Agency: DNA

On November 21, Dr KH Jituri, 77, Dr Abdul Kareem Patwegar, 62 and businessmen Sanjay Shetti and Jeetendra Thakkar filed the suit in the court of the 1st Additional Civil Judge, making the HDMC commissioner and district deputy commissioner party to the suit.

Senior advocate and Samiti trustee GR Andanimath said, “The court accepted the submission on November 29 and the next hearing is on December 19.”

Dr KH Jituri said, “Every day, no less than 5-10 accidents occur only because of unscientific road humps and we’ve seen an increase in patients with severe health problems due to them.”

When the problem was brought to the notice of the HDMC commissioner, he assured the problem would be sorted out soon, but no action has been taken, he added.

Samiti secretary Sanjay Shetti said, “We had no alternative but to go to court. Despite our notice, HDMC didn’t even try to solve the problem and therefore filed a suit in court.”

According to HDMC sources, there are over 500 road humps in the twin cities and less than 20 are scientifically designed.

Source-http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com

 Though 52 people died last month in two separate accidents, involving Volvo buses, the preliminary findings of an investigation team into the incidents are still pending. Sources said that when the team headed by IIT-Delhi professor Anoop Chawla was finalizing the findings of the first crash at Mehboobnagar in Andhra Pradesh, another one occurred at Haveri in Karnataka.

“The same team had to be rushed to investigate the case since the two incidents were similar where buses caught fire after crashes. There is no other team to investigate such cases,” said a government source.

Professor Chawla and his team get all such cases that are referred by National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP).

In fact, road deaths’ reports since 2008 show how few crashes are attributed to mechanical snags in vehicles and defects in road condition since rarely there is any scientific investigation of fatal accidents. For example, government data claims that only 2,752 people were killed in road accidents in 2008 due to defects in vehicles. While, the toll stood at 2,739 last year.

“Here, accidents and fatalities data come from FIRs. We can’t expect a policeman without adequate knowledge and training to pin point the cause of crashes while writing an FIR. We also don’t carry out crash investigation which can help government take measures to prevent accidents. For some time we are training cops in accident investigation as a part of home ministry’s initiative,” said Rohit Baluja, a road safety expert and president of Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE).

The chief of US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) chief David L Strickland said that correct data form the basis of taking right decisions to improve road safety. “For example, we have undertaken research how to prevent drunk driving and collision after our data showed that these are two major reasons of fatalities on our roads,” he told TOI on the sidelines of UN Europe-Asia road safety forum meeting at IRTE.

Road transport ministry officials said that the government is trying to address the concern by setting up a vertical to undertake research and investigation under its proposed Road Safety and Traffic Management Board. “We plan to collaborate with NHSTA to improve our road safety programme. We have very few dedicated manpower to deal with the issue. Establishment of the new body will have more men and fund to undertake research to make our roads safe,” said road transport secretary Vijay Chhibber.

Source-http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com

MUMBAI: The compound walls of eleven private plots on St Martin’s Road in Bandra (W) will be demolished and utilized as setback land for road widening. Residents are upset with the demolition notice recently issued by the BMC road department. On Saturday, the BMC arrived with a team to make markings inside the compunds of the buildings, which are near Globus mall and the H-West ward office.

A public meeting and two letters from the affected residents bore no results. There is a heritage cottage called the Arc among the 11 structures that will be affected. Eight coconut trees, a jamun tree, a love apple tree, a jackfruit tree, three custard apple trees and a gooseberry tree will be lost to the widening.

 “We learnt from the ward office that demolition will be on Monday,” Floyd Almeida, a resident of Fabian building on ST Martin’s Road, said. “Globus has a car park which is being used as a godwon and is locked up. They have a basement parking and a sanction for a theatre. Their visitors park on our road. Patrons of Royal China and Metro Palace restraunts also park in our lane. That’s the reason it makes our roads narrow. We kept telling the BMC to have parking on one side of the road or on alternate days, but to no avail. The road was one way earlier.”

In the past, the BMC handed over the setback land for road widening to hawkers on Hill Road.

Dilshad Patel, another resident, said that they would fight tooth and nail with the BMC to protect their properties and that the BMC offer of additional FSI did not interest them.

Additional municipal commissioner S V R Srinivas said the widening decision was taken on the recommendation of the traffic and coordination department and could not be reversed.

