Panel to restructure rly board formed
New Delhi: With the aim of toning up the railway administration, Railways on Monday formed a committee of experts headed by economist Bibek Debroy to suggest ways for restructuring the Railway Board. The seven-member body, including the Board Chairman, will suggest ways for separating policy-making and operations at the Board-level to put project execution on the fast track.
CHARITY music concert at german embassy
New Delhi: ‘Ehsaas-e-Kashmir’, a charity music concert featuring internationally acclaimed Kashmiri santoor players Pandit Bhajan Sopori and Abhay Sopori, will be organised here on Tuesday by German Embassy to raise funds for victims of floods in Jammu & Kashmir. German Ambassador Michael Steiner, expressing solidarity with the flood-affected people of the State, said the concert is being organised to offer a “modest contribution” to the relief efforts.
‘In-Residence’ Writers, Artists call on prez
New Delhi: Writers and artists participating in the in-residence programme at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday called on President Pranab Mukherjee. The latest batch of participants comprises Yishey Doma Bhutia, Dr Vempalli Gangadhar, Rahool Saksena and Pratap Sudhir Morey.
FarmerS’ suicide: SC seeks Centre’s STAND
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Centre’s response on a PIl seeking direction to the Government to take steps to prevent increasing farmer suicides across the country. A bench headed by Justice Hl Dattu issued notice to the Centre through Ministry of Agriculture and sought its response on the PIl filed by a Punjab-based NGO.
BJP leaders set to meet Naidu
New Delhi: Following the directions of lG Najeeb Jung, Chief Secretary DM Spolia called a meeting with senior officials of Delhi Government and the BJP leaders to discuss a modality for speed-up regularisation process of 902 unauthorised colonies. A delegation of BJP leaders will meet Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu to apprise him about problems faced by Government in regularisation of these colonies. SR
At a high-level meeting, the BJP leaders demanded that residents whose colony falls fully or partially on Government land out of the total 902 unauthorised colonies that are being regularised should not be exempted from paying development charges or the land cost.
According to sources, Delhi Chief Secretary DM Spolia has advised BJP leaders to meet Union Urban Development Minister that he may accompany with them if needed. Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay who is a councillor from Malviya Nagar said that they have given a week’s time to the urban development department to examine the issue of regularising the unauthorised colonies from the legal as well as technical framework and submit a report.
“We want to regularise the colonies in a legal manner. The Congress has been cheating the public and they need to know when exactly the colonies will be regularised,” said Upadhyay. As per a Government order the colonies on Government land would be regularised only after the Delhi Government recovered the cost of the public land from residents.
lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung had earlier convened a meeting on the issue regularisation of unauthorised colonies on Friday. It may be noted that then Principal Secretary (Urban Development department) RK Srivastava had written a detailed letter to Urban Development Ministry urging it to relax the guidelines of unauthorised colonies so that it could be regularised.