocking and performance.

The new motherboards feature innovative technologies, including Super Memspeed, AI-Gear, and AI Slot Detector, and are capable of providing users with easy overclocking choices, assisting them with proper installation of PCIe/PCI devices, and offering greater energy savings.

Vinay Shetty, product manager, components, Asus India, said, “These motherboards offer a range of features, whose applications go beyond the realm of conventional computing. They are targeted at enthusiasts and regular consumers alike, but more so at enthusiasts.”

The new motherboards support Super Memspeed Technology for improved performance, irrespective of different DRAM specifications and overclocking margins.

AI Gear allows users choose from 4 profiles: maximum performance, high performance, medium performance, and max power saving to adjust CPU frequency and vCore voltage to minimize system noise and power consumption.

AI Slot Detecter helps users know if their PCIe/PCI devices are properly inserted into the slots while they are installed.