Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Saturday expressed reservations about the new Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011, saying it would in particular pose hurdles in setting up industries and creating new dams.

The Bill was cleared by the Union cabinet in September and has now been sent to the joint legislative committee. Quoting provisions of the Bill, such as the promise to pay five times the market price of land acquired, returning 20 per cent developed land to the owner and job guarantee for next 20 years, Pawar said that the Bill would hamper development work in the country and state. The Bill also provides that there should be 70 per cent consent of land owners for the acquisition and the state can step in for the remaining 30 percent.

The Bombay High Court last week has asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to give a fresh hearing to pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline involving a land dispute in Worli.

Ruling in favour of the company, a division bench of Justice S J Vazifdar and Justice A R Joshi questioned why the civic body passed a one-sided order against them.

Environment Ministry rejected forest clearance to Kalu dam in Thane district

While irregularities were surfacing in irrigation projects around Mumbai in early April, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) rejected forest clearance to the Kalu dam in Murbad taluka of Thane district, which would have submerged around 1,000 hectares of forest land. Work started last October without permission from the MOEF, and Indavi Tulpule of the Shramik Mukti Sanghatana said hundreds of trees were chopped, in blatant violation of the Forest Conservation Act. The dam didn't have approvals from the MoEF, there was no Environmental Impact

If an ambitious state road development plan approved by the public works department is implemented, then by 2021, all the national highways passing through Maharashtra will be expressways with a mi

All eyes in the Nashik forest department are on the man-versus-beast conflict playing out in the district.

Junk food, in all its tasty and tempting forms, will soon be on its way out of school canteens.

The Adarsh housing society does not have any clearance from the Central environment ministry, and the construction of the building is therefore illegal, the director of the ministry told the Adarsh commission looking into the controversy on Thursday.

The statement has brought the issue of environmental violations in the society to prominence, barely two weeks after the issue of ownership of the land reached a degree of closure with the commission’s report holding that it belongs to the state government.

Adivasis up in arms against ‘unauthorised dams'

Faced with mounting criticism of the irrigation sector, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Friday ordered that a White Paper be brought out by the department, headed by Nationalist Congress Party Minister Sunil Tatkare.

Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has written a letter to the Centre seeking immediate environment clearance for the Rs8,000-crore coastal road project in Mumbai.

Corporators across party lines on Wednesday staged a walkout from the standing committee meeting, claiming the BMC administration had failed to give a satisfactory reply on the inadequate water supply. Corporators complained that despite several appeals made in the general body meetings and standing committee meetings, there was a lack of seriousness on the part of the BMC administration in this regard.