AHMEDABAD: Gujarat high court on Thursday asked Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission (GERC) and electricity providers to explain the hike in tariff that came into effect last month.

A bench of chief justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and justice J B Pardiwala issued notice to GERC, Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd and four state electricity distribution companies in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) by Consumer & Education Research Society. CERS questioned GERC's decision to raise the tariff on June 1. The new tariff structure has been fixed for the year 2012-13.

Fertiliser, power sectors likely to resist shifting additional allocation for city vehicles

The Gujarat High Court’s order regarding natural gas allocation for compulsory usage in all vehicles in the State has been hailed by environmental activists and the State government alike, but the fact still remains that India simply does not have enough gas to cope with higher demand. In directions issued on a writ petition filed by the Gujarat Rajya Autorickshaw Federation on Wednesday, the Gujarat High Court directed the State government to compel owners of all vehicles registered in the State to start using natural gas — even if it be at higher prices — within a year.

AHMEDABAD: In an order which would impact lakhs of people owning cars, the Gujarat high court on Wednesday directed the state government to pass necessary laws to make it compulsory for all four-wheelers registered in Gujarat to convert to natural gas within one year.

Further, the court gave two months to the state government to issue necessary orders to impose stringent restrictions to reduce pollution by fixing levels of emission to the minimum, at par with international norms. The order applies to both public and private vehicles running on petrol and diesel.

AHMEDABAD: Officials of Gujarat Pollution control Board (GPCB) issued immediate closure notice to Spectrum Dyes and Chemicals located at Baleswar of Palsana taluka of Surat District some 20 km off Surat city. This action was taken after the unit management was found guilty of releasing untreated Chemical water directly in to Baleswar creek through a fake pipeline installed by them .

Baleswar Khadi (Creek ) is located some 500 meters off the site of the unit. "We had received a complaint that unit management is releasing the untreated harmful water waste in the creek directly during the night hours.

AHMEDABAD: A professor from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) is drafting a report for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to keep average global temperature rise below 2 degree Celsius.

PR Shukla is among the lead authors from around the world, who are preparing a report on the expected emissions and the actual global emissions consistent with the 2 degree Celsius target. Keeping average global temperature rise below 2 degree Celsius has been the focus of international efforts crystallized first in Copenhagen in 2009, in Cancun in 2010 and reaffirmed in Durban in 2011.

AHMEDABAD: Residents of Dedasan and Chailpur villages in Kheralu taluka have taken to the streets, protesting the indiscriminate sand mining along the Sabarmati river. The river's width has increased by almost 50 feet due to the illegal mining activity in the last few months.

The residents have found that the mining activities were illegal and that the village panchayat too was not informed of the mining contract by the state government. Though the villagers had registered police complaints, the illegal activities continued unabated.

AHMEDABAD: In order to achieve the norm of minimum 15% tree cover, the forest department is planning to adopt the public private partnership (PPP) model to increase the tree cover in eight municipal corporations and 159 nagar palikas in the state.

The recent tree census taken up by the social forestry division of the forest department revealed that there were 33 lakh trees in the eight municipal corporations. The forest officials said that going by the minimum number of 15% green cover against the total geographical area, the eight municipal corporations need another 56.4 lakh tress of which Ahmedabad city requires the maximum of 13 lakh trees to achieve the target of 15%. This was followed by Surat which requires 12.37 lakh more trees.

AHMEDABAD: For the first time the Gandhinagar district police constituted a special wild life crime cell to tackle crimes related to poaching of protected animals and even cruelty to animals.

AHMEDABAD: The forest department, in order to improve environmental status of the city, has decided to convert wasteland or common land in urban spaces into well-planted green areas.

If there was shortage of such land, a city could utilize the vacant land in the areas situated on the periphery, under the urban development authorities, an official from the department said.

AHMEDABAD: After many representations, the state water supply ministry has sanctioned a Rs 124 crore project for pipeline irrigation facilities in the Kakoshi division of Siddhpur taluka.

The pipeline will be 30 km long. Farmers in this division have been requesting the state government for a canal network as the region has been witnessing a severe shortage of ground water. The only other source of water for agriculture is monsoons.