Start Yamuna project at the earliest: L-G

Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Wednesday asked Delhi Jal Board and researchers from University of Virginia to start work on the River Yamuna Project at the earliest possible and deliver results.

“Within six months, they have prepared this. I have not seen such a detailed plan for Yamuna in the past 40 years. We can work to a target of 3-4 months to work on one aspect of the project and show that it works. Then even skeptics will become believers,” Baijal said, after inaugurating an exhibition on ‘The River Yamuna Project’ on Wednesday at the Indian Habitat Centre.

According to the Delhi L-G, earlier too, lots of plans were chalked out but nothing concrete happened on the ground.

“We talked and talked. Now we have to act. Even Uttarakhand high court has recently declared Ganga and Yamuna as living entities, bestowing on them same legal rights as a person. We have to start implementation. I promise all the help from the Delhi Development Authority and Delhi government. You all should meet every 15-30 days and get it started,” he said.

The Delhi Jal Board, which has entered into a five-year research collaboration with the University of Virginia to clean Yamuna, in Phase I is focusing on the Najafgarh drain basin, the largest of three watersheds in Delhi with over 140 drains, followed by the Barapulla and Shahdara.

“This is a one-of-its-kind and one of the most ambitious projects to be carried out in the water sector in the country and is led by the Delhi Jal Board along with the department of irrigation and flood control as an important delivery partner. Under this project, sustainable bio-remediation technologies to clean all drains and water bodies will be used,” an official said.

The exhibition showcases the work completed during the last three years and “aims to be a catalyst for the urgent recovery of the Yamuna and its tributaries, building a publicly accessible body of information and expertise, and visions of what an alternative future could be”.

Teresa A. Sullivan, president, University of Virginia, said the project is expected to bring about a paradigm shift by using sustainable bio-remediation technologies to clean water and robust long-term management strategies to create city-level assets for all.

Dr Sanil Kapoor, superintendent of Greater Noida’s Kailash Hospital, told Hindustan Times she was discharged after first aid.

“All medical investigations have shown no injuries on her,” said Kapoor.

A case has been registered by the police. Gautam Budh Nagar SSP Dharmendra Singh said, “An FIR has been lodged under section 147, 148, 504, 506, 323 of IPC into the matter.”

According to Singh, four-five miscreants are involved in attacking the woman.

The woman was travelling from Delhi to Alstonia Apartments in Sector Pi, around 3 kms from where she was attacked.

The Ola driver told police that he had dropped her at 5.47am and left. But, the woman said that he had fled when she was attacked, according to police.

The FIR mentions 10 unnamed suspects.

“We are verifying the statements of the victim and the cab driver, after which we will take necessary action,” said SP (rural) Sujata Singh.

The woman is pursuing her studies in New Delhi and had come to Greater Noida to see her friend in Sector Pi 1&2.

Her friend Adamu Muhammed narrated the incident as told by the victim. “Some local boys dragged her out of the cab and beat her up. She’s in trauma and is not speaking to anyone on the matter.” Alstonia is mostly occupied by Africans.

After a spate of attacks on African students, a company of Rapid Action Force was deployed in Greater Noida on Wednesday. Officials urged Africans not to move out of their residences without police assistance for next twothree days

The attack is the third against Africans in Greater Noida since Sunday. Last week a 17-year-old boy died of cardiac arrest following suspected drug overdose, and local people blamed a group of Nigerian students, saying they had supplied him the drugs. Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) president Vinod K Dasari said.

The industry had been ready with BS-IV manufacturing since 2010 but the sale of these vehicles was not possible nationwide due to lack of BS-IV fuel, Dasari said.

India has set a deadline of 2020 to switch to BS-VI norms, giving a miss to stage V. But the leap, which will include technology upgrade, will make vehicles pricier – petrol cars by ~20,000 to ~25,000 and diesel ones could cost up to ~1 lakh more.

Opposition parliamentarians raised concern about the GST council, fears of revenue loss and loss of autonomy.

“I hope we will not end up cloning Parliament and creating the GST Council ... like human cloning, years later this will also raise moral questions,” said Mohammad Salim of the CPM.

Trinamool Congress’s Saugata Roy summed up the mood in the opposition camp: “I support the GST bills with a heavy heart ... where is cooperative federalism?”

But most MPs showed consensus that the new indirect tax is the biggest reform since Independence and is the need of the hour.

Congress leader M Veerappa Moily said: “Seven to eight years have passed after the UPA government initiated the GST bill ... the country has lost Rs 12 lakh crore because of the delay.”

More than a decade in the making, the GST is expected to shore up government revenue and spur economic growth by 1-2 percentage points. The government has gone on record to state that the tax burden will be reduced, but experts say the GST will stoke inflationary trends in the initial years.

The rates in the four-slab structure of the GST will be 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. The CGST, IGST and SGST bill provide for a maximum tax of 20% each. The bills allow creation of a fund through a cess to ensure states are compensated for any revenue loss in the first five years of the new tax regime.