DDA short­l­ists three spots for shel­ters for men­tally ill
Source: blog.tarangana.com
Dated: 2^nd June 10

NEW DELHI — After facing the ire of the Delhi High Court, the Delhi Devel­op­ment Author­ity (DDA) Wed­nes­day filed an affi­davit stat­ing it had zer­oed on three places in the cap­ital for con­struct­ing shel­ters for men­tally ill people who are found aban­doned on the streets. Fil­ing a affi­davit before a divi­sion bench of Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Ajit Bhari­hoke, DDA sub­mit­ted it had zer­oed on Narela, Dwarka and Rohini for con­struct­ing the shelters.

DDA has to build seven such shel­ters in the cap­ital amongst the 18 that are pro­posed. The court after going through the affi­davit asked the DDA to quickly com­ply with the orders and pos­ted the mat­ter for Aug 6. The shel­ters are to be opened in all the nine dis­tricts of the capital.

On the last date of hear­ing the court had pulled up the DDA for the slow pace of work and expressed sur­prise over the fact that even the pos­ses­sion of the these seven pro­posed shel­ters was not with the social wel­fare depart­ment. The court had also dir­ec­ted the police to amend the present train­ing mod­ule and add a chapter relat­ing to the hand­ling of men­tally ill people. The court also mooted the idea of sens­it­ising magis­trates to the nature of such people.

The court’s obser­va­tion came after a peti­tion referred to a former model, Git­an­jali Nag­pal, who was found beg­ging on the streets of the cap­ital. The bench was hear­ing a pub­lic suit by a Delhi Uni­ver­sity law stu­dent, Prat­ibha Chopra, draw­ing the court’s atten­tion towards the plight of men­tally ill people in the cap­ital. The peti­tioner referred to Nagpal’s case and said there were more than 2,500 women in Delhi who are men­tally ill and were not receiv­ing any aid from the gov­ern­ment, which had led to their exploitation.

Nag­pal, 32, who once walked the ramp for top design­ers, was last year found beg­ging at a mar­ket in south Delhi. The Delhi Com­mis­sion for Women (DCW) took her to the VIMHANS hos­pital, where doc­tors dia­gnosed her to be suf­fer­ing from fear psychosis.

Plan panel con­venes meet on PPP in state high­ways on Monday
Source: Eco­nomic Times
Dated: 4^th July 10

NEW DELHI: The Plan­ning Com­mis­sion will host a one-day con­fer­ence here on Monday to attract public-private part­ner­ships (PPP) for devel­op­ing state highways.

The con­fer­ence would be atten­ded by Plan­ning Com­mis­sion Deputy Chair­man Mon­tek Singh Ahluwalia, Road Trans­port and High­ways Min­is­ter Kamal Nath and ICICI Bank CEO and Man­aging Dir­ector Chanda Koch­har. Besides state and Cent­ral offi­cials, the rep­res­ent­at­ives of road devel­op­ment agen­cies, infra­struc­ture developers, law firms and con­sult­ants would par­ti­cip­ate in the programme.

For attract­ing invest­ment for state high­ways from all aven­ues avail­able, the com­mis­sion has also invited rep­res­ent­at­ives of invest­ment banks, private equity funds, infra­struc­ture funds, con­struc­tion com­pan­ies and invest­ment author­it­ies to the con­fer­ence. As much as 85 per cent of the ongo­ing National High­way Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme is being pro­posed to be under­taken through PPP. There is a grow­ing real­isa­tion that a sim­ilar pro­gramme for devel­op­ing state high­ways is crit­ical for the growth of the state.

The high growth in infra­struc­ture is con­sidered neces­sary to tar­get 10 per cent eco­nomic growth in the XIIth Plan (2012 –17). There is a need for addi­tional fund arrange­ments from private parties to fund infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment in the XIIth Plan, as state funds would focus on the social sec­tor. Ahluwalia had earlier said that 50 per cent of the invest­ment in infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment dur­ing the XII Five– Year Plan would have to come from the private sec­tor if the coun­try is to real­ise the invest­ment tar­get of over USD 1 tril­lion (about Rs 45 lakh crore) in the next Plan period.

Dur­ing an infra­struc­ture sum­mit here, the Prime Min­is­ter had announced a revi­sion of the invest­ment tar­get in infra­struc­ture to USD 1 tril­lion in the XIIth Plan, com­pared to USD 500 bil­lion in the cur­rent Five-Year Plan.

Seven coun­try vil­las sealed in Delhi
Source: IANS
Dated: June 30^th, 2010

NEW DELHI — The Muni­cipal Cor­por­a­tion of Delhi (MCD) Wed­nes­day sealed seven coun­try vil­las in the cap­ital for viol­at­ing build­ing norms.

“The Naza­fgarh Zone of MCD sealed the farm­houses (coun­try vil­las) in Mun­dka area for viol­a­tion of Delhi Muni­cipal Cor­por­a­tion Act or build­ing by-laws by hold­ing mar­riages or social func­tions without per­mis­sion of the civic body,” the civic body said in a release.

The sealed prop­er­ties are Anand Vatika, Shanti Vatika, K.L.M. Farm, Mirag Farm, Narang Farm, Vivah Lawn and Flora Farm, all on the Main Rohtak Road, the state­ment said. Farm­houses are a euphem­ism for coun­try vil­las con­struc­ted on agri­cul­tural land but where no farm­ing takes place. They have largely been built by the city’s movers and shakers.