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indianexpress: With the due date for the December installment of advance income tax collection a mere two days away, the chief commissioner of Income Tax, Pune, M Narsimhappa exhorted all the assessees to pay their taxes stressing on ‘voluntary compliance’ rather than force. Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, Narsimhappa said the budget collections of the Pune region till December 10, this year stood at Rs 6,659 crore, which has ensured that 63 per cent of the overall target of Rs 10,576 crore, have already been achieved. “The corresponding figure of last year was Rs 4,419 crore and the percentage of growth is 50 per cent, which is more than the all India average growth of 44 per cent,” he added.

The chief commissioner said the department received 25 lakh returns every year, adding that while, on last October around 18,24,932 returns were recorded, this year the figure recorded till October 31, stood at 17,25,691. However, he quickly added that the number will be increased after the number of ‘e-returns’ filed are added to it. “We are still awaiting those figures from the National Computer Centre in Delhi,” he said, adding that the number of returns processed this year was 10,04,737 has grown by 20 per cent from the 8,34,645 returns processed last year. “This year till November 2007, we have issued refunds in 3,03,093 of the cases with an amount of Rs 613 crore as against 2,49,359 which had been issued from Rs 524 crore for the corresponding period of last year.”

Narsimhappa expressed concern at the rate of growth of the self assessment tax. “While we have been doing very well as far as collection is concerned, the collections of advance tax have increased by 40 per cent while the collections by way of self-assessment tax have increased by 60 per cent,” he said.

indianexpress: The international award that came its way in London (World Leadership Forum) a week ago seems to have spurred Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to greater heights. Soon, people of Pune can get their building plans approved sitting at home and avoid the tedium of being made to wait outside the PMC office. Auto DCR, the software that automatically scrutinises building plans, will soon be introduced on PMC website.

“The software will soon be uploaded on the PMC website and the proposals can be submitted through internet to get the civic administration approval,” P V Gedam, PMC Deputy City Engineer, said.

It took three years to design Auto DCR software and its inhouse introduction in 2005 reduced the time of scrutiny of proposals by half while doubled the number of building plans approved every year.

“Around 6,300 building proposals adding up to 80 lakh sq metre were approved through Auto DCR till now,” Gedam said.

The advantage of the software has been that it brought standardisation in the approval of building plans that was lacking while it was manually done, he said adding it also brought transparency into the process of sanction.

The PMC is presently is upgrading its bandwidth and will install the software on the website as soon as the upgradation work is completed.

indianexpress:  I was born in this city and lived here till I superannuated from my job in the year 1999. After that I have worked in Delhi and Mumbai for four years each. We have returned to our birthplace after eight years. And lo! What a terrible shock we have! I shall explain in details.

1. We have our house in so-called area named Sindh Colony. But we were received, off course last year, by roads which have made the whole city a “torture track” for heavy commercial vehicles. Access to our colony was closed for more than three months due some road repairs. This year the roads are a bit better.

2. On many occasions the streets are totally covered with congratulatory boards of so many personnel, most of them we have never heard of. Even direction boards are covered with congratulatory messages for leaders.

3. Customer service in Pune is a world record. We understand Pune is a hub of IT industry. Last one and half years, we are trying for a broad-band connection in our house. We tried with different private agencies but nobody is prepared to come to Sindh Colony. Our colony has at least 100 bungalows with occupants, many of them, being dignitaries of the state. No one is in a position to give answer.

4. Shop keepers in Pune deserve special training to improve their survice quality. Even the shop-keepers of traditional business communities are so sluggish, and indifferent to the customers as if they are doing favour of selling commodities to the customers.

5. Traffic signal violation appears to be birthright, especially of two- wheelers in the city of Lokmanya Tilak , who coined the phrase that “Freedom is my birth right.”

indianexpress: Scientific research should focus on practices used in ancient Indian civilization to nurture the human mind and intelligence, said noted scientist and University of Pune’s Board of College and University Development (BCUD) director Pandit Vidyasagar. He was speaking at the inauguration of a seminar on ‘The History of Indian Science and Technology’ organised by the Infinity Foundation and the Deccan College and Post Graduate Research Institute on Thursday.

Vidyasagar, whose expertise is in the area of physics and interdisciplinary sciences, said the lack of patronage for science in recent times and the trend of rote learning had affected the attitude towards science. “There is a need to inculcate a scientific temper in society to make it vibrant,” Vidyasagar said. “Many concepts that would help cultivate the human mind were explored in great depth by our ancestors, but these have been relatively ignored in modern science.”

Citing examples from the scientific texts of the Patanjali Yoga Shastra, Vidyasagar said there were concepts mentioned about states of consciousness during sleep, which had not even been conceived in modern science. “These methods and practices relating to the properties of the brain could be explored more in detail,” he said.

The seminar, which will be held till December 16, has been organised by the Infinity Foundation as part of its History of Indian Science and Technology (HIST) project for documenting ancient Indian wisdom pertaining to science and technology. In his introductory address, archaeologist Vasant Shinde said technologies devised by man over the various stages of evolution played a crucial role in his adaptation to adverse climates. “India’s traditional knowledge is fast disappearing, and needs to be documented,” said Shinde.

indianexpress: Finolex Cables Ltd has entered into a joint venture agreement with J-Power Systems Corporation, Japan in a 49:51 partnership to offer turnkey solutions in Extra High Voltage cable systems in India and abroad.The JV, the first by J-Power Systems in India, will come up at Urse, near Pune with the first phase investment pegged at Rs 135 crore. The project will become operational in two years.

The agreement was executed by Kiyoshi Shimojima, President, J-Power Systems and DK Chhabria, Managing Director, Finolex Cables at the Hinjewado IT Park on Thursday. Besides offering complete services of turnkey installation and supply of power cables and accessories, the focus will be on the manufacture and sale of high voltage cables upto 500 kv grade, said Chhabria.

With Planning Commission and Kohli Committee having pegged the investment targets in power generation to around Rs 2,48,000 crore to create 62,213 MW of new power generation capacity during the 11th plan (2008-2012), said Chhabria

indianexpress: To make local civic bodies accountable for the public transport service in the city, the board of directors of newly-constituted Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd (PMPML) have proposed appointment of the municipal commissioners of both PMC and PCMC as chairman and co-chairman of the transport body formed after the merger of PMT and PCMT.

“As per the present rules, the Pune divisional commissioner should be the chairman of PMPML and should report to the state government directly. PMC and PCMC are mere shareholders with no responsibility entrusted on them,” Municipal Commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi, one of the directors of PMPML, said at a discussion on implementation of Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) in the city organised by ALERT and Parisar.

He said neither PMC nor PCMC will be accountable to PMPML services and the citizens will have to approach the state government on any complaint against the public transport company.

Also, there will not be any sense of responsibility among the elected representatives of both the municipal corporations as they can deny any budgetary allocation for the transport company, Pardeshi added.

indianexpress: Principal District and Sessions judge, Pune, AIS Cheema issued a warrant against a police sub-inspector who had failed to turn up for giving his testimony in an ongoing attempt to murder trial, on Thursday.

A Sahakarnagar PSI, M B Yadav, the investigating officer (IO), in an attempt-to-murder case dating back to October 2005, had been summoned by the court. Yadav however failed to turn up and sent a note citing certain reasons for his absence.

But the Additional Public Prosecutor in the case, Shivajirao Patil submitting an application requesting that a warrant be issued against the IO. Judge Cheema accepted the application and issued a bailable warrant.