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indianexpress: Municipal commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi on Friday ordered a departmental inquiry against four officers from the city engineer’s office for negligence in allowing the construction of a multi-storied building at Wanavdi built through Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) granted by the civic body for a plot in Kothrud.

The four officers are deputy city engineer D I Pharate, assistant engineer B K Godse and junior engineers Prakash Pawar and Konkane. However, Pardeshi said no action could be initiated against the builder or the construction due to a stay obtained by builder Dilip Jain from Bombay High Court.

“The preliminary inquiry confirms that the controversial TDR cancelled by the civic body was used in the construction of the building. A departmental inquiry against the four officers will be conducted for their failure to act against the construction,” said Pardeshi in the general body.

On the corporators’ demand for immediate suspension of the officials, Pardeshi said the inquiry will fix the responsibility and establish whether there was malafide intention. He assured the general body meeting that the officials will be suspended if found guilty.

Pardeshi said PMC had issued stop work notice to the construction in October 2005, however, the TDR was used for construction of the building.

In October 2005, the civic body admitted that it had been duped in the Kothrud TDR case where PMC had paid Rs 21,25,826 in cash as compensation to the landowners in 1979. Then, in 1981, the PMC granted TDR of 36,000 sq meters to the owner for the same land. The TDR for this land is estimated to be around Rs 14 crore as per the prevailing market rate.

indianexpress: Three routes, covering a total of 45 km, have been suggested for the metro rail system in the Pune Metropolitan area after a preliminary study.

Details of the suggested routes were announced by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd managing director E Sreedharan at a meeting with Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) officials on Friday. PMC has appointed Delhi Metro as consultant to study the planning of metro rail for the city.

“The three corridors for the metro rail system — from Warje to Chinchwad of 22 km, Shivajinagar to Kalyaninagar of 13 km and Swargate to Agriculture College of 10 km — have been identified in the preliminary study,” Sreedharan said.

He said Warje-Chinchwad corridor would be 22 km long and pass through Karve Road, Jungli Maharaj Road, Shivajinagar and Mumbai-Pune highway. The Shivajnagar-Kalyaninagar corridor of 13 km would pass through Raja Bahadur Mills Road and Ahmednagar Road while Swargate-Agriculture College corridor of 10 km would pass through Shivaji Road.

“The Warje-Chinchwad and Shivajinagar-Kalyaninagar corridor will be elevated corridors passing from the centre of the existing roads while the Swargate-Agriculture College corridor will be underground,” Sreedharan said, adding the detailed project report (DPR) would be ready within four months.

indianexpress: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) Standing Committee on Thursday gave the go-ahead to the civic administration to appoint Unity Consultants Pvt Ltd as consultant for implementing the project of meterisation and improving the drinking water supply system.

“The consultant company will be paid 2.35 per cent of the total cost of the project,” Standing Committee chairman Bapu Pathare said.

The civic administration proposed Unity Consultancy for the project going by its success in the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), which is implementing a similar project for which it has been able to get Rs 25 crore under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

The consultant will enable PMC to improve water supply system by ensuring equal distribution of water to residents, tackle water leakages and ensure 24-hour water supply. The company will help in studying new resources and planning of drinking water supply till 2025. The water demand and supply, technical report on the entire system and proper execution of the project will be taken care of, he said, adding the consultant will also work towards resolving the woes of citizens of Lohegaon and Kharadi area by exploring the possibility of drawing water from Tulapur to the region.

Meanwhile, the Standing Committee once again postponed its decision on the proposed 117-km ring road project.

indianexpress: Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) General Body (GB) has demanded disciplinary action against those in charge of the vehicle depot — that kept the chassis of 12 vehicles idle for one-and-a-half years — for the financial losses to the civic body.

The issue was raised by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) corporator Vasant More, who said the chassis of 12 vehicles worth Rs 14 lakh were lying idle since February last year. “PMC was supposed to fit garbage compactors on eight of these vehicles,” he said. “But negligence on the part of the civic staff led to losses for the civic body.” More also said parts of the vehicle either got damaged or were already stolen from the vehicles.

When vehicle depot head Kishore Pol clarified that his department had not received a copy of the resolution approved by the Standing Committee for the use of the new chassis — purchased in 2006 — committee chairman Bapu Pathare refuted it. Leader of House Anil Bhosale then demanded the suspension Pol’s for not giving a satisfactory response to the question.

With the corporators refusing to give up on unless an inquiry was ordered, additional municipal commissioner Mohan Adtani ordered a probe.

indianexpress: In an exceptional case 60-year-old Leela Patel (name changed) has given birth to her own grandchildren in Ruby Hall Clinic. Patel became the surrogate mother of her daughter’s twins. The US-based woman who is suffering from genital cancer had no other option but to settle for surrogacy. Her mother offered to carry the pregnancy at her age and delivered the babies on September 21.

