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indianexpress: With State cooperative minister and founder of Bharati Vidyapeeth Patangrao Kadam firm on his stand of banning vehicles on the Bharati Vidyapeeth (BV) road , the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Monday announced its decision to put forward its stand in the Bombay High Court pressing for the opening of the road for light vehicles in the interest of the public.

“We met the state cooperative minister urging him to change his stand, but he is not willing to give up and there is not much the PMC can do against the state government order to ban vehicular traffic on the BV road,” Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale told reporters.

A letter has already been sent to Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh demanding a reconsideration of the state government decision, Bhosale said adding that a delegation of all party leaders will meet the chief minister soon to put forward the public demand.

The PMC had already conveyed its stand on the BV road issue in the past, she added.

“However, now the PMC will on its own become a party in the case filed in the high court by corporators challenging the state government order,” Bhosale said.

The mayor also said she will discuss the issue with district guardian minister and NCP leader Ajit Pawar.

indianexpress:  * Property No 1336 — falling under the Bhosari tax office of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation — came into existence in 1983.

But the property was assessed for tax only in 2003-2004 — a good 20 years later.

* On property Nos 989 and 990 — in the jurisdiction of the Akurdi tax office — owner received completion certificate on December 3, 1987. The tax assessment for the property should have commenced that day; instead it was assessed only from April 1, 2003.

As MANY as 1,470 properties that came into existence years back were assessed only in 2003-2004 and the the prolonged delays - between 10 and 20 years - has resulted in a loss of Rs 40.32 lakh to the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, say the two audit reports between 2002 and 2004.

“The total loss suffered by the PCMC due to non-assessment of properties and other regularities like under-assessment, wrong assessment is around Rs 80 lakh,” civic chief auditor Sudhir Rajdarkar told The Indian Express.

Pinning the blame on the property tax department, the audit report says: At the divisional level, there has been clear negligence and probably a deliberate attempt to bring advantage to some persons by delaying tax assessment. As a result, PCMC has suffered a loss for which the officers and departments concerned should be held responsible. The report says the property tax department had been repeatedly informed about the delay in tax assessment, yet it has chosen to “turn a blind eye to the entire issue.”

Rajdarkar says even the Bombay High Court has slammed the civic body for its negligence in conducting the audit. In 1999, the High Court had in fact asked the State Government as to why the civic body should not be dissolved for failing to conduct the audit since 1983.

indianexpress:  To reduce financial losses, the newly constituted Pune Metropolitan Transport Corporation Ltd (PMTCL) has decided to install horns on all buses. The move is likely to save Rs five crore annually.

“The horns of most of the buses are either stolen or damaged and the bus drivers raise the accelerator of the vehicle to signal the private vehicles to make way for the bus,” chief engineer Sunil Burse said today. He said the recent study on the impact of horns installed on two buses has resulted into increase in the mileage per litre of the vehicle.

“Both the buses showed improvement in their mileage by 300 metres per litre after horns were installed on them. We will save substantial fuel estimated to be worth Rs five crore in a year if all the 1,100 buses are installed with horns and they are used effectively by the bus drivers,” Burse said.

He said it was not that the PMT never installed horns on the buses, but they were either stolen or got damaged due to their place of installation.

“The horns will be water proof and at a place where they will not get damaged. Also, the equipment will be fixed in such a manner that it will not be stolen,” Burse said, adding that the horn button will have a sticker with a message in bold letters for its usage by the bus driver. Each horn will cost Rs 200, but they will not increase the burden on PMTCL, he added.

The new horns will be installed slowly with buses of each depot to be covered one after another, Burse said.

indianexpress: With needlestick injuries being rather common in a healthcare set up and affecting all levels of healthcare workers, the Pune forum of the Hospital Infection Society (HIS) has decided to undertake a survey and record the number of such injuries in each hospital.

Needlestick injuries vary from 3-5 per cent to 12-15 per cent in various centres, said Dr Nita Munshi, Head of the Department of Pathology at the Ruby Hall Clinic.

