Referring to the proposed nuclear power plant at Kovvada in Srikakulam district, Dr S.K. Jain, chairman and managing director of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, said land acquisition would start soon as all misgivings have been cleared. “Ours is a public sector company and everything is transparent,” he declared.

Dr Jain agreed that the nuclear mishap at Fukushima in Japan last year had pushed back the schedule of the Kovvada nuclear plant by 15 to 18 months.

An acute water scarcity has hit hundreds of residential colonies in the surrounding municipalities with over 2,000 public borewells having gone dry even before the peak summer months. Over 800 new colonies in the peripheral areas, which do not have an underground water supply network, depend on public and domestic borewells, besides the mobile tankers.

Making it clear that it cannot allow the devastation of the state for the sake of benefiting a few individuals, the High Court on Wednesday imposed a ban on sand mining in AP with effect from April 1. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Noushad Ali pointed out that the authorities are not at all interested in protecting either the river beds or the environment or even willing to assess the impact of digging and quarrying of sand along the river beds.

Reliance Power on Wednesday said it has obtained an order from the Delhi High Court restraining any "coercive steps" against its 4,000 MW-power project in Andhra Pradesh.

A business daily had earlier reported that four state governments had slapped a fine of Rs 400 crore on the company's unit for delays in setting up the power project and had threatened to encash bank guarantees as well as terminate the power purchase agreements.

Sewerage is entering the 169 lakes dotting the city. Pollution of the lake waters has happened because of rapid urbanisation and lack of infrastructure. Additionally, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and the Water Board have failed to check the illegal connection of sewerage lines to storm water drains.

After lying orphaned for several years, with nobody knowing whose jurisdiction they came under, the lakes are now being taken care of by the Lake Protection Committee, chaired by the commissioner of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority, with officials from the various civic departments and Ranga Reddy collectorates as members.

New Delhi Reliance Power has made it clear that it will not go ahead with the implementation of its R17,500-crore Krishnapatnam ultra mega power project (UMPP) in Andhra Pradesh unless contracted buyers agree on tariff revision to accommodate the increase in fuel cost from the recent change in the Indonesian coal pricing law.

Sources said that the private developer has invoked the ‘force majeure’ clause of the power purchase agreement (PPA) and served notice on power procurers seeking negotiations for tariff revision.

Since infrastructure inevitably lags behind commercial development, there is a severe water problem in about 800 new colonies located at various places in 12 surrounding municipalities that are now part of Greater Hyderabad. A majority of these colonies are not even connected to a drinking water distribution system and thousands of families have to buy drinking water.

The government will provide a sum of Rs.30 crore to the Water Board to help it tide over the water crisis during summer. This was announced by Municipal Administration Minister M. Mahidar Reddy here on Tuesday.

Chairing a review meeting on water supply position in GHMC area with the city legislators, Mr. Reddy assured that all proposals made by them would be taken up and money would not be a constraint.

The Andhra Pradesh Government and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation are planning a series of initiatives to improve the civic infrastructure and deck up the city ahead of the mega global Biod

City-based environmental activists has filed a complaint against the timber mafia before the Supreme Court Empowered Committee (CEC) on Monday. They are seeking a ban on the indiscriminate felling of trees like Neem that are in the exempted list. In their petition, the activists asked the CEC to direct the state-level committee not to issue licences to saw mills.