The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has been awarded the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) President Award for 2012 for its outstanding contribution to the development of human resources, society and economy of India and also for promoting mutual understanding between India and Japan.

At a function organised at Metro Bhawan here on Monday, the award was formally presented to DMRC Managing Director Mangu Singh for the Delhi Mass Rapid Transport System Project (I) – (VI) in the presence of JICA chief representative Shinya Ejima, senior representative Hiroshi Suzuki and others.

A blanket ban on manufacture, sale, storage and use of plastic bags in the Capital will come into effect from November 22.

Despite the heavy pressure from the “plastic lobby”, the Delhi government has notified the blanket ban on plastic bags. A senior Delhi government official on Thursday confirmed that the notification regarding blanket ban had been issued on October 23.

“The ban had been notified on October 23 and the process of implementation of the decision is on. Very soon Delhi will become the first plastic bags free state,” the official said.

A day after several hundred idols were immersed in the Yamuna on the last day of Durga Puja overloading an already polluted river, the Delhi Government’s Environment Department started the process of cleaning up and decongesting it on Thursday. The work is expected to end by early next week.

Delhi Environment & Forest secretary Sanjiv Kumar said: “This year the department began the work of ensuring that the river was put under as little stress as possible because of the immersion and we had regular meetings with the registered Puja committees asking them to use only environment-friendly material which does not harm the river further. As a follow-up to the exercise we also interacted with various stakeholders early this week to review the measures put in place for idol immersion in the Yamuna during Durga Puja.”

There seems to be no end to their quest for clean, drinking water, but residents of the resettlement colony in Bhalaswa are not ready to give up yet. On Thursday, after a joint inspection to identify the locations for provision of water tankers failed to reach an agreeable decision, the residents decided to continue their struggle for potable water.

Residents of the resettlement colony have been complaining against unavailability of safe drinking water in their area. The Delhi Jal Board which supplies water to the city through a piped network sends tankers to Bhalaswa to meet the demand for water.

There was no let up in dengue cases in the capital with 33 patients testing positive on Tuesday, taking the total to 685.

Two children have so far succumbed to dengue ever since the disease began spreading in the capital early this month. Thirty cases were reported from three municipal corporations while two were from the VVIP areas of the capital. One case originated from outside the capital.

“Need to replace buses that have outlived their service years”

The Delhi Cabinet on Tuesday approved the purchase of 1,100 more buses for the Delhi Transport Corporation. This purchase is over and above the procurement of 625 non-air-conditioned low-floor CNG buses which had earlier been approved of. Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said that to provide a reliable, punctual, comfortable and dependable public transport service in the Capital, the fleet of DTC buses is being augmented. She said there was an urgent need to replace 1,886 standard floor buses which have outlived their service years.

Bowing to public sentiment, the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission on Monday announced a correction in the billing exercise that will lower the monthly electricity bills by one per cent to 22 per cent for different categories of consumption.

The DERC has restored the consumption slabs to 0-200, 201-400 and 400 units and above and changed the per unit price of power in the slabs 201-400 and 400 and above.

A delegation of Delhi farmers met Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh recently to convey their disappointment on the systematic watering down of a draft of the Land Acquisition Bill by the Group of Ministers.

The farmers, who had come together under the banner of Kissan Mahasangh, said while initially land owner had given up surplus land to the landless immediately after Independence to help establish a social set up with equitable assets and opportun- ities, it was ironical that now laws are being made to facilitate accumulation of thousands of acres of land by private companies and individuals.

Delhi’s power privatisation model has been more successful than Odisha and has been a boon to all the stakeholders, claims a report on the power sector by SBI Cap Securities.

The findings of the report are shot in the arm for the Delhi Government that hails the unbundling of the power sector as a major achievement. The report claims the distribution reforms implemented by the Delhi Government are “quite effective, unlike seen in states like Odisha. Post transition period [2002-2007], we feel the distribution reform implemented in Delhi has been a boon to all the stakeholders.