MUMBAI: The city's civic bus utility is expecting to augment the size of its fleet by 1,000 buses, of which 200 will be air-conditioned, by June.

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) has applied for funds of Rs 300 crore under the Centre's Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) for purchasing the new vehicles.

MUMBAI: Repeated fires at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivli have left officials flummoxed and a dead bamboo plantation is adding to the problem.

It is a bitter dose to swallow. Injections and intravenous drips are rampantly administered across Maharashtra, including Mumbai-even when unnecessary, says a new research.

MUMBAI: Following several PILs filed in the Bombay high court, the state revenue department has declared 1,806 hectares of privately owned mangroves in the city as forests. The notification was issued by divisional commissioner S S Sandhu on February 24.

"With this move preservation of mangroves can be carried out like a forest. Simply put, such areas cannot be developed,'' Sandhu said.

MUMBAI: Over nine lakh children below five years of age were administered polio drops in the city on Sunday. This was 69.1% of the total target in Mumbai, a drop from the last polio drive when 72% of the city's children were covered.

The best coverage was reported from Parel-Lalbaug, which saw nearly 82% of children covered, while the lowest turnout was in the Kandivli area.

MUMBAI: While the state government has amended the development rules allowing rooftop helipads on residential as well as commercial buildings, the decision has not gone down well with environmentalists. They have written to the government, saying the helicopters will break the noise pollution norms.

MUMBAI: Traffic, construction activities and fire-crackers during festivities top the list of polluters in the city.

Even as the Bombay high court asked the state last week to issue a notification to demarcate "silent zones'' in the city, activists say this is only the first step. To effectively deal with sound pollution in Mumbai, authorities will have to tackle the noisy trio.

MUMBAI: Cracking the whip on errant medical establishments, the Bombay high court on Thursday restrained the state from granting permission to new hospitals, nursing homes, clinics or pathological laboratories unless they have in place the mechanism to dispose of bio-medical waste.

MUMBAI: In a first case of its kind, the industries and development commissioner Malini Shankar has asked Raigad collector Nipun Vinayak to cancel the 13-year-old land transaction between Surya Industries and local farmers following failure of the unit to take off.

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Wednesday came to the rescue of mangroves in the city. A division bench of Justice J N Patel and Justice Vijaya Kapse-Tahilramani passed a series of orders to protect mangrove plots in Charkop and Andheri.