The Uttarakhand High Court directed the Nagarpalika, Nainital to survey the stray dogs within the town and to identify and remove only the aggressive dogs within the pack and remove them and place them in dog pound. "A balance has to struck between the rights of the stray dogs on …
the Sirsi district court in Karnataka has sentenced A H Gurumurthya, former municipal commissioner, to 18 months of imprisonment for releasing untreated sewage into two tanks in 2001-02. The court has also slapped a fine of Rs 5,000 on him. The municipality, the order said, is bound to look after …
the majestic image you see on the right is going to fade away. The Crawford market in south Mumbai is going to be "redeveloped'. On March 10, amid strong protests from heritage activists, majority of the elected corporators in Mumbai approved the contentious Crawford market redevelopment plan. The municipality refused …
the Bangalore Corporation has decided to give land titles to 36 slums. On February 14, the corporation chairman announced the decision at a meeting with a joint action committee of ngos. The city commissioner asked revenue officers to identify the slums in the corporation area and issue land titles. Several …
The centre is the key facilitator of urban development despite it being a state subject. The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), which was launched in December 2005, is the biggest driver in improving the quality of life for the target population of the 63 large cities (all million …
there is very little clarity and much wrangling between Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai and the Maharashtra government over Mumbai's open space policy. The state government asked the corporation to put a stay on the policy. The local body in turn asked for a clarification on the stay order from …
the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (mcgm), on December 7, cleared a proposal to introduce differential water tariffs in the city. Under the system, water bills will be calculated on the actual amount of water consumed per person per day. The corporation is also planning to introduce prepaid water meters …
Urbanization is an outcome of development process. The increase in infrastructure and basic services is lagging behind the increase in population and income in urban areas. In this context, Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) have to play a role in providing the required urban services. The ability of the ULBs to …
The unprecedented mounting population pressure in the urban areas of India has brought the issue of efficient urban governance to the centre stage of policy planning. Large scale reforms are being ushered into the urban sector. Unfortunately, the unprecedented phase of accounting reforms witnessed in India during the past two …
Metropolitan growth is emerging fast across urban India while the country's municipal institutions have neither the mandate nor the vision or the capacities for metropolitan governance. Reforms were initiated with the landmark 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) in 1992 to provide political, functional and financial empowerment to urban local bodies. …
a proposal to bring urban and local bodies under one head has been mooted once again. Mani Shankar Aiyar, Union minister of panchayati raj, has asked for urban local bodies to be put under his ministry "for effective planning to bridge the divide between urban and rural areas' and "better …
A new online water quality monitoring system to keep a daily tab on water quality in regions falling under Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (ghmc) will be up and running by the end of July. The local body in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad will conduct daily, weekly and …
Everyday as the evening settles, a 2-km stretch in Govindpuri comes alive. Food vendors line streets of this resettlement colony in the outskirts of posh South Delhi, trying to attract workers heading home after work. The anda parantha maker tries to outdo the chaat vendor, fruit sellers engage each other …
gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on March 29, 2007, announced a Rs 13-crore scheme for the state's urban poor. The programme, called Garib Samriddhi Scheme, envisages, among other things, setting up 175,000 private toilets and 5,000 pay-and-use-toilets in slums over the next five years. It also plans to construct 250,000 …
The issue of hawkers cooking food on the roadside has become unexpectedly prominent, not to mention confusing. Not long ago, the media carried reports that the Supreme Court had agreed with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi's (mcd's) contention that hawkers cooking food on the roadside need to be banned to …
on april 13, 2007, residents of Achen, a locality in Srinagar, and the municipal authorities agreed that three new dumpsites should be set up in three zones of the city, to supplement the existing one in Achen. A committee headed by deputy commissioner Ijaz Ahmed was set up to identify …
Water delivery is the responsibility of the government. Thirty years ago many parts of Delhi received drinking water much of the time. Today no area receives water round the clock and worse, the water delivered is contaminated. In common with cities in many developing countries, industrialisation, rapid urbanisation and growing …
construction on Gujarat's ambitious Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project in Ahmedabad, restarted in the second week of March, 2007. The project had been stalled since August 2006, when heavy floods inundated the city. Following this, the National Institute of Hydrology (nih) and Indian Institute of Technology (iit), Roorkee, were asked to …
on march 9, 2007, a fire in a scrap godown in an unauthorised colony in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh (up), killed a young boy and left many injured. The cause of fire is still unknown. The godown is situated within a residential colony, Vikram Enclave, Extension 1, at the Delhi- up …
There appears to be no way to contain the simian menace. Monkeys continue to stray into densely populated areas; driving them out has become a challenging task. Mooting a solution, the Delhi High Court in February ordered the Delhi government, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the New Delhi Municipal Council …