Unfortunately, underreporting of such injuries is common due to various reasons — the basic being lack of awareness about the issue among Class III and IV workers.

The treatment and investigations for a single needlestick injury costs almost

Rs 10,000 to an organisation, Munshi said adding that the Hospital Infection Society’s Pune forum has urged all hospitals to record needlestick injuries on a separate form. Munshi who attended a forum meet in Malaysia on the protection of healthcare workers from needlestick injuries from the Asia Pacific region said that the form has been distributed to hospitals here.

“At the Ruby Hall Clinic, we have immunised all nurses and technicians with HepB vaccine. We have a protocol for recording needlestick injuries at any time of day or night, or holidays. The HCW is tested immediately for the required tests and prophylactic treatment instituted at the hospital’s cost within two hours of recording the injury,” Munshi said.

Even as awareness lectures are being conducted for class IV workers regularly, the survey aims at monitoring and comparing data from various hospitals and checking the effect on protection of healthcare workers from needlestick injuries.

indianexpress: A Delegation from Renault and Nissan on Monday visited the Bajaj Auto Chakan plant, following a recent meeting in Paris between Bajaj Auto managing director Rajiv Bajaj and Carlos Ghosn, president and CEO, Renault SA and Nissan Motor Company.

The delegation comprised of Carlos Ghosn, Carlos Tavares, executive vice-president, business strategy and product planning, Nissan and Sylvain Bilaine, managing director, Renault India.

Carlos Ghosn said “after our discussions in Paris, I am here to further review the proposed alliance for the ultra low-cost car project with Bajaj.”

“Visiting the plant and discussing the project with engineers is the only effective way to understand all the challenges we face. I am confident that this project will continue to advance in a favorable direction for both Bajaj and Renault Nissan Alliance,” he added.

Meanwhile, Rajiv Bajaj said, “To Renault and Nissan’s world of formidable automotive experience, Bajaj aspires to add value through product innovation and competitive operations. Such an alliance would be promisingly placed to develop a unique platform of “lite” vehicles for an increasingly vulnerable world.”

indianexpress: A Corporator caused quite a furore at the headquarters of the Pune Municipal Corporation on Monday when he barged into the cabin of a senior officer and allegedly threatened that he would get the officer arrested. The corporator apparently told the officer that he had procured damaging information against him under the Right to Information Act.

“The corporator threatened to launch a police complaint about the matter with which I have to do nothing. I have lost zeal to work…such threats are becoming common,” the officer said. The politicians, he alleged, were brazenly misusing the RTI Act and something need to be done to curb such misuse.

Incidents like these, pointed out RTI activists, reflect a growing tendency among politicians to misuse the RTI in civic corridors to blackmail and pressurise civic officials and even builders/developers in the city. Shaken by such events, RTI activists are coming together to curb misuse of the Act, meant to empower common citizen.

Said RTI activist Vivek Velankar, “The percentage of such people is very minimal. But they should not be allowed to misuse the Act. There is little scope for misuse of the Act, but even then if someone is misusing it we need to stub out such tendencies.”

indianexpress: Forty-two year old Bebitai Bhonge, from Shelu Gaon, Wardha district is part of a self-help group (SHG)which makes food items like aamla candy, mango chocolates, coriander power. In a month, this business supplements their income by an additional Rs 200-300.

While NABARD has done no study on the average income generated by the SHGs every month — their main aim at this stage is to introduce these groups to banking first. This forms the main thrust of Gram Sampada 2007 which inaugurated by Ajit Pawar, Minister for Water Resources today.

The eight-day exhibition-cum-sale of products of rural artisans and SHGs at the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development office campus is also a chance to give these groups marketing visibility. “After this exhibition, we will lend our head office at Shivaji Nagar for the SHGs credit linked by us to exhibit and sell their wares, said V E Dalvi, general manager, Bank of Maharashtra.