Interested in replicating Mumbai’s model for rehabilitating families affected by infrastructure projects, a delegation from Brazil visited the city on Wednesday and went to construction sites of major projects such as the Metro, Sahar Elevated Road and the Milan subway over-bridge.

Alessandra Campanaro, infrastructure finance specialist at World Bank in Washington DC, led a three-member team from the metropolitan planning authority at Rio de Janeiro. The delegation is in Mumbai for a workshop on metropolitan planning organised by the Mumbai Transformation Support Unit on June 29.

Fossil fuel-based captive power plants (CPPs) with power demand of 1 MVA (mega volt-ampere) and above are now entitled to open access in Maharashtra. For this, Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MahaVitaran) has laid down stringent conditions, including installation of special energy metre, joint metre reading, payment of additional demand charge of Rs 20 per unit during unplanned outages, 15-minute time block to be considered for energy accounting and billing for CPP outside Maharashtra or outside its area of supply.

Even as a letter from India’s Attorney General to the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) said the Worli-Haji Ali Sea Link and the proposed coastal road cannot co-exist, officials maintained that the letter does not recommend that the project be scrapped.

Last week, Attorney General G E Vahanvati sent a letter to the MSRDC recommending the future course of action on the sea link, which has been stalled for two years now, after the latter asked him for his opinion.

The state has invoked the Epidemic Diseases Act in the textile town of Ichalkaranji in the wake of 12 Hepatitis E deaths and over 4,085 people infected in a month.

Even as civic administration and other city agencies are planning major infrastructure projects, this will cost the city almost 500 trees in the process.

According to the data provided by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) Tree Authority, permission to cut 493 trees was sought by various agencies including the BMC, MMRDA and MUTP since January 2012 for major infrastructure projects. Of the 1,297 trees that are obstructing these development projects, the civic administration has given permission to chop 111 trees and transplant 382.

Merely calling nuclear energy safe and essential will not suffice at a time when even urban pockets do not have access to healthcare made possible through nuclear technology, said Director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre Sekhar Basu.

Speaking to The Indian Express hours after taking charge on Tuesday, Basu said that there is a need to show people the social face of nuclear energy. He took over from outgoing director R K Sinha, who was recently appointed as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

To compensate any adverse impact of the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL) on the ecology along the alignment, the development agency in charge will implement a list of measures, including construction of a flamingo park, a mangrove park and environment education centres.

A Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) official said the agency would implement all the measures suggested by the consultants with the help of local non-governmental organisations. The agency will spend Rs 200-300 crore to monitor and improve the ecology of the mudflats, water quality, air quality, noise pollution and solid waste management.

India hopes to clinch later this year a deal with France for multiple nuclear energy units at Jaitapur in Maharashtra to produce 9,900 MW of power.

"Negotiations are going on and are progressing well. We hope to seal the deal later this year," official sources said referring to the proposed pact involving six nuclear power units of 1,650 MW each. "We have not yet achieved the financial closure for the deal," the sources said. The technology for the power plants is proposed by French energy major Areva which has already entered into pacts with state-run Nuclear

The human mind is brilliant, and enterprising. First we build dams and drown vast stretches of wilderness under reservoirs.

A committee appointed by the state government to study certain aspects of the ambitious rental housing scheme has recommended the introduction of affordable housing in special townships in areas outside the limits of municipal councils.

The committee, comprising the metropolitan commissioner, principal secretaries of housing and urban development, last week submitted a report to the state government at the behest of Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.