Karnataka govt floats Rs 880 crore tender for 890 drugs
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Indian Express
25 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Difficulty in building separate tracks compels PMC to explore option of developing cycle lane
Facing hurdles in earmarking the ambitious Comprehensive Bicycle Plan on the Development Pan (DP) of the city, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is planning to provide a cycle lane segregated with painting on the road instead of developing separate tracks. In 2017, the PMC adopted the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan prepared with the help of the Union government. According to the plan, the civic body planned to develop an 824 km long dedicated cycle track at an estimated cost of Rs 335 crore. However, only around 80km of the cycle track has been developed in the city so far. The plan included retrofitting of the existing 54km track, new segregated cycle tracks spanning over 531km, 154 km long painted cycle lanes, 10km of merging footpath and cycle tracks and 75 km of greenways. 'The Comprehensive Bicycle Plan is ready but there are technical hurdles in mapping it on the DP of the city. However, this has not deterred us from implementing it on field,' said city engineer Prashant Waghmare. Incharge of PMC's road department chief engineer Annirudha Pawaskar said the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan of Pune is the best plan for any city in the country. 'It's a fact that much of a dedicated cycle track could not be developed so far for lack of space on the road. We are committed to promote cycle use in the city,' said Pawaskar, who is an avid cyclist and rides every alternate day in the wee hours of the city. The situation in the city has changed very fast and the rapid urbanisation has put stress on the existing road infrastructure. 'There is pressure to provide more carriage width for vehicles on roads so making provision for a cycle track is a task while developing roads. We have now decided to provide cycle lanes instead of cycle tracks wherever there is space constraint,' said Pawaskar. He said there is not much of a demand for dedicated cycle tracks in the city but the PMC is committed to promote the non-motorised transport. 'Citizens worry about safety while using bicycles due to heavy traffic on roads. There are very few who use bicycles,' said Pawaskar adding that the best way to address the safety concern is providing greenways for citizens to cycles. Commenting on the PMC's defence of its implementation of the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan, Ranjit Gadgil, a cycling enthusiast and program director at Parisar, an NGO working in the field of urban transport, said, 'The PMC is unfortunately looking at the issue the wrong way. By citing heavy traffic as a reason to reduce space for cycles (and pedestrians), they are in fact encouraging more vehicles and discouraging cycling. School children often want to cycle, but the PMC has failed to implement its own School Travel Improvement Program (STIP) that will ensure children can safely cycle to school. The PMC could at least improve the condition of the existing cycle tracks, make sure those are usable, but that has not happened. Greenways are indeed a good idea and 75km have been proposed in the Bicycle Plan, but there has been no progress on that either.' Meanwhile, even the smallest steps to curb the growth of vehicles have not been taken, such as the parking policy which was approved in 2017. 'Cycle lanes on heavy traffic roads like Ganeshkhind Road are an eyewash, as they are not safe passages for cyclists, and even those are poorly implemented. Every single transport policy and plan has proposed non-motorized transport and public transport improvement and discouraged personal vehicles. This has to be done in earnest by the city if we are to see any improvement, not just for cyclists but for overall traffic,' said Gadgil. Ajay Jadhav is an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express, Pune. He writes on Infrastructure, Politics, Civic issues, Sustainable Development and related stuff. He is a trekker and a sports enthusiast. Ajay has written research articles on the Conservancy staff that created a nationwide impact in framing policy to improve the condition of workers handling waste. Ajay has been consistently writing on politics and infrastructure. He brought to light the lack of basic infrastructure of school and hospital in the hometown of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde even as two private helipads were developed by the leader who mostly commutes from Mumbai to Satara in helicopter. Ajay has been reporting on sustainable development initiatives that protects the environment while ensuring infrastructure development. ... Read More
Indian Express
26 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Western Railway collects over Rs 71 crore as fine in four months
Western Railway said that it has collected Rs 70.98 crore as fine from those travelling without tickets and for other offences between April and July. This marks a 24 per cent increase compared to the same period last year and exceeds the Railway Board's target by 11 per cent. According to a press release by the Western Railway, of the Rs 70.98 crore collected as fine, the Mumbai suburban section accounted for Rs 19.55 crore. In comparison, Rs 17.39 crore was recovered as fine from the section during the corresponding period last year. In July 2025, Western Railway recovered Rs 12.19 crore in fines from 2.22 lakh detected cases, including ticketless or irregular travel and unbooked luggage violations. Of this, Rs 3.65 crore was recovered from around 92,000 cases within the Mumbai suburban section. The July collection marks an increase of 134 per cent compared to that of the same month in 2024, when Rs 5.20 crore was collected from 1.22 lakh cases. Focused checks were also conducted on AC suburban local trains. From April to July 2025, the number of unauthorised passengers penalised in AC locals exceeded 28,000, resulting in Rs 93.40 lakh collected as fines.
Indian Express
26 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Intelligent textiles, desert warfare systems among key deep tech projects in pipeline: Defence Ministry
INTELLIGENT TEXTILES, desert warfare systems and wargaming technologies are some of the key areas that have been identified by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as part of the Deep Tech research under Technology Development Fund (TDF). A separate allocation of Rs 500 crores has been made for these advanced technology projects with defence applications, informed Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth in a written reply to MP Naveen Jindal in the Lok Sabha recently. Jindal had sought to know if the government had approved the new Deep Tech and Cutting-Edge policies under the Technology Development Fund (TDF) Scheme and if so, sought details of the projects along with their key features and objectives. Seth said in his reply, 'An additional grant or corpus of Rs 500 crore has been approved by the Defence Minister to cater for deep-tech and cutting edge projects as separate verticals under TDF. The process of the selection and identification of Deep Tech projects has been initiated. Currently, nine projects are launched under this initiative by TDF.' He added that nine industries are engaged in four projects sanctioned through DRDO Industry Academia Centres of Excellence (DIA-CoEs) under the grants in aid scheme of DRDO. Seth told the House that the projects cover research areas such as Intelligent Textile Technologies, Desert Warfare Technologies, War-gaming Technologies, Powder Metallurgy, High Power Microwave Sources and Devices, Advanced Ballistics, Photonic Technologies, Aerospace Systems and Materials, Micro and Nano Systems Science and Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Quantum Technology, Naval Systems and Naval Technologies, High Power CW Laser Source, Additive Manufacturing, Advanced Materials and Processing, Advanced Nano Materials and Sensors based on Semiconductors. Intelligent Textiles are fabrics that can sense, react, or adapt to environmental conditions or user input. Desert Warfare systems are military equipment and mechanisms specifically designed for effective combat operations in hot, arid, and sandy desert environments. Wargaming Technologies and essentially simulation tools are softwares used to model military operations for training, planning, and strategic decision-making. Seth also provided a list of 55 institutes from 20 states in India that have undertaken a total of 302 projects in these areas. These include two institutes from Pune including Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT) and the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP). He added, 'DRDO has a Long Term Directed Research Policy (LTDRP) for engaging academia. Projects are monitored at three stages in regular intervals throughout the year. Technical evaluation committee (TEC) evaluates the new project proposals and does regular technical progress monitoring. Research Advisory Board (RAB) reviews the new projects recommended by TEC and also monitors sanctioned projects for their progress and addresses the techno managerial issues of Centre of Excellence (CoE) and the projects. The Governing Council approves the projects, oversees the overall functioning of the Centre and projects sanctioned through the Centre.'