Dr Sunita Tandulwadkar, head of the IVF department at Ruby Hall Clinic said she had explained the risk to the family (who have requested anonymity) about carrying the pregnancy. While Ruby Hall Clinic has conducted some 10-15 cases where ‘surrogate mothers’ have delivered babies for women who cannot conceive or deliver a child, they are usually young. “In this case, the 60-year-old mother was truly devoted to her daughter and prepared,’’ said Tandulwadkar who also pointed out she did not suffer from any disease.

While Tandulwadkar insists that a pregnancy at this age is not advisable, the couple was persistent and did not want a surrogate mother from outside their family. The daughter had undergone surgery for the removal of the uterus and hence the couple and surrogate mother were counselled about the treatment and legal formalities.

indianexpress: The Delhi-based Electricity Appellate Tribunal has upheld an appeal by Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) challenging the order of Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) against imposing the Multi Year Tariff (MYP) plan on consumers in April 2007 and bear the loss to the tune of Rs 88 crore.

MSEDCL had sought to introduce the MYP plan with effect from April 1 this year, but procedural delays led to late submission of the proposal before the MERC, which questioned the delay and disallowed the MSEDCL from recovering arrears from consumers who were undercharged in the process. At the same time, it had directed that any additional amount charged to the consumer should be returned by MSEDCL.

The tribunal directed MERC it to issue fresh orders to enable MSEDCL recover arrears if any.

techtree: Kingston Technology has announced availability of its DataTraveler 101 (DT 101) USB flash drive.

The DT 101, featuring a swivel cap, comes in 3 color designs, and makes it easier storing and transferring large files from one digital device to another, sans passwords or built-in software programs.

The USB flash drive is fully compliant with high-speed USB 2.0 specifications, which makes transfer of files and documents faster and more convenient.

techtree: Samsung has launched its ‘Easy View’ range of flat TVs in India that are available across 21-inches and 29-inches screen sizes, in both Ultra/Slim and Regular Flat categories.

The new range comprises 3 Slim TVs, and 9 regular Flat TVs.

The ‘Easy View’ series features: channel minimizer (on screen menu display for easy channel surfing), channel scheduler (for switching from one program to another at a preset time), channel grouping (for grouping favorite channels/programs), half mute (for reducing volume to half at one touch), and music mode (for listening to audio with display off).

The flagship model in the ‘Easy View’ series is the 29Z57, with a 29-inches screen, and 350 W PMPO sound output.

Whereas the 21Z57 is Samsung’s flat TV with a 21-inches screen. Both the 29Z57 and the 21Z57 share a high glossy finish.

The entire ‘Easy View’ range of Flat TVs features Samsung’s patented DNIe technology, DVD component in, 5-band graphic equalizer, and superior sound quality

techtree: The Blu-ray vs HD DVD format war just got hotter…

Sharp Corp has said it will launch a Blu-ray recorder with a 1 TB (terabyte) hard disk drive (HDD). Which is the largest storage capacity ever for a Blu-ray recorder.

This — even as Sharp battles the rival HD DVD camp — who’s already got a Toshiba on its side — offering an HD DVD recorder with 1 TB of storage.

Sharp claims its 1 TB Blu-ray recorder is capable of recording up to 127 hours of high-definition digital programming. The monster is expected to go to sale in Japan on December 1 for around 300,000 Yen ($2,615 approx).

The company is planning on introducing 8 more Blu-ray recorders on the Japanese market by this year end. As of now, there are no specific plans for overseas launch of these products, the company said.

Camp Blu-ray comprises: Sony Corp, Matsushita Electric, and Sharp Corp, while Camp HD DVD includes: Toshiba Corp, and Microsoft Corp.

Among production houses, video rental chain Blockbuster has recently pledged support to the Blu-ray format, while Viacom’s Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG are supporting the HD DVD format.

techtree: Microsoft has unveiled over 250 custom domains as part of its plan to offer every kind of Indian a distinct personalized email id powered by Windows Live Hotmail.

The first custom domain, ‘Lokhandwalarocks.com’ was introduced by the company in May this year.

And now, different categories on www.coolhotmail.com will list a number of custom domains describing users’ personalities, indicating where they live, personifying their tastes and likes, and so on.

For instance, users can choose email ids (for free) such as: yourname@goaisbliss.com or yourname@goarocks.com depending on what truly reflects their identity.

Commenting on the new domains, Jaspreet Bindra, country manager for online services business, Microsoft India, said the free personalized email ids would allow users more choice in terms of email ids, along with all the added features of their Windows Live Hotmail accounts.

Meanwhile, Windows Live Hotmail allows people get their email anytime, anywhere, via the Web, mobile phone, or desktop. It is integrated with other Windows Live services including: Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Spaces.