Rajkot: Close to seven lakh people who undertook the fiveday annual Parikrama around Mount Girnar in November left the Girnar Wildlife Sanctuary littered with nearly 23,000 kg of plastic waste.

This is an alarming fourfold increase in the quantity of plastic waste strewn in the sanctuary compared to 2011. The clean-up drive ‘Girnar Safai Abhiyan’ to clear the lions’ abode was taken up immediately after the parikrama ended on November 29 last year. In the last 50 days or so, volunteers have gathered nearly 23 tonnes of plastic, mostly water pouches, from the sanctuary. The drive is still on and it is likely the quantity will go up to 25 tonnes.

Assistant commissioner of police, Rajesh Pathak said: “The nature of the gas is still a mystery. We have asked Gujarat Pollution Control Board to submit their report at the earliest but there is no intimation from the agency yet. GPCB collected samples from the drain in Narol. We have begun hunting for chemical factories which may have dumped effluents illegally, causing the gas emission from the sewer. Without this GPCB report, we cannot proceed against people responsible for this.”

“The preliminary postmortem report says that the victims died of suffocation caused by gas. The gas was heavier than air and affected those sleeping on the floor.

Reliance Industries on Friday won government approval to de-notify over 40% of its Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Gujarat as it plans R45,000 crore projects in that area to cater to domestic market.

An official said RIL’s proposal was approved at the meeting of Board of Approvals (BoA) SEZ subject to the company obtaining a NoC from the state government for the denotification.

The Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) is likely to make provision of Rs 10 crore for the creating amenities and infrastructure development at Rajkot Zoological Park in the up coming budget.

First Such Tie-Up With A State In India

Ahmedabad: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s oldest and the largest global environmental organization, has joined hands with the Gujarat government to conserve state’s flora and fauna. This is a one-of-a-kind arrangement where an Indian state has tied up with IUCN. The move comes at a time when rapid industrialisation has exerted pressure on wildlife habitats in the state.

Two major players announce price rise in the range of 10-34% across segments

Gujarat government-owned gas distribution player, GSPC Gas Company and the Adani Group's gas distribution arm, Adani Gas have announced sharp increase in gas prices for the domestic, industrial and CNG consumers. The price hike was attributed to the costly imported LNG and non-supply of cheaper domestic gas to Gujarat by Centre.

Ahmedabad: Gir is facing a problem of plenty because against the population of 121 lionesses, it has the capacity to hold only 76 breeding lionesses within the forest area.

The study revealed that the average territory size of a breeding group of lionesses was about 33 sq km. Going by these statistics, Gir Protected Area could support about 58 breeding units having a density of about three breeding groups per 100 sq km.

Habitat Helps Wild Cats In Their Bid To Stay Away From Humans

Ahmedabad: Contrary to the popular belief that lions prefer savanna grassland, the king of the jungle here in Gir National Park likes moist shady habitats instead. Main reason is that there are several human eyes keeping a watch on him. The human activities in the form of livestock grazing, collection of fodder and fuel wood is what is harassing the Asiatic lions in its last abode; Gir National Park. This is forcing the creature to spend the entire day in moist and shady habitats which provide them respite from such human interference.

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court on Thursday directed the Centre to file an affidavit in a week’s time explaining why the court should not take punitive action against responsible persons for noncompliance of its order to supply CNG to Ahmedabad at a rate supplied to Mumbai and Delhi.

On July 25 last year, the bench headed by Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya ordered for conversion of all public vehicles to CNG and asked the Centre to provide gas to the city at the price at which it was supplied to metro cities.

One of the leading wind turbine makers in the world Suzlon Group's wind park in Kutch district of Gujarat has crossed 1000 Mw of installed capacity. This makes the company's Kutch wind park one of the largest of its kind in India.

Suzlon currently has a total installed capacity of over 1,500 Mw in Gujarat. Apart from Kutch, the company's other installations in the state are at Jamanagar, Porbandar, Rajkot and Bhavnagar. "Suzlon's maiden project for this (Kutch) wind park was initiated in August 2005 at Changdai site in Gujarat.