Widening is the only solution. There is no guarantee if the road space will increase, if we allow cars to park on one side and we cannot police that road forever.

No structure will be affected and the trees will be transplanted,” Srinivas said. “The demolition will happen in a few days.”

Source-http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com

“The current parkingrates are abysmally low. There will be a proposal to hike this. A basic rate will be proposed, which will then be debated in the House. A final decision will be taken after the issue is discussed at length,” a senior North Delhi Municipal Corporation official told Hindustan Times.

In March 2012, the Lieutenant Governor (L-G) had approved a hike in parking chargesfrom ` 10 per hour to ` 20 per hour for cars. Under the new guidelines, the parkingrates for the first 30 minutes for a four-wheeler was to be ` 10 followed by ` 20 for an hour and ` 50 for three hours.

Currently, Delhiites pay ` 10 for 10 hours and ` 20 for 24 hours in the municipal parkinglots across the city.

The recommendations for the hike in parkingrates, which were made by the Delhi government-appointed committee onparking, however, were not accepted by the political wing of the corporations for the fear of a adverse reaction from the people in the Assembly elections.

Even in last year’s budget, the south, north and east corporations had rejected a hike inparking chargesproposed by the commissioners of the civic bodies.

“The leaders had said that people won’t be able to afford highparking charges due to inflation. This time, too, it might happen again due to political considerations over the Lok Sabha polls in 2014. We propose, they dispose,” a senior South civic body official, who wished not to be named, said.

Source-http://www.hindustantimes.com

The suspension order from the Union home ministry to the Border Road Organisation on the fencing work came following the allegation that it passes through the Indian land in many points.

The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had already intervened on the matter and assured various political parties from Manipur that even ‘an inch of land in Indian territory would not be conceded to the neighbouring country’.

Mentionable is that a delegation of all political parties from Manipur under the leadership of the State chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh met the Indian Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on December 5, 2013  and expressed their concern  that the Indo-Myanmar border fencing passes through the territory of Manipur in many places.

Attended by senior officials from the Union home ministry, Border Road Organisation, Surveyor General of India, Assam Rifles etc, the meeting also resolved to send a joint delegation comprising the concerned officials and Manipur political party leaders to the disputed locations for conducting a spot verification exercise.

The Manipur based newspaper Imphal Free Press has editorialized issues saying that ‘the Centre has reflected its seriousness on rectification of the fencing by its deeds over the last two days including the pledge from the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on protecting every inch of land belonging to Manipur’.

“The direction from the Union government to the Border Road Organisation on Thursday to stop fencing works along the Myamarese border right away will calm a lot of unsettled nerves. We can make a derivation that the Centre has acknowledged that the present situation merits more facts digging and rummaging through old history and geography manuscripts and that the line of fencing is not as clear cut, contrary to its earlier assumptions,” added the editorial of Imphal Free Press, a popular English daily on December 6 issue.

It also pointed out that the Union government has ‘treated the issue with gravity’. Besides the officials of the Home ministry and the State team, the other representations at the talks were from the BRO, the SGI and the AR, which has been watching the 1624 kilometer long Indo-Myanmar border, narrated the editorial adding that ‘all the sides that participated at the decisive discussion on Thursday will be represented during the spot verification of the fencing work and disputed border pillars on December 7 & 8 as well’.

Source-http://www.bnionline.net/

Workers of different political parties on Thursday blockaded the toll booths on the Bangalore-Mangalore national highway at Panemangalore and the newly opened toll booth at Brahmarakootlu, terming it unfair that both booths were collecting toll within a stretch of four kilometres.

Members of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) gathered outside the Brahmarakootlu toll booth, and prevented operators from collecting toll from vehicles moving on the stretch. The booth had become operational from Wednesday.

“A lot of highway work is pending. The service roads needs to be done up, there is a flyover necessary at Brahmarakootlu. Moreover, what is the need to collect money from motorists from two points so close on the highway?” asked SDPI district secretary Akbar Ali.

The organisation has demanded that persons in the vicinity of the toll booth be exempted from paying toll, and that the toll be lowered to a ‘reasonable’ level.

For more than two hours, collection of toll was suspended at Brahmarakootlu.

Meanwhile, members of the BJP, led by former president of Dakshina Kannada unit of the BJP, K. Padmanabha Kottari picketed the toll booth at Panemangalore. Activists threw aside barricades and ensured that toll was not collected for most of the day